Is counting calories disordered eating? Shouldn’t we be able to not overeat?

Many or most so-called "normal" people have ways they control portions and cals even if not counting (also, increasingly the "normal" person is overweight, certainly the case in the US). Anyway, you may be able to transition to those kinds of ways. I think logging for a while and getting awareness about what you are eating and how caloric different choices are, as well as just learning to eat mindfully, can be extremely helpful in getting there.

Personally, I also found logging for a while (and occasionally since then) quite interesting and fun.

Especially with an American diet, people may have been eating too many calories their entire life, or empty/less nutritious calories, so they never developed that "instinct" for how to eat. I use calorie counting to counteract disordered eating (whether eating too much or too little, because I've swung back and forth between extremes). Getting the calorie goal in the app is really helpful to me because I make myself stick to it, even when part of my brain wants to go to either extreme. Although I do tend to look at my calories on a weekly basis too, because some days you might be over and some days under, so I like to just make sure it all shakes out to something reasonable by the week.

Here, reframe it like this:

"Is balancing my bank statement disordered financial management? Shouldn't I be able to manage my finances without balancing?"

Now, some people CAN manage their finances without balancing. But we don't consider those who do to have disordered practices.

My husband doesn’t count calories and maintains his weight. How? He eats one meal a day every weekday and two on weekends (has done since we met, way before OMAD became a “thing” for weight management). He doesn’t eat what he doesn’t like and can stop eating when he’s had what he thinks is enough (not when he’s full). If he fees he’s getting too fluffy, he’ll cut out desserts or alcohol during the week for a while. Is that “normal”?

I count calories and log food to lose weight when my attempts to eat like a “normal person” inevitably result in a few pounds of weight creeping on over the course of a year. Is that “normal”?

I have no idea. Both hubs and I would look like “normal”, non overweight people but we have different ways of staying that way and neither of us just effortlessly maintain our weight without thinking about it/adjusting things at least every once in a while.

I was overweight for my much of my childhood and thought there were these people who never ever thought about their weight and just maintained. The older I get and the more people I talk to about fitness/weight, the more I realize that’s not normal. You may maintain in a range but it seems normal to butt up against the top of said range (jeans get tight, scale hits a certain number) and you make some changes to get comfortable again.

I know for some, counting calories is an anorexia trigger. For those people, counting calories is not advised, and to maybe consult a nutritionist for what might work best for them.

In these days of super salty, fatty food, good stuff, according to our survival brains, it's hard for a lot of us to know when to switch off. Because survival brain says that all this good food won't be here tomorrow, so better eat it now. For most of us, the food will definitely be here tomorrow.

To tame survival brain, we have to retrain it. A lot of people do that by telling survival brain that it's getting all it needs, and tweaking until we hit macronutrient balances that properly sates survival brain. So "natural" is an odd term to use, for me.

In and of itself, calorie counting is just a tool and weight management strategy. I don't do it anymore and haven't for going on seven years, but it was very educational when I did do it. I gained my 40 Lbs very slowly over the course of about eight years and was attributable more to going from a very active lifestyle in college to a sedentary desk job. I had difficulty keeping weight on in college as I worked landscape construction and didn't have a car much of that time and walked or road my bike most places. I put on weight very slowly after that, but I wasn't massively overeating and have never been a binge eater or emotional eater or anything like that.

In what way would counting calories be considered 'disordered'? It is just a strategy to keep track of what you consume.

While disordered eating can involve obsession with calorie counting, calorie counting itself is absolutely not a symptom of disordered eating. Like another commenter above, it has actually helped me in my recovery journey for an eating disorder.

I wish I could be one of those people that naturally feels full at my calorie goal but I don’t. If I could be an intuitive eater, then of course I would. That doesn’t work for everyone. I’m grateful calorie counting exists so I can get a handle on my weight.

If for you, "calorie counting" means something like "I cannot eat without obsessing over the calorie count"--such as, you can't enjoy a family meal or an occasional restaurant outing without having negative feelings--then maybe your calorie counting would be part of a disordered eating pattern.

But if your calorie counting means "I will do my best to eat within my calorie goal, accepting that I cannot always know exactly how many calories I'm eating, and balancing that with having a healthy personal life," then it's just a tool some people use to keep their weight in a range that they and their doctor feel is healthy.

Personally, I see calorie counting as treatment for a medical problem. I had a medical issue: obesity. I also had multiple related medical issues: high cholesterol, high triglycerides, borderline insulin resistance, PCOS. I used calorie counting to treat my medical condition by losing weight until I was in a healthy range. I continue to count calories because my condition is being managed, not cured; if I stopped managing it, the same health problems would likely come back.