Calorie intake

[Emm]

No I know I am not “supposed” to track my caloric intake, but I have and I’ve been well under 1200 and that worries me. Can it be explained why I shouldn’t be tracking my intake? And what ratio of fat to protein I should be shooting for. 

[kirbz]

Here's my two cents on the recommendation to not count macros or calories while doing Whole30...

You should be learning to understand our own body's satiety signals. No one can give you a formula that will tell you how your body will optimally operate. So you should be striving to find the right fat/protein/vegetable combination that keeps you leaving satisfied for 4-5 hours.

I hope this helps! It's a totally different way of thinking about food so I can understand that it's hard to change. But I think you'll be better off if you focus on relying on your body to tell you whether you're getting enough and not a formula... 

[SugarcubeOD]

3 minutes ago, kirbz said:

Here's my two cents on the recommendation to not count macros or calories while doing Whole30...

You should be learning to understand our own body's satiety signals. No one can give you a formula that will tell you how your body will optimally operate. So you should be striving to find the right fat/protein/vegetable combination that keeps you leaving satisfied for 4-5 hours.

I hope this helps! It's a totally different way of thinking about food so I can understand that it's hard to change. But I think you'll be better off if you focus on relying on your body to tell you whether you're getting enough and not a formula... 

Amen Sister!

[slc_melissa]

Can you list out a few days of what you're eating?  1200 is actually really low for any adult.....and if your hormones aren't sorted out yet, you might not be getting correct satiety signals.  Are you following the template?  

https://whole30.com/downloads/whole30-meal-planning.pdf

Hunk of protein, tons (2-3 cups) of vegetables, thwack of fat.  (On the fats on the template, choose 1-2 per meal, not all fats at every meal.)

[ladyshanny]

Ya, naturally we eat less calories when consuming a whole foods diet. The daily calorie recommendation thing is based on people eating pseudo-foods, packaged foods and processed foods. There's so little available nutrition in those foods that I imagine they had to come up with some kind of target for people to aim at. 

The thing with eating a 2,000 calorie diet is that if you eat it full of bread, pasta, sugars etc, you aren't getting very much food but are getting a lot of energy. When you eat a whole foods diet, you are getting a lot more food and a good amount of energy. But it's also energy that is processed by the body easily and with high efficiency. 

If you're hungry, eat. If you think your hunger signals are out of whack, eat a template meal every 4-5 hours. Start learning to check in with yourself at 1-2-3-4-5 hours after a meal. Assess your sleep, your mood, your energy, your sex drive. If you exercise, how's your performance? These are all the metrics we need to be using but which app-designers and big-food can't profit from. Use these instead!

[Emm]

10 hours ago, slc_melissa said:

Can you list out a few days of what you're eating?  1200 is actually really low for any adult.....and if your hormones aren't sorted out yet, you might not be getting correct satiety signals.  Are you following the template?  

https://whole30.com/downloads/whole30-meal-planning.pdf

Hunk of protein, tons (2-3 cups) of vegetables, thwack of fat.  (On the fats on the template, choose 1-2 per meal, not all fats at every meal.)

Thank you. I’ll follow the template more closely. I think it was just one day. I’m getting into a groove and I feel like I’m getting what my body needs.