Tracking my food

[Elena]

Dear Gillian,

i need your thoughts about the idea tracking my food for a while. I have time to workout more intense at Crossfit for the next few month and in order to make sure that i get enough carbs/proteins/fat i wanted to track my food for a while. My motivation behind it is to give my body the chance to recover well, increase performance and build muscles. I always felt like that i want to try doing it, because if not it always feels like ´best guesses´´. But i dont know if thats contra productive.
What do you think?

[Gillian]

My honest answer is I don’t know for sure. It may well be fine, and I think it’s best for you to give it a try to see.

I do think there’s a HUGE difference between:
1. counting (anything such as carb grams or calories) as the way (or part of the way) you take control of overeating
and
2. getting a better grasp of your macronutrient balance to assist you in building muscle.

I’d encourage you to do the tracking just for a short while, as you’ve said.

Of course I’ve no idea, but I often wonder if you might be over-exercising, and if you keep an eye on that possibility?

[Elena]

I was actually waiting to get your opinion and then decide what to do. And yes, i will give it a try and see what comes with it as a whole picture. Thank you!
Oh and i do not know, it might sound a lot. I do sports 4-6/ week but never more then an hour a day. As a student i am sitting a lot and it feels good to me, especially since i am not having binges i gained so much more energy during the day. But i mentioned it a lot:-)

[Elena]

Dear Gillian,

i tried it out. I tracked my food for a while and i honestly felt locked up in my familiar cage again. It is the ´´best guess feeling`´i wanted to get rid of but i realized that i am wrong. I still don´t know if this is a good idea or not to track food but in my case and for now it puts me back to a feeling of following rules, forbidden foods and rebellious reactions. Maybe the best-guess-feeling is a synonym for my feeling of choice. I lost it and it felt so not worth it to continue. I was trying to create a perfect state for my body but instead i became too locked in, anti-social and again too focused on the topic.
I loved it to go out with friends recently and having a nice time and being free from any binges but now it has put pressure on me and not being on track. Its not that i am unhappy to know now that i might increase my carbs intake and reduce a bit of fats but i want to continue to work with my time and plans and trail and error. This brought me way better decisions.

[Gillian]

Elena, really the best for you to try it out for yourself. I doubt that our bodies notice rigid, exact amounts of anything. You have a rough idea of macronutrient contents, so go by that, and be okay with variations from day to day – sometimes big variations. That’s how we were with food hundreds of years ago when we were hunter-gatherers, and our bodies and brains and minds evolved in that environment.

[Author]

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