Feeling down - would love some advice

Why do you not make an appointment with a registered dietitian. She will assess what you eat and give you suggestions to try. She will make sure that you eat in a healthy manner that includes nutritious foods.

I don't have an answer, but I can offer a study that may help.

Basically the participants were there own control by doing both diets back to back under very controlled circumstances, which can be observed in the study. This is also an ad libitum trial meaning, they could eat as much food as the wanted, when they wanted including snacks that were all provided.

NIH Clinical Center and randomized to receive either ultra-processed or unprocessed diets for 2 weeks immediately followed by the alternate diet for 2 weeks. Meals were designed to be matched for presented calories, energy density, macronutrients, sugar, sodium, and fiber. Subjects were instructed to consume as much or as little as desired. Energy intake was greater during the ultra-processed diet (508 ± 106 kcal/day; p = 0.0001), with increased consumption of carbohydrate (280 ± 54 kcal/day; p < 0.0001) and fat (230 ± 53 kcal/day; p = 0.0004), but not protein (−2 ± 12 kcal/day; p = 0.85). Weight changes were highly correlated with energy intake (r = 0.8, p < 0.0001), with participants gaining 0.9 ± 0.3 kg (p = 0.009) during the ultra-processed diet and losing 0.9 ± 0.3 kg (p = 0.007) during the unprocessed diet. Limiting consumption of ultra-processed foods may be an effective strategy for obesity prevention and treatment.

Basically eating whole foods controlled their excess weight gain (UP ate 500 more calories) and eventually lost 2 lbs in this short trial. The reasoning is in the details and it's mostly hormonal, but that doesn't really seem to interest most people but still, it might be something that drives home the point that the food we eat can make a difference in how our body reacts. Cheers

https://cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(19)30248-7#

Does your university have health or mental health resources free or reduced to students?

You mention 2 things that might make sense to address:
- lifelong unhappiness with your body
- OCD

I personally am a calorie counter because it works for me but I realize that is not the solution for everyone. It may not be the right solution for you. But if you could make peace with your body and feel grateful for the miracle that your body is, and if you had effective strategies for managing the OCD, maybe calorie counting would be a decent approach for you. IOW maybe the OCD & body attitude are problematic, not calorie counting.

I wish you the best, OP. I understand that attitudes and behaviors are hard to change. Sometimes hard things are really worth the effort, though. (Not unlike uni studies and child rearing, actually -- hard but worth the effort and enormously satisfying in the end).

niamhdean97 wrote: »

I've spent my whole life being unhappy with my body. Since 15 I have been counting calories. I have tried really hard this year and worked a lot on my relationship with food and stopping counting calories as I became obsessed with it (I have ocd). However I want to lose weight and I don't know how to without counting calories. I just don't know where to go from here 😕 I'm just nearly 25 now. I've just downloaded the app again as I was trying with just trying to eat better and move more for a few weeks and haven't lost a thing. Any advice would be great

When I was in Costa Rico for 6 weeks I dropped a size without even trying and certainly without calorie counting. I ate tons of fruit, vegetables, rice, and beans. I didn't have access to calorie dense foods such as cheese and nuts, let alone ice cream, pizza, etc. Zero ultra processed foods. All the tropical fruit satisfied my sweet tooth with far less calories than chocolate, etc. and also the bulk of these foods kept me fuller than more calorie dense foods do.

Other people find ways of eating like keto very filling. (I wouldn't!)

ChickenKillerPuppy wrote: »

I recommend the free podcast Half Size Me. While most of the people who call in do count calories, there are several episodes where Heather coaches people who are triggered by calorie counting. She gives a lot creative alternative suggestions.

I'm a fan of Half Size Me Heather as well.

You might be able to search through the episodes here and find the ones with calorie counting alternatives:

https://www.halfsizeme.com/category/podcast/