Yes, this is the unconventional guide to count calories because it is based on your intuition. Intuition is your subconscious mind communicates with your conscious mind. This exchange of information is “a feeling”. It takes years to build up your intuition because it is the result of experience and practice.
The interpretation of these feelings is a mix of vague and clear evaluation. The vague evaluation includes several sensations:
- Energy
- Mood
- Craving
- Hunger
- Sleep
The clear evaluation is your body evolution:
- Photo
- Weight
- Body fat %
- Measurements
Metabolism
Take the example of dieter and couch potatoes. A dieter is a person who burns a lot of calories but eats a low amount of calories. A couch potato is someone who but little calories but eats a huge amount of calories. In these two cases, they are not conscious of their vague evaluations (energy, mood, etc). The reason is that these behaviors lead to a high level of stress in the metabolism.
Once the metabolism has an immense rate of stress, it tries to get back to a normal level. When your body has too much stress, it uses an ancient survival method due to the famines in the past: move less, eat more.
Solution
There are tips to keep your metabolism to a good level:
- First tips – Have a good harmony of workout sessions and recovery/rest periods. Look, athletes. They train hard, eat well and use a big amount of time to rest and recover. It’s a good idea to do like them because there is a link between food and stress hormones.
- Second tips – Increase the number of your calories with healthy food. Of course, when you eat a burger or a pizza, it helps you to have more calories fast. The problem is you have more calories with a junkie food meal than a meal from your diet plan. There is also something important to know. Junkie foods create an addiction in your body to make you eat more of these types of food later.
There is a big discussion about the cheat meal. Some experts agree and some do not. From my point of view, I agree with a day of cheat meals because it works for me.
I wrote an article to buy healthy food in the supermarket. It can help you if you want to have more calories. I eat healthy for 6 days and I count calories for each meal. And one day, cheat meals.
Share this article if you think it can help someone you know. Thank you.
-Steph