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Is counting calories/macros destroying our enjoyment of food?
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I find the opposite to be true; I had reached a point of binge eating where I wasn't even really enjoying the food I was cramming into my face. It had become routine, habit as well as compulsion.
Now I am taking notice of what I'm eating I am enjoying my food more. I don't feel ashamed when I go shopping any more, and I actually take the time to enjoy whatever I choose to use my calories for. I haven't excluded anything from my diet. It is difficult to fight the urge to binge but that's not really to do with counting. It's no bother for me.
Also I suppose it actually helps me to mend my relationship with food. Before I would feel guilty about everything I ate being "bad" (I mean, it often was due to the quantity!) but now that is taken away from me since I am eating within the amount of calories set for me. One less thing to worry about really.4 -
For me the opposite is true as well. Before I would eat way too few calories and too many foods I thought were healthy but didn't actually help make me full (lettuce for example). I felt like if I wasn't hungry I wasn't doing it right. Now I can relax and eat without guilt and without having the feeling I need to be hungry in order to lose weight. My relationship with food has improved a lot because of this and because I now know what foods help me feel good because of the macro ratio.8
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leanitup123 wrote: »Interested in hearing your thoughts on this.
I'm learning to not focus on calories and focus more on what my plate looks like. I'm learning to go off these questions my nutritionist suggested to me
(1) is this the best choice I can make
(2) does it fit through the filter - WFs / sugars? / protein(s), fats & carbs
(3) how am I programming myself to feel and function - what's the biggest/loudest message on your plate
I'm not gonna count calories for the rest of my life because it's not realistic and calories doesn't tell you a lot about the nutrients of the food which is what I'm focused more on. But I enjoy food and make some super tasty dishes in the process and therefore look forward to eating.
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I think it has for me. I am fine when I am in control (e.g. cooking at home or eating a prepared lunch) but I definitely get more stressed in social situations where food and alcohol are involved. I can't relax and just enjoy the event as much as I used to because I am making all these mental calculations and I end up looking like someone who is no fun because I've opted for a water rather than a beer or I don't want to join in on the group nachos.
A good example was a few weeks ago where I was going out for dinner with a group of friends. We meet up monthly and take turns in choosing the activity. This time my friend chose to eat at TGI Fridays. This really stressed me out because TGI Fridays in the UK does not include a calorie count and I know that the majority of food there is very high calorie and not even that tasty. I didn't enjoy my time with my friends as much as I should have because I was annoyed that I had to make sacrifices (doing some cardio earlier in the day, no alcohol, no dessert) to fit this pretty rubbish food into my goal. In the past, I would have just appreciated the fact that I was with my friends and not worried about the food.7 -
It has changed how I eat and most days I view food as fuel but sometimes I work in indulgences. I find its better to do that than totally denying myself, struggling with binge eating. Example, I enjoyed a piece of REALLY good cake yesterday, and for dinner I had a grilled piece of chicken with a measured amount of spicy mayo. Had I not had the cake I may have had something like a cheeseburger. I've been at this for a while, I have lost weight, I'm still finding balance as I get the last bit off it off, but life doesn't stop just because I'm over weight.1
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I don't count macros, I just try to keep them in balance, and I don't count kcal, the app does it for me. If I want a cake, I will eat it, and work on burning more kcal or eat some lower kcal meals after. My aim is to lose extra fat, not to make life miserable.1
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Yes, but there comes a point, after counting calories for a long time, where you can eyeball things and just use common sense to gain and lose weight. Some people want to be exact and know exactly everything, but I'll only track if I'm not getting where I want to be.
But once at that point, I eat what I want, but everything in moderation... just a common sense approach.4 -
I reject the presupposition that food needs to be something that is primarily for pleasure (which is fundamental to the question OP asked). CAN food be a source of enjoyment? Definitely. Should our primary focus be of food as a source of pleasure? That seems unhealthy to me, personally.6
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princess0lexi wrote: »it has and it helped start and make a eating disorder worst, a lot of things are very high in calories and if i had the higher calorie things i may still be hungry but used up all my calories or have very few left for later. i try to eat lower calorie foods so i can eat more for the same amount which means i don`t eat a lot of different cereals because they go over 110 and i know thats silly but its what i go through with and i really don`t like to drink things with calories because i feel that i will not be full and that could of been used on food and there are a lot of other foods i can`t or will not eat because of the calorie count, just to sum it all up its not fun but i can`t stop and life just is not the same.
Your choices don't sound disordered to me - they sound smart
I too have given up or reduced foods like cereal and beverages that don't provide much satiety for the calories. "One serving" of cereal is a joke - I want at least two and possibly three, and that's just too many calories.2 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »my question would be how could it ruin our enjoyment of food.
Calories and macros are numbers that is it...enjoyment of food comes from tactile senses like taste and smell...
If you find you are not eating the food you love due to calorie restrictions you are doing it wrong....just eat a smaller portion or exercise to allow for it.
For me it lessened (not destroyed or ruined) my enjoyment of food because I my enjoyment of food comes from cooking as much as from eating. But I don't cook from recipes and don't measure ingredients. There isn't much point in logging if you don't measure and having to measure made cooking a lot less enjoyable for me.
Along these lines, I don't mind the measuring and recording, but struggling with the new and old recipe builder does suck a lot of the enjoyment out of cooking for me.2 -
Not at all for me. Calorie tracking is a tool that works for me. I haven't changed the foods that I eat, I just control the portions and I've hit my weight loss goal every week since I restarted. I enjoy my bedtime ice cream more knowing that I have the calories for it.
As for eating out, I have no anxiety about eating at restaurants that don't have calories on the menu or going to events with food trucks/concession stands. I order what I want and enjoy it without stress or guilt. Calorie tracking is extremely helpful with keeping me on track, but it doesn't rule my life.4 -
I love food and eat all kinds of things, but still count my macros/calories. I am not sure why one is related to the other. Just my two cents.. My answer is no, I love food and count.5
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I hate every second of it but it works so I do it...mostly. I do backslide a lot because I get lazy and just want to eat what I want without thinking about what the food is "worth" in calories but I can't argue with the results and am trying to be more consistent with tracking. I miss the days when food was just food..8
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I enjoy eating now more than ever. I create things in the kitchen that I find so flavourful and tasty and can't believe how much I am allowing myself to eat while still meeting my goals. I never realized until recently just how much guilt I must have been carrying while eating. I feel free now, like I've been unchained and my passion for food and creating in the kitchen has grown with it.10
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I love food! I love to count calories and fit things into my diet too! Its all in how you view things I guess~
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Limiting something you enjoy should increase, rather than decrease, your enjoyment of that thing, because you look forward to it and savor it more.3
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Like others have said, I think it has increased my enjoyment. I don't waste my time/money/calories on food that just doesn't taste as good or fill me up (cheap grocery store cookies- why did I used to eat those? Not worth it at all). I have learned new foods and seasonings, and I feel like I can reasonably accommodate for most food situations including eating out or caloric indulgences. I can satisfy sweet cravings with options low calories and more nutritious than others. And when I want to go all out, I will for very special occasions (Thanksgiving, Christmas, my birthday, etc). My favorite Mexican place? I discovered that they make killer fish tacos with great macros. Before I would have just ordered my "usual" calorie bomb, gone over, and ignored the other options.
A note about calorie counting- like others have said, it is not inherently obsessive but it can be for some. I don't find it taxing to log my meals, and has become a regular habit.5 -
leanitup123 wrote: »Geocitiesuser wrote: »My constant obsession with calorie counting, hitting protein grams, and avoiding things I feel are not part of a "healthy" diet, are *borderline* unhealthy, and borderline ruin eating for me.
Only borderline. It's a little obsessive but it's nothing that's not controllable and definitely not damaging to me. But it definitely removes a lot if not all of the enjoyment of eating.
But in the same breath I HAD to remove the enjoyment of eating. Enjoying eating is what got me fat. It was comfort, it was reprieve from emotional and sometimes physical distress. It's how I celebrated and how I grieved. It was emotion. I correlated enjoying food with happiness like a heroin junky associates heroin with being happy. I was literally killing myself thinking I was enjoying what I was eating. When I stepped back, and looked at how all that food made me "feel", I didn't actually ever enjoy it. It did nothing but hurt me in the most horrible ways.
I still splurge. I still fall off track. But if we apply the pareto rule, I've removed enjoyment from probably 80% of what I eat now. Some of that is intentional.
That's exactly what this post is getting at -- the obsessive nature of calorie counting.
I got overly obsessive and in my personal case, it turned into a binge/restrict, all or nothing mentality for me unfortunately (which resulted in a ton of yo yo dieting) I wish I can go back to intuitive eating and how I ate before I found mfp 8 years ago. I was never "overweight" but I got to an uncomfortable weight for me when I was 25. From then on I've been yo yo dieting, tracking obsessively or never tracking at all. I'm happy to say i'm now at a comfortable weight but still trying to go back to basics before I found mfp. It's tough. I find that I don't wanna bother cooking meals in bulk because I don't want to measure everything so I just get pre packaged meals which are easier to track. I hope one day I get to the point where I don't need to track anything but maintain my weight.4 -
Going back to the financial budget analogy does knowing you have a balanced checkbook, increasing IRA/401k, and future plan diminish enjoyment of what money enables us to do?
Being exposed to this process I'm increasingly convinced that counting is simply a necessary exercise for the successful.8
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