I do not calorie count. I have done so in the past to educate myself on where my calories were coming from, but I no longer do it for a few reasons.
- It’s a hassle. I’m the type of person who does not want to have get out scales, or a barcode scanner every time I eat something. I don’t feel it is sustainable long term.
- It’s not an accurate science. On a wholefoods diet it is especially difficult to count correctly. Unlike processed food, there are many variables at play. Calories change depending on how a food is cooked, how it is chewed and how it is grown. Does carrot A contain the same % as carrot b. It also requires weighing your food to be ‘accurate’. As an example (this may be tmi) – You eat corn on the cob, and I bet you also excrete corn kernels in your faeces. That is lost calories (and nutrition).
- Calories aren’t the full story. The individual foods in isolation affect many health systems. It also affects fat storage. Here is a little information about how spikes in sugar and the associate insulin production can actually lead to increased fat storage.
Insulin resistance is when your cells stop responding properly to insulin, which leads to elevated sugar and insulin levels.
High blood sugar levels impair normal cell function and promote inflammation, which increases insulin resistance, furthering this destructive cycle.
Though cells become resistant to insulin’s effect on blood sugar uptake, they remain responsive to the hormone’s role in fat storing, meaning that fat storage is increased. This phenomenon is known as selective insulin resistance.
Instead I focus on nutrition and portion control.
For nutrition I eat a wholefoods diet. One of the big benefits of it is I feel fuller for longer. Why? Because my foods take longer to be digested and you can eat more of it compared to high calorie junk foods (processed food).
Also because I have an 8 hour eating window with intermittent fasting, I don’t have a lot of time in there to get hungry between meals.
Sometimes, I may choose to eat processed food, but that is a ‘rarely’ food. Therefore avoiding the sugar spikes in my regular diet, while occassionally having a ‘treat’.
(oh boy do I need to write an article about treats.)
