Why I don’t count calories.
Anymore, I should say.
It’s great that you can find out how many calories are in basically anything you may ever want to eat. If you want to drop a few pounds, you come up with a daily calorie goal to get you there. That’s an important thing to know. But it’s also important to see food as more than just a number. And to not let those numbers determine the course of your day, or your feelings about yourself. Or in my case, become a game, a challenge even. Can you come in under your goal for the day? How much under? It’s a slippery slope, and the most seductive part is that it works. In college I dropped 20+ lbs eating a small breakfast, then not eating anything until dinner, when I ate (more like drank) whatever I wanted. I never lied about my eating, and I never got quite thin enough for anyone to question my weight.
The whole time I knew my habits were borderline ED, which is why I changed them; I don’t let myself skip meals anymore, I’m trying to pay more attention to my body’s hunger/fullness cues, and I focus on what’s in the food ingredient-wise rather than calorie-wise.
There’s no reason in particular for sharing this, other than my suspicion that I’m not alone. I think there are few people, and even fewer women, whose eating isn’t disordered in some way or other. That doesn’t mean that everyone has an eating disorder, more that nearly no one has a normal and healthy relationship with food. I definitely don’t, though I am moving in that direction.
