episode 160: the most misused skill for weight loss
Today we’re talking about the what is, in my opinion, the most misused and misunderstood skill when it comes to weight loss.
Food tracking.
Because when you think tracking you think calories or macros or points. We’ve all been there and done that and ended up back at square one every time.
Why is that? Is all tracking bad? Is calorie tracking ever helpful? Is there another way to track?
I talk through all of these questions and more including my recommendation for tracking and how it can change everything about your relationship with food. I also discuss how you can lose weight without counting calories, macros or points.
Click here to add your name to the early interest list for Eat with Ease, my 6 month semi private coaching program that starts February 12.
Check out episode 158 of The Diet Diaries for my top 2 skills to deal with cravings.
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[00:00:00] Hello, friends. It's episode 160, The Diet Diaries. Uh, today's episode is coming out Monday, January 8th, and it's funny because it's been a couple of weeks since I've recorded because I skipped an episode, um, kind of the week of Christmas, and I recorded last week's episode in advance because I wanted to kind of have a break over the holidays.
[00:00:21] So it feels a little weird to be sitting down and doing this. I'm so used to doing it every week, and it's been Two, I guess two, maybe three weeks since I recorded. I can't remember. Anyway, Izzy's barking downstairs. You may or may not be able to hear that, but I'm so happy when she does now that I'm just gonna let it be there.
[00:00:35] It's not a problem. I'm recording this in my house. So it's always just real life. Um, So a couple things. I'm gonna talk about One of my favorite kind of very controversial topics, especially in like the anti diet, intuitive eating world of which I'm kind of tangentially connected to And that is around tracking food This is a very controversial topic and I'm gonna kind of share with you my spin on it.
[00:01:05] And I think it's really relevant. I think a lot of folks listening right now may be wanting to make some changes. Um, and if you're not, if you're cool with where you are, that's awesome. Um, this is not like a, you need to do these things in the new year. This is a, if you are feeling like your relationship with food and the way you're eating and the way you're using food and talking to yourself is not serving you and you're not feeling good, then yeah, maybe some changes are in order.
[00:01:30] This isn't a, Oh, you have to lose weight in order to be happy kind of thing, right? Um, so I think we just need to have some clarity and get honest with ourselves around why we're doing the things we're doing or not doing them. And tracking and how we think about food and our intake and kind of learning more about it is something we're going to talk about in Eat With Ease.
[00:01:52] Um, I'm going to do a whole episode either next week or the week after about Eat With Ease. That is my six month, um, semi private coaching program and we start February 12th. So it's coming up, you know, kind of soon. Um, I've got an early interest list going for folks who are really thinking about doing this.
[00:02:10] Um, if you're on that list and you decide to sign up, you'll get 50 off the monthly rate and you're just going to get first chance to sign up. This is a super small group. This isn't like a 15 person group coaching program. So there is definitely a. cap on this group. Um, so if you are thinking about wanting to make a change this year, and you know, like you've done diets, like done them all, been there, and you know that like, if this was going to work, it would have worked by now, right?
[00:02:35] That's kind of like the hard truth we have to tell, realize, and kind of come to grips with. And at the same time, you're also not happy with how you're eating, with how you feel in your body, you're not happy with what you see in the mirror, and you're like, something's got to change, but I don't know what the fuck to do anymore.
[00:02:50] Like nothing else is working. You lose weight, you gain it back, doesn't stay off. Um, so it's time for something different, right? It's time to take a different approach. And that's what Eat With Ease is because it's six months. It's a long time. It's a big commitment. I'm not going to lie to you. Um, but if you want these changes, And you want to feel good, and you want to stop stressing around food, and you want to lose some weight and keep it off, and you want to feel good about how you look in the mirror, and you want to stop dealing with stress eating, and you want to figure out how to actually exercise and stay consistent with it.
[00:03:21] It takes time. It doesn't happen in six weeks. That's what we're going to do in Eat With Ease. So there's a link in the show notes if you want to add your name to the list. Um, more details I'm going to share very soon, and you'll be able to sign up starting February 1st off of that list. And again, it's going to be small and I'm just, I'm super excited about this kind of is going to blend like so much of what I've learned from coaching over the years.
[00:03:45] So anyway, um, let's talk about tracking. I would go so far as to say this is one of the most misunderstood. misused skills out there. Because most of us, if you're listening to this podcast, right, you are a, um, someone who's come from like a chronic dieting background. You have tracked calories, you have tracked macros, you have tracked points, right?
[00:04:08] Or kind of like the top three things that we can track. If you've done Weight Watchers, that's points. And it's probably worked for you, right? You have probably tracked one or more of those things. And lost weight. I have too. But then what has happened when you stopped tracking? Did the weight stay off or did you gain it back?
[00:04:25] Right? 99 percent of the time it comes back. And that's not because there's a problem inherently with tracking. It's the way that we're using it. And it's the absence of skills. that need to go along with that, right? So tracking is a tool. And tracking calories, macros, I don't, I am not a fan of tracking points.
[00:04:45] I think tracking points creates a huge disconnect with what food is and what it's made up of. And Weight Watchers keeps changing its points tracking system. So it's like, am I tracking protein? Am I tracking carbs? What am I tracking? What is this made up of? It's just a point value. It doesn't give you any information around what's in that food.
[00:05:00] And that's very disempowering. Um, it creates a huge divide, I think a huge barrier between you and food, and understanding what's in food, and how it makes you feel. So, I think there's many good things about Weight Watchers in terms of like group and community. In terms of the points, I think for long term changes around food, it's a very short term fix.
[00:05:24] Calories and macros are different because that's what food, that's a more clinical kind of scientific approach, right? Calories are units of energy. That's how much energy is in the food you're eating. And macros is nutritionally what food is made up of, proteins, carbs, and fats. Points is like this made up construct, like, that's like a fake thing, um, whereas calories and macros, like, are real.
[00:05:44] It's energy and it's nutrition, right? This is science. So, it can be very enlightening, right? It can give you information. If you have no idea how much protein you're consuming. Sometimes it can be helpful to track and figure it out and get a baseline. If you have no idea. If you're gaining weight and gaining weight and you're like, but I'm not eating a lot, I'm not eating a lot, and you track your food in an app for a week or two and you see how many calories you're eating, that can be give you a lot of information to work with.
[00:06:09] It doesn't mean you have to do it forever. In fact, you shouldn't do it forever. It's not a sustainable habit or something that needs to be sustained long term. But it's just can be used as a form of data, right? We use it as a, we use it as, um, like a restriction, right? It's like, these are, these are my macro goals.
[00:06:27] This is my calorie and I can't go above this. So it becomes this restriction and this thing that we're trying to live within rather than a way to gather information and get. data. Um, and if you've used macros or calories to track and you've lost weight because you had kind of guidelines around what you were supposed to hit and you hit it, right, it works because I mean, you lose weight when you eat less calories than your body needs.
[00:06:50] Like, ultimately, that's what happens. Um, what those calories are made up of do matter in terms of nutrition, in terms of satiety, in terms of cravings, um, all of that, right? A calorie is a calorie in terms of energy, but a calorie is not a calorie in terms of nutrition or the effect that it has on your body.
[00:07:09] So, if you've used numbers to help you lose weight And you haven't used any skills alongside that skills around meal timing, um, portion sizes, slowing down, uh, fullness, um, meal size versus snacks, um, you know, paying attention to what's triggering cravings, you know, all of these different skills. Then as soon as you stop tracking, you don't have any information.
[00:07:37] You don't know anything, right? You only know food is how many calories or how many. Points or how many grams of protein or carbs are in it and If you don't, if you're not tracking that, then the food, you've got no way to kind of self regulate. Um, and it becomes really about like, those numbers are what give you essentially like permission, right?
[00:07:58] You will start to rely on those numbers more than your own ability to kind of check in and pay attention and be aware of what's happening in your own body. The numbers will decide for you, do I eat, do I not eat, right? Like, it's 10 o'clock at night, and I've already Hit my calories for the day. I'm not allowed to have anything else to eat despite the fact that I might be starving Right or I have 1, 800 calories the day.
[00:08:21] I'm gonna save them all up for lunch and dinner So I'm gonna skip breakfast despite the fact that I'm hungry, right? There's so many ways in which we let those numbers dictate our behavior and we let and it supersedes what we may be feeling or noticing. Now that's not to say they can't also be helpful, right?
[00:08:39] Because it may be, it could be a way to check in and notice. Let's say it's 10 o'clock at night and you've hit your calories and you're looking for food and it helps you check in and say, Hey, am I actually hungry or am I just looking for a snack? It's like, I've already eaten what I need to eat for the day I don't need to eat, right?
[00:08:53] It's not as black and white as people want it to be. It is not inherently good or bad. It comes down to why and how you're using it. and also what your history is with tracking and food and disordered eating. That all matters before we can say, yes, you need to do this or should do this or no, you don't.
[00:09:10] Um, and that's only the kind of the, um, the quantitative side of things, right? Which is tracking numbers, quantitative numbers, which are MyFitnessPal and Chronometer and those types of things. There's a whole other way to track, which is called qualitative tracking, which is what helps you to get. helps you learn how to pay more attention to what's happening in your own body.
[00:09:33] And that becomes, this is more like a skill based tracking. And that, that's what this looks like is tracking what you eat, when you ate it, where you ate it, why you ate, and how you ate, right? What, when, where. why and how. I know that sounds like a lot. You don't have to do all. But the purpose of this is to get more qualitative information to learn to pay attention to what's happening in your body and not just a number in an app, which is a best guess, right?
[00:10:02] The app, those numbers don't know anything about you. The only way to really know what you need and what is going to help you if it's around a weight loss goal, or if it's around managing cravings, or if it's around managing hunger throughout the day, is for you to be paying attention to what's happening in your own body.
[00:10:18] And no number and no app can do that. Only you can do that. And you are able to do that when you start learning what to pay attention to. So what you Very simple, right? I had a turkey sandwich and chips. When did I eat it? I ate it at 12 o'clock. Where did I eat it? Oh, I ate it in my car on my way to a doctor's appointment.
[00:10:38] Why did I eat? I was hungry. How did I eat? I ate really fast and the sandwich was gone in five minutes. There is a shit ton of information in that tracking. And then you do that again later on. So let's say it's three o'clock and And what, um, I ate a bag of goldfish that was in my kid's backpack. When? Um, on the carpool home from school.
[00:11:00] Where? Uh, where? In the, so it was when? Three o'clock. Where? In the car on the way home from school. Why? It was just sitting there. He didn't want it. I grabbed it and I ate it. How did I eat it? I wasn't paying attention. I was driving, right? I happen to use two car examples. But it starts you to get to pay attention, not just to the what you're eating, but why am I doing it?
[00:11:20] Where am I doing it? When am I doing it? And all of those factors play a huge role in our relationship with food, in our struggle to lose weight, and in the stress and the obsession that we have around food, it all matters. And so if you spend a week tracking in this way, qualitatively tracking, and again, you don't have to do all five of those categories.
[00:11:41] You could do 2 or 3, um, you will get so much information. You will collect a lot of data on yourself and you will start to see patterns, right? Because then you can look back and see, oh yeah, I had those goldfish at 3 o'clock in the car. Why did that happen? Well, I did have a turkey sandwich, there was some protein, but I didn't have any veggies with it and I ate it in the car, so I wasn't paying attention and I just scarfed it down, right?
[00:12:03] And you can start to see why. Some of your behavior is the way it is and then you can start to change it, right? You can't change what you're not aware of and that's the issue with so many diets and with tracking with numbers is You're not paying attention to all of the other Factors that influence what, why, when, where, and how we eat.
[00:12:24] Um, and without that, you don't know what to change. It's just like throwing shit against a wall. And that's why diets don't work, because they are generalized. They are not, um, kind of solution oriented. They're not specific or customized to your life or your needs or your preferences or your history.
[00:12:41] They're just a one size fits all. And so until you start to know and really identify what are your patterns, what are the behaviors that you're doing regularly, And so tracking can be a really, really powerful way to get that information, to see what's the cause and what's the effect. So then you can work on skills to kind of.
[00:13:06] Um, intercept that to interrupt those patterns, um, and this is a huge part of rebuilding self trust. When you have grown up and only used numbers, points, macros, calories to decide what you get to eat, you have no self trust. You only trust those numbers. Those numbers tell you if you're hungry, they tell you if you're full, they tell you if you've been quote good, they tell you if you've been quote bad.
[00:13:33] And so Learning to pay attention and kind of recenter and reground yourself and thinking about food in this more qualitative way helps you to rebuild that trust. It teaches you that you have the ability to decide What to eat and where to eat and how to eat independent of those numbers, and that's not to say that those numbers are bad.
[00:13:52] They can have a place. That's what I kind of talked about at the top of the episode. But they are certainly not a long term solution. They are not the, they're not the only solution and they are not a long term solution. And when you use them, They need to be used in conjunction with other skills. It doesn't have to be either or.
[00:14:08] It can be a both and. And then slowly over time, as you build up the skills and rebuild the self trust, you can kind of phase the numbers out. You don't need them. I'm not suggesting if you've been someone who's tracked in an app for years that you just all of a sudden cold turkey stop. That's not going to end well.
[00:14:26] Like, I have had clients say they want to do that and they've tried to do it and two weeks later they're like, oh my god, I'm freaking out, I'm tracking it. I'm like, okay, that's cool. It makes sense. Let's keep tracking in the app and also add on some of these other qualitative tracking skills so that then we can phase the other one out.
[00:14:44] Again, it's always a both and. We can combine these skills and not demonize them or say that one is inherently good or bad when there's so much context. and nuance. Um, so that's really what I want to share. And again, this is something we're going to talk about in Eat With Ease because, um, if you're someone who joins the group and you're working on fat loss, which you don't have to be, right?
[00:15:05] Not, people are going to have overlapping goals because you're kind of in the orbit of this community, right? Um, and if you're wanting to work on fat loss, this is something that we're going to talk about. So again, like this might be a huge shift for you in terms of thinking about food and how to approach weight loss.
[00:15:23] Um, but it is. I cannot overstate the importance of this, of using this skill, of shifting the way that you approach food and get information. Um, this is like a life changer. Um, it's, it, it, it truly is. Like, I speak from that from my own personal experience in shifting these skills, and I've seen the way it has impacted clients lives.
[00:15:49] Um, Many times over in taking away the burden and the stress of getting every number right, right? And did I, did I forget this? Did I add this? Is the right amount? Did I go over? Like, what does that mean? And then the, the confidence and the, the, that feeling of self efficacy, right? Your belief in your ability to do the things you want to do grows so much as you learn and practice.
[00:16:14] these, these skills, right? Around what to eat, when to eat, where to eat, why to eat, how to eat. And there's all kinds of skills that go into that, right? That go into each of those categories. So that's what I wanted to talk about today. I thought it was kind of like a good way to kind of, you know, as we're moving into the second week of the year and you're figuring out if and what you want to be working on, um, I wanted this to be some good kind of food for thought for you.
[00:16:38] So thanks for being here. I will be back next week and um, yeah, more good stuff soon.