Counting Calories
Okay, first thing is first here…this blog post is my opinion. The cool thing about opinions is that you don’t have to agree. You can read this & then believe something else and that’s okay. We are all human & come from different backgrounds/beliefs/education & we are not made to think the same. (How boring would that be!?) Anyway, so all of that to say…here it goes…my opinion on counting calories/macros/etc.
As a little backstory on my relationship with counting calories/macros and why I am in the place I am in now…
If you haven’t read the blog post Your Body is Your Home. Love it Well, you can click that link & read it. It’s my whole story with food/exercise & that will go into more detail that I will during this blog post.
After my car accident in 2007 at age 19, I was not able to be as mobile for quite sometime. Recovering from brain damage and lots of broken bones, I was in a hospital bed in my parent’s home for several months. I gained weight. I had been active my entire life before that and did not have a disordered relationship with food or exercise. 2 years after the accident I started running for exercise (I did a half marathon in 2009). It started out as a great way to get back into movement and I enjoyed it a lot and was feeling a lot of benefits mentally. However, I began to use exercise to “burn off” the food I had consumed. This is when all of the disordered eating/exercise really started for me. Go read the other blog post for the rest of that story as I have already typed it all out over there! Okay, so let’s get to the calorie counting and my opinion on it all.
I don’t think that counting calories/macros is an inherently BAD thing. I think it’s a TOOL in order to get to know your body/food. I do think it is a great tool to educate yourself on what portions look like, and to be able to identify what is a protein, what is a fat, what is a carb, etc. After all, as humans, we eat every single day so to be informed about what we are consuming on a daily basis can be helpful knowledge. Our bodies are not machines and therefore our calorie needs change throughout our life. Believe it or not, our bodies don’t need the SAME amount of calories each day. If you are a woman, did you know that during your luteal phase your metabolism increases and you need about 200-300 more calories PER DAY?? That increased hunger, it’s there for a reason.
I do think that there are some people that should not count calories during certain times of their life. If you are recovering from disordered eating or if you are in the midst of that, I don’t think it’s a good idea to count calories. I believe that working on mental health/mindset is a VERY important component that is often overlooked. We are controlling food for a reason, it’s often times not about the food or the exercise, it’s something deeper.
One of the main things I have seen with my health coaching clients in regards to calories is that most of them are under eating. So may women have been lead to believe that in order to lose weight then they need to only be eating 1,200 calories. This makes me so sad. I used to be one of those women, so I am not judging anyone, but more so I want to be able to provide education as to WHY that isn’t NEAR enough calories to function and to support your body/hormones/organs/brain/life. 1,200 calories is the recommended daily calorie intake for a 2 year old. If you are someone who wants to lose weight, go for it. I think that you need to ask yourself WHY first and also you need to do it in a SUSTAINABLE way. If you lose the weight in an unsustainable way, the results are going to be unsustainable. Once you start focusing on feeling good from the INSIDE out, it will all come naturally. So many of us “white knuckle it” through life and with our relationship with food and exercise and that isn’t how life is supposed to be lived.
If I could give you some tips on how to have a better relationship with food I’d give you these 3 tips:
Instead of having a restrictive mindset around food, change your mindset to one of curiosity
Instead of telling yourself “Oh I can’t have that, it’s ‘bad’ for me to eat that cookie”…say to yourself “How do I feel when I eat a cookie? Do I want that cookie? I know I feel better if I eat a balanced meal before having sweets, let me do that and then I’ll have the cookie if I want it”
If you tell yourself you can’t have something, you are automatically going to want it even more, even if you don’t actually want it. Think back to when you were a child and your mom or caregiver told you “don’t touch that toy”…then ALL YOU WANTED was to touch the toy. This is the same with food, if you tell yourself you can’t have it, you’ll want it even more. All foods are okay. Once you take them off of a pedestal, then it wont be as enticing.
BREATHE. Take three deep breaths before you begin eating each meal/snack
Most of us are eating WAY too fast and/or eating on the go. Our bodies are not able to digest food properly when we are in this state of fight or flight. Take three deep breaths before you eat your meals, try to eat meals without distractions. Be present, enjoy your food. (Next time you eat, start the timer on your phone and see how long it takes you to eat a meal) *it should take you around 20 minutes to eat a meal
Add in nourishing foods instead of restricting lots of foods
Instead of restricting foods, see where you can add in some nourishing foods. For example, sneaking in some spinach into your omelette or smoothie in the mornings.
Bingeing is a direct response to restriction. Allow yourself to feel satiated and nourished after meals.
Another tip that I can get into more in another blog post…eating before coffee is a GAME CHANGER. Having coffee first thing in the morning on an empty stomach can be the fire you need to send yourself on a rollercoaster the rest of the day. (cortisol is naturally higher in the mornings, adding coffee on top of that can be hard on the body)
I want to keep this blog post relatively short, but if you are interested in learning more about how to have a healthy relationship with food/yourself/exercise, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I am currently taking clients & would love to see if we are a good fit. Head to the CONTACT page for more on how to connect.
Take care,
Sara
