How to STOP Stressing and Obsessing Over Calories (8 Things I'd Say)

On this episode of Transformation Talks, you'll learn how to STOP stressing and obsessing over calories.

When approached correctly, calorie counting can actually make you feel MORE free and relaxed around food.

Yes, I said free. You'll see how.

Don't hesitate to ask me questions on anything I mention here: mail@samforget.com

For more help with this—including personalized, flexible nutritional targets, support when you do feel stressed with the process, and expert guidance on feeling more free around food—apply for coaching here: https://samforget.com/coaching/

Since 2012, I've helped hundreds of people stop stressing and obsessing over calories, and make progress without agonizing over being "perfect"—and I'd love to help you do the same.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome back to another episode of Transformation Talks. I'm your host, Sam Forget. And before we get into today's episode, I do have a favor to ask. If at the end of the episode you feel like you got something out of it, ideally, if you listen to the show in general and do find that it's helpful, it would mean a lot to me if you would take just a moment to leave a five-star review on whatever platform it is that you are listening on. If you have an extra minute and you don't mind leaving a few words as well, that would be tremendously appreciated. It is the best way to get the show in front of more people. So, with that ask out of the way, which I'm generally terrible about doing, let's talk about what this week's topic will be: how to stop stressing and obsessing over calories and calorie counting. And I want to give you a little bit of context for why I chose that for this week. I just had a conversation with a friend who was asking me for help with her nutrition because she recently had a not so great experience with a nutritionist that she had gone to who threw her right into a super aggressive keto diet. Didn't really go over calories that much, didn't go over habit-based stuff. I mean, the list goes on of things they did not go over. It was just straight to avoid pretty much any carb at all costs, including eliminating most of my friends' favorite things. You can imagine how this played out with a very high level of stress, guilt when she inevitably could not stick to this at all times. The yo-yo cycle stuff that I'm sure we're all very familiar with. So when my friend came to me and said, like, all right, what do I, what do I do? How do I approach this? I recommended counting calories instead. Because contrary to popular belief, calorie counting can actually give you freedom. It does not take away from it because the calories count whether you're counting them or not, as cliche as that sounds. So for most, not all, but for most people, I'm a huge fan because if you get in touch with your actual intake, you no longer, excuse me, you no longer need to be excessively restrictive, which is the case for most named diets, whether it is keto, whether it is carnivore, um, whether it is honestly the vast majority of diets that you see people talk about online, or even if you are doing something that is not named, something that is more moderate, say it's like a habit-focused approach, there's still a good chance you will be excessively restrictive because you're ultimately guessing about the thing that drives weight loss, weight maintenance, or weight gain, and that is calories. So, of course, not all people and all situations need to be calorie counting or should be calorie counting. But for many people, it is a phenomenal option that gives you freedom because it takes out the guesswork. Picture trying to manage your finances and not actually being sure how much you're spending. If you wanted to get out of debt, you would just take random stabs at spending less on certain things and hope for the best. And that could work. Or you could take just a couple of minutes to track your spending to know exactly what you have the flexibility to continue spending on. Of course, you have your necessities, but then also you'd be able to spend on some fun stuff as well, guilt-free, because you know with certainty that it still fits into your plan. So that is why I, in many cases, do like calorie counting for people, including my friend. And that's why I recommended it to her. Her response was something I've heard a bazillion times over my last close to 14 years now of coaching. And that was all right, like this sounds okay. I get why you're recommending it. But I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I'm paraphrasing a little. I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I can see myself getting really obsessive with this and getting stressed if I'm not hitting the number perfectly. So what would you say to that? And I obviously walked her through a bunch of strategies to make calorie counting an empowering, freedom-giving tool and not this thing that was just controlling her life and her headspace at any second, excuse me, during any second of the day. And that's exactly what I wanted to share with you now today is the strategies that I went over with her to make sure calorie counting stays a positive, empowering, freedom-giving thing and not something that dominates your headspace. So in front of me, I have eight. I know this sounds like a lot, but bear with me for a second. Eight strategies, eight things to either I say strategies, eight things to keep in mind, or strategies, or action steps that'll help you be less stressed about, less obsessive with calorie counting while still getting a lot out of the tool that is counting. Because typically here, you'll just hear people say, well, just don't track if you get obsessive about it. I think that can be lazy advice. It's almost like when people get stressed about stepping on the scale and people just say, fuck the scale, I'll throw it in the trash. Wait a minute. Sure, that makes sense for some people, but for many other people, with a little bit of education and some guidance, the scale can be a wonderful tool. It's the same thing with counting. So that preamble aside, let's go over the strategies, or I say strategies, just things to keep in mind going into this that I went over with my friend. Starting with you need to know that calorie counting is impossible to do perfectly. So most people who do get stressed about it, get obsessive with it. That's like a byproduct of trying to be perfect with tracking, perfect with hitting your numbers. You could not do that if your life depended on it, because calorie counting is inherently imperfect. Even if you sit at home 24 hours a day with your food scale, prep every last of, excuse me, every last morsel of food yourself, there is a margin of error. In fact, on most nutrition labels, it's allowed, uh, they're allowed to have up to a 20% margin of error. So there's no world where you can do it perfectly anyway. So let's just get that out of your head to start with, to start removing a lot of that pressure that you are placing on yourself to do something that isn't even possible. Little sidebar here this 20% margin of error that I'm mentioning is the case that a lot of people will make for not counting your calories because, well, it's a 20% margin of error. Why even waste your time on it? It wouldn't even be accurate. Here's the thing: it doesn't have to be perfectly accurate. It just has to be accurate enough. And if you're consistently doing it the right way and checking your portions on a food scale, that 20% margin of error, that's in both directions. So things generally even out and you'll be in a good spot. So no, you can't do it perfectly. Sidebar. I wouldn't let this be the reason that you don't track. That's kind of a lame argument, but take that pressure off yourself. Second thing I'd say, uh, well, I guess I already started to touch upon it. So one and two are a bit combined, but know that perfection is not necessary. Anytime we're talking about accurate tracking, I want to add the caveat of accurate enough. So when I talk about, say, tracking a restaurant meal accurately, which I'll go over in a moment because I know that stresses a lot of people out. I don't actually mean tracking it purposely accurately. I just mean accurately enough. It's always implied here, accurately enough to be in the ballpark of where you need to achieve your goals. So, first thing, calorie counting is impossible to do perfectly. So take that pressure off yourself. Number two, perfection isn't even necessary. So there's even more of a weight off your shoulders, knowing that even though you can't be perfect, it does not matter. Just has to be good enough. Third thing I'd say, and this is this is where we get into the practical stuff. Before calorie counting with the objective of losing weight. So, say for this friend that I'm talking about, excuse me, talking about, before she just goes straight into trying to slash her calories to lose weight, I recommended spending at least a couple of weeks figuring out where her actual maintenance calories are. Most people skip this step. They just try to cut their calories right away to lose weight as quickly as possible. But then you're still kind of guessing to a degree, and you might be going lower than you need to compared to, and I'll use concrete numbers here. Let's say she drops to, I don't know, 1200, because that's what a lot of women do. What if her maintenance calories are 1900 and she could lose weight at a decent clip around 1400 calories? That may not seem like a huge difference, but anybody with tracking experience knows an extra 200 calories per day can actually be a great thing that opens up some options for you. So before you slash your calories, spend at least a couple of weeks figuring out where your actual maintenance calories are, how many calories you can eat to maintain your current body weight. Um, there is a chance it is higher than you think. And if not, oh well, you've just confirmed that anyway, and then you can work off of real data instead of guesses. So start by figuring out where that maintenance range is. Um, I mean, there are a bunch of calculators that you can use online that they get you in the ballpark. No, nothing is as effective as having ongoing data, ideally working with a professional to get feedback on the stuff, have them, you know, help you make adjustments, et cetera. But you can go online, get in the ballpark of where you might be, start there, see what your weight does over a couple of weeks, and then make adjustments accordingly. Um, and then once we have that, we can move on to the fourth thing, which is uh minimum effective dose for your calorie deficit. And all that means is we are only going to drop your, once we've found your maintenance range, we're only going to drop things as minimally as possible to achieve your weight loss goals at a decent clip. The reason I say this is a lot of the stress that you know people feel while trying to count calories and you know, they find themselves getting obsessive about it, a lot of that is a byproduct of doing a more aggressive diet than you need to and really kind of giving yourself some shackles nutritionally. So, you know, we found your maintenance, then we look at, you know, how minimally can we drop from here to still be making progress at a good clip? Because the more food on your plate, the better. That is always the objective. It is not how can I eat as little as possible. It is how can I keep as much food on my plate as possible while still making progress. And yet again, you may find that it's a bit higher than you initially thought, which can be an additional weight off your shoulders. So just to say organized, just to recap so far, calorie counting. It's not possible to do perfectly. So already get that out of your head. It's not a thing. Second thing I'd say, it doesn't need to be perfect. It's completely okay that there's a margin of error. It just has to be good enough. There's another weight off your shoulders. Number three, take a few weeks to figure out what your actual maintenance calories are so that when you move on to the fourth thing I'd say, which is dropping your calories as many as uh, excuse me, as minimally as possible, you're working off of hard data. You're working off of real stuff instead of just hunches and guesses and potentially excessive restriction that heightens stress obsession. Next thing I'd say, number five, use ranges, not specific numbers. So I know so far that I I've just talked about calories and not macros as well. But for a lot of people, you know, it's synonymous. It goes hand in hand. When people say, oh, I get really obsessive, I get really stressed, it's also in reference to having, say, a protein, carb, and fat goal on a daily basis. I will tell you right now that for most of the people I work with, I just have them set up with a calorie range, a protein range, and a fiber range. Why ranges and why those three targets? Ranges to alleviate even more pressure to hit like these very specific numbers. So maybe instead of 1500 calories per day, we set you at 14 to 1600. The days where you're not as hungry, where you have a pretty chill day at home, maybe you hang out on the lower end 1,400. Days where you're a little bit hungry, maybe you have something out, you end up at the upper end 1600. If we had put you at 1500 per day and that is your target, even 1550 can feel like I went over my calories. I'm off track in some way. Damn it, I failed, all the guilt that comes with that. So we just open things up a little bit to a range. Now, obviously, we'd want to put the range low enough where you're still losing weight, but yet again, a weight off your shoulders. Uh, and it would be the same thing for protein and fiber. The bottom end of your ranges would be the non-negotiable minimums for things like hunger management, muscle retention, metabolism, digestive health, energy, et cetera. The upper end of those ranges would be like what's optimal, what's even better for your goals? Carbs and fats can fluctuate without impacting body composition progress, without impacting, I should say, weight loss progress in any meaningful way. So there's another thing that you can do is just let those two fluctuate based on your personal preferences, what you have going on each day. You know, the protein and fiber alone act as a really good food quality insurance policy. You're not gonna have like super skewed, not so great carbon fat totals once you have hit your protein and fiber, because you're only gonna have so many calories left over to be excessively flexible. So uh huge fan of that using ranges, and then I would say those three targets specifically calories, protein, and fiber. And I didn't have this in my notes, but I'm thinking of it now. One other thing I'd say is also look at your weekly averages over normal, inevitable daily fluctuations. So, like it's inevitable when I'm looking over my client's data for the week that I see random days where they had, I don't know, 46 grams of protein, or maybe they went 400 over their calories, you know, a bit under fiber, whatever the case is. I don't care that much. Now, obviously, if I'm seeing huge ebbs and flows in their day-to-day, yeah, that matters. We got to tighten things up. But my eyes, I I have a data sheet where I track everything with my clients. My eyes instantly go down to the bottom of that sheet where I'm looking at their averages for the week. Are their averages in a good place? You know, the to their averages support their goals? If so, great. We don't need to be perfect. We just need to have the overall averages and trends in a good place. So use ranges and then keep an eye, even then, on your averages, because even within those ranges, you're gonna end up above and below, at least sometimes. Next thing I'd say, just a few last things here, quick episode today. Learn how to estimate at restaurants accurately enough. Now, obviously, you already heard me say this a few times now. I'm not saying you have to be able to track restaurant meals perfectly. Just learn how to track them accurately enough, which isn't actually that hard to do. You just need to do two things when you're out. Number one, include absolutely everything you have. So even a sip of wine that somebody else is having that they they let you try, even a few bites of whatever the appetizer is, you split a dessert, you know, the things that people typically leave out include absolutely everything. It's how do I log that? Same way you log anything else. You look it up, you hit enter, that's it, and you you would drop the portion down to a degree. The second thing is you overestimate what you think the calories are. Spoiler, most slices of cake aren't 500 calories, they're 800 to 1,000 if you have a full slice, even more than that at times. So I know it can sting at times, but just round up. That is all you have to do. I would say out of everything I've gone over so far, this is toward the top of the list of the things that stress people out the most when they're calorie counting, to the point where they may even avoid nights out social situations, going to friends' houses because what if I can't track it accurately? Let's go back to the first thing I said in this episode. You couldn't do that even perfectly, even if you stayed at home. So don't stop living your life just because you're calorie counting. You still go out, and all you have to do is include everything you have and round up to the point where it feels like overkill. Do that, that's good enough. You do not need to stress or obsess beyond that. Second and last thing for today, and I guess this is like a few strategies in one, but you'll get the general idea. Proactively take single day tracking breaks, extended tracking breaks that's scattered throughout your diet, where it's like seven to ten days where you're focusing on you know other things, whether it's just a break from tracking the numbers. So you could switch from something like my fitness pal or chronometer to just jotting down the choices. Okay, for breakfast, I had this. No numbers whatsoever. It could be a full-on break from tracking, but we want to make sure that we don't have this like 400-day streak of counting your calories because that creates so much buildup and intensity and can make things stressful. So we proactively and periodically break the streak and focus on other things so you don't get so tunnel visioned on calories and numbers. So you can take single days off from tracking, you know, perhaps on a special occasion. You can do a more extended uh diet breakslash tracking break, seven to 10, maybe even up to 14 days. And then even longer-term maintenance phases where you come up to your maintenance calories. There are a variety of ways we can do this. Uh, you may find that continuing to plan and track like you typically do, but just coming up to your maintenance calories, that alone can be a big weight off your shoulders, give you a little bit of a breather, or you can utilize the strategies that I just started to touch upon. Uh, you know, just writing down your choices, assessing things from a food quality perspective. Uh, you could literally be doing photos of your meals. There's so many other things that we can look at, so many other things that we can monitor and prioritize that will get you what you're after at maintenance specifically, that aren't diligently tracking absolutely everything. So making sure that we are proactively taking diet breaks, taking track at break, tracking breaks, developing other skills, having other focal points. So it's not, you've been in my fitness pal 400 days in a row. Obviously, we'll feel a bit reliant on it at that point. And the last thing I'll say today, the last thing that I mentioned to my friend is let's make sure we have an exit strategy in place. You know, calorie counting does not have to be a for everything. I would actually say for most people, I am a fan of generally not tracking, at least super precisely. Um, there's so many ways to go about it long term, but at least in the, I would say moderate term, make sure you have a plan in place for, okay, I'm going to calorie count. I'm going to use a lot of the strategies that Sam just went over to take the weight off my shoulders, put less pressure on myself, you know, go about this in a reasonably flexible way. But at the conclusion of that, once I reach my weight loss goals, I could do something like, and I'll just give one example of an exit strategy. I'm going to semi-gradually bring my calories up to maintenance. I am not a fan of a super drawn-out reverse diet. The benefits of that are dramatically overblown or just not even there in some cases. Um, so it could just be over the course of a couple of weeks. We take some moderate jumps, get you back up to maintenance basically as soon as possible. We hang out there. That alone can be a weight off your shoulders because you got more calories to work with. And then we gradually wean off the level of precision that you're tracking with. Get you more comfortable without your food scale, get you more comfortable with uh, excuse me, without the numbers, and get you to the point where if I said delete my fitness palette, delete uh delete chronometer, no numbers for a month, it doesn't feel like, oh shit, which is obviously the thing that we want to avoid with all this is feeling reliant on it. Obviously, a lot of people, most people do better, at least periodically being in touch with the numbers. You know, that's why I track, I'd say, for most of the year, not always super precisely, but I like to stay in the ballpark. But um, make sure, again, at least in the moderate term, you have an exit strategy from a temporarily more precise period of tracking that leads to faster weight loss results. But then after that, you don't have to be married to it. There is a way to wean off of it. Um, and I actually have uh my one-on-one coaching program has three phases. The first phase is the primer period, it sets people up for a very successful diet. And that's where we'd actually solidify your maintenance calories, going back to the beginning of the episode. We have the progress period, that is the middle chunk where the the main portion of dieting happens. That's also where we periodically work in the diet breaks, the tracking breaks that I was talking about. So we are proactive, uh, make sure you don't feel stressed about it, make sure you don't feel obsessive, reliant, et cetera. And then this third phase that I just mentioned, uh, the practice period, where we practice maintaining your results with purposefully less precision. Um, if that is something that you want to learn a bit more about, if you want to have a conversation with me about what that could look like applied to your specific journey for your goals, um you can either email me, mail at samforger.com, or head to the show notes. I'll include the link to my coaching page as well, because obviously everything I discussed today, you know, these were general, you know, focal points and strategies, but they may look a little different applied to your specific situation. There's always a very high level of personalization there. Now, before I let you off the hook today, last thing I wanted to do is briefly recap the things that I went over. So everything is top of mind. And know that in general, you can email me anytime. I love getting feedback. I love answering questions. You know, whether coaching is a fit for you right now or not, my my inbox is always open. And again, it is mail at samforge.com. Let's recap the things I went over real quick. First, perfectly accurate try that again in English. Wow. Perfectly accurate calorie counting is impossible anyway. So stop putting that pressure on yourself. It wouldn't happen even if you stayed at home and lived like a hermit. So don't put pressure on yourself to achieve something that isn't even achievable. Second thing, that doesn't matter that you can't track perfectly accurately. The goal is just tracking accurately enough. So you do not need to agonize over this stuff. Number three, spend a little bit of time figuring out your maintenance before you cut your calories. So you're operating from a place of hard data and knowledge and you're not guessing. Maybe you can keep your calories higher than you think you can, which is great. There's an additional weight off your shoulders. Number four, minimum effective dose for your deficit. How little can we drop your calories to achieve the result that you're after? The goal is always keeping as much food on your plate as possible, not eating as little as possible. Fifth thing, uh ranges, not specific numbers. Most of my clients, calorie, protein, fiber range, let carbs and fats fluctuate. Most people, at least with weight loss goals, do not need to worry about exactly where those things are landing. And then the little thing that I added to the end of number five was focus more on your averages than the inevitable daily fluctuations. I care about those a lot more. They're far more impactful to your goals than random anomalies, excuse me. Number six, learn how to track accurately enough at a restaurant. Just comes down to two things. Include absolutely everything you have, even the little stuff, even the splurges, the liquids, things people are tempted to leave out, and then round up on your estimates. Whatever you think the calories are, it's pretty much always going to be more. You just do that. You don't need to stress anything else. There's literally nothing else to be done besides those two things. So you do not need to, you know, agonize over it. You do not need to avoid restaurants, going to a family member or a friend's house. I actually just had that conversation recently with another friend who's on a dieting protocol. And she was hesitant to go to her grandmother's house because she knew that she wouldn't be able to track that meal perfectly accurately. That's fine. You don't need to. Just plug in everything you're having, round up. Good enough. That's all we need. Number seven, um, proactively take diet breaks. So when I say diet break, I mean a break from being in a deficit specifically. Diet breaks and calorie counting breaks. You can track in other ways, you can monitor other things, you can focus on other stuff. We want to proactively break the streak of precise tracking so you don't feel reliant on it. So whether that's via single days off from your usual calorie counting protocol, whether it's a more extended diet break of say seven to 10 days most of the time, whether it's a longer-term maintenance phase, if you have loftier weight loss goals, this can make sense where you do, I don't know, two to three months of dieting, and then maybe you take at least a month off where you are focusing on other things. I know that sounds terrifying to a lot of people who just want to go pedal to the metal, um, but ironically enough, never taking breathers almost always sets people up to yo-yo and go even slower. So it's a bit of a sidebar. And last thing, have an exit strategy. Know that when you are temporarily tracking more precisely, like I recommended from my friend, that's not a forever thing. There's a light at the end of the tunnel where you can wean off and get more flexible in a structured, progressive way. So when you utilize, I know all these weren't strategies, some of these were just like things to keep in mind. But when you utilize these strategies, I promise you, calorie counting will become far less stressful, not something that you feel obsessed over. We will keep it exactly what it is, which is just an awareness tool that can actually give you freedom and flexibility instead of following most other diets that you're basically just guessing and oftentimes being excessively restrictive, because you got to pull some levers and you don't have that many options when you are guessing. Yes, there are other ways to go about this in a sensible way that aren't calorie counting, but the vast majority of what I see, not so great. And I'll cover those other methods in another episode. Uh, like I said, if you have any questions on how to apply the things I went over to your specific situation, if you want to talk more about coaching, mail at sam4j.com. And if you just have questions on anything I went over, if you have feedback, I would love to hear for you. I'll spare you saying my email for the 400th time. You have it at this point. Um, I do hope you found this helpful. Uh, and like I also said at the very beginning of the episode, if you did find it helpful, it would mean a lot to me if you would just take a moment to leave a review on Apple, Spotify, wherever you listen.