So how about them Ravens, eh? 😉
Actually, please don’t ask me for any sort of insightful commentary because I wouldn’t be able to give you one. Collectively, I would say that I watched about fifteen minutes of the Superbowl, and most of that was made up of halftime, commercials, and the final 2 minutes of play. I may have mentioned that I’m not a big fan of football? I wasn’t kidding. Still, I definitely got sucked in near the end there – it was a close one.
But that’s enough football talk for one blog post year; let’s move on to more marvelous things. Actually, let’s move on to one marvelous thing in particular. I mean, I could talk about how great it is that the weather is improving and that we’re finally starting to see some sun…
… or about how this [beer?!] commercial totally tugged at my heartstrings…
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2prAccclXs&w=560&h=315″]
I could talk about the warm and fuzzy feeling that comes with nostalgia…
(remember how I said I found my old Tamagotchi? Well, this weekend I replaced the batteries so I could see what all the fuss used to be about. Time will tell how long this bugger lives – I’ll keep you updated.)
… or the cold [but totally worth it] feeling that comes with eating frozen mangoes…
But what I really want to talk about, is ignorance. Yep, ignorance is bliss marvelous. Allow me to explain. Every Sunday evening, I head on over to my parents’ place for dinner. On the menu this week? Mom’s slow cooker stew…
There was a time in my life where there’s no way I would have let myself enjoy such a delicious conglomeration of food. Why? Because it was a conglomeration of food and I didn’t know a) exactly what was in it, and b) in exactly what amounts. I mentioned before that I used to be completely obsessed with tracking my macros. I used an online calculator to tell me how many carbs, fats, and proteins I was eating, and if I couldn’t enter something into my trusty calculator, it sure as hell wouldn’t be entering my body.
See where I’m going with this? There’s absolutely no way I would have been able to decipher Mom’s stew…
I get a lot of e-mails from people asking me for tips on recovery, and I almost always tell them to step away from the online calculators. Is it scary? Hell yeah it is – there’s nothing more terrifying than the unknown to someone who needs to be in control. But it’s also triggering. It also feeds the obsession. And most importantly, it’s not needed. I used to think that I needed to be completely on top of my diet or my body would break down, but you know what? It was because I tried to be completely on top of my diet that my body broke down. I ignored everything it told me in favor of meeting some arbitrary ratio, and had absolutely no fun in the process.
So here’s to ignorance, not only is it blissful marvelous, but it’s pretty darn tasty too.
. – . – . – .
Do you use an online calculator to track your food? Did you ever?
Do you think it’s helpful or hindering?
Oh my gosh, that commercial seriously gave me chills! (?!!?) So cute! And holy crap, I haven’t thought about Tamagotchis in FOREVER!! I think at one point, I had like 3 or 4 of those little buggers! Wonder where they went to? Hmmm…
That stew looks incredible! Please tell me there was some warm bread to soak up that marvelousness! 😉
I do use an online calculator for calorie tracking, but I do it more to keep my portions in control…especially snacking when I’m working nights…I’m careful not to get to obsessed with it and I usually take breaks from it every week or two just so that I remember how to trust my body instead of my mind!
OMG I agree! In my recovery we went out to eat a few times a week because that way I didn’t know. and it made things so much easier! Yes it was stressful at first but then I started to LOVE it. I could anything. To this day I still love the ignorance that comes with eating out. It is freeing
Even though I was eating disordered about six or seven years ago, I never counted calories! Which I realized was a blessing when recovering. I recently checked out fitness pal, got calculated how many calories I approximately need, tracked my food for three or four days to see how my calorie need compares to my calorie intake … and guess what, it was pretty much right what I needed, give or take! Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. Intuitive Eating rules. I quickly got rid of it and keep on being blissfully ignorant of the calorie content and macronutrient content of things! 🙂
(I admit, I do try and have protein with most of my meals as well as a good amount of fat because of blood sugar issues but that’s about as far as I am willing to get. No idea of any numbers here.)
That was one of my favorite commercials! Especially at the end…I swear I had to hold some tears back 🙂 And that stew, wow! Nothing beats traditional and homemade meals. Nothing. When I first re-vamped my diet to concentrate on healthy and less processed foods, there was a point when I (foolishly) considered my mom’s home-cooked meals to be unhealthy. Looking back, I can’t believe I had that mentality. What can possibly be healthier than a homemade meal filled with a mother’s love? So cheesy but so true 🙂
Your posts always touch me on a deep level, but this one resonates even deeper. I’m actually working on a post about calorie counting–and how I overcame the vicious macro tracking battle–so I’ve been giving this topic a lot of thought. I think you sum it up best with this line:
“….it was *because* I tried to be completely on top of my diet that my body broke down.” I couldn’t agree more–obsessively trying to control the calories in/calories out equation is exhausting! I completely moved away from this cycle for a good year or so, before dabbling back into it when I began my “bulk” last month. However I quickly realized that it was doing more harm than good, and recently made some readjustments. I may not be eating as “clean” as I could be, but I’m a heck of a lot haappier!
I’m really looking forward to reading your post, Sara! You’ve been pumping out so many amazing ones surrounding all of the changes you’ve recently made, and reading them is always such an inspiration 😀
I didn’t watch the Superbowl at all. I really had no interest. 😛
I never used an online calculator – I didn’t even really track my calories back in the day. I mean I looked at calorie counts, but I didn’t keep track of my totals each day or each meal even. I just tried to keep numbers low (and eventually took it too far).
I think it can be helpful initially for people who have NO idea how to eat healthily and who are trying to lose weight for the first time in their lives. But ultimately I think it comes down to just knowing what foods are healthy and listening to your hunger cues.
i got teary eyed during that commercial not gonna lie! I used an online calculator every second of everyday its all i would think about is putting my stuff in. I use it from time to time now but to make sure im eating enough! i never drop my intake purposely but some days i just am blah and want to make sure im getting over at least 1300 at the very lowest.. i think its a great tool for when some is first trying to lose weight, after it’s just to much of an obsession.
love this – such a freeing thing to just eat! and mom’s cooking is always the very best!
I used to have a tamagotchi!!! Hehe! I’d forgotten those days!
That commercial! I don’t understand what it has to do with beer, but it warmed my heart too.
I really with I could get the number out of my head. I try to forget about it but I feel as though the numbers are engrained in my head and I can’t help but tally up what I’m eating, even though im not restricting.
This post couldn’t have come at a better time for me–I just stopped using my calorie counting app a week ago after relying on it pretty much daily for a year and a half. Before that, I was doing rough estimations of calorie counts in my head and on paper, but I have to admit that actually entering the numbers into a calculator really got me into a more restrictive and disordered mindset. I was sick of playing the numbers game with myself every day so I just decided I had to stop. It’s been hard for me not to know the exact number of calories I’ve been eating since then but it feels a lot more freeing to be ignorant. However, I’ve always been curious as to exactly how many calories I need to maintain my weight–I always justify eating less because I’m shorter than most people, but I still lead an active lifestyle so I honestly have no idea and I think it would be eye-opening to know how much I really could eat. Just a thought!
That’s really great to hear, Ashley! As for how much you need to maintain your weight, I’m pretty sure that you can figure that out without turning to a calculator. Don’t let those kind of seemingly positive thoughts suck you back in to disordered habits.
Ohhh man that stew looks AMAZING. I’m not much of a soup person (eating liquid as a meal just doesn’t satisfy me, weird I know), but stews….heck yeah. My mom used to make a mean beef-and-potato stew when I was growing up and I’m all about curry chicken stew and all forms of chilli…ok I’ll just stop myself now lol. I too went through a (really long) period in my life where I tracked EVERY MORSEL OF FOOD I ate online and yeah, it was kinda bad. I do still track occasionally, but kind of more as a scientific experiment on myself to see how much food I need at different activity levels. I track maybe once or twice a month on a day I consider “typical” and always wait till the end of the day so that I eat to my hunger. When I’m training hard – like this fall, when I’d ride my bike 2-3 hours a day (which isn’t excessive for cycling since there’s a lot of coasting) – the number always shocked me because it was so high. But hey, I went into surgery fitter than I’ve ever been in my entire life so those high numbers work. I’ve tracked twice since surgery and the number’s a bit lower but the macro ratio is pretty much the same and so far I have not become a whale. So that’s good reassurance for me to actually see the number. And mainly I like to do this because it really shows you the power of good fueling – i.e. 3500-4000 calories a day for someone my size is a LOT, but then I think about how fit I got while eating that and training and its kind of cool. But then I’m an exercise phys nerd lol. And yes, due to my past I SOMETIMES start to feel stressed about tracking my intake but I make it a point to reign myself in now, because I know that restriction got me knowhere, and actually FUELING is what got me fit.
Anyway that’s my take on it – it can be used to illustrate how much your body really needs and how well your body functions when you actually give it those needs. But it’s really tough to not let it slip in the other direction and I think if I weren’t an athlete, or if I weren’t interested in physiology, then I’d have to go completely cold turkey on it.
It was the most liberating feeling to stop counting calories. And there’s nothing like cooking for 2 (my brother and I enjoy the same kind of foods which my parents don’t!), eating for enjoyment and not like its some sort of equation. I hate math any way 😉
That stew looks amazing!
You’re right, sometimes ignorance is seriously marvelous. 🙂 However, the times I found it to be not so blissful is when those pesky foods that my stomachs detests sneak in there resulting in a not so fun aftermath haha. And I definitely almost cried at the Budweiser commercial, so sweet!
I feel pretty much the same way you do about football and that Budweiser commercial was so great! I have used online calculators and such to calculate calories, but I haven’t ever gotten too obsessed with it. I totally see how you could, though.
While I don’t obsessively count calories like I did before, I have to be honest and say that I am always curious nonetheless and can do a really quick estimation in my head anyway because I know the caloric content of most (if not all) of the foods I typically eat.
I speculate that the freedom many people with previous EDs speak of is similar to mine in that we intuitively know the caloric content of the foods we eat, and after some experimenting with foods earlier in recovery, may have realized what “works” in keeping us full and somewhat satisfied without it feeling like we’re going overboard… Still tending to stick to that safe bet, so much that it’s become a new routine that seems completely natural.
I eat 2,000+ calories a day. No one would assume there I had an issue or currently have some snaky, underlying ED issue because yes, I do eat “more freely”… but I’d lie if I said I didn’t still experience that MENTAL tug-of-war. I rarely act on it, but it definitely has an influence. (I feel like I’m always way off topic…. haha. I just ramble too much!)
Bottom line: Counting sucks, and can be very addictive, and once you counted, it’s impossible not to at least be aware of that stuff if recovery is still somewhat of a new experience!
I can relate to that because even though I haven’t used any calorie calculators for years, I still tend to stick to safe foods when eating out. I intuitively know when something is too greasy or calorie dense in general and I never buy meals above a certain amount of calories. But having some traces of past habits is one thing, completely obsessing over calorie counting – another. Using an online calculator might be helpful for a person who’s been eating mindlessly and needs to build balanced eating habits but for someone who’s suffered from an ED and already knows the approximate calorie content of pretty much everything it’s pointless at the least. I’m sure we can also tell when we’re undereating without the help of a calculator. Just my point of view.
It definitely isn’t possible to forget the calorie content of things after you’ve been counting for a long time, but I’d say it’s possible to stop caring to the point where it’s not something that really ever crosses your mind. I have no idea how many calories I eat – not even a rough estimation. When I’m putting a meal together, I don’t measure or count, so it’s basically impossible for me to tell. And I don’t try to keep a running tally of how many calories I’ve already taken in either. So yeah, while I can still tell you how many calories are in a medium sized banana, it’s something that I really have to stop and consciously pay attention to, otherwise it doesn’t really matter.
That’s really good to hear. I definitely don’t care AS MUCH anymore and will always, always eat when I’m hungry (I don’t know how I used to stand hunger!), but that little voice tries to manipulate me still. Glad you’re over that big hurdle though, because I think that makes a world of difference in a person’s every day life!
No calculators for me 🙂
Please don’t tell me I’m the only one who just cried during the Budweiser commercial haha. So sweet!
You’re definitely not! I know a good handful of people who ended up with misty eyes.
You rock!
It was a good game since it got so close at the end! I am not into football either, but watched it!
I am not a calorie counter at all! I once did a calorie tracker online when I was doing boot camp, just making sure I was getting enough calories in!
Happy monday love!