Should emotional, compulsive and binge eaters count calories?

Counting calories can be a miserable, obsessive and sometimes effective strategy for losing weight.

Calorie counting is especially important for those who have never counted calories before and have little knowledge regarding the calorie content of common foods.

Like many behaviors, counting calories is effective for some and potentially damaging for others. For instance, those with disordered eating patterns and a history of dieting may already be painfully aware of the calories they are eating. In these cases, calorie counting is not the best strategy. Rather tracking meals, snacks and their contents and their timing is a better, safer and more effective strategy.

Dieters who struggle with emotional, compulsive or binge eating behavior may already be too strict when it comes to the calories they consume. They may also skip meals or go too long between meals in an exhaustive effort to cut calories. They often set unrealistic calorie goals and beat themselves up for failing to stay below this unrealistic mark.

If this behavior sounds familiar, make a point to eat a meal or snack every 3 to 4 hours and consider counting vegetable and fruit consumption rather than calories. Eating a vegetable or fruit (especially vegetable) at every meal or snack will leave little room for filling up on high calorie foods. The take home message is that calorie counting, or as I prefer to call it, calorie estimating is an important skill and can be helpful for those who have never paid much attention to the calories in the foods they eat.

If you already know the calorie values of most food items or already exhibit bouts of restrictive dieting behavior you are far better off tracking how often and how healthy you eat rather than nit picking every single calorie. Note, in both of these situations, tracking what you eat in a journal is critical to your success.

Food monitoring is NOT the same as calorie counting. Tracking what you eat will change and improve your eating habits whether or not you count calories.