Ep. 158 Does Tracking Calories Create a Bad Relationship With Food? Here’s Our Take

2024-02-12

I saw a message getting shared on Instagram recently making the claim that: “ANYONE who tracks their calories / macros has a BAD RELATIONSHIP with food”... So I wanted to give our thoughts having worked with hundreds of women, many through tracking, many coming to us with negative relationships with food, and answer the question… DOES tracking calories/macros create a bad relationship with food? Hot take: No. That would be like saying that budgeting your finances creates a bad relationship with money.

I saw a message getting shared on Instagram recently making the claim that: “ANYONE who tracks their calories / macros has a BAD RELATIONSHIP with food”...

So I wanted to give our thoughts having worked with hundreds of women, many through tracking, many coming to us with negative relationships with food, and answer the question…

DOES tracking calories/macros create a bad relationship with food?

Hot take: No.

That would be like saying that budgeting your finances creates a bad relationship with money.

Tracking, like tracking anything, is a tool.

Your relationship to the thing in which you are tracking has nothing to do with that tool, and everything to do with the way you THINK about it. Because your thoughts create your feelings. And your feelings about it are what we’re often referring to when we say your “relationship” with it.

To make a blanket statement that ANYONE who budgets their food to ensure they are sticking to their goals has a bad relationship with food is absurd.

Listen in as we dissect more of this controversial claim, the art of flexibility with your food, freedom through food education and awareness, and more!

Time Stamps:

(2:00) Calorie Tracking Claim on Social Media

(3:20) Tracking Is Like Budgeting

(6:50) Why You Would Track Calories

(10:30) Defining Momentum

(15:20) The Art of Flexibility

(19:02) Freedom Through Education and Awareness

(21:42) Eating “Clean” But Not Seeing Progress

(25:32) Being Tied To MyFitnessPal

(31:12) Tracking and Your Process of Interpretation

(34:17) Our Free Facebook Group

---------------------