Food tracking, food journaling, calorie counting, whatever you call it, there can be a ton of emotional baggage just thinking about it.
LIke a lot of people who have tried to lose weight, I have tried Weight Watchers in the past. To me, the tracking of the food (points) made me feel like I was obsessing about food. I never, ever, ever stopped thinking about food on any time I was on WW.
One of the benefits we (my husband and I) like about eating Paleo(ish) is that you don't have to track your food. You just eat veggies (no white potatoes), fruits, healthy fats and protein. That appeals to me, it is super easy and won't have me obsessing about food.
When we ate Paleo in the past, I was very successful at losing weight, very quickly. I lost 27 pounds in 2 months. And then I flailed around for a few months with serious night binges and eventually gave up.
Between then and now I have done a ton of work on my relationship with food, my emotions and my mental health. I have worked really hard to stop numbing myself with food and to identify triggers and early warning signs.
So now that I am finally in a good place to actually begin to get healthier, and yes, lose some weight, I was resistant to tracking my food. Like really resistant. I wanted to be an intuitive eater. I wanted this to come naturally to me. Having to track my food fed (punny!) into my belief that there is something wrong with me. I should be able to just listen to my body and eat what it needs.
My therapist showed me that yes, initiative eating does work, but when you have had disordered eating for so long, you might need to track and see how your body reacts. I may just not be ready to be 100% intuitive at this point, and that is perfectly normal. Baby steps.
I have been tracking on and off for the past month, not perfectly, not obsessively, just keeping an eye on things. And when you take all of the emotional baggage out, it works.
