Letting Go of Calorie Counting & How to Find More Joy With Eating
There was a time where I knew pretty much the calorie count of everything I ate. I still to this day remember things like how many calories are in a banana or generally how many are in yogurt, etc. I thought for a long time that I'd never be able to get the numbers out of my head to where they didn't influence the decisions I made around eating.
Now, though, even though I still remember a lot of the calories in things, I am able to have a completely different mindset around calories. Something I teach is how to use calorie counts to actually help you have a better knowledge of how that particular food will make you feel in your body and how it will fuel your body.
To do this, though, it's really important to first feel comfortable with practicing to eat and second, have made peace with food. If you're still not there yet, don't worry.
Here's an example of using calorie knowledge with gentle nutrition:
I know that for a meal I typically feel best and most satisfied when I have something that has around 500-600 calories. Knowing this, I know that a frozen meal that says it's only 350 calories is probably not going to be enough to satisfy and sustain me. So with that, I'd choose to have something else to supplement that meal.
Or, how about with a snack. If I'm pretty hungry and it's 3 o'clock in the afternoon and I still have a while to go before I want to eat dinner, I'm going to choose a higher-calorie snack that also has some carbs and protein/fat. Something like yogurt, granola, and some berries maybe.
*Note: Nothing about how I go about using calorie knowledge is about being strict or sticking to a calorie cap or trying to consume as least amount of calories possible. Also, remember that your calorie (aka energy) needs differ from day to day and even meal to meal. Again, this is not about restricting yourself or getting caught up in the numbers.
This way of using calorie knowledge to actually help you be an intuitive eater has to first start with being at a place with unconditional permission to eat and full peace with food. I can still enjoy Oreos without calculating how many I can eat in a serving and still make a sandwich without going crazy with adding up all the numbers. This is simply applying some gentle nutrition to help you as you're making decisions about how to best care for your body and fuel your body.
In this week's podcast episode, I had the pleasure of talking with Caitlin Ball, a fellow health coach, who helps women quit dieting for good. Caitlin shared her story of dieting to fit in and try and achieve a certain body and how moving to Europe helped her let go of dieting for good and begin to eat more intuitively. She shares about how watching people in Europe eat, not worrying about calories or eating pasta or eating dessert, opened her eyes to the possibility of being able to eat freely and still be healthy for herself.
In this episode, we talked about our common history of calorie counting and she shares her tips for breaking free from "the numbers".