Calorie counting isn't exactly a new idea. We have all been there — dutifully logging meals into an app, trying to squeeze life into a 1,500 or even 1,200 calorie deficit, before starting to play a little game with ourselves and conveniently forgetting to log the occasional late-night snack.

Then along came the Apple Watch and WHOOP, taking calorie counting to a whole new level. Suddenly, we could see exactly what we were burning alongside what we were eating. In theory, rather brilliant. In practice, it simply gave us a shinier, more data-driven way to become obsessive.

And here is the paradox: we know more than ever about our bodies, yet many of us still feel as though we are falling short. We count calories, track steps and monitor workouts, but the questions remain the same: How many calories should I actually burn? How many steps should I be doing? Am I exercising enough? Am I eating the right things?

To make sense of it all, I sat down with Ahmed Sam, founder of LFG and Puma running athlete to separate what actually matters from what fitness culture often makes us believe matters.

Fitness culture has done a brilliant job convincing us that calories are burned in the gym. In reality, your body has been hard at work long before you lace up your trainers.

For most women, daily calorie expenditure sits somewhere between 1,300 and 1,800 calories. For men, it can reach 2,000 calories or more. Surprisingly, around 60–70% of that energy is spent simply keeping you alive: breathing, circulating blood, regulating body temperature and keeping your organs functioning. Around 10% goes towards digesting food, 15–30% comes from everyday movement, and only a relatively small portion is linked to structured exercise.

Which brings us to a term that has become increasingly popular in wellness circles: NEAT, or Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.

In simple terms, NEAT is all the movement you do outside of formal exercise. Walking to the shops, standing while working, cleaning the house, taking the stairs and carrying groceries — it all counts.

A small experiment.

Imagine two people of a similar age and size. One works on a construction site, walks more than 20,000 steps a day, climbs stairs and carries equipment. The other works from home, sits for ten hours, drives everywhere and spends the evening on the sofa. Neither does any formal exercise. Who do you think burns more calories?

The answer is obvious. What is less obvious is by how much.

Research published in PubMed found that NEAT can vary by as much as 2,000 calories per day between the same individuals, largely because of differences in occupation and leisure-time activity.

Other studies led by obesity researcher James Levine found that people with obesity tended to sit around 2,5 hours longer each day than their leaner counterparts, while the lean participants spent more than two additional hours standing and walking.

When I started the conversation with Ahmed, I asked him to provide me with the best workout plan to make sure that with consistency the results will follow. And he did. His formula contains four fairly straightforward pillars:

1. Strength training — 3 times a week for 40 minutes to one hour Research consistently shows that most adults can gain strength, build or maintain muscle, improve bone density, and support metabolic health with 2–4 strength-training sessions per week. Three sessions is often considered the "sweet spot."As for duration, major muscle groups can be trained effectively in 5–8 exercises. Another fair point: longer sessions may increase fatigue without providing proportionally greater benefits

2. Daily movement

Something that doesn't necessarily mean 10,000 steps. Newer evidence suggests meaningful health benefits appear well before 10,000 steps — even 7,000–8,000 can be enough.

3. Cardio — 2 to 3 times a week for 40 minutes to one hour

Cardio and daily movement serve slightly different purposes. While long walks bring plenty of health benefits, dedicated cardio helps improve cardiovascular fitness, endurance and recovery capacity. In other words, someone who walks a lot and lifts weights may still benefit enormously from adding regular cardio sessions to their routine.

4. High-protein nutrition

More on that in a moment.

But the more important thing wasn't the four-pillar rule — it was the note attached to it: you won't be able to tick all four boxes every week. Life happens. You get ill, work runs late, something personal comes up, or you simply give in to a craving. And that is completely fine.

A few years ago, everyone was counting calories. Today, everyone is counting protein. The shift can seem a little strange. After all, most people aren't training for a bodybuilding competition. So why has protein suddenly become the nutrient of the moment?

Part of the answer is that protein does far more than help build muscle. In fact, there are at least two reasons it can influence what we see in the mirror.

Protein's thermic effect is estimated at around 20–30%, compared with roughly 5–10% for carbohydrates and as little as 0–3% for fats. In practical terms, if you eat 100 calories of protein, your body may spend 20–30 calories simply processing it. Eat 100 calories of fat and that cost could be as little as three calories.

And then, of course, there is muscle. But muscle isn't just about wide shoulders and impressive arms. It is what allows us to do everyday things we rarely think about — from climbing stairs and carrying shopping bags to getting up from a chair and moving comfortably through life.

Let me start this section with a fun fact: the Mediterranean diet consistently ranks among the healthiest eating patterns in the world. And do you know what it still includes? Bread, pasta, desserts and even wine.

Which brings us to the real point: healthy eating doesn't mean cutting out sugar, pizza or burgers altogether. It is about practising flexible restraint rather than rigid restriction.

There is another point worth mentioning here — and it is psychological.

Let's say you planned to have one ice cream this week. You ended up having two. Not ideal, perhaps, but hardly a disaster.

The problem is that your brain may try to convince you otherwise. Psychologists call it the What-The-Hell Effect: a tendency for a small slip-up to trigger a complete abandonment of the original goal. One extra ice cream becomes, "Well, I have ruined the week anyway." And before you know it, a minor deviation turns into a cycle of indulgence, regret and surrender.

Don't let it. Instead, come back to the one conclusion that actually holds true: everything is allowed — it just shouldn't become the rule.

Everyone's talking about GLP-1 medications right now. And depending on who you ask, they are either the biggest breakthrough in obesity treatment in decades or the latest shortcut in our endless search for effortless weight loss. The truth, as usual, sits somewhere in the middle.

The numbers are hard to argue with. Clinical trials have shown that some of these medications can help people lose around 20% of their body weight — territory that used to belong almost exclusively to bariatric surgery. Impressive stuff.

But here is the statistic that quietly gets left out of most conversations: in one major trial, participants who stopped taking the medication regained an average of 14% of their body weight within a year.

Not because the medication failed. Because the habits weren't there to back it up.

That is the catch. GLP-1 drugs are good at dialling down appetite — they aren't so good at teaching you how to train, eat well, or build a lifestyle that actually sticks. Stop the prescription, and old habits have a funny way of creeping back.