Tag: anti-diet culture

Calorie Counting is Dumb

If you’re here, then you know that here at Ladle by Ladle we (and by we I mean me) are pretty anti-diet.  One weight loss method above all is something that needs to be looked at under a bigger microscope. Calorie counting.

There is a dogma that exists in diet culture that claims, “less calories in, more calories out = weight loss!” I’m not here to say that isn’t true. Technically it is… but the bigger picture is so much more nuanced and problematic than that one catchy slogan would lead you to believe.

Let’s begin with the biggest problems with weight loss via calorie counting:tumblr_maky8h0Lm51rbyzo6o1_400.jpg

  1. You lose track of natural hunger cues – when you abandon listening to your body’s needs in exchange for eating to numbers, you begin to lose all sense of what your body craves naturally. Soon enough, you lose the connection altogether.
  2. It makes you obsess about food – constantly calculating how much you’ve eaten, how much you still can eat, how many calories are in a specific food or dish. It’s WAY too much focus on food in an unnatural way and not enough focusing on things that actually matter.
  3. It’s not sustainable – like any fad diet or lose weight quick scheme, unless you develop an eating disorder, you will yo-yo up and down with your weight on this method just like any other method out there.
  4. It treats your body and your food like a math equation – too many times I’ve done this, “If my BMR is X and my activity level is Y then I need Z calories to lose weight because one pound is 3500 calories and if I cut that many out over a week then I’ll lose a pound!” Right? Wrong. Your body does not run on math equations, your body is a living breathing biological set of systems that doesn’t adhere to these arbitrary numbers. Your body works to attempt to keep you at your set point. The metabolism which controls your BMR is not something you can calculate based on height and weight because there are so many other unique variables in the equation such as hormones, genetics, and digestion. The math will always be fuzzy so while you can equate your caloric needs over and over again nothing will be able to account for the actual physiology of your body and its unique needs.

Now, you might snap back at me with, “I dieted by counting calories and I DID lose weight!” Girl, same. Let me guess, you then either you got caught in an obsessive and continuously restrictive lifestyle or eating disorder, or you gained it all back, or you eventually stopped losing weight and started gaining weight despite not stopping the counting! I know it’s crazy, you can read more about that last one here.

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Your metabolism works on a sliding scale to keep you at your set point weight. So if you“overeat” from your bodies signals your metabolism will rev up to compensate and vice versa if you under eat. However, if you happen to get the drive to overpower your body’s attempts to keep you at a stable weight, then you will be met by a lowered metabolism and be hungrier and hungrier and more and more miserable until you just eat!

Then there’s me. I counted calories like it was my damn job for years and years and years. I was so good at it, but it also completely controlled my life. As I counted my way into an eating disorder I knew that counting was not the answer. Eventually I decided to recover and ate thousands and thousands of calories a day. Yes, I gained weight – but I didn’t gain weight forever. Eventually my body plateaued right where it wanted me without me changing my caloric intake at all (with a little overshoot, because my body did not trust me). My hunger cues evened out so that now I can sit comfortably at my set point without counting calories or dieting or stressing and just living instead.tumblr_mviamjOVu71sdxwyno1_500.jpg

You think you’re controlling your food with calorie counting but really, it’s your food that is controlling you. Take back your life and wake up to the fact that calorie counting is just another diet culture lie, and we know better than that now.

Gaining Weight on A Low Calorie Diet

So, you’ve been restricting calories to lose weight. For whatever reason, perhaps because you have an eating disorder, because you think you need to look a certain way to wear a bathing suit, or because the media and our culture have forced you to look upon yourself with distaste and wish for something better.  You’ve googled what to do and low-calorie diets and meal plans come up immediately.  “If energy in is less than energy out and the pounds will melt right off!” the articles say.

Maybe that was you 1 year ago, and you tried the diet, and it worked! But then you couldn’t maintain the restrictive lifestyle (because who could??) so the weight came back on. Then you tried again. and again. Now you’re restricting your calories under the façade of a “diet” just like you did before but this time you are noticing that you’re gaining weight!! Why the fuck is this happening??

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your metabolism @you

Well let me tell you – honey, your metabolism is mad.

When you attempt to lose weight quickly with low calorie meal plans, sure you lose some fat, but you ALSO lose muscle.  Your muscle mass is the most important factor that keeps your metabolic rate high.

Let’s say before you started dieting you were able to maintain your weight easily on 2700 calories a day. (These numbers are just examples). Then you go on your first low-calorie diet and lose 10 pounds quickly. While that rapid weight loss is initially encouraging it is not as fantastic as you may think.  You see, those 10 pounds include muscle loss.  So after a few weeks when life gets in the way and the diet is no longer sustainable, the weight comes back on AND your metabolic rate has dropped from 2700 to 2300 because of the muscle loss. With each new diet your metabolic rate decreases even more until your maintenance calories are lower than your diet calories – hence why you will eventually gain weight on low calorie diets.

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Unfortunately, this is a common problem and one of the reasons why the diet industry is an evil multi-billion-dollar industry. You see when these low-calorie meal plans work initially, people then blame themselves when they aren’t able to sustain them.  Then they continuously attempt to recreate the results of the first time but every time you force starvation onto your body through the guise of a “diet” you are furthering metabolic damage. This is also why when the weight comes back on eventually, you gain more than you started with. It’s not your fault, it’s the lies of diet culture that “innocently” suggest unsustainable and dangerous meal plans on people desperate for a quick fix.

So, you’re in a metabolically suppressed state commonly known as “starvation mode” – what do you do? Well the first step is obviously to STOP low calorie diets.  When I was stuck in this situation the only thing that worked for me was to eat eat eat until my metabolism caught up with me. No, your metabolism is not “broken,” I promise you that is impossible. Yes, I gained he weight back to where I was before I ever attempted my first diet… but I’m so much happier loving myself in this body than I ever was torturing myself in my calorie restricted body.

How To Stop Counting Calories

There was a point in my life where I figured I would just be stuck counting calories forever, resigned to a life of sadness and disordered behavior.  However, this proved to be untrue as I transitioned from a religious calorie counter to an intuitive eater – and you can too.

When you stop counting calories, you start enjoying and experiencing your food for its texture and flavor instead of as just a number.  Eating becomes pleasurable when you aren’t constantly measuring, calculating, tracking, and obsessing over the food on your plate.  You’ll open up space in your brain to focus on things that actually matter.  You’ll be able to start eating intuitively by creating a stronger relationship to your body’s cravings and the food you eat.  Obsession with food will fall by the wayside.

The truth is, no matter how accurate you think your calculations are using your BMI, TDEE, BMR, etc. to calculate the right amount of calories for you – there is no way to truly know as every single body is different.  More to the point, without going crazy it is completely impossible to accurately know the calories of every food you eat.  Remember, all a calorie is is a unit of energy and our bodies NEED energy to live.  So here are some tips to stop counting calories forever.

GET RID OF CALORIE TRACKERS
This is a big one. I tracked all of my calories on “My Fitness Pal” but there are many others like it.  Cronometer, Lose It, Fat Secret, etc.  These apps were built to count calories so the best first step for a life without this burden is to get rid of them!  If you aren’t using an app than get rid of whatever device you use to track the numbers.  A notebook, planner, journal, or word document.  Delete it, burn it, or have a friend drive 20 miles away and throw it in a dumpster.  Getting that out of your life is a crucial first step.

GO OUT TO EAT AT RESTAURANTS
Most restaurants are impossible to gauge to calories for because you don’t know everything that goes into the food preparation. It helps to make sure you are with a friend or family member that can keep you distracted from trying to break down and calculate the meal components.  If you are financially incapable of dining out, that’s alright – just have a friend or family member cook a meal for you without telling you what is in it.  This is essentially the same concept.  You are looking to let go of the tightly wound control you have to maintain while counting calories by letting go of the control over food prep.

BLOCK OUT NUTRITION LABELS
Take a sharpie and cover them up so that you can’t look at them obsessively. Go grocery shopping in bulk bins or for items that don’t have nutrition labels on them at local shops of farmers markets.  Pick food for flavor and not for numbers.

HAVE FAITH YOURSELF TO EAT INTUITIVELY, BUT BE PATIENT
We are all born knowing how to eat. Your body knows what it needs and it is not trying to sabotage you.  It loves you and want to keep you alive, return the favor to it.  Eating intuitively takes practice but it is completely achievable for all of us since it is the way we are supposed to eat.  Remember that it will take time as well because you are breaking a very bad habit – and habits are not broken overnight.

If any of these steps seem impossible or overwhelming than feel free to take it slow.  I know how daunting and unreasonable these may seem – but if you implement these tactics into just one meal a day at first, and then slowly increase, you will eventually get there.  Take it from a girl who used to count the calories in gum – you can do this!