Tips to letting go of calorie counting for good
Counting calories was an ingrained behavior of my eating disorder. There was a time where I knew the nutrition facts by heart for many items of food. Each day I would tally how many calories I ate, and the lower the number was the better. It’s hard to stop a calculation your brain did automatically. It’s hard, but it’s not impossible. Calories rarely pop into my head these days. Below are some tips to letting go of calorie counting for good.
Actively challenge the thoughts. Say the calorie count of yogurt pops into your head. Distract your brain to another topic completely. Sing a song or go read a book. Think about a project at work. You can’t control the first thought you have, but you can control how you react to it and where your mind goes from there.
Another option is to portion a little more than you usually do so you don’t know how many calories is in the portion you served. Each time you portion the item, mix it up so it’s not consistent or exact. It helps to not measure the food. Letting go of measuring was key in me no longer thinking about calories.
Do the opposite of what your brain is telling you to do. I still get the thought to “eat the lowest calorie item.” But instead of listening to my eating disorder, I eat what I want. This is a good example of opposite action. I do this enough times that the thought comes less and less and it gets easier to go against my eating disorder.
Time is on your side. The longer you distract and challenge your thoughts, the better you get at it. And the more time passes, soon you will replace remembering calorie counts with more important information. I’ve been working on this for a while and without looking at the nutrition information on the back of packaging, I don’t know how many calories are in most food items.
To get to this point I purposely forced myself not to turn over food packaging. That was a tough habit to break but force yourself not to look. Instead of choosing items in the store based on calorie counts, choose based on what looks appealing or even choose for budget reasons. Also limit the time you spend in the store, so you don’t give yourself time to give items more detailed glance overs. Choose in a few seconds and move on.
Finally, this may go without saying, but don’t keep a food journal that tracks calories. Let go of My Fitness Pal or any other means you were tallying calories. Only diet culture says you have to eat a certain number of calories, but diet culture doesn’t know your body’s specific needs. Your body will let you know what it needs once you heal from your eating disorder and are able to listen.
It’s all about breaking old habits and establishing new patterns. Your brain can rewire. For me it took time and actively making different choices. But looking back, I didn’t even realize I wasn’t counting calories anymore, it’s that unimportant in my life. How freeing it is to no longer carry that burden. Counting calories just weighs you down and when you let that go, you can fill your life with so many more meaningful activities.