Why it is not enough to count calories?

 Okay, since I don’t like to drag a post for people who are not interested in the concept of a healthy lifestyle I will finish the question and rephrase it.

“Why it is not enough to count calories if I wish to live healthy lifestyle?”

You probably understood by now that if you just want to lose weight this post is probably not for you because most likely you are mentally not there yet.

But, if you would like to explore the concept of healthy lifestyle please keep reading to find out why counting calories is not enough!

Most people tend to believe that if they count the calories in calories out they will be as healthy as possible, potentially that means I can eat 1500 calories of dark chocolate everyday, assuming this is the amount of calories I need, and I will be extremely healthy and really a at top-notch performance of healthy lifestyle.

If you follow me for a while you probably know that I only teach and write from my own experience, unless I state that I’m quoting somebody, many years ago I have tried going on a 3 weeks diet of eating mostly, close to only, chocolate.

I can’t say that after few days on that chocolate menu I felt really good or really light or really healthy, on the contrary, I felt a bit tired I didn’t feel as light as I normally would have felt and the level of energy before working out was not so high, I realized that maybe calories in calories out has a little bit more than what I thought was.

So I went back to explore what are the other options of calories in calories out and then for few years later on I kept checking on the calories that I was consuming based on the amount that I needed during my training time, and I’ve learned that the quality of the calories that you are consuming has so much more impact on how you feel how you think and how you function based on the food you consume.

There is a statement saying: “you are what you eat” it took me many years to understand the meaning of that sentence. It sounds so simple and so basic yet if you think about it you’ll understand it on a deeper level than it sounds.

The food that you consume the drinks that you drink are becoming part of your body, more than that, they are the ones that create most of the energy that you are having, if you take the food you eat combined with the drinks you drink combined with the Breath You Take you basically just created the type of energy within your body.

From the yogic perspective I chose to go vegan, as a yogi, it is important to consume only pure food that has no violent, no anger, no suffering with in it, because I knew that what ever I consume becomes part of who I am and creates the person I am becoming, I know it sounds a little bit over-the-top or maybe a little bit over-dramatic, however, the food that you consume becomes you, and you become the food you eat.

So if you consume whatever it is you consume you make the decision of what kind of a person you are becoming and when you eat a piece of meat or fresh fruit or fresh vegetable, cooked meal or raw meal, you are basically dictating what kind of energy your body will create.
What kind of thoughts you might think and what kind of feelings will follow.

So going back to calories in calories out it might be a great tool to track how much food you need how much micro-nutrients you need, but it is not necessarily the right path to go if you would like to live healthy.

I will definitely recommend to track and check how much fruit and vegetables you’re eating, how much fresh food you’re eating in comparison to processed food, how much and what kind of fluids you’re heaving, and so on.

To simplify things do the best you can to have at least 70% of your food from fruit and vegetables. Eat legumes, seeds, nuts, enjoy fresh food as much as you can and go very easy on processed food, white sugar, white flour.

With love and gratitude
Ilan Halfon.