Have you ever gotten so tied up with counting your calories that it either became your full-time job or made you want to eat less just so you didn’t have to document the calories of every single thing you put in your mouth? I’ve been there.
I used to track calories obsessively, but the only information I took away was obvious—I ate thousands of calories in Skyline! I already knew that I ate out frequently and that my sodium intake was way off the charts. It was also not a shock to me that my total calories were frequently well above my daily needs.
As a person with a normal BMI, the information did nothing to motivate me to change. It took years of tracking calories before I figured out what actually worked.
When calorie tracking might be beneficial
Before I reveal this ridiculously easy method, I will say calorie tracking isn’t all that bad.
For starters, to achieve our healthy goals, it’s important to understand what we’re consuming. The types of foods we’re eating, how many calories are in those foods, and how often we’re eating them. If you’ve just begun changing your diet, then calorie tracking can actually serve as a great tool to gain an understanding of these numbers.
However, if you really want to change your diet and ultimately your relationship with food long-term, there’s a much better tracking method.
Track your decisions
But Steph, what the heck does that mean?! Well besides being incredibly simple, this method doesn’t involve physically documenting anything (hallelujah!).
Instead, it requires you to have a fundamental understanding of what foods are considered healthy or “nutrient-dense”. At a high level, I personally define healthy foods as whole foods: lean proteins, complex carbohydrates, healthy fats, and fruits and vegetables. Less nutrient-dense foods might include processed and fast foods, saturated fats, and red meats.
To understand more about differentiating between healthy and not-so-healthy foods, you can read more about my preferred diet here.
Once you’ve established a baseline of healthy foods, then it becomes a matter of keeping track of your choices; whether you’re choosing healthy foods or not. It’s so easy, you can do this in your head.
Here’s an example
Let’s say you eat four meals a day. Maybe in the morning, you opt for eggs with toast. For lunch, a salad with grilled chicken and ranch dressing. An afternoon snack of a banana with peanut butter and for dinner, chicken alfredo pasta with broccoli. If I were to assess those choices, I would say, the ranch and alfredo pasta weren’t so healthy, but the majority were. I could bucket that as 3 of the 4 decisions or about 75% of the choices I made that day were healthy, then you can call this day a win.
Now imagine maintaining that eating pattern for a month. It would be safe then to say that you are 75% healthy or above average. I bet if you stepped on the scale the numbers would say the same thing and others would think you’re pretty healthy too. Try this out.
Each time you decide to eat, ask yourself, “do I want to choose healthy or not?”
It’s up to you. Your results are in your choices.
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