When trying to lose weight, many people count calories using an app. The idea is that the listed calorie counts for each food are correct, and this info guides your weight-loss plan. However, these calorie counts aren't perfect because they're based on research from nearly 120 years ago by William Atwater. Even though Atwater's system is still the main way to figure out calories in weight loss apps and on food labels, subsequent research has discussed the inaccuracy of Atwater's system.
This inaccuracy happens because Atwater’s system doesn’t consider things like the thermic effect of food, various components in the food, and how each person's body works. These problems make the "calories in and calories out" method for weight loss less effective. Let's see why calorie counts for food can be wrong.
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As the new year unfolds, you dive into yet another weight loss journey. Like a seasoned tightrope walker, you obsessively monitory your daily calorie intake and meticulously balance it with your energy expenditure. Initially, the numbers on the scale drop, and you feel some excitement—this is working! But inevitably, despite your best efforts, the lost weight makes a return.
Calorie counting is a common weight loss method but faces challenges due to individual differences in metabolism, body composition, and health conditions, making it hard to predict accurate calorie needs. Additionally, when you cut calories to lose weight, it often leads to a slowdown in metabolism, making it harder to shed those extra pounds. Frequently, we shoulder the blame when the weight comes back, internalizing a sense of failure. But for the vast majority of people, counting calories doesn't work. Let's explore reasons why this happens. Emotional eating is triggered by emotions rather than hunger. This includes using food to comfort ourselves when we feel sad, stressed, or lonely. Emotional eating can sometimes bring feelings of shame or guilt, but it shouldn’t; not everything about emotional eating is bad. In this video, I’ll discuss both the positives and negatives of emotional eating and tips for how to reduce the negative aspects of emotional eating.
Food means more to us than merely providing energy. We eat for celebration, comfort, and to build relationships with family and friends. This type of emotional eating can enhance our lives. We can also use food as a means to soothe or push away difficult emotions. Although this type of emotional eating may be the only coping mechanism available to us at the time, it can keep us from solving the underlying issue and leave us with having to deal with the discomfort of overeating. When you’re eating, do you have to finish your entire plate or bag of food, even if you feel too full? Do you keep doing this even when you’ve told yourself again and again that you’ll quit when you’re full? Why is it hard to stop eating when you reach fullness? Maybe you blame yourself, or think you have a character flaw. Well, don’t blame yourself; you’re not broken or weak.
Stopping eating when we are full can be difficult, and here are three reasons that contribute to this difficulty. You’ve probably heard the phrase intuitive eating. Although it is becoming a popular trend, intuitive eating has been around for decades and was developed by two dietitians back in the 1990s.
But what is intuitive eating, really? Intuitive eating is a research-based approach to food that uses biological cues of hunger, fullness, and satisfaction to decide when, what, and how much to eat. Do you remember the books “Where's Waldo”? Waldo is disguised among busy scenes. The goal is to find Waldo. If you know what he looks like then you can spot him. He always wears the same clothes—a red and white hat/shirt and glasses.
Modern diets can be hard to spot because diet culture is like a virus—it can mutate. Diets used to be Jenny Craig and Slim Fast. Now, diet culture hides under the guise of lifestyles (keto, intermittent, gluten-free, dairy-free, etc.), detoxes, clean eating, or use words like health, fitness, and wellness. Even scarier, diet culture is using anti-diet and intuitive eating language, like Noom. At the roots, it’s all diet culture and comes with the same awful side effects. My body has experienced many changes in the past couple of years. From pregnancy, birth, and a diagnosis of hypothyroidism. I’ve felt the allure and pull of diet culture. To resist, it’s helpful for me to have a powerful “why” at the forefront of my mind. When the urge to “fix” my body arises then I can remember why I don’t want to go down that path again. The reasons we diet are complex and valid. I would never want someone to feel judged by me because they diet. If you’re looking to leave diet culture then here’s 22 reasons to leave diet culture, in honor of 2022.
Despite your best efforts, you find yourself past fullness, madly finishing off the pan of brownies, and scraping the sides for the very last bite. You feel physically uncomfortable and ashamed. Maybe you think, "Crap! I blew it, might as well eat as much as possible and start again tomorrow." Fast forward the next day, when you restrict, feel deprived, eventually overeat, feel guilty … repeat cycle. How else can you handle overeating? Below are my five best tips to cope with overeating:
How often do we find ourselves avoiding the apple pie packed away in the fridge only to find ourselves ravenously and urgently eating the pie straight from the container? When the episode is said and done we feel physically uncomfortable and disappointed in ourselves for our lack of willpower. Can you relate? If so then let me first reassure you there's nothing wrong with you. You don't have a character flaw. Overeating is very common and here's my top five tips to stop overeating during the holidays:
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AuthorHi there! If you feel guilt with each bite of food you take, struggle with intense food cravings and frequently overeat, feel at war with your body, and/or cycle through the same weight over and over again then you're in the right place! Archives
January 2024
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