11/10/2022 12:36
I’d like to share something with you…
I’m not tracking my calories anymore. Now this may not be much of a statement to you if you have never dieted down or tried to gain weight. Maybe this is something that has never really occurred to you!
But some of you might read that and if you were to say that out loud, it may seriously freak you out. I have tracked my calories for nearly 7 years. I have had a couple of brief spells such as holidays where I have not - however calories, food quality, macro ratios, the amount of veggies I was having or not having, has ALWAYS been at the back of my mind.
I’d like to take you on a little journey so that I can tell you WHY I have actually arrived at the decision to stop weighing my food, tracking my macros, counting calories, and weighing myself.
At the age of 15 I was 15 stone.
In my final year of university, I started going to the gym and enjoying lifting weights and working out. I took a look at my eating habits and lost 3 stone. I felt happy, healthy, glowy and energetic. When I first started working as a PT, my body was really comfortable sitting around 70kg, I didn’t track calories and I ate when I was hungry and stopped when I was full.
I had great balance in my life, a regular menstrual cycle, and felt great. I’d like to think this was a ‘happy weight’ for me as an individual.
Then came working in the fitness industry and the feeling that I had to look a certain way. With striving to look a certain way and getting smaller and smaller, I lost any sense of balance in my life.
Even when I look back at photos from over the last few years and think how strong and athletic I looked, at the time it was never enough. I completely removed things from my diet and if I was asked out to social events I would turn them down due to getting anxiety around the food that would be there and having to work out how to explain to people that I wasn’t even having one drink.
I think friends actually stopped asking me out for events because they knew I would say no - I honestly thought if I allowed myself to go out for food and drinks that my whole body would just go back to how it was when I was 15. I thought if I had one thing, it would send me into a spiral of eating absolutely everything in sight.
Because I thought that, when I eventually did have a piece of chocolate, or biscuit, or cake, or meal out, then I would end up gorging on endless amounts of food past the point of fullness. Dating was a nightmare because I couldn’t go out for food and would constantly be thinking about being home early and getting enough sleep to train the next day!
.
When we went into lockdown last year I saw it as an opportunity to get even smaller.
I was running 40-50 miles a week and as much as I absolutely love running, I was using it as a way to burn more calories. I was religiously tracking calories and drinking coffee to keep me full.
Considering my body is pretty happy around 70kg+, when I got to the mid 60s, my body wasn’t happy and my weight plateaued.
I dropped my calories to around 1000 (plus running 6-10 miles on average most days) in order to get myself below 60, and decided I wouldn’t be happy until I got to 59kg
Instead of eating food I would eat polos and drink coffee between meals. I was cold all the time. When I stood up I would get a head rush. I was buying tiny sizes in clothes and didn’t need to wear a bra. I could feel the bones in my back against the chair in my parent's kitchen when we sat down to dinner. I would go to bed early because I was so sure that if I stayed up later I would end up going to eat more food because I was so hungry. I would get up in the night nearly 4 times to pee. I had no menstrual cycle.
And this is going to sound ridiculous, but is completely true - I would have a recurring nightmare that I had gone and eaten loads of burgers and pizzas and cakes.
When the gyms reopened and I started training again aside from running, I was really excited to do some gymnastics because I thought that having lost over 10kg since I was last in the gym that I would feel weightless! I couldn’t even do one pull up! I tried to do a toes to bar and couldn’t get my knees above my chest. Granted I didn’t train gymnastics during the lockdown, but I was shocked at how weak my body felt.
I took a reverse dieting approach with my food and accepted I needed to eat more in order to train correctly, but still always had that thing in the back of my mind of “well it’s fine, if I get fat again, then I’ll restrict again.” Note that the language I used in my head about my own body was always pretty negative too.
When I did my lean gains experiment back at the end of 2020, I think I was starting to fix the problem - however I only did it for a relatively short time and because I had restricted so long, it was like the amount of food I was eating was just a taster of more and more. At the end of my case study, I was a bit lost and cut my calories back down - but would end up overeating past fullness. I would then restrict myself the next day or go on a 10 mile fasted run.
I felt GUILTY for being hungry and wanting to eat, and couldn’t understand why I was thinking about food all the time. I was never full even though I had gone over my calorie intake on MyFitnessPal.
Apart from losing my cycle, which is pretty difficult to talk about and so I think I’d like to cover this later in another blog, the main thing I believe I ruined with my obsessive dieting was my hunger cues. It felt (and still does feel sometimes, so I am 100% a work in progress) like I could eat and eat and EAT past physical fullness all day every day.
But I think it’s important to acknowledge this so that I can find balance again and bring my hunger cues back to level. I’m going to do a little bit more in depth work into this, so watch this space!
Read more about our hunger hormones here.
I am completely letting go of any need to be a certain weight, to look a certain way, to eat a certain number of calories because an app tells me too. I might gain weight, I might lose weight, I might stay the same. But I am allowing myself the freedom for it not to bother me as long as I am healthy, happy, energetic, and feel like the best version of myself.
It’s important to remember that this is MY reality and what I need to do for now in order to help fix some of the damage I have done. This does not mean I think no one should track calories - it’s been massively helpful throughout my athletic life and for so many people, it’s great to see what needs tweaking and adjusting for performance etc.
I just wanted to put this out there for girls who may wonder why they are thinking about food all the time, who are labelling foods into categories of things they can’t have and things they can, for those who have lost their cycle or feel a pressure to be or look a certain way… this is not the last I want to say on this topic but for now I hope this helps some of you!
Drop me a message on instagram @chloesalt93 if this is something you want to talk about!
Chloe Salter
I am a PN qualified nutrition and CrossFit coach who is passionate about helping you reach your goals. I have been overweight and want to use this to guide and educate you on how to eat to perform at your best. I am based online and at Shapesmiths in London.