You don’t need to count calories anymore in order to keep a healthy lifestyle, lose weight, stay on track, any of it.
You’ve done it for long enough, and you and I both know, it hasn’t been helpful to you for years now.
What started out as wanting to be better for a high school or college sport, really commit to the gym or just be more knowledgeable about calories, turned into an all consuming numbers game.
From tracking every single bit of food that went into your mouth, to needing to look up a restaurant and find the “best” option that would still fit into your macros for the day.
Cheat days became stressful and full of guilt, earning your food became a no brainer, and before you know it, you’re bringing your pre-made meals to family gatherings. Not because you’re prepping for a contest or competition, but simply because you don’t trust yourself with food anymore.
This is for you if the numbers have started to define your worth and you’re DONE with it.
We have a long road ahead of us, but I promise you, it’s well worth it and you are more than capable of making it happen.
So, let’s dive in!
Simple and Whole Foods Are All You Need
You don’t need a complete breakdown or reminder of what foods are “good” and “bad”. If anything, we’re trying to avoid that thinking right now.
What I want you to focus on is simple whole foods. Not what’s the best when you were calorie counting, but what’s the best simply because it’s real.
Think whole grains, leafy vegetables, berries, chicken, potatoes, carrots, bananas, beef, nuts, lentils, tuna, beans, avocados, rice, peanut butter, bread, or anything else you can think of or find on Pinterest for meal ideas.
And NO zero calorie anything! Have condiments and sauces, learn to stop fearing fats and things that have carbs in them without any added benefit.
For example, I had a 200 calorie tortilla with my eggs this morning. It didn’t have any extra fiber or protein to it. Old me would’ve NEVER even thought to pick it up; if it wasn’t a low calorie or low carb anything, I wouldn’t touch it.
But now? It’s a simple yes. I worked out in the morning, I need some carbs to get me through the day and also, it’s a simple thing to hold my eggs for fun.
If the thought of this scares you or makes a bunch of questions pop up in your mind, you definitely need to check out my Cutting Cravings In 3 Days challenge. It’ll walk you through the mindset you need to have in order to feel more conformable with food.
I also have a free workbook you can grab to go along with the challenge when you join my newsletter!
You Do Need Protein At Each Meal Still
Just to calm your nerves since we aren’t tracking anything, you still want to be mindful about how much protein you’re getting. Especially if you’re doing any of my workout programs or trying out something like my 4 Week Beginner Gym Program, you want to make sure you’re supporting the muscles you’re still building.
Check out What Counts As Exercise? for the fitness version approach to this blog post.
We don’t need to go crazy with it though! For years, I stuck with getting at least a palm size portion of protein in each meal, or trying to get 20-30 grams if the palm method didn’t work.
It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that.
While you’re healing your relationship with food and numbers, you don’t need to be looking at anything else. Your main focus is going to be reconnecting with your body, figuring out what it does and doesn’t like, and making adjustments from there. Numbers can come back later, but only if YOU want to.
For now, you need to experiment.
Relearning Food Without Numbers Takes Time
This process of reconnecting with your body and taking calorie counting out of it, is what I call the Experimental Approach.
Because with an experiment, there is no success or failure, there’s just an outcome. And with that outcome, YOU get to decide what it is you want to do with it.
Do you want to keep it, do you want to toss it, do you want to try something new?
But ultimately it puts YOU back in control of your life. You get the final say.
This isn’t a trendy or super sellable approach though. It takes time. And even if you aren’t tracking on a calorie counting app anymore, you’re still going to track food. Just a different way this time.
Think of this as a food diary, but super simple. I have a sample printout in my Burnout Recovery Experiment when you join my newsletter. Otherwise the Food Experiment journal I created for my clients takes you through 30 days of working through this and is the full version of the sample in my newsletter. A simple notebook also works great.
The main goal with writing things down this time though, is that you’re keeping track of how you’re feeling. Not just after you eat, but throughout the day. And the questions I include in the Food Experiment are meant to help you start to see the connections.
- Do you eat more when you don’t get enough sleep?
- Do you skip more meals when you’re stressed?
- Are you actually hungry by 3p or are you just bored and normally have a snack?
- Have you tried adding in more fruit?
- Have you tried drinking more water?
- When was the last time you had a treat?
This is where Cutting Cravings really comes in handy if you have any fears around food in general, especially if you’ve been really strict with your diet.
But again, all of this takes time since you’re starting to reconnect with your body and work through it yourself.
If you’d rather make sure you’re on the right track and get all the questions of “what if’s” tumbling around your brain answered, then I’d recommend booking a 1:1 coaching call with me. I’ll help you feel confident with your next steps in this journey.
In the meantime, here’s a couple reminders I want you to remember as you go through this.
It’s Time To Enjoy Your Food, Not Earn It
I know you don’t want to admit it to anyone, let alone yourself, but you got to a spot where food was no longer a necessity but needed to be earned.
Whether it was earned by doing enough exercise, going on enough walks, following your routine exactly, or simply doing a good enough job at work, school, home, family, etc. You needed to prove your worth before you could eat.
Not anymore.
You don’t need to earn your food. You don’t need to eat less if you didn’t “do enough” for the day.
You can simply eat just because you’re hungry, and you actually need to start listening to your body again.
For example, I used to follow a more intermittent fasting diet simply because it worked with my schedule years ago. But now, I don’t need to do that.
However, I still catch myself thinking I need to wait a few more hours before I can eat, EVEN IF I’M HUNGRY. My stomach can be legitimately empty and hungry for food, but the old rules of intermittent fasting or eating food at the right time before a workout or the right foods, etc. could be stopping me from feeding myself.
So now, sometimes I have a piece of toast or just a banana before I workout. Then I have my eggs and tortilla later. And guess what!? Nothing changed. If anything I’m performing better because I have something in my system now.
Do some of the recommendations work, make sense and have scientific studies to back them up? Yes, of course.
But you aren’t always going to be in a perfect lab setting when it comes to your diet and lifestyle. Sometimes life hits hard and the fact that you ate at all today is a win. Sometimes schedules change or dietary issues come up later in life that affect how you’re going to approach food moving forward.
That’s where the Food Experiment comes in handy. Because we aren’t looking to create the perfect diet and routine. The goal is to find a baseline of foods that work for your body, that you enjoy, and that support you throughout the day. So when life happens and things come up, you at least have a baseline or bare minimum to fall back on when things get hard.
This can be simple meals, to-go snacks you like, or even just being aware of how you respond to added stress in your life and what you can do to better it, even a little bit.
This approach in creating a baseline to fall back on has helped me so much in life.
Because you can’t always plan on things going exactly how you want them to. So the more flexible you are with it, the more it’s going to help you.
And that also goes with the rules you’ve created with food.
Ditch All The Rules You Have Around Food
Unless you have specific medical concerns or food allergies, there is nothing you need to be stressing about when it comes to the food you consume.
Like the example I shared above about the simple mindset shift with breakfast, you need to question the rules that aren’t working for you anymore.
They once came from a good place of wanting to better yourself, commit to a plan and prove you can follow through.
But you don’t need more motivation to keep your healthy life. You know too much at this point and need to start letting your body decide.
You’re past the need for strict rules to keep you on track. Now, you need to allow time and space for things to settle in, and to even see what’s working.
I always recommend sticking with the experiment for at least 30 days to see what happens. Even if it’s not perfect or you miss a few days, it still will bring you new information to decide on.
However, if you’re tired of second guessing yourself, wondering if you’re doing this right or needing to look over the dinner menu before you go to date night so you can do the math and pick the perfect meal, I’d love to chat!
By booking a 30 minute call with me, I’ll listen carefully, help you untangle what’s keeping you stuck, and help you leave with a plan you actually feel confident following. I’ll answer any questions you have and also help you find the few things you need to focus on rather than starting your life over again.
Because you know what to do. You actually know TOO much, and that’s what’s keeping you stuck.
So stick with the simple tracking, give it 30 days, and look over the results.
You CAN do this.
You aren’t broken.
You can still live a healthy and fit life.
But you no longer need to keep counting calories as part of your routine.
It’s time to ditch the second full time job you created around your health and let it actually support your life rather than take it over.
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