Why Saving Up Calories Doesn't work

Saving up calories is a restrictive strategy to push past hunger in order to eat less. It's about believing that you must put off eating as long as you can tolerate it. 

Saving up calories as a strategy comes from a belief that you can't eat an amount that feels satisfying and still lose weight. If you believe that, then you can see it would make sense that you have to override normal hunger cues and allow overt hunger in order to lose weight. In this way, a practice of saving up calories allow generates feelings of chronic restriction, an uneasy relationship with physical hunger, and an over-desire for food you think you can't have if you want to lose weight.

 Saving up calories also has a delayed response of deservingness and permissiveness to overeat later because you've 'been so good' by saving up calories and not eating on the front end of your day.

Paradoxically, chronically saving up calories can create physiological adaptions in the body to a food environment that is unpredictable that can work against your weight loss.
 
The best thing you can do is to create an environment of food safety and predictability if you are someone who has chronically practiced saving up calories or delaying eating by ignoring hunger.

Since every body is different is different gather data to see if saving up calories actually works for you to get you the long and short-term results you are looking for. Also gut check the practice - does it feel compassionate and helpful or disconnected and harsh?

Questions, comments, ah-has, or takeaways from this episode? Keep the conversation going on Instagram by commenting on the Episode 31 reel.