CALORIE COUNTING
DIET MYTH BUSTER #2
CALORIE COUNTING/MACRO TRACKING
You are not a math equation. STOP CALCULATING AND QUANTIFYING YOURSELF.
As we’ve discussed in previous blogs, we live in a culture that promotes weight loss. Weight loss most often gets MISASSOCIATED with health and well being. However, NO scientific literature (ABSOLUTELY NONE!) has validated these widespread beliefs. Check out these articles https://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-2891-10-9 and https://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-2891-9-30)
In attempts to capitalize on weight loss, companies market and repackage “quick fixes”, “secrets”, and “solutions” on the daily. Such marketing tactics have significant psychological implications as they appeal to our innate drive for increased confidence, approval, acceptance, and belonging. Many “healthy eating” or “lifestyle changes” (aka the artists formerly known as DIETS) often encourage individuals to count calories or track macronutrients as a means of “managing” or “controlling” ones weight. This implies that our complex, fluid bodies operate like math equations. Through an extensive review of the literature surrounding these claims, Linda Bacon, PhD, researcher, scientist, author, advocate, and founder of the Health At Every Size movement, has discovered that WE ARE NOT IN CONSCIOUS CONTROL OF HOW OUR BODIES USE ENERGY. At any given time our bodies can respond differently to foods and nutrients we consume. Counting calories makes the assumption that our bodies will respond in consistent, predictable ways. On a short term basis, counting may seem effective. It’s a natural consequence of being in an energy deficit for weight loss to occur , BUT biology will win in the end. Our body will resist being in an energy deficit and respond in kind. This is due to the regulatory system within our brains that controls our weight.
Viewing our body as a “calories in/calories out” equation is a gross oversimplification of how the human body operates. Moreover, it can lead to obsessiveness, preoccupation, fear of food, moralization of food and most detrimentally A CONSTRICTED LIFE. The costs to ones psychological well being and quality of life far outweigh any short term benefits. Caloric restriction (being in a caloric deficit or eating less than your body needs) serves as the NUMBER ONE CATALYST FOR DEVELOPING AN EATING DISORDER due to the neurobiological impact a negative energy balance has on a vulnerable, genetically predisposed brain.
If you are stuck in the vicious cycle of counting calories or tracking macros, intentionally committing to stopping is a great place to start. Naturally this takes active efforts and time especially depending on how long you’ve been engaging in these behaviors.
FIRST STEP: DELETE ALL CALORIE/MACRONUTRIENT TRACKING APPS. This is a scary step. I get it. It has to happen in order to stop the compulsivity of the behavior. Often times due to habit, most individuals know the caloric/macronutrient content of the foods they eat. Most often individuals eat the same foods repetitively when “dieting”. Therefore, the numbers will automatically show up. Like a pop up box on your computer, mentally close these boxes when they show up. Even if the numbers are there, you do NOT HAVE TO COUNT THEM. Let them go. Do not add. Do not subtract. Do not math.
Additionally, introducing new foods will be a helpful strategy as you will not know the caloric/macronutrient content of these foods. It will take tremendous efforts to not read food labels or base food choices on numbers displayed in restaurants, but ITS POSSIBLE. Typically fear (of weight gain, losing ‘control’, etc) gets in the way of letting go of counting. The real culprit however is the belief that we cannot trust ourselves to make food choices and we cannot trust our bodies to communicate our needs to us. We believe counting is helpful. It is NOT.
Imagine for a moment living a life in which your food choices are based in the present moment and you completely trust yourself to make decisions. You make food selections by checking in with yourself (am I hungry? What am I hungry for? What would taste good? What would make me feel good?) rather than looking outside of yourself (read: calorie and macro counts) Often people respond “well then i wouldn’t stop eating and I’d eat ‘pizza, cookies, donuts, *insert any stereotypically designated ‘unhealthy food’.” FALSE. Our bodies can be trusted when we work with them, listen to them, and honor them. Have you ever given yourself full permission to eat nothing but one of the aforementioned foods?? After a while, you WILL get sick of that food. It will NO LONGER taste good. You will NOT feel physically well. You will NOT feel like you are getting all of your needs met. When we place restrictions on these foods and create rules for when we can and cannot eat them, trust is broken and that wisdom we were each born with is silenced. We also feel “out of control” around this food! We can’t unlearn the diet messaging we are all inundated with but we can learn to reject it and reestablish a healthful relationship with food, our bodies and ourselves. By believing our bodies are something to be fixed and changed, we fuel the diet industry. REMEMBER, it’s an industry based on financial gain NOT ON WHATS IN YOUR BEST INTEREST. If we didn’t ascribe to dieting, so many companies and products would become obsolete. Let’s make them obsolete together and reject these fads. YOU ARE NOT A MATH EQUATION. YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE SOLVED. DIETING AND CALORIE COUNTING WILL NOT BE THE SOLUTION TO A BETTER LIFE. If you do not trust yourself to be able to tune into your bodies innate wisdom, PLEASE contact a certified intuitive eating dietician (reach out to me no matter where you live, I will help you find a certified professional!). They can guide you in the process. If that sounds intimidating, start with the self help route and read “Intuitive Eating” (THIRD EDITION!) by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. Peruse their website http://www.intuitiveeating.org and dive into the research surrounding intuitive eating. Intuitive eating is not a diet. It’s our default mode. It’s within us all, if we tune out the numbers, rules, and inaccurate facts diet culture inundates us with daily. This takes a shift in mindset, a trust in yourself, and a commitment to living a fuller life.
Additional recommended easy reading:
https://marcird.com/blog/calories-in-calories-out-is-bs/
https://www.recoverywarriors.com/truth-about-serving-sizes/
https://www.fannetasticfood.com/why-calorie-counting-is-the-worst/
https://www.thereallife-rd.com/2015/01/calorie-counting-good-bad-and-ugly/
http://www.wholeliferd.com/whole-life-nutrition-blog/2018/1/5/your-body-knows-best
http://www.streetsmartnutrition.com/macro-tracking/