Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Tracking Calories: The Why and the How
121 Plays2 months ago
Today we’re talking about a very common question I get online: How do I track calories?! In this conversation we’re exploring WHY we might want to track calories, and what it should and shouldn’t look like. I hope this information gives you freedom to view calories as an insightful data point to push you in the right direction in your metabolic healing journey.
Here’s a link to download my favorite app for tracking calories: Cronometer
Ready to learn more? I’ve got a ton of free resources for you!
🎉 FOLLOW me on IG @cassidy.woelfel 🎉
SIGN UP for my webinar on assessing your thyroid and metabolism at home for free
Check out my course Metabolism by Intelligent Design
SUBSCRIBE to this podcast ❤️
And don’t forget to shout me out online 😍
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & Disclaimer
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome to the eat like a mother podcast where we take complicated topics surrounding hormones and metabolism and make them simple and applicable to your daily life as a woman. I'm your host, Castie Welfell.
00:00:25
Speaker
My hope is that you walk away feeling empowered to start taking radical responsibility for your health and lean into this body God created for you. Are you ready to eat like a mother? This podcast is meant for educational purposes only and is not meant to be taken as medical advice.
00:00:43
Speaker
Please consult your physician before making any dietary or lifestyle changes.
Calorie Tracking Importance
00:00:47
Speaker
Hey, hey, and welcome back to this week's episode of the podcast. Today, i want to talk about something that I always get a lot of questions about, and that is how I track calories.
00:00:59
Speaker
This is something that I think is very important, especially if you are new in your metabolic health journey. Learning how to track calories is a really essential data tool, at least in the very beginning. And let me explain what I mean. Okay, I came from a generation of people that obsessively tracked calories. And the whole point of tracking calories was just to make sure that you were eating less than 1200 calories a day so that you could maintain a caloric deficit.
00:01:29
Speaker
When I talk about tracking calories now, it is actually the complete opposite of that philosophy. I'm no longer looking at caloric intake to make sure I'm eating less and less and less so that I lose weight, maintain a certain size, look a certain way. Right now,
00:01:46
Speaker
And what I preach online, what I teach in my courses, what I do with my one-on-one coaching clients is this idea of eating enough and getting enough food to fuel your body. This is true whether you are a woman, whether you're a man, whether you're old, young, cycling, not cycling, pregnant, not pregnant, breastfeeding, not breastfeeding.
00:02:07
Speaker
No matter what season of life you're in, learning to properly track and know that you are getting enough calories for the season of life that you're in is so important.
Calorie Intake & Metabolism
00:02:19
Speaker
So I wanted to make that really clear for you today as we talk about this in this podcast episode, that when I talk about tracking calories, it's not something to be obsessive about. It's not something to do to make sure that you're not going over a certain amount or whatever else that you've been culturally conditioned to believe but that we're tracking to make sure that we're actually meeting our basic physiological needs a lot of women and i'm i'm specifically speaking to women today because those are the primary people that i work with i have worked with men before but
00:02:52
Speaker
I primarily focus my business around women. And one of the number one problems that I see with women who come to me, and i have a wide array of issues that people come to me with, whether it's wanting to lose weight, gain weight, get pregnant,
00:03:07
Speaker
fix their cycles, improve their hair, improve their skin, improve their immunity, you know, improve their digestion, sleep, whatever it is. Women come to me for a wide variety of issues because when we start talking about metabolism, your metabolism drives all of these systems.
00:03:24
Speaker
And so all of the approach that I take, it can improve every system of the body because your metabolism drives all of these systems. So all of these women that I work with, their number one problem, like 99% of the people that I see, they are not eating enough calories. And these are even people that have followed me in the online space for a certain amount of time. they i get people telling me all the time, you know, Cass, i'm I'm following you. I'm doing everything that you talk about online and I'm not seeing these changes. You know, I'm not having these results that you share about.
00:04:02
Speaker
And a lot of people, they they don't believe that it works. And I guarantee you, if that's you, you need to learn how to at least track your calories. Because if you are not seeing results in your metabolic health, if you're not seeing results in different maybe symptoms that you're having, if you're not seeing and improvement metabolic in your livelihood, the first place that you need to look is how much freaking food that you're eating.
00:04:29
Speaker
Because I can almost guarantee that you are not eating enough food. Let me paint a little picture for you. So when we talk about calories, most people don't actually understand what calories are.
00:04:41
Speaker
But just for... simplicity sake calories are very very very simply just a unit of energy it's just how we measure energy in the human body if you're working with a nutritionist if you're working with the dietitian whatever calories are a unit of energy period okay let's not let's not attach any emotion let's not attach any positive or negative things to calories because I know when we talk about calories, it can induce a lot of different emotions around it just because of how we've been culturally primed, right?
00:05:16
Speaker
So calories are just a unit of energy. And if you were to sit on the couch all day, not move, not get out of bed, do absolutely nothing, your body and the body of most individuals, most grown adults will burn about 1400 calories a day.
00:05:36
Speaker
just to keep your vital organs going. I want you to let that sink in for a minute. Your body requires at minimum and in general, 1400 calories a day as energy. So calories, just energy, right?
00:05:53
Speaker
just to keep you alive. And that's if you did absolutely nothing. If you couch potatoed all day, didn't move a muscle, didn't have any responsibilities, no external stressors, that is how much your body requires.
00:06:10
Speaker
I want you to see the severity of that statement because if your body requires that much just to keep you alive, you have no business eating any less than that to try and lose weight or do whatever your trainer or...
00:06:26
Speaker
whatever professional you're working with, or even if you're just getting your information from the online space, you have no business eating less than what your body requires to keep you alive.
Effects of Undernourishment
00:06:38
Speaker
And here's what happens when you're not getting enough calories. So say you're just eating 1400 calories a day. And I've i've worked with people that have been eating as low as 800, 900 calories in a day. Okay. That is major red flags. Okay.
00:06:53
Speaker
But say you're just eating 1400 calories a day because that's what your tracking app tells you to eat in order to be in a caloric deficit to lose weight. If you are only eating that and you have any other external stressors, say you have children, say you work a job, say you have to get out of bed in the morning, your body is going to require more energy to not only keep you alive, but to keep all other systems functioning.
00:07:18
Speaker
So what happens when your body is severely undernourished, when you're not getting enough calories to meet your metabolic demands, so you're not taking in enough energy calories to meet your energy needs, you know, to do daily tasks like keeping your heart going, your liver going, all of those things, right? Those just minorly important things.
00:07:42
Speaker
If you are not getting enough energy in, All non-essential life functions will stop working, will slow down because your body's smart.
00:07:52
Speaker
It's going to keep you alive. So this is understood in what's considered a stress response. If you were to be in a stressful situation, like let's say you're getting chased by a bear.
00:08:04
Speaker
your body's going to shoot up adrenaline and cortisol for the sake of keeping you alive. Okay, it's going to shoot up adrenaline and cortisol to help you get away from the bear as quickly as possible. Well, when adrenaline and cortisol raise, all these other important life functions, but not necessarily important just to keep you alive in that moment, will slow down.
00:08:24
Speaker
So when your body is concerned with running away from a bear, it's not concerned with digestion. It's not concerned with you being sexy AF. It's not concerned with you having clear skin.
00:08:36
Speaker
It's not concerned with you having pain-free period. It's not concerned with you ovulating. It's not concerned with you having healthy libido. When your body is under significant stress, all these non-essential life functions, that means really anything that's not directly related to keeping your heart pumping and your lungs breathing will slow down.
Tools for Calorie Tracking
00:08:56
Speaker
And what a lot of people don't realize is undernourishment, severely restricting calories, signals that same stress response in the body that your body has if you were being chased by a bear or if you're in a car accident or, you know, an ex-murderer is chasing after you, okay?
00:09:13
Speaker
Your body has the same physiological response. because you require more than 1400 calories if you are a grown woman, if you're a grown adult. You require more than 1400 calories a day to not only keep you alive, but to allow all organ systems, all system physiological processes of the body to work.
00:09:35
Speaker
So when I talk about tracking calories, I'm not talking about tracking them to make sure you stay under a certain amount. I'm talking about tracking them to make sure you are getting enough for a full grown woman.
00:09:47
Speaker
That's why my podcast is literally named Eat Like a Mother, because i felt like That so totally encompasses everything that I preach because really, if you want strong metabolic health, if you want ample fertility, if you want to have enough energy to raise children and run businesses and run marathons and do whatever else you feel called to in this life, you don't run off of thin air and you're not going to be able to do all of those great and amazing things in this world if you are not eating enough freaking food.
00:10:18
Speaker
So there's one thing that you take away from my platform. If there's one thing that you take away from what I teach is that you need to eat enough food. So when I track calories, there's a couple of things that I look at and i don't recommend tracking calories all the time.
00:10:33
Speaker
For most people, tracking for just one week when you first get started to kind of get an idea of how much you're getting is going to be really beneficial. So if you're just now coming into contact with my content and you're curious, I recommend the Chronometer app and I will link that in the show notes.
00:10:52
Speaker
It is free. Please do not pay for the premium version. Just get the free app. I like Chronometer because it's really easy to input and you can see what you're getting with your minerals. You can see your macros.
00:11:06
Speaker
It's really great and I feel like it's less assaulting than the MyFitnessPal. I feel like MyFitnessPal is like... psychologically just kind of traumatizing because will like give you these signs if you're eating more than what it says you should eat. Anyways, that's a whole other story.
00:11:22
Speaker
Download the chronometer app and just track your calories for a week and see how much you're getting. If you're getting anything less than around 2000 calories a day, you are not eating enough. And depending on what season of life you're in that that need is going to go up. So I personally, I eat around three to 4000 calories a day I am very open with that.
00:11:43
Speaker
That's how much my body needs in order to breastfeed two children, in order to be losing weight, in order to be able to work out, you know, a couple times a week and run and do all the things that I want to do I require a very high caloric intake so that I can do these things that I want to do and also be grounded and have no hormonal issues and have great cycles and have great skin and have high libido and have no mood swings, just feel stable and energetic and just all around good. That's how much my body requires.
00:12:17
Speaker
Everybody's requirement is going to be different. And so I can't really tell you how much you need just in a podcast setting. I teach you how to do this in my course, which is also linked in the show notes. I teach you how to determine your macronutrient needs. I teach you how to determine your you know, mineral needs, how to determine how many calories you need just based on different stressors of your life. So I could view the whole shebang there. So if you're interested in that, check out my course below, but start tracking to just get an idea of how much you're eating and to make sure that you're eating enough.
00:12:48
Speaker
Like I said, if you're getting less than 2000 calories a day, you're not getting enough for a full grown woman and something needs to change.
Healthy Calorie Tracking Practices
00:12:55
Speaker
Now, I am not very strict with the calories that I am tracking. Okay, this is and this is for my type A people.
00:13:05
Speaker
If you're listening to this, and you'd like to have everything exact, I'm going to hopefully unburden you a little bit right now. It does not have to be exact. I tell my people, I tell my clients, your best guess really is good enough.
00:13:20
Speaker
You know, if you're tracking meat or if you're tracking meals, I would hope that by now, if you've binged my podcast, if you've followed me online, if if you've been interacting with any kind of content education that I have out in the world, you know that I'm only talking about eating real food. I'm not talking about getting 2000 calories from one single Chick-fil-A meal in a day.
00:13:41
Speaker
That's not what I'm talking about. I'm going to assume that if you're listening, you're eating real food, which means it's probably single ingredient food. And that's pretty simple to track. Okay, you can easily put in an orange, you can easily put in some ground beef or a steak or some raw milk or whatever it is.
00:13:59
Speaker
and But give your best guess. If you don't want to be measuring your food right now, Don't. I will say there are times right now that I will like weigh my my meat just to make sure I'm getting enough protein if I'm not quite sure how much protein is in like a roast that I'm eating in the portion that I have.
00:14:18
Speaker
I don't think that's 100% necessary. Again, best guess. so that you can at least get a general idea and then make accommodations for yourself based on that. So when you are starting, start by just tracking your calories, give it your best guess, you know, and try and be honest, don't don't like lie to yourself, because that's not gonna help you at all, but be honest, give it your best guess and get your baseline.
00:14:42
Speaker
And then once you have that baseline and you kind of have an understanding of how much you're getting, then you can start increasing. if If you like tracking and it doesn't it's not stressful for you, then continue with it. you know You'll be able to easily see yourself increase your caloric intake. it'll It'll make it a little bit easier to know that you're hitting your macronutrients.
00:15:04
Speaker
If it's not stressful for you, great, stick with it. If it is stressful for you, don't do it. And I tell this to all of my clients and they're always like, what? I thought this was really important. If ever I give a piece of advice and it is too stressful for you to continue with that in this season, don't do it.
00:15:21
Speaker
It's really not that big a deal. Like, yeah, I think if you're not eating enough and you're having a lot of symptoms and you can't figure out why you're having all these problems, track your calories for just a few days. Like I would say suck it up buttercup for at least a week so that you can see what you're getting to make sure you're actually getting enough. But any other time, if you have a general idea and it's too stressful for you right now,
00:15:44
Speaker
Don't do it. Okay. There is a caveat to that. And the caveat is if ever me, and this is me personally, so I don't track all the time. i don't track every day, but if ever I start to like, you know maybe my energy gets down a little bit, or maybe I'm not sleeping as well, or maybe my digestion is off.
00:16:02
Speaker
If any of my metabolic markers really start to not look ideal, then I'll track for a day or I'll track for a few days just to make sure that I am hitting my metabolic needs and and hitting my potassium content. And that's something that I'm like really big on because you can be getting enough calories, but if you're not eating the right foods and the right mix of foods you're not getting enough potassium and sodium and magnesium and all these things through your diet and through your lifestyle, then you're also not doing yourself any favors. So if I'm starting to feel like stressed out or I'm seeing
00:16:38
Speaker
you know, my metabolic markers not look so great. Then I'll pause and track my calories for a day or so. And usually that can explain like the mood swings that I had the day before. It can explain why I'm snippy with my children. Oh, I'm snippy because I didn't get enough carbs yesterday.
00:16:55
Speaker
i'm I'm feeling on edge because I didn't get enough protein. You know, having that information, having that data helps me to see, okay, I'm not crazy. This makes sense. I'm just hungry. Okay. And that might be you.
00:17:08
Speaker
You might not be crazy. You might not have all of these things that you think you have. You might not have all of these issues and diagnoses that you feel like is going on.
00:17:18
Speaker
You might legitimately just be starving, which what a great thing To be like, how great is it that you don't actually have these traumatic, horrible things?
00:17:30
Speaker
Your body is just so freaking hungry that it is presenting these symptoms and telling you, need to eat.
Interpreting Calorie Data
00:17:38
Speaker
we need to eat Like give it, give it what it needs. It needs food. You literally cannot survive without it.
00:17:44
Speaker
So when it comes to tracking, don't, don't let it become an obsessive thing. It's really not the most important thing that you can be doing. It's just a data point. And that's what I want people to know.
00:17:57
Speaker
If you are confused, if you feel like you have all these things going on, Or maybe you've been in your metabolic journey for a long time and you start to see things come up that are not concerning, but just like, oh, this doesn't make sense.
00:18:12
Speaker
Give it a go for a day, two days, a week, just to reset the baseline and help give your body, help keep you accountable to give yourself what you need.
00:18:23
Speaker
So I hope this makes sense. I hope this gives you a little bit of an idea of how I go about tracking calories, about my philosophy behind it. I am very lax about tracking calories, but it is an important data point. And just like any metabolic marker, just like any any kind of data that we can collect through temperature or pulse or whatever, it's just that. It's data. It doesn't have an emotion. It doesn't have you know, any ethical connotations to it.
00:18:55
Speaker
It's just data. And I tell you this because a lot of people will see the data, they'll see how many calories they're eating, and they will immediately sign shame to themselves. Like, oh, I'm just not doing, I can't do anything right. I'm not eating enough food. There's so much wrong with me.
00:19:09
Speaker
Or if you're talking about temperature, which is one of my favorite metabolic markers, so I just can't, I just can't get it right. There's just, I'm not doing it right. Calm down. It's just a data point.
00:19:20
Speaker
It is not that big a deal. If you're seeing the data point, don't assign emotion to it. Don't assign all of these different things that aren't actually there. Just look at the data and say, okay, I haven't been eating enough food.
00:19:35
Speaker
Now that I know the truth, I can start making changes. So I hope this is helpful for you today. I hope this helps you in your metabolic journey where you can start tracking your calories just to make sure that you are getting enough food.
00:19:50
Speaker
And then you can keep it as a tool as you continue healing. you know, after you get the hang of eating enough food, using it as the litmus test to make sure you're staying on track and fueling your body the way that it deserves to be fueled.
00:20:05
Speaker
Because like I've said before, you don't run on thin air. You will not be able to go and do all of the wonderful life changing things in this world if your body legitimately does not have enough fuel to function. Okay, so take that with you today.
00:20:22
Speaker
if there's nothing else you learned from me, it's that you need to eat more food. So go do that.
Encouragement & Engagement
00:20:27
Speaker
Start tracking, see see what you need and go from there. I love you guys and I'll see you next week.
00:20:39
Speaker
If you found this podcast helpful or encouraging, would you mind leaving us a rating or review? I love hearing from you. So be sure to shout us out on Instagram and tag me at Cassidy dot wealth bell.
00:20:49
Speaker
And we'll be sure to shout you right back out. Let's get this message to as many women as possible until next time, friend.