Should We Be Counting Our Calories???
Counting calories has been given a lot of merit when it comes to measuring our diet, evaluating the quality of our diet and even our health. As long as it fits into the range that given to you as your average calorie intake for a day, then we must be hitting our health goals, right???
Well not exactly, don’t get me wrong, everything has a place including counting calories in the world of dieting and nutrition. However, counting calories shouldn’t be your go to if you are wanting to be healthier, loose weight, or even improve your body at ratio. Counting calories can be super helpful for highly trained athletes, weight making sports athlete and in some cases for disease management. These are a small percentage where the resources of accounting for how many calories you burn vs intake is much more accurate to what we generally find on Google. Most calorie equations and estimate are just estimate, and the way each body takes on and uses calories is different.
So if you don’t fit into those situations, then what do you do?
There are other ways of improving out diets to reach our health goals whether they are weight loss/gain goals, fat:muscle ratio and reducing disease risk. These ways include;
Quality vs quantity. Starting to replace ultra processed, high sugary, low fibre foods that are generally calorie dense without the feelings of satiety; and swap these to whole-food products that are balanced with protein, healthy fats, complex carbohydrates and fibre to help increase satiety. These simple changes will help to reduce sugar cravings, energy slumps and mid afternoon snacking sessions.
Intuitive eating- practicing this simple task will help to bring on satiety cues and reduce the over portioning or reaching for seconds. Complete this simple task by;
sitting down at a table with your meal
eliminate distractions- no phones, laptops, tv’s and other electronics.
Think about each meal and the textures/flavours/smells and emotions they bring with each meal
Set aside a designated time to eat to avoid rushing and stress eating- this can cause symptoms of bloating, burping, over eating and indigestion.
