Far 2 Fabulous

Is Calorie Counting Ruining Your Health?

July 11, 2024 • Julie Clark & Catherine Chapman • Episode 27

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Episode 27
Ever wondered why your calorie counting efforts seem to fall short? Join us as we journey through Catherine's post-marathon experience, shedding light on the motivations behind tracking calories and the essential role hydration plays in body composition. We'll unveil surprising insights from popular apps like MyFitnessPal and Noom, diving into the nitty-gritty of understanding calories, setting realistic dietary goals, and navigating the complexities of macronutrients such as protein and fiber. Personal stories and honest frustrations will guide you toward a deeper awareness of your dietary habits and nutritional needs.

Unlock the secrets of portion control and mindful eating as we tackle common pitfalls like overindulging in high-calorie foods and using exercise as a free pass to eat more. Discover how food diaries can expose hidden calories and better manage portion sizes. We'll discuss the influence of larger plate sizes and societal norms around food waste, offering practical tips and a fresh perspective on hunger and nutrition. By the end of this conversation, you'll be equipped with the tools to recalibrate your understanding of what your body truly needs for a healthier lifestyle.

In the final stretch, we demystify calorie counting and emphasize the importance of nutritional balance. Compare a seemingly healthy halloumi wrap with a nutrient-dense salad to understand the real impact of different foods on satiety. Learn about the roles of carbs, proteins, and fats, and why low-fat products might not be as healthy as they seem. We'll debunk calorie myths and share the benefits of tracking nutrition beyond just numbers, highlighting the importance of individualized dietary plans and nutrient-rich foods for optimal health.

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Thank you for listening.

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For more information about Julie Clark Nutrition, click HERE
For more information about Catherine Chapman, click HERE

We look forward to you joining us on the next episode.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Far Too Fabulous hosted by Julie and.

Speaker 2:

Catherine, join us on a mission to embrace your fabulousness and redefine wellness. Get ready for some feistiness, inspiration, candy chats and humour as we journey together towards empowered well-being. Let's dive in. Hello, hello, everybody, and welcome back to Far Too Fabulous. I hope that this finds you very, very well indeed. So this episode has. The subject has been decided by what I am doing at the moment, and if you've seen any of my social media or if you're on my email list, you'll have a little inkling that I have been counting calories.

Speaker 1:

I don't know if I can do this episode. Catherine, I feel like I've got a sweat on. I feel like I need to slightly rock.

Speaker 2:

That was important, so now you can see why I thought this would be a really good podcast. Now, just to give you a bit of a backstory we started this podcast because we used to have these ranty conversations about things and we thought that it would be well interesting for you guys to come and just listen to it, basically. And so when I put this idea to Julie, I knew that it would light a spark and I could just sit back and watch it fly did you?

Speaker 1:

did you notice that, when you messaged me and said come, I'm thinking that we can talk about calories, that I didn't reply for about 12?

Speaker 2:

hours dot, dot dot so, just so, the reason I have been doing this and I am on the same page as Julie, completely with calories the reason I've been doing this is because, post-marathon, I have continued to eat like I'm still running a half a marathon a week and and I am not I do need to pick up the running again because there are some more half marathons and marathons potentially in my future, so I do need to pick that up again, but at the moment, my clothes are protesting that um, that I am not training as much and I have continued to eat just as much. So this I wasn't going to have this anymore. I needed to do something, and, as we talk about a lot, awareness is key, and so I thought I would just shine a light on what I have been putting in my face, and it's been very interesting.

Speaker 1:

I bet. I want to know if your relationship with gravity've had a bit of a. Have you fallen out, you and gravity, me and?

Speaker 2:

gravity. Yeah, I've fallen down, deeper down into it that's what we there's.

Speaker 1:

That's what I always say about the weighing scales it's just your relationship with gravity but, yeah, your relationship with gravity is a bit more dense at the moment is it on many levels?

Speaker 2:

I haven't. Actually, I did stand on. I've got some um body comp scales so I actually did stand on them the first day that I started, looking at what I was eating and, in all honesty, I didn't read the numbers. I have no idea what the numbers were. I wrote them down very quickly just before I was about to start my class and I've put them in a folder. I don't actually know what they are. They are not important to me. The numbers are not important to me.

Speaker 2:

Remaining high and the fat content, uh, going down and things like visceral fat, which, when I was training, went down considerably and I was very excited about that and actually it's gone up. That's the one I look at the most, actually it's the most important and that's gone up. One and and I'm not happy about that either and actually what made a huge difference while I was training was the hydration levels, and obviously I take all of those results with a pinch of salt, because sometimes you can do them twice in a row and they are totally different, but just it gives me a rough picture. It's very interesting that I really concentrated on hydration while I was training and it made a huge difference overall to the visceral fat, to the muscle mass and to the body fat. So, yes, so it was just a time to shine the light on what exactly I was putting in my mouth, because we all know that no two calories are formed the same or mean the same.

Speaker 1:

No, and this is one of the reasons why we don't like calories, isn't it? But I think one of the things I thought when you said I've been counting calories was why not just write down what you've been eating as an awareness exercise? Why the calories and what app did you use? Because sometimes they're not very accurate ah.

Speaker 2:

So I've used my fitness pal just because it's on my phone. I have used um noom as well, but I had a. I had like a free thing on that before I start having to pay. So I don't know whether you can do the same things on that for free as I've been doing.

Speaker 2:

What I've noticed actually with this one this time and I've never used this before is that not only was it counting the calories and it made it quite easy, because often you can put in what it is you're eating or you can scan. You can scan the barcode so it brings up absolutely everything that's that's in it and it has lists of things so you can pick it out. So it makes it quite easy for you to kind of do a digital food diary. But it was looking at what these foods were made up of. So then when you're looking at the like, the carbohydrates or the fiber or the different types of fats and sugars and things it gave and again I haven't played with this properly, so I haven't set my like the right goals for sugar and fat and fiber and all that- how do you know what they are?

Speaker 1:

how do you know what the right goals are?

Speaker 2:

I have no idea which which is probably one of the reasons why I haven't set it. Even so, mark and I were talking about protein, because so what was interesting was that, even with a relatively good whole food diet, I was still filling up the bars with the saturated fats, with the sugars, all those sorts of things, but I wasn't hitting the protein goals and the fiber goals, which is obviously what I want to be doing. And so mark and I were talking, and I was talking about the right levels of protein for me, and he said well, you needs to be like one or two times your you've got to do the body weight and I said but that's a big difference.

Speaker 2:

One or two times my body weight is quite a big difference.

Speaker 1:

So that's even that which sounds initially it sounds relatively simple is actually quite complicated yeah, it is, because it also depends on things like your current muscle mass, your, your exercise, your you know the amount of exercise you do. Lots of factors come into play with that protein yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So I, yeah. So, actually, with the best will in the world of making these things really simple, it's actually quite complicated, isn't it?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, one of the things I tell my clients is to match your carbohydrates to your protein, so whatever the percentage is, it's a good place to start is, just make sure that if your carbohydrate is at 40%, then your protein should be at 40% and your fat at 20%. Okay, and just halve that one. I'm surprised you didn't meet your fibre, though, because you're a vegetarian, so I could understand the protein, but why didn't you? What was going on there?

Speaker 2:

No, I have no idea At the moment. I've still only been doing it for probably about five or six days so far. And again, it's just. I'm not doing it to restrict my diet, because I am sure we've said this so many times, but the restriction doesn't work. You need to be, whenever you're working to create change, you need to be working towards something and not away from something. So I'm not restricting it. The awareness has been very interesting I was laughing with julia as we were making lunch just now that when I'm cooking stuff I am a. I am a fridge picker. I'm afraid my nan used to have something on the kitchen wall that said something about fridge pickers have big knickers or something like that that's a funny

Speaker 2:

one. So I do genuinely think about that when I'm doing it. But, like, if we're making, if we're making pizza, I will be smushing cheese and pineapple together and I'll be, and I'll be eating that as we're, as I'm going along, and I've probably eaten half a meal by the time I've actually made a meal. So the awareness around that having to and a food diary will work just as well for that, to actually write down absolutely everything that you're putting in your mouth. And as we were talking about pizzas, I did realize, on Friday I think, I had a chili with a sweet, but see, again, it made me make better choices actually, and again, a food diary would do that without counting calories.

Speaker 2:

It made me make better choices because when I went to go and pick a potato out of the cupboard, I picked up a sweet potato because I knew I had to write it down, which is very funny, but I had. So I put some cheese on top of my chili and then, and then I didn't have very much because that was lunchtime, and then on Fridays we always make our own pizzas, which was, um, again, you, just I, you know you think we're doing a really good job. And then I, and then I look at everything that goes into this pizza. And it's not the pizza, it was just. It was the amount. It was the amount I ate. But uh, the end of this story is basically that a third of my food intake from friday was cheese yeah, cheese is way too easy to eat though, isn't it yeah?

Speaker 2:

and it's so. I just and and again. So, uh, halloumi, I have regularly have a halloumi wrap at lunchtime, and or I'll have some feta across my salad and just really, really interesting the, the calorie content in that and the amount that I have so how many calories a day were you actually eating so?

Speaker 2:

on on the app and again, this just shows how much I've not really played with it. I had I was. It was clearly once upon a time I don't know what I was doing. I had it set at 1200 calories so that I was in a death in deficit, um, so I totally busted that. I mean one day I completely blasted straight past 2000 and carried on going um. And this is it's also attached to my garmin.

Speaker 2:

So then it takes away um your movement calories yeah so if I've programmed in that I've done a class or something like ploxin on monday, 300 calories. Look at that we. We did a boxing special, so we were jumping around all over the place don't get sucked into that.

Speaker 1:

Calories in, calories out I don't see your eyes like that. Then I was a good girl. I did puloxin and I burnt 300 calories, so actually it was all right that day.

Speaker 2:

It was, I mean, and that's the thing, isn't it? And this was this really? This again this highlighted because I mean we are that that is always my knee-jerk reaction, my go-to reaction, and then I have to rethink it and it's like I imagine not that I know any languages, but I imagine this is what somebody has to do when, when they, when they're talking somebody's in a different language, they think of it in their own language and then they translate back. This is what I do. You kind of you go straight to that programming that we were brought up with and then I go no, that's absolutely wrong. It's like that I've just burned 300 calories, so now I can go and eat da, da, da. But actually it did the opposite to me. It, especially when I was looking at the carbohydrates and the fiber and the protein, was that I've just done all of that hard work. How can I support my body to build on that rather than completely dismantle it?

Speaker 1:

good, I'm glad you said that because, I was worried for a minute because I was about to leap over the microphone to strangle me. I was just looking at that. You know, being being able to use the excuse that I've done exercise, therefore I can have x, y and z to reward myself, is such a mindset um conditioning programming, and it's so common, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it really, it really is. So, yeah, I'm glad you turned that around yeah no, I was.

Speaker 1:

I was worried for you then for a minute. What was it about the calories that you decided to count? Or was it really just using an app so that you could log your food?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was definitely the logging and the awareness and I think actually just for that short amount of time, it was really interesting to know, kind of where any of the hidden calories were. And again, that said, because I can hear you keep saying food diary, food diary, and actually most of the answers would be found in the food diary the only things that I think wouldn't highlight necessarily unless I was putting weight measurements into as in of the food, not of me, let's not do that Is the portion sizes, portion sizes, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Portion sizes have definitely gone up. Even the size of our plates now. Yes, have gone up massively. Yeah, gone up massively. So if we look at like a dinner set that maybe our grandparents would have had for their you know, as a wedding gift, for example, the main dinner plates are actually very small.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they're only just bigger than the side plates. We have our like toast and stuff on.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so just sometimes, when you've got that portion control issue going on and lots of people have portion control issue I definitely do, because my mum does massive portions of everything. So I've always been brought up with these massive portions. And on top of that is being a child of the 70s, where you did not waste anything. You can't leave it on your plate. No, you've got to, um, you've got to finish your food before you get down from the table, even if you're full, which isn't. It's not the right way to do it, but I could understand why it was done. So if I have a big plate and it is full up, I'm going to eat everything.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I have to be really aware of plate size yeah yeah, plate sizes have massively increased over the years yeah, I have just got my smaller plate out again now and I have to remember now to tell everybody that that is my plate, serve it on there and then have that that lovely illusion that my plate is full exactly, and that does help with the brain side of things, doesn't it?

Speaker 1:

so one of the things I always notice when, when I do the reset and I know you've said this before as well, and lots of people say this is that you don't need to eat as much as you think you do.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah absolutely and actually, and after the reset, when you've done those first few days with, uh, with the soups, and the smoothies and stuff you, yeah, you don't, you don't. You genuinely don't eat as much, do you? Don't feel like you need as much to to eat. And, of course, you're getting all those nutrition, nutritional what's the word I'm trying to say all the nutrition, yeah, all the nutrition, all the nutrition.

Speaker 1:

So you don't need to pack it out with anything else, because your body is happy with what it's got and I suppose when you're writing down everything or logging it into that app, you're aware of how many habits that you've picked up when you're eating, when you're not thinking about it or you know you don't need to and you're just doing it anyway.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and when I was getting, so, towards the end of the day, when there was the less calorie allowance, if you like, then making the choice when I went into the kitchen, maybe to make a cup of tea and perhaps I would have had a snack. Then the awareness am I actually hungry? No, I'm not. Do I want this enough to write it down?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, because once you've written it down or you put it in the app, you've got to admit to it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was again. It was that, it was the awareness. I haven't I haven't intentionally changed what I'm eating or drinking. However, writing it down and the awareness has definitely made me think about what I'm doing. And then, if I my sort of plan going forward is that now I know roughly what my standard meals are, that we'll have sort of through the week how much they are. I will then reduce those portion sizes, because I think that really is my one of my biggest problems. It's not what I'm eating, it's how much I'm eating. Although I will, I do need to look at my protein and my fiber and work out how to how to get more of that into it.

Speaker 1:

so when you actually input all your food for that week, did you do it for a week? Well, at the moment I've done it for about five days. I will be carrying on. Yeah, five days. When you actually look at the types of foods that you've eaten, were you happy with that, with the variety? You know we've been speaking about variety recently Were you happy with the variety and that the food, because we can all eat too much of good things as well. We know that there's a portion size issue going on, but when you looked at what you're actually eating, were there any surprises um other than other than the amount of cheese and the calorie content of the cheese, which I'm very sad about.

Speaker 2:

Um, I find in the summer it's much easier for me to eat a variety of things because the salads that I have are absolutely choc-a-full again. Another really interesting thing was that when I made the halloumi wrap full of lettuce, full of spinach, a little bit too much full of halloumi I love halloumi um, what else did I have in it? Uh, avocados, cherry tomatoes, all sorts of bits and pieces, with a little drizzle of sweet chilli sauce, which I thought was going to absolutely bust the calorie bank, but it didn't, which was pleasing the difference, so that in total actually ended up at something like five or six hundred calories, which I was really surprised about, because I think psychologically that was just a it wasn't a snack, but it was just a normal small lunch whereas the day after that I'd made a massive salad and I put, uh, roasted chickpeas in it. I had one and a half boiled eggs. I didn't have cheese in it, which is probably why there was a huge drop in calories.

Speaker 2:

Um, loads of different things, olives and loads and loads of things that came out to about, I don't know about 300 calories, something like that, but it was, it was massive and I was really really full and it yes, so it was. It highlights actually that our whole argument about calorie counting or not calorie counting is that, even though this bowl was absolutely brimming full of food, it was. It was probably a lot better for me and there were far less calories in it and were there less calories?

Speaker 1:

not just because of the cheese, but you had a wrap in that one. What did you have in your bowl? What was your carbs? Just well, do the do the chickpeas counts carbs? They do have carbs in them, but they're mostly giving you your protein there. Yeah, I don't think there were any carbs in that. Actually, that's the difference. Yeah, that's the difference as well.

Speaker 2:

It's that interesting, but you need those and then. So I would be thinking, if I was just looking at the calories I would be thinking I've got to ditch the wrap, but actually I need the. I need the carbs as well, as long as they are from a good source yeah, I mean.

Speaker 1:

That is another, entirely different conversation, though. As to whether you need carbs at each meal, you know what the balance is. It depends. This goes back to testing and knowing what best suits you. Yeah, because if you're somebody that can, you're really good at getting your energy from fat then you might suit a low carb diet. But. But if your body is better suited to burn, to make the energy from carbs, then if you didn't have carbs, you're going to feel very, very tired, especially if your fat energy mechanism is compromised, which happens a lot. So, yes, it's quite difficult to answer that question. But your carbs are your sugars, so it doesn't matter whether that was a wrap or whether that was a chocolate bar. Yeah, as far as the app is concerned, when it's calculating the carbs, it's the same. Yeah, in terms of sugar, we know the nutrients are completely different but it's same that in terms of the sugar that's going into the body.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so, yeah, it's a difficult one to answer completely, but when I'm talking to my clients, most of the time I start them off by balancing their protein and their carbs, whatever that may be, because most people eat too many carbs, not enough protein, and a lot of people don't eat enough fat. I mean, that wasn't the case for you because of your your um, more cheese grommet, but you know cheese the thing is about. Fat is it has more calories per unit than your carbs and your protein do, so it makes a difference in terms of that, which then drives towards the argument for low fat, which we do not at all buy into.

Speaker 2:

No, but again because we were all brought up on that. I still have to translate it in my head. I still have that knee-jerk reaction to go on. I mean, marketing is just so blooming clever. I still have that knee-jerk reaction to go and pick up the low-fat hummus. And this makes me laugh because I think about my mum when she was in Israel quite a while back now and she was talking about low-fat hummus and this guy was just looking at her. This Israeli guy was just looking at her as if to say what, what is?

Speaker 1:

what is this what?

Speaker 2:

is this low fat? Yes, hummus is hummus right exactly. I can't think what they even like take out of it to make it low fat, it's the olive oil.

Speaker 1:

So when you make hummus, you've got your chickpeas, you've got your olive oil. They take the olive oil down and they put something else in to make it more liquid and smooth. Can you imagine what on earth do they then put in, like a wallpaper paste, the same as they do in mayonnaise. It's pretty much the same. They put wallpaper paste in it.

Speaker 1:

I told you this would be quality people To get the same consistency, because your brain needs to recognise the same feel in your mouth and we like the feel of fat, yes, so we get lots of reward light up in our brain there. So they have to put something in that gives you that same feel. So anytime the fat is stripped out of a product, they have to put something back in that gives that feel, and the thing that they do put in is like wallpaper paste.

Speaker 2:

Yeah and what about the taste, julie, when they take things out and they make things low fat, what helps to? What do they put in for the taste? I'm just. I'm here with the spoon now I'm stirring it up.

Speaker 1:

stop prod prodding me, stop prodding me. I'm trying to contain myself here with this discussion on calories. I'm not even going to answer that question.

Speaker 2:

I'm not going to say the sugar word. All right, then, okay.

Speaker 1:

Okay, yeah, right, yes, in order for something to be low fat. If it's a product that has a balance between fat and sugar and you take the fat down, it's a product that has a balance between fat and sugar and you take the fat down, it's a seesaw. You've got to push the sugar up, yeah so that's salt I guess. Yeah, yeah, the salt as well. But yeah, in products like let's think of, a milk is a classic one. So full fat milk, yeah, is actually very nutritionally balanced, uh-huh.

Speaker 2:

But for a cow?

Speaker 1:

yeah, yes, yeah, we could have that discussion. But when we look, if we just look at the nutrients, of course it's got lots of nutrients in it, because it's going to grow that calf into a big cow. So when we're just looking at the nutrients, now you need to contain yourself and we strip it out to skimmed milk, yeah, which is vile. Yeah. Then what are you gonna say? Then the sugars go up in the milk because you've got the. The milk sugars have to be rebalanced against the fact that the fat's gone, which is bonkers, because it's quite sweet anyway, isn't it? So skim milk is worse for you from a sugar perspective than full fat milk.

Speaker 2:

Just just let that sink in. That's crazy, yeah, but that and that and this happens time and time again.

Speaker 1:

Doesn't it with our foods that are processed in any in any sort of way, exactly, but of course the diet industry will tell you that if you want to lose weight, you should have skinned milk that's.

Speaker 2:

It's interesting and it's crazy and it's infuriating infuriating, yeah, infuriating.

Speaker 1:

I think a lot of products that are marketed as low fat do tend to be the products that aren't good for you anyway. Yeah, you know, like the reduced fat digested biscuits, for example, or what else. I'm just trying to think now. What else do?

Speaker 1:

we no careful, Don't shatter too many illusions here, I never, ever buy anything that says reduced, reduced in price. That's different. But, reduced in fat or sugar or light or low calorie. No, I just no. Because you know it's been fiddled around with too much yeah, or it's a product that I shouldn't be eating anyway, because I'm not looking at my um, my fruits and vegetables, and I'm looking for oh, where's my low calorie broccoli here or my reduced fat apple. You know?

Speaker 2:

yeah, absolutely. Although they do tamper with the apples now, don't they? And stick sweeteners and stuff in those to make them sweeter. I'm making her cry now. I'm not making her angry anymore, I'm making her cry.

Speaker 1:

I know they do that with tomatoes as well. Tomatoes have got sweeter and apples have got sweeter and yeah, that's just. It's disgraceful.

Speaker 2:

But and that's in it's um. A slippery slope, isn't it? Because you end up eating like an average diet would have a lot more. If it's a processed diet, would have a lot more sugar in it, and so then when you have something that's that's normal, tasting like an apple or like a tomato, it doesn't taste as sweet, and you're like it's almost like your tolerance changes too.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, it does you, you conditioning changes. So yeah, absolutely right.

Speaker 1:

So that's why we need to be careful with our kids yeah because one of one of the reasons why they don't like vegetables is that vegetables are naturally sweet, but they're not that sweet. Yes, so if we've conditioned them with the sweet things and one of the biggest ones I have a problem with is pureed in a jar baby food yes, because if you look at them, the sugar is very high and they always mix fruit in yeah, they do. Yeah, yeah, there's always an apple sauce or something, exactly. Yeah, and then what does that do? That trains the child's taste buds to want more and more sweetness and therefore they don't like the bitters, which are important for gut health. They don't like the sour taste. Yeah, it's a big issue no, that's absolutely huge.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely. This is, we could literally talk about this forever we could.

Speaker 1:

I think we should just say the one of the reasons why we don't buy into this calories thing is that you could have two foods with the same amount of calories yeah, like a chicken breast and a donut. Yeah, could be the same calories. Yes, and you could. That you could have two people on the same amount of calories in their diet yes, but one could be from foods that also contains whole grains and fiber and vitamins and minerals and the good bacteria, and the other one could just be factory dead food with none of that in.

Speaker 2:

Those two people are not going to have the same health markers no, absolutely, and that, at the end of the day, is the goal. It's not. The goal is not the whatever calorie content you're trying to hit. The goal is is the health and the well-being. And actually having only done this for sort of five days or so, I can see how somebody would get quite fixated on those numbers. I am going to be very pleased actually to let go of it because it's a pain in the bum, but it is very interesting when you scan that, you scan that product and and you put in how much you've had of it, for it to ping up that number, yeah, and either be shocked or relieved, depending on what the number said yeah, it can be addictive, and then you end up with having an unhealthy relationship with food, don't you?

Speaker 2:

yeah, no, absolutely, but no it. I'm glad you said that, because it is. It is so important to know that it's not just that, just that one number, that there is so much more to each of those calories and each of these, these food groups I like the, the apps that give you.

Speaker 1:

I don't my is it my fitness power used. I don't really know that one very well, but some of the apps that my clients use. It tells you if you reached your five a day yeah. And it tells you if you hydrated enough and it has a little colored like apple your five a day, yeah. And it tells you if you hydrated enough and it has a little colored like apple that fills up and the water jug and things like that does it do that on.

Speaker 2:

There is there is a water bit.

Speaker 2:

That actually makes it quite easy.

Speaker 2:

So, rather than having to put literal meals, it just it's got a picture of half a glass, a picture of a full glass, a picture of a jug or something, so you can keep an eye on that. And I did like the fact that it gave you the protein scores and the fiber scores, and I'm assuming, probably on a paid account, that you could then you could change them to make them specific to you to to make them specific to you. So I think that that if, if you, if you were training for certain things and you needed to up your protein, for instance, or something like that, I could see its place. But I think in day-to-day life, like like you advocate, I think a food diary is is sufficient to create that awareness and just and I mean we can, I can, I can now be aware of how much I'm eating, especially the cheese, especially the cheese. And I have to say I will not be going down the slippery slope of um, low-fat cheese, because we're not even going there no, we're not going there.

Speaker 1:

no, cheese. Cheese is a good protein, but I see many vegetarian diets that have too much. But you know, a lot of cheese? Yeah, because it's an easy source of protein, isn't it? But really, you've got to look at all those beans and pulses and lentils and nuts and seeds, and all those things.

Speaker 2:

And I mean actually there is almost a game there with the calorie counting. It's almost like how much food can I eat? And the only way that you're going to be able to get a lot of food in under a certain calorie limit is by eating the vegetables, is by eating the lettuces, is by eating the beans and the pulses and all that sort of thing. And that actually that would. That would take my fiber and stuff and the protein right back up.

Speaker 1:

It would. It would really help. Another thing to mention about that situation is with calories, because your body is so clever. If you start to reduce your calories and your body is used to a certain amount or you're moving a lot anyway, your body will adjust your metabolism to help you. Oh, that's interesting. So this is why, when you really restrict your calories and you don't lose weight, it's because it's not about calories in, calories out. Your body is very, very clever and set up to make sure that you can survive through periods of famine versus feast, so it's got its mechanisms in place. So something to be aware of there. So how many calories do we actually need? That is a very difficult question to answer.

Speaker 2:

That's really interesting, is it? And I suppose, if you, if you have, um, an upper limit that you've put on yourself with calories and then you use that limit up with foods that are high in calorie, so you're not eating very much, and for it, and then maybe you, you, you run out part the way through the day, yeah, and then you can't, in theory, you can't eat until the next day. I guess there's going to be a real restriction there yeah, I mean.

Speaker 1:

The only place where we would use calories is if we're doing a fasting, mimicking diet and we know the base level of calories that your body can operate everything but shift you into burning fat.

Speaker 2:

Yes, fuel basically, no, absolutely, which is, yeah, we, we will do lots more about fasting, I think, in the future. But yeah, absolutely, yeah, fantastic. Well, I got my rise out of uh of Julie that I was after. I knew there would be a little bit of fireworks but uh, no, that was. It was really good actually to have your input on on uh. Honestly, I'll genuinely to have your input on what I've been up to with the calories you're very welcome thank you very much. Take it easy. Thank you for keeping us company today.

Speaker 1:

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