Just wondering if there is alternative approach to counting calories to lose weight. I have quite an obsessive brain therefore I would rather not count calories. My diet is generally ‘healthy’ I eat lots of whole foods, fruits and vegetables and try and get protein in each meal. What are your thoughts on intuitive eating? Is it even possible to eat truly intuitively given the our distracting lives, hyper palatability of foods and different emotions we experience from day to day (especially atm!). Is intuitive eating something that can be learned and employed for weight loss or am I in dreamland? Research in this area seems a bit cray.
I don’t really like the term “intuitive eating” as I think it’s a misnomer. Some refer to it as a “non-diet” approach to achieving a health promoting dietary pattern, but fail to define the term “diet” and inevitably, it devolves into a semantic argument.
In any case, the things I like about intuitive eating is that it provides people with a lot of additional resources to engage in behavioral change, e.g. making health-promoting dietary decisions. So, to answer your question if you can lose weight without counting calories, sure you can, but I think it’s more about providing folks resources to be successful with behavioral change rather than anything unique to IE.
Yes but the catch is that you are likely to need to restrict yourself to only eating particular foods. If you need to lose fat, you’ll have to aim for high protein and high fiber foods which are not highly flavoured and have low calorie density - read: meat, eggs and vegetables
Your aim is to prioritise foods that supply enough protein and/or fill you up without providing excessive calories. So it’s still indirect calorie control.
Personally I’d rather eat foods I like eating but within a calorie budget.
