Useful or harmful?
Listen to any health and fitness professional, TV chef or even the NHS, and many will advocate calorie counting as the only effective way to lose weight. But have you ever considered it might not be the only way, and like many things in life, there might be multiple ways through which to achieve the same goal. Here’s some food for thought... Pros - Effective short term strategy for losing weight Increases awareness of energy in vs energy out Prevents inaccurate ‘eye-balling’ of portion size Useful to know how much energy is in certain foods e.g. oils, nut butters, sauces Cons - Time-consuming Inaccurate estimates of calories in Inaccurate estimates of calories out Can foster an unhealthy relationship with food and a disconnection with the body Doesn’t consider the nutrition the food source offers Useful questions to ask yourself about the foods you eat - Do you know what’s in it? Do you know where it’s come from? What nutrition does this offer for my body? Having an understanding of calories is definitely a handy addition to your nutrition toolkit. They can be a useful place (but not the only place) to start in getting to grips with your nutrition. Ultimately, food provides us with a way to get our basic biology working for us so we feel awesome; connect and share with other humans; and can be highly connected to our emotions. If you don’t enjoy it, you probably won’t stick to it - choose changes (whatever those are that work for you) that build a lifestyle!