You don’t HAVE to track calories…
Remember when you cycled with training wheels on your bike as a kid?
The extra wheels would go next to your back tyres to support you as you are moving.
This would stop you from falling off but also allow you to learn how to steer and cycle.
But when you built the confidence and skills of cycling you took the wheels off because you trusted yourself and knew how to stop yourself from falling .
This made riding a bike even more enjoyable!
This is the same with calories/dieting and even meal plans.
They are meant to help you start but at some point you throw them away.
But I want to tell you how awful meal plans and most diets are.
Most of them are like prisons.
You think they are protecting you but really, they are restricting you.
Kind of like a controlling boyfriend or girlfriend.
But that’s another story for another day.
Meal plans and diets don’t teach you how to not need them anymore.
Here’s why:
- Telling you exactly what to eat and when doesn’t give you the confidence to improvise and adjust your eating when life happens. Meetings run over, plans change etc.
- You have to work around the meal plan vs making a lifestyle that works around you, your eating preferences, your goals etc. No wonder some people hate dieting.
- They don’t educate you on what truly matters. Chicken or beef doesn’t matter. Pasta or rice doesn’t matter. Eating at 5:50pm vs 8:00pm doesn’t matter. (Which many people do get consumed by). What matters is energy consumption and energy usage which I’ll explain).
I don’t think tracking your calories is awful only diets and meal plans are!
Tracking your calories are your training wheels when you start to lose weight and get fitter.
Peter needs X many calories to stay at the weight he is: 2,100 calories.
He needs 15% less calories per day to lose 1lb per week. (Exercise is a bonus that will accelerate this process) 1,785 calories per day.
The only other thing he needs to think about is protein intake. 100 grams for example.
Everything else is about what he wants and likes to eat 😊
When my clients start tracking their calories, they get to see the amount of energy they are or aren’t giving themselves daily.
Which also educates them on why they might binge eat the next day or aren’t as full as they should be after a meal.
This information makes losing weight get easier and easier as you go along.
Rather than judging yourself for being hungry you learn to get rid of the cause of the challenge.
When we don’t have confidence in losing weight after failing many times…
We stop believing in ourselves or the process.
But we all believe in numbers and maths.
I need this many calories a week to lose 2lb a week for example.
That’s definite, it’s science so there’s no reason to doubt it.
As well as that, nothing is banned.
So, on the one end you are confident that this works.
On the other end you aren’t overwhelmed by rules and what you think you can't eat.
The training wheels come off when you start to know your body.
Which doesn't really take long!
You know how many calories are in your breakfast after calorie tracking for 2 weeks.
You know how much protein you need to keep you full.
You know how to make up for eating 300 too many calories yesterday, by having 150 less today and tomorrow.
You don't dread going out on Saturday because you know how to give yourself extra calories for that day.
Because your weekly calorie target matters more than your daily calorie target.
Smart I know. I don’t need an email to remind me.
And at this point you can take a relaxed approach to losing weight and staying fit.
Some clients do the 80/20 approach with me.
They consciously choose foods towards their fitness goals for 80% of the time. You could say that this is 16 out of 21 meals across the week.
20% of those meals are relaxed, enjoyable, and NOT goal oriented.
So that’s the family BBQ you go to.
Other clients enjoy portion control which is even simpler but just as effective.
It’s about each plate of food you have having a ratio of protein/ carbs and fats that you can estimate with your hand.
You don’t even need to weigh your foods.
And this is all within the ethos of my coaching which is about.
- Making losing weight as simple as possible to take away unnecessary overthinking.
- It eliminates perfectionism which holds most people back because perfection is impossible to achieve.
- Finally making losing weight compliment your life NOT complicating it. You still want and should have a social life it’s important!
I have a FREE PDF explaining how to do portion control.
If you’d like it, either send me a message on social media saying “Portion control” or Send me a message on my website and I’ll email you back the PDF.
I hope this article has helped today 😊
