How to stop counting calories every time you eat?
Practice can become an addiction that is harmful to your health; ‘Just counting calories is not enough to have a healthy diet’, warns doctor.
Whether at home, opening the fridge, or in a restaurant, when choosing a dish, counting how many calories are being consumed is becoming more and more an addiction. Experts say that the habit can be harmful to your health and advise leaving the practice aside. But stopping calculating food calories is not always an easy task.
How to stop counting calories every time you eat?
First of all, it is important to remember that well-being does not mean trying to burn the exact amount of calories that were ingested. “Just counting calories is not enough to have a healthy diet, after all, a person can maintain a diet with a compatible amount of calories but only ingest calories from carbohydrates, which is not recommended”, says the director technician at the Emagrecentro network, Dr. Sylvia Ramuth.
The amount of calories that should be ingested daily varies from person to person and depends on factors such as gender, age, height and routine. Physical activity practices influence how organisms will react to calories. Furthermore, it is almost impossible to know exactly how many calories were ingested and how many were eliminated, as measuring equipment, such as wristwatches and cell phone applications, sometimes make the calculations wrong.
The doctor advocates that there is a correct division of calories with foods rich in proteins, fats, green vegetables (dark and light), fruits, legumes, cereals and dairy products. “Not distributing calories correctly can lead to issues such as vitamin, protein and mineral deficiencies, leading to various physical and even mental pathologies”, she explains.
Tips for stopping counting calories
In an article for the “Self” portal , dietitian specializing in eating disorders, Christiane Byrne, gives 5 tips to eliminate the habit of counting calories:
Swap calorie counting for reflections on your hunger
People addicted to counting calories have the habit of writing down everything they ate during the day and adding up the data. It’s not always easy to get rid of something we’re used to. So it’s okay to keep a pen and paper on hand, but instead of calculating your calories for the day, write down your hunger level before eating, what you ate and whether you were full.
Choose the restaurant carefully and think about what you want to eat beforehand.
It is increasingly common to find restaurants that list the number of calories in each dish on the menu. Leave these establishments aside. Furthermore, start imagining the food you most want to eat and decide to order the food, before even picking up the menu. The main question here is: what looks good, would make you feel good and at the same time satisfied? Let go of the numbers to allow yourself to decide what you really want.
Cover calorie information on food packaging
This tip is for those most addicted to counting calories. Did you buy the food? Cover the nutrition facts section with tape or use a pen so you can’t see the data. You may even already know how many calories the food has. But little by little the habit of picking up food and analyzing it before eating is disappearing.
Change the subject if someone is talking about calories
Hearing people talking about nutritional information and, especially, the number of calories in a food, can be a trigger for you to start making calculations about what you eat. Change the subject. The less you deal with the topic throughout the day, the easier it will be to let go.
Get distracted
It’s natural that, even following all the tips, we think from time to time about how many calories we are consuming. Don’t beat yourself up about it, because it happens to everyone. But be distracted. A good tip is to think about characteristics about the food you intend to eat: is it good? Satisfying? What tastes are you feeling? If that doesn’t work, try thinking of something else.
It’s not easy to break the habit of calculating calories, but the measure is necessary when thinking about long-term health. Seek help from experts who can help you from a psychological and nutritional point of view. And don’t forget to listen to your body. The organism is the best tool for understanding what we really need.
