PETEGAWTRYCalorie countingwithout the spreadsheet
Four anchors that do the calorie maths for you — so you can lose fat without weighing every meal, logging every snack, or quitting in week three.
The 4 Anchors Free Calorie Guide
MyFitnessPal quits on 70% of people
Roughly seven in ten people who download a calorie-tracking app stop using it within a month. I've coached over five hundred clients in Leeds. I can count on one hand the ones who've stuck with daily logging for a year. The maths is real. Calorie tracking still works. But for most people the tracking itself is what kills the fat loss — the friction of weighing porridge at 6 a.m., the social cost of pulling a phone out at the pub, the rebound binge after a "perfect" week.
You don't need a spreadsheet to be in a calorie deficit. You need four anchors that do the maths quietly in the background. Hit them and your weight drops. Miss them and it doesn't. That's it.
- Anchor 1 — your protein floor (the only number worth weighing).
- Anchor 2 — the plate ratio (palm, fist, thumb).
- Anchor 3 — the 80/20 of where calories actually hide.
- Anchor 4 — a weekly weigh-in feedback loop and the three-week rule.
- Plus: when tracking is the right call, and how to eat out without unwinding the week.
Anchor 1 — your protein floor
If you weigh one number this week, weigh protein. Everything else can be eyeballed. Protein is the lever that decides whether the weight you lose is fat or muscle, whether your hunger stays civil, and whether your lifts hold up while you cut.
The target's simple: 1.6–2.2 g of protein per kilogram of bodyweight, per day. If you're cutting, sit at the top end (2.0–2.2 g/kg). If you're maintaining or new to lifting, the bottom end (1.6 g/kg) is fine.
A 90 kg bloke cutting needs around 180 g protein. That's: 4 eggs + 200 g Greek yoghurt at breakfast (~45 g), a tin of tuna and a chicken breast at lunch (~70 g), 180 g of beef mince at dinner (~45 g), a scoop of whey post-training (~25 g). Hit. No app required.
Don't trust your eye on protein. The palm shortcut (see Anchor 2) gets you close, but for the first fortnight actually weigh your chicken, mince, fish and yoghurt a handful of times so your brain calibrates. After that you're freestyling. A palm-sized portion of cooked meat or fish is roughly 25–30 g of protein. Two palms a meal, three meals a day, plus a yoghurt or whey hit, and most people land their target without thinking.
Anchor 2 — the plate ratio
Your hand is a portable measuring cup. It scales with your body, it's always with you, and it gets calories close enough that 80–90% of people lose fat using nothing else. The whole system, lifted straight from my free Hand-Portioning Guide:
- 1 palm = one protein portion (~25–30 g protein, ~150 cal cooked).
- 1 fist = one veg portion (effectively free — load up).
- 1 cupped hand = one carb portion (~25 g carbs, ~110 cal).
- 1 thumb = one fat portion (~10 g fat, ~90 cal).
For most meals on a cut: 1 palm protein + 1 fist veg + ½–¾ cupped hand carbs + 1 thumb fat. Three of those a day plus a yoghurt-and-fruit snack and you'll land somewhere around 1,800–2,000 calories with 150 g+ protein. That's a cutting day for a 90 kg man. Scale carbs down to ½ a cupped hand for fat loss on a smaller frame; scale up to 1–1½ cupped hands for training days or muscle gain.
Why it works: bigger bloke, bigger hand, bigger portion — bigger calorie need. The ratio self-adjusts. You don't need to remember different numbers; you just need to remember the shape of the plate.
Anchor 3 — the calorie 80/20
Here's what fifteen years of food diaries have taught me: when someone says "I eat really clean and I'm not losing", the over-eating is almost never in the meal. It's in the bits around it. Twenty per cent of the foods drive eighty per cent of the silent calories — and they're nearly always the ones nobody clocks because they don't feel like food.
Cooking oils (a tablespoon of olive oil = 120 cal — three meals' worth a day = 360 cal). Sauces & dressings (a tablespoon of mayo = 90 cal, ketchup glugs add up). Drinks with calories (latte = 150 cal, pint of lager = 180, glass of wine = 200). "Healthy" snacks — almonds (a small handful = 170 cal), nut butters (a tablespoon = 100 cal, no one stops at one), granola, smoothies, cereal bars. Cheese on everything.
The maths is brutal. A tablespoon of olive oil in every pan, every meal, equals roughly 540 extra calories a day. That's almost a pound of fat per fortnight from cooking oil alone — and most of my clients have never thought about it because it doesn't feel like eating.
You don't have to ban any of this. You just have to see it. Use a thumb of oil per pan, not a glug. Order a flat white not a latte. Measure your peanut butter with a teaspoon for a week so you remember what a portion looks like. Pick one or two of these to fix and most people are back in a deficit within a fortnight without changing anything else.
Anchor 4 — the weekly weigh-in loop
Without tracking food, the scale is your dashboard. But not the way most people use it. One reading on a Monday morning after a Sunday roast tells you nothing useful. You're measuring water, gut content and yesterday's salt — not fat.
The protocol:
- Weigh every morning, after the loo, before food or coffee, in your pants.
- Same set of scales every time. Bathroom floor is fine — flatness matters, brand doesn't.
- Take the 7-day rolling average, not the daily number. Most weigh-in apps will do this for you (Libra on Android, Happy Scale on iPhone) and they're the one app I do recommend.
- Compare this week's average to last week's average. That's your real signal.
A single bad week is noise. Two iffy weeks could be cycle, salt, stress or sleep. Three weeks of a flat trend = something needs to change. The fix isn't a panic-cut to 1,200 calories. Drop one cupped hand of carbs a day, or one thumb of fat, or one alcoholic drink off the week. That's roughly 200 cal off the daily average — enough to nudge the trend without nuking your energy.
Most people who think their "metabolism is broken" are simply in a 50-calorie surplus they can't see. The three-week rule corrects for that without drama.
When tracking is worth it
I'm not anti-tracking. I'm anti-tracking-as-a-default. Logging every meal in MyFitnessPal is the right call in a handful of specific situations:
- The last 5 kg of a cut. Below about 12% body fat for men, 20% for women, the margin for error gets thin. Tracking for the final 6–8 weeks is often what gets people over the line.
- Contest prep or a photo shoot. If you have a deadline date you can't slip, you need precise calories. Track.
- Specific medical contexts — managing PCOS through carbs, type 2 diabetes through carb-and-fibre balance, gestational diabetes, recovery from disordered eating where the dietitian has prescribed exact targets. Track, but ideally with a professional in the loop.
- Two weeks of "calibration" at the start of a cut to learn what a portion looks like. Useful for the brain — not a forever job.
For everyone else — the 95% who just want to lose three stone and look better with their shirt off — the four anchors will do it. Without the spreadsheet, without the daily admin, and without quitting in week four.
Eat-out and weekend strategy
The anchors don't take the weekend off. They just bend. Out for dinner: order a palm-and-a-half of protein, a fist of veg, one starchy side not two, and skip the bread basket. Pub on a Friday: cap drinks at three, eat properly before, don't chase it with a takeaway on the way home. That's it. No menu calculator, no MyFitnessPal-while-the-starters-arrive.
I've written this up properly elsewhere — the chain-by-chain breakdown is in How to eat out without ruining your diet (every smart pick at Nando's, Pizza Express, Wagamama, Pret, Greggs, the burger joints and the coffee shops). The principles are exactly the same as the anchors above; the post just gives you the picks.
Three lines. Memorise them, run them on every meal and every Monday morning, and you're 90% of the way to where a tracking app would get you — without the friction that makes most people quit.
Want this built around your food, your goals, your fridge?
If reading the rules and running them yourself is the part you'd rather skip, that's what my Personalised Meal Plans are for — a real plan built around your training days, your taste, the food you actually eat, and the macros that match your goal. One-off £80, yours forever.
Common questions
Do I really need to count calories to lose fat?
No. You need to be in a calorie deficit — that's the only non-negotiable. Counting is one way to do it; protein-anchoring, hand-portioning and a weekly weigh-in is another way that works for most people without the daily admin. The vast majority of my clients have never logged a meal. Their results are on the results wall.
How accurate is hand-portioning vs weighing?
For 80–90% of people it's accurate enough to lose fat consistently. Weighed-and-tracked is more precise (usually within 5%); hand-portioning lands within roughly 15–20%. For fat loss that gap doesn't matter — what matters is doing it for 12 weeks instead of quitting after 3. Hand-portioning wins on adherence every time. The full hand-portion system is in the free Hand-Portioning Guide.
What about alcohol when I'm not tracking?
Treat alcohol like a side, not a free pass. A pint of lager is around 180 cal, a large glass of wine is 200, a double spirit-and-mixer is 150-plus. If you have three on a Friday, that's a meal's worth — so cut a side off another meal that day or the next. Don't pretend it didn't happen. The trend on the scale will catch you up either way.
What if I'm still hungry between meals?
Add protein first, not carbs or fat. A boiled egg, a small tin of tuna, 100 g of Greek yoghurt, a scoop of whey in water — all under 150 calories and they actually shut hunger down. The hunger is almost always a protein gap, not a calorie one. If protein doesn't fix it, add a fist of veg or a piece of fruit before you reach for anything else.
How long does fat loss actually take if I'm not tracking?
For most people the realistic rate is 0.5–1% of bodyweight per week — so a 90 kg person loses 0.45–0.9 kg a week, or 2–4 kg a month. Faster than that and you're losing muscle and energy with it. Twelve weeks of honest anchoring gets most clients 6–10 kg down with their lifts intact. The boring rate is the one that sticks. 1-2-1 training prices are here if you want a coach in the room while you do it.
Get the free Calorie Guide
The full PDF goes deeper on each anchor — protein targets by training day, full hand-portion translation table, a 7-day starter plan and the troubleshooting flowchart for when the scale stalls. Yours free, no email gate.
Protein and calorie figures cited from peer-reviewed sources (ISSN protein recommendations 2017; USDA FoodData Central; chain-published nutrition values). Hand-portion equivalents are deliberately approximate — they're a teaching tool, not a clinical measurement. Last reviewed: June 2026.