It’s All About the Feeling: Why I Don’t Count Calories or Weigh Myself
Two things I don’t do very often: count calories or weigh myself. Why? Because for me, its all about the way my body feels.
Like back when I was swimming competitively, and I would wake up the morning after a really tough and intense workout barely being able to move any muscle in my body, that’s when I knew I had pushed myself beyond my limits and worked as hard as I could. Even though, my entire body was so sore to the point where it was a struggle to walk up 3 flights of stairs between periods at school, I always secretly loved that feeling and started to miss it after I stopped swimming and working out everyday.
Don’t get me wrong, if you’re trying to lose a significant amount of weight, I think it’s definitely helpful to keep track of the amount of calories you’re consuming so that you can be absolutely sure you’re creating a deficit. And weighing yourself semi-regularly is also a helpful way to make sure you’re actually losing weight at a healthy pace. But I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary or that it needs to be done obsessively. (In fact, if you become too obsessive, it may become counteractive.)
The most important thing is to pay attention to your body. It will tell you if you’re full. It will tell you if what you ate made it feel good or bad. It will tell you if you worked hard enough, or if maybe next time you need to push a little harder. When you’re hungry, eat. But learn what kinds of foods your body needs and feed it based on that knowledge. If you feel like you need to work out, do it. For example, right after Christmas, I was feeling like I had eaten way too much and even though in reality I hadn’t gained any weight in just two days, my body still felt like I had. So, I ramped up my workouts at the gym for the next few days after, that way I could get back to the fit feeling I had achieved before the food-filled holiday. But all along, I never weighed myself or tried to calculate how many calories I had consumed because to me, those numbers aren’t what living a healthy lifestyle is about .
A lot of people get really discourage if they go over their daily calorie allowance or don’t see the number they had hoped for on the scale, and at that point they become extremely discouraged and lean towards giving up. If you can use a minor setback like that as motivation to work harder the next day, then that’s great. But it seems rare that such a situation ever turns out that way, which is why I think it’s better to predominantly base fitness and health goals on how you feel, rather than a number.
Everybody is different, and some people will need the structure of monitoring their calorie intake and weight closely to achieve their fitness goals. But if you know you can carefully and closely listen to your body and then properly eat and workout based on how you feel, I highly recommend doing so because personally, I have found there really is no better method for maintaining a consistent healthy & fit feeling.
