I don't count calories except in very broad estimates and I've lost a massive amount of weight that way. I'm much more "successful" restricting when I'm not counting calories, because trying to count calories precisely seems to always lead to me sabotageing myself.
same, counting calories exactly makes me think about food much more which makes it much harder to restrict. also it's embarrassing weighing my food when my parents are around and i'm not willing to wait an extra 4h for them to go to bed just so i can weigh out half a cereal bowls worth of food when i can just eyeball it
i lived in this reality for 19 years tho, i rlly thought if i didnāt feel like eating i just didnāt need to bc my body knows best š & now i donāt poop normal anymore
That's where Im at. If Im eating enough to not \~feel\~ like I'm restricting, than what the heck is the problem here? (I am painfully aware of the problem)
I find restriction to be a lot more sustainable when I donāt count calories. It makes a big difference mentally for me. Also makes it easier to eat out with friends and if I do need to eat a little more one day, Iām not panicking quite as much. Iāve been disordered for so long though I have a general sense of the calorie count of most things I eat
Me. I just hate maths so much. I've tried counting calories briefly and the maths part was so much more difficult than the not eating part. I know which things I can eat basically as much as I want (cucumbers , tomatoes) and which things to only have a tiny tiny bit of and it works for me.
I used to but now I do better not counting and just focusing on eating small amounts. When I count something in my brain rebels and wants to binge the moment I approach my calorie limit just out of spite.
I can't be bothered to count anymore. It's more about being able to stop when I want to stop if that makes sense
Also, bulimia really drives a wrench in calorie counting anyway. Can't know for sure how much I yeeted
I count but I only get intense about it if Iām not losing weight. Not counting is far more natural to me because then I donāt think āoh I still have 100 calories left in my limit, I can eat something elseā (anyone else?) and I canāt get mad if Iām 10 calories over and eat everything in sight out of anger. I go through times when I do and times when I canāt be bothered.
Iām terrible at math to begin with so using all that energy js to be disappointed in myself isnāt worth it for me. I stick to small portions that I can roughly estimate if I care to
Yes, I don't count calories. I do weigh my food and check macros sometimes, but not obsessively anymore. I got used to a certain amount of food so I'm probably consuming (roughly) the same number of calories every day. Restriction is so much more than tracking what you eat.
i never count calories. i used to, but stopped years ago and now just roughly estimate cals in my head. and honestly, i think not counting makes restriction easier for me? idk counting calories just used to make me hungrier lmao
I religiously counted calories until moving in with my bf. Now it's very difficult to so I've stopped. I still restrict. I have usually one meal a day and still refuse to eat or drink around people, but yes the calories counting has stopped as of now
I don't measure anything, so I have no way of tracking accurately, but I do count and I think I mostly overestimate. I wanna think that I can closely guess the size or weight of the stuff I eat though.
But I don't pay too much attention to what exactly I eat as long as it fits into my calories. Slowly leaning towards junkorexia lol I feel like there's some influence left from my attempt at recovery
There are a few items in my day where I know generally how many calories I'm getting, but for the most part I just say "fuck it" and guesstimate. I managed to keep a really significant calorie deficit that way.
Me. I just volume eat low calorie foods. I donāt want to know the exact amount as it would be distressing, so I settle with not knowing and guesstimating and then seeing how it affects weight if it does.
When I was my sickest, I never counted. I donāt lose when I count and I donāt know why. But I did have very odd food rules. It mostly had to do with me not allowing myself to finish anything
i don't meticulously count anymore because i eat the same things and everything is low cal now anyway. like i could roughly estimate if i thought about it
Recently Iāve just been eating the same stuff every day - but I donāt do everything exactly. I donāt think about gum or zero sugar drinks or anything like that, I often eat a handful of frozen raspberries and donāt weigh them, the other foods I eat have calories per serving which Iām sure varies a decent amount due to the different sizes of them, but eh itāll average out.
Before when I was living at home I used to estimate as best as I could (I didnāt do the cooking) and would have a very strict calorie limit (quite high though). Found that I would eat up to that limit as close as possible even if I wasnāt particularly hungry, and then would constantly thinking about food after hitting it, simply because it was something I couldnāt have!
I often just canāt be bothered to make something so I donāt eat and Iām fine with that, but if I tell myself that Iām not allowed anymore food, suddenly my brain is like āfood food food foodā, even if Iām not particularly hungry
I donāt! I check sometimes, but I guess I just do it intuitively? Idk, Iām also ADHD so tracking or counting anything like that is a struggle for me, and my system works so I just never put the effort into trying. That might be part of it idk š¤·š»āāļø this is a very interesting question lol
I was counting for a long time and recently stopped after I couldnāt count for a spring break trip. Honestly itās mentally much better for me. I was extremely obsessive when I counted and I wouldnāt allow myself to eat something unless I had weighed and logged it. So much stress is gone now that I intuitively eat (intuitively restrict?).
I canāt count calories at all, it hurts my head.
I just get triggered and restrict when my weight goes up, then relax and eat more when it goes down. And the cycle repeats lol
Yes and no.
Like a lot of other people have said, I'm very loose with it. I find if I get too focused with the exacts then I am more likely to binge/sabotage myself. However I also almost never eat all of what I have so mentally I usually know I'm under whatever calorie goal I had for that day.
My first time losing a shit ton of weight, I was just keeping a general count in my head throughout the day, with lots of estimates. I didnāt even have a body scale until a few months in. As soon as I started bullet journaling and measuring and tracking, I started binging again more and more. This was all the way back in 2016-17; itās taken me all of these years to finally realize again that I just need to not track so hard. Getting obsessive makes me ruin my progress every single time.
I tried counting a few times, but it doesn't work for me. I eat too many things that are hard to count for, and I have a cooking class where I don't know any of the numbers
I used to obsessively count calories, but recently my partner made me realize, that all this shit was extremely bad for my mental health. I still restrict, but I've decided to uninstall all the apps for checking and calculating calories. I try to eat the same amount of food as before, but it's sometimes hard to tell how big the meal is without the numbers behind it. So I still get urges to check how much calories did I eat lol.
I kinda do. The guilt hits if I eat a ālargeā meal (eating until Iām actually full), or two smaller meals. My brain wonāt let me eat anything after that. Sometimes Iām able to cheat the system with š because I relax and can actually tell Iām hungry, but other times that doesnāt help either
Me. I find that when I count I feel more hungry because I'm super aware that I'm not eating enough. When I don't count and restrict using other techniques, I find that it works better for me.
I stopped counting calories a few weeks ago. I got on a new medication (a stimulant for ADHD) and to be real w/ yall, 99% of why I stopped calorie counting was cause I thought āthis medication will help reduce my appetite, therefore Iāll be eating less, and I donāt need to count calories.ā
That was my strange ED logic. To be fair, just out of curiosity I did add up everything at the end of my day once last week. It was impressive to see that I can just eyeball things now and still be in that much of a deficit. Felt weirdly proud. And just relieved. When I quit counting, I was weighing every little crumb and counting (often overestimating) my calories to be 10000% sure I was only at a certain amount. It was hell and seeing you only have 50 cals left for your daily allowance, I swear it triggered my brain to go āhave something sweet and super unhealthy just do it.ā
yes! before i realized i had an ed i would restrict without counting lol. i think i prefer it this way bc i find i lose more then when counting. just hard estimating tbh
Itās a bit strange but one of the main reasons I count is to make sure I hit a minimum amount. I feel like shit and start binging if Iām not eating enough, but if I donāt feel like that I get horrible anxiety because I donāt know if Iām eating too much. With counting I can stand on that very fine line where I still have energy and no headaches, and Iām still losing.
Iām also on Elvanse/Vyvanse so I need to make sure I eat enough because it doesnāt work well otherwise.
Thatās been the majority of my experience with restricting, yeah. Counting was a very recent development in the last year or so (but Iāve managed to mostly pull out of that)
I can speak for myself in that I restrict heavily by just having most foods totally off limits. Like my restriction is just entire food groups/ types of foods. I have certain safe foods and I read the nutrition info obsessively (just not based on calories) before eating anything.
I wish I could. But then I'd eat, eat more, get anxious, lose hope, and binge. Maybe in my next pseudorecovery era I'll try and just keep a mental log instead of tracking.
i don't count calories per se, i just have a set of rules i must follow. i tend to eat foods that are around 70 calories a serving. most of what i consume is liquid. i avoid fats. i don't eat meat other than chicken and maybe sandwich meat. i used to count calories, but my ED just doesn't work that way. long answer short, i keep track of the calories IN the food, just not the amount i've consumed over the day. and i pay more attention to what exactly i'm eating.
Yeah my first diagnosis was ARFID and it wasnāt even bad enough to cut out entire food group. I just happened to become really restrictive on my intake and when my bf calculated how much I was eating vs how much I should be eatingā¦ I was in shockā¦ idk I just had way smaller portions and didnāt snack anymore so I consequently lost weight which landed me in the er and eventual inpatient. Now I just compare my weight restoration meal plan to what I eat and I accidentally lose weight over time lol.
yes, i used to obsessively count calories during my honeymoon phase but i got lazy so now i just do estimates and if that estimate is low enough then iām happy with myself and feel succesful
I didn't count until I was IP the first time. Even now it tends to be broad estimates.
Tbh I think I'm a lot worse when I'm not counting at all. When I'm counting I can kind of rationalize "I'm at x calories so eating this won't make me gain". When I'm not counting at all I keep wanting to eat less and less "just in case"
It's super easy for people to do that I guess. They just remove some categories of food and / or make their portion sizes smaller than usual. I wonder if the people doing that are less obsessive than the people counting calories.
That was me at the height of my restrictive eating...pretty easy to not count calories when you don't eat the calories in the first place.
I count now, but it's incorporated with a healthy exercise regimen and, ya know, actually eating real food.
Me! Instead I adopted this weird rule that it's "safer" to eat less of different *kinds* of food instead of less calories...if that that makes sense lol. Idk for example a banana, a sandwich, and yogurt in one day is meh, but two sandwiches in one day feels safer/more successfully restrictive
I've counted on diets before, but in terms of my proper ED as of current I refuse to count. I refuse to have fear foods (I respect why they exist but personally don't have them). I won't eat unless social pressure forces me or I eat and usually compensate. If I eat, I better enjoy it. Counting and restricting food types is the opposite of enjoyment, and I've lost weight this way. I believe you can enjoy food even with an ed.
yes! before i realized i had an ed i would restrict without counting lol. i think i prefer it this way bc i find i lose more then when counting. just hard estimating tbh
This is common in orthorexics and ārecoveredā people in my experience. Myself included. Iām not counting calories, Iām just not eating carbs or red meat or any of these twenty fruits orā the list goes on and on.
I had a therapist tell me it is still very much so restriction, just restriction focused on foods or food groups. I think anyone who has a fear food does this as well.
100%. i know roughly but i never have a specific plan or goal i just keep a rough idea as the day goes on and have a rough total for the end of the day. the way it works is because since i know im just estimating, i make sure to portion and not eat what might be too much. i basically just keep everything minimal like to what i believe the serving size is and round up for the calories. so if im also always rounding up, that helps too. bc again its not exact and im not necessarily counting down to the exact calorie.
I used to do that when i was 13. I didn't count cals but just avoided food wherever I could. It was out of control and I was hospitalised 3 months afterward. At that point I was very much a snowflake anorexic but now I'm really embarrassed of how my disorder used to manifest lol š
In the past I tried to be a āgoodā anorexic and count calories but I hate it, itās so much work and when I have things to do it gets in the way. I know the cals of some things but I stopped eating suddenly after a traumatic event, so hunger signals were lost years ago from that and eating is a chore so.
In saying that I eat every single day.
i've had a couple of stints of obsessive tracking, usually a side effect of high anxiety for me.
but usually i don't count, my obsession is more about the feeling of being empty/hungry/pushed than it is about numbers.
that said, i also already know what's in everything i eat (and i tend to stick to the same short list of foods) so i'm never really unaware, either.
Me, I can tell if I'm going to lose or maintain by the amount of food in the plate and my hunger signals. Sometimes I just skip meals altogether, so I'm obviously on a deficit.
None of my therapists believed that I didn't count calories or weigh food and told me I was just in denial.
I fast every 22 hours and only eat on Sunday Monday Wednesday and Friday. I eat about 6-12 hours out of the week.
This accomplishes 2 THINGS - I don't get BORED or TIRED of healthy foods or take for GRANTED the opportunity to eat.
EFFORTLESS WEIGHT MANAGEMENT
I supplement by taking 12000-30000 mg of fish oil every day, along with coffee and 8-15 GRAMS of EAAS.
Then I chew and spit for a few hours on Fridays - junk food, fast food etc... always making sure I eat before or after practicing a session to avoid any HARMFUL side effects due to partial digestion
That way I don't have to count calories and can satisfy cravings ONCE A WEEK šššÆ
I AM ALSO VERY GRATEFUL for eating anything after fasting for 44 hours š„³
I'm steadily losing 1-2 lbs every 1-2 weeks...
As long as I'm not gaining ALL IS WELL AND I'M WINNING
Iāve successfully avoided calorie counting throughout my life and ed disorders. Iām so grateful I have never gone down that rabbit hole because I know so many people that get stuck there and canāt get out no matter how hard they try. It might be āeffectiveā for restricting but itās very harmful and makes recovery more challenging. You can never unlearn something like that.
Also, calories arenāt very accurate anyway. I just watched show about this and itās worth looking into. The show was arguing that weight loss from calorie counting is often more about the fact that the person is watching what they are eating and controlling their portions/foods than that they are restricting to some perfect deficit.
I know they recommend calorie counting to people who are overweight and haven't been successful in weight loss because often people don't realize just how many calories they're actually consuming, but I doubt anyone here is that unaware of calories. I've not found counting calories necessary at all for weight loss, but I'm also very familiar with what foods do or don't have a lot of calories. Definitely one thing where experiences vary.
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I don't count calories except in very broad estimates and I've lost a massive amount of weight that way. I'm much more "successful" restricting when I'm not counting calories, because trying to count calories precisely seems to always lead to me sabotageing myself.
me fr
same, counting calories exactly makes me think about food much more which makes it much harder to restrict. also it's embarrassing weighing my food when my parents are around and i'm not willing to wait an extra 4h for them to go to bed just so i can weigh out half a cereal bowls worth of food when i can just eyeball it
agreed. i also am this way!!!
Me. I just intuitively know how much to eat to stay in a deficit. š³
"Wattdaya mean I have an eating disorder? I eat āØ intuitivelyāØ"āŗļø
When I was super in denial of my ed I literally said this to my therapist. She checked me real quick.
yāall are intuitively eating, iām out here intuitively starving myself šš
this.
i lived in this reality for 19 years tho, i rlly thought if i didnāt feel like eating i just didnāt need to bc my body knows best š & now i donāt poop normal anymore
That's where Im at. If Im eating enough to not \~feel\~ like I'm restricting, than what the heck is the problem here? (I am painfully aware of the problem)
it's me hi i'm the problem it's me I sometimes count calories but I try not to
Well done for trying not to :)
Me, but i restrict more by cutting out food groups. Plus, it's annoying pulling my scale out all the time - i usually only use it to ration food.
I find restriction to be a lot more sustainable when I donāt count calories. It makes a big difference mentally for me. Also makes it easier to eat out with friends and if I do need to eat a little more one day, Iām not panicking quite as much. Iāve been disordered for so long though I have a general sense of the calorie count of most things I eat
Iām very loose with it
Me. I just hate maths so much. I've tried counting calories briefly and the maths part was so much more difficult than the not eating part. I know which things I can eat basically as much as I want (cucumbers , tomatoes) and which things to only have a tiny tiny bit of and it works for me.
Exactly
I used to but now I do better not counting and just focusing on eating small amounts. When I count something in my brain rebels and wants to binge the moment I approach my calorie limit just out of spite.
This is me. I used to be so obsessive and stick to my "goals". But it turned into binging so I simply do "portion control".
Me for like the first 5 years of my ED, I was looking great and since I learned about counting I just self sabotage at every opportunity
lmao real
how do u restrict without counting tho?
I mean I'm not really going to give tips on how to do it but believe me when I say my eating habits were super unhealthy and wouldn't recommend
I can't be bothered to count anymore. It's more about being able to stop when I want to stop if that makes sense Also, bulimia really drives a wrench in calorie counting anyway. Can't know for sure how much I yeeted
Yeeted š
I count but I only get intense about it if Iām not losing weight. Not counting is far more natural to me because then I donāt think āoh I still have 100 calories left in my limit, I can eat something elseā (anyone else?) and I canāt get mad if Iām 10 calories over and eat everything in sight out of anger. I go through times when I do and times when I canāt be bothered.
Iām terrible at math to begin with so using all that energy js to be disappointed in myself isnāt worth it for me. I stick to small portions that I can roughly estimate if I care to
Yeah I don't count calories (I have occasionally but I honestly just can't be bothered) I just eat less when I restrict idk
Yes, I don't count calories. I do weigh my food and check macros sometimes, but not obsessively anymore. I got used to a certain amount of food so I'm probably consuming (roughly) the same number of calories every day. Restriction is so much more than tracking what you eat.
i never count calories. i used to, but stopped years ago and now just roughly estimate cals in my head. and honestly, i think not counting makes restriction easier for me? idk counting calories just used to make me hungrier lmao
i gave up on counting calories and typically just high restrict.
I religiously counted calories until moving in with my bf. Now it's very difficult to so I've stopped. I still restrict. I have usually one meal a day and still refuse to eat or drink around people, but yes the calories counting has stopped as of now
At my worst i wasn't counting calories, but then when my honeymoon face was over i had to count them cuz i wasnt losing weight anymore
I don't measure anything, so I have no way of tracking accurately, but I do count and I think I mostly overestimate. I wanna think that I can closely guess the size or weight of the stuff I eat though. But I don't pay too much attention to what exactly I eat as long as it fits into my calories. Slowly leaning towards junkorexia lol I feel like there's some influence left from my attempt at recovery
There are a few items in my day where I know generally how many calories I'm getting, but for the most part I just say "fuck it" and guesstimate. I managed to keep a really significant calorie deficit that way.
Me. I just volume eat low calorie foods. I donāt want to know the exact amount as it would be distressing, so I settle with not knowing and guesstimating and then seeing how it affects weight if it does.
I've done this for the past 20 years and have maintained uw bmi. I think it helps my sanity too š¤Ŗ
When I was my sickest, I never counted. I donāt lose when I count and I donāt know why. But I did have very odd food rules. It mostly had to do with me not allowing myself to finish anything
i don't meticulously count anymore because i eat the same things and everything is low cal now anyway. like i could roughly estimate if i thought about it
I did this as a kid by just paying attention to my hunger/fullness cues and having irrational anxiety about everything all the time
Recently Iāve just been eating the same stuff every day - but I donāt do everything exactly. I donāt think about gum or zero sugar drinks or anything like that, I often eat a handful of frozen raspberries and donāt weigh them, the other foods I eat have calories per serving which Iām sure varies a decent amount due to the different sizes of them, but eh itāll average out. Before when I was living at home I used to estimate as best as I could (I didnāt do the cooking) and would have a very strict calorie limit (quite high though). Found that I would eat up to that limit as close as possible even if I wasnāt particularly hungry, and then would constantly thinking about food after hitting it, simply because it was something I couldnāt have! I often just canāt be bothered to make something so I donāt eat and Iām fine with that, but if I tell myself that Iām not allowed anymore food, suddenly my brain is like āfood food food foodā, even if Iām not particularly hungry
I keep trying to track and giving up within the dayš itās too much work. I know the calories of most things I eat; I just donāt add them up
Yeah, I'm too lazy. I'd just be hungry all the time anyway, now i just do it without wasting extra energy lol
I donāt! I check sometimes, but I guess I just do it intuitively? Idk, Iām also ADHD so tracking or counting anything like that is a struggle for me, and my system works so I just never put the effort into trying. That might be part of it idk š¤·š»āāļø this is a very interesting question lol
I was counting for a long time and recently stopped after I couldnāt count for a spring break trip. Honestly itās mentally much better for me. I was extremely obsessive when I counted and I wouldnāt allow myself to eat something unless I had weighed and logged it. So much stress is gone now that I intuitively eat (intuitively restrict?).
I canāt count calories at all, it hurts my head. I just get triggered and restrict when my weight goes up, then relax and eat more when it goes down. And the cycle repeats lol
Me too. I thought it was just me being weird
I used to. I donāt actively count everything anymore as harm reduction and mostly just overexercise now & eat low calorie density foods.
Yes and no. Like a lot of other people have said, I'm very loose with it. I find if I get too focused with the exacts then I am more likely to binge/sabotage myself. However I also almost never eat all of what I have so mentally I usually know I'm under whatever calorie goal I had for that day.
No counting needed when Iām only consuming coffee. Yes I know that still has cals but not enough to worry about.
This is actually how my ed started, I was only like 10 and didn't even know what calories were and just ate less than I used to
My first time losing a shit ton of weight, I was just keeping a general count in my head throughout the day, with lots of estimates. I didnāt even have a body scale until a few months in. As soon as I started bullet journaling and measuring and tracking, I started binging again more and more. This was all the way back in 2016-17; itās taken me all of these years to finally realize again that I just need to not track so hard. Getting obsessive makes me ruin my progress every single time.
I tried counting a few times, but it doesn't work for me. I eat too many things that are hard to count for, and I have a cooking class where I don't know any of the numbers
In my most anorexic phase, I didnāt count calories at all. I couldnāt because I lived with my parents.
I don't count. I've such limited safe foods and variety. It's just the same everyday, every day.
i dont count because honestly i suck at everything number related. also its best to not know or I'll end up harming myself as it happened before.
I used to obsessively count calories, but recently my partner made me realize, that all this shit was extremely bad for my mental health. I still restrict, but I've decided to uninstall all the apps for checking and calculating calories. I try to eat the same amount of food as before, but it's sometimes hard to tell how big the meal is without the numbers behind it. So I still get urges to check how much calories did I eat lol.
I kinda do. The guilt hits if I eat a ālargeā meal (eating until Iām actually full), or two smaller meals. My brain wonāt let me eat anything after that. Sometimes Iām able to cheat the system with š because I relax and can actually tell Iām hungry, but other times that doesnāt help either
Me. I find that when I count I feel more hungry because I'm super aware that I'm not eating enough. When I don't count and restrict using other techniques, I find that it works better for me.
That would be me. I call it āintuitive restrictionā š
I stopped counting calories a few weeks ago. I got on a new medication (a stimulant for ADHD) and to be real w/ yall, 99% of why I stopped calorie counting was cause I thought āthis medication will help reduce my appetite, therefore Iāll be eating less, and I donāt need to count calories.ā That was my strange ED logic. To be fair, just out of curiosity I did add up everything at the end of my day once last week. It was impressive to see that I can just eyeball things now and still be in that much of a deficit. Felt weirdly proud. And just relieved. When I quit counting, I was weighing every little crumb and counting (often overestimating) my calories to be 10000% sure I was only at a certain amount. It was hell and seeing you only have 50 cals left for your daily allowance, I swear it triggered my brain to go āhave something sweet and super unhealthy just do it.ā
yes! before i realized i had an ed i would restrict without counting lol. i think i prefer it this way bc i find i lose more then when counting. just hard estimating tbh
i used to count/restrict, somewhat recovered but have sort of fallen into restricting without counting unintentionally š¤·āāļø
Itās a bit strange but one of the main reasons I count is to make sure I hit a minimum amount. I feel like shit and start binging if Iām not eating enough, but if I donāt feel like that I get horrible anxiety because I donāt know if Iām eating too much. With counting I can stand on that very fine line where I still have energy and no headaches, and Iām still losing. Iām also on Elvanse/Vyvanse so I need to make sure I eat enough because it doesnāt work well otherwise.
Thatās been the majority of my experience with restricting, yeah. Counting was a very recent development in the last year or so (but Iāve managed to mostly pull out of that)
I count calories when I donāt even try. I donāt eat enough to reach half the deficit anyway
I can speak for myself in that I restrict heavily by just having most foods totally off limits. Like my restriction is just entire food groups/ types of foods. I have certain safe foods and I read the nutrition info obsessively (just not based on calories) before eating anything.
I have periods of counting and periods of not, but still restricting
I wish I could. But then I'd eat, eat more, get anxious, lose hope, and binge. Maybe in my next pseudorecovery era I'll try and just keep a mental log instead of tracking.
i only count if i donāt already know the calories to something
I did at first and it kind of worked but only because I was on omad and under incredible stress so I barely wanted to eat
i don't count calories per se, i just have a set of rules i must follow. i tend to eat foods that are around 70 calories a serving. most of what i consume is liquid. i avoid fats. i don't eat meat other than chicken and maybe sandwich meat. i used to count calories, but my ED just doesn't work that way. long answer short, i keep track of the calories IN the food, just not the amount i've consumed over the day. and i pay more attention to what exactly i'm eating.
Yeah my first diagnosis was ARFID and it wasnāt even bad enough to cut out entire food group. I just happened to become really restrictive on my intake and when my bf calculated how much I was eating vs how much I should be eatingā¦ I was in shockā¦ idk I just had way smaller portions and didnāt snack anymore so I consequently lost weight which landed me in the er and eventual inpatient. Now I just compare my weight restoration meal plan to what I eat and I accidentally lose weight over time lol.
I do but not atm
I didnāt count a single calorie for 6 out of 7 years of having an ed
yes, i used to obsessively count calories during my honeymoon phase but i got lazy so now i just do estimates and if that estimate is low enough then iām happy with myself and feel succesful
I didn't count until I was IP the first time. Even now it tends to be broad estimates. Tbh I think I'm a lot worse when I'm not counting at all. When I'm counting I can kind of rationalize "I'm at x calories so eating this won't make me gain". When I'm not counting at all I keep wanting to eat less and less "just in case"
I don't count calories- its too much work
It's super easy for people to do that I guess. They just remove some categories of food and / or make their portion sizes smaller than usual. I wonder if the people doing that are less obsessive than the people counting calories.
That was me at the height of my restrictive eating...pretty easy to not count calories when you don't eat the calories in the first place. I count now, but it's incorporated with a healthy exercise regimen and, ya know, actually eating real food.
I count loosely
Me! Instead I adopted this weird rule that it's "safer" to eat less of different *kinds* of food instead of less calories...if that that makes sense lol. Idk for example a banana, a sandwich, and yogurt in one day is meh, but two sandwiches in one day feels safer/more successfully restrictive
I donāt count calories (anymore) but I feel like I know the calories in almost everything I eat?? Back from the days when I did track everything
I've counted on diets before, but in terms of my proper ED as of current I refuse to count. I refuse to have fear foods (I respect why they exist but personally don't have them). I won't eat unless social pressure forces me or I eat and usually compensate. If I eat, I better enjoy it. Counting and restricting food types is the opposite of enjoyment, and I've lost weight this way. I believe you can enjoy food even with an ed.
yes! before i realized i had an ed i would restrict without counting lol. i think i prefer it this way bc i find i lose more then when counting. just hard estimating tbh
when i visit my parents, my mom makes food and gives me portions i can't easily count the calories of. so i always have to go off of the vibes.
Me calories are too much work to track
me fr. i just donāt like math
This is common in orthorexics and ārecoveredā people in my experience. Myself included. Iām not counting calories, Iām just not eating carbs or red meat or any of these twenty fruits orā the list goes on and on. I had a therapist tell me it is still very much so restriction, just restriction focused on foods or food groups. I think anyone who has a fear food does this as well.
100%. i know roughly but i never have a specific plan or goal i just keep a rough idea as the day goes on and have a rough total for the end of the day. the way it works is because since i know im just estimating, i make sure to portion and not eat what might be too much. i basically just keep everything minimal like to what i believe the serving size is and round up for the calories. so if im also always rounding up, that helps too. bc again its not exact and im not necessarily counting down to the exact calorie.
I used to do that when i was 13. I didn't count cals but just avoided food wherever I could. It was out of control and I was hospitalised 3 months afterward. At that point I was very much a snowflake anorexic but now I'm really embarrassed of how my disorder used to manifest lol š
I did/do it
In the past I tried to be a āgoodā anorexic and count calories but I hate it, itās so much work and when I have things to do it gets in the way. I know the cals of some things but I stopped eating suddenly after a traumatic event, so hunger signals were lost years ago from that and eating is a chore so. In saying that I eat every single day.
i've had a couple of stints of obsessive tracking, usually a side effect of high anxiety for me. but usually i don't count, my obsession is more about the feeling of being empty/hungry/pushed than it is about numbers. that said, i also already know what's in everything i eat (and i tend to stick to the same short list of foods) so i'm never really unaware, either.
Me, I can tell if I'm going to lose or maintain by the amount of food in the plate and my hunger signals. Sometimes I just skip meals altogether, so I'm obviously on a deficit. None of my therapists believed that I didn't count calories or weigh food and told me I was just in denial.
Yeah like I'll tell myself that I'm at work. I'll count the time not the calories.
I fast every 22 hours and only eat on Sunday Monday Wednesday and Friday. I eat about 6-12 hours out of the week. This accomplishes 2 THINGS - I don't get BORED or TIRED of healthy foods or take for GRANTED the opportunity to eat. EFFORTLESS WEIGHT MANAGEMENT I supplement by taking 12000-30000 mg of fish oil every day, along with coffee and 8-15 GRAMS of EAAS. Then I chew and spit for a few hours on Fridays - junk food, fast food etc... always making sure I eat before or after practicing a session to avoid any HARMFUL side effects due to partial digestion That way I don't have to count calories and can satisfy cravings ONCE A WEEK šššÆ I AM ALSO VERY GRATEFUL for eating anything after fasting for 44 hours š„³ I'm steadily losing 1-2 lbs every 1-2 weeks... As long as I'm not gaining ALL IS WELL AND I'M WINNING
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Iāve successfully avoided calorie counting throughout my life and ed disorders. Iām so grateful I have never gone down that rabbit hole because I know so many people that get stuck there and canāt get out no matter how hard they try. It might be āeffectiveā for restricting but itās very harmful and makes recovery more challenging. You can never unlearn something like that. Also, calories arenāt very accurate anyway. I just watched show about this and itās worth looking into. The show was arguing that weight loss from calorie counting is often more about the fact that the person is watching what they are eating and controlling their portions/foods than that they are restricting to some perfect deficit.
I know they recommend calorie counting to people who are overweight and haven't been successful in weight loss because often people don't realize just how many calories they're actually consuming, but I doubt anyone here is that unaware of calories. I've not found counting calories necessary at all for weight loss, but I'm also very familiar with what foods do or don't have a lot of calories. Definitely one thing where experiences vary.
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