Cooking oil is the biggest one in Ireland
A glug of oil in the pan is 120–180 calories and it appears in no food diary in the country. Do it twice a day and that is 300 calories before you have eaten anything, every single day.
Spray oil does the same job for about 5 calories a spray. That one swap is often the entire difference between a deficit that works and one that does not. Weigh or spray — never pour and guess.
Milk in tea and coffee
A splash is 20–30 calories. Six cups a day is 150 calories, and a habit nobody counts because it does not feel like food. It is not a reason to drink black coffee if you hate it — it is a reason to log it once and know the number.
Drinks do the most damage per gulp
A pint is 180–220 calories. A large flavoured coffee can be 300. A bottle of soft drink is 200. None of them fill you up for even a minute, which is what makes liquid calories the worst value in food — you pay the calories and get none of the fullness.
For the full picture on drink specifically, see alcohol and fat loss.
Sauces, dressings and the extras
Mayonnaise is around 100 calories a tablespoon. A creamy sauce on a dinner adds 150. Salad dressing regularly carries more calories than the salad. Ketchup and brown sauce are minor by comparison, so pick your battles: the fatty ones matter, the sugary ones mostly do not.
The mouthfuls that never get logged
Bites while cooking. Finishing the kids' plates. Two biscuits with the tea. A slice of bread standing at the counter. Individually trivial, and collectively 200–400 calories a day for a lot of parents.
This is not about willpower. It is about the fact that unlogged food still counts, and the only fix is logging it — see how to count calories.
What to do about it
Do not try to eliminate all of it. Pick the three biggest in your own week — usually oil, drinks and evening picking — and log those honestly for a fortnight. The number will surprise you, and that surprise is the whole point. Our free tracker will scan the bottle for you.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are hidden calories?
Calories you consume but do not log: cooking oils, milk in hot drinks, sauces and dressings, alcohol, and bites taken while cooking or clearing plates.
How many hidden calories do people eat a day?
Research on self-reported intake consistently finds people under-report by several hundred to over a thousand calories a day, and confidence in your own accuracy is a poor guide to it.
Does cooking oil really matter that much?
Yes. A tablespoon is around 120 calories and it is the single most under-counted food in most Irish kitchens. Spray oil is roughly 5 calories a spray for the same job.
Do I need to log sauces?
Log the fatty ones — mayonnaise, creamy sauces, dressings. Ketchup and similar are small enough to estimate.
Why am I not losing weight if I eat well?
Eating well and eating little are different things. Good food in a surplus is still a surplus — see why weight loss stalls.
About the author
Keith O’Beirne went from 90kg to 72kg around a full-time job and two kids, after paying a personal trainer to learn the basics. He is not a doctor, dietitian or coach and does not sell coaching — he writes No Nonsense Fitness to give away what he paid to learn, free, with no ads, no subscriptions and no commission on any link. Based in Dublin.
References & further reading
- Lichtman SW et al. Discrepancy between self-reported and actual caloric intake and exercise in obese subjects. New England Journal of Medicine, 1992.
- Mattes RD. Fluid calories and energy balance: the good, the bad, and the uncertain. Physiology & Behavior, 2006.
- Livingstone MBE, Black AE. Markers of the validity of reported energy intake. Journal of Nutrition, 2003.
Figures on this page come from product labels and the research above. How we calculate every number is set out in our methodology.
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