Do I Count Calories? No. Here's What I Do Instead

I actually have no idea how many calories I eat in a day. I have no idea how many I burn either. I know that sounds absolutely mad coming from someone who lost 66 lbs, but it is the truth, and I think it is the most important truth I can give you.

It is all about the food. Not the numbers. The food.

What I do instead of counting

Here is my whole system, and you can write it on a Post-it. I eat foods that sit under about 600 calories per pound. Fruit, veg, potatoes, rice, oats, beans, lentils, whole grains. That is it. Those foods are so full of water and fibre that you physically cannot eat enough of them to overdo it. Your tummy fills up long before the calories do.

So I pile my plate. Massive portions. And because everything on that plate is light for its size, the maths looks after itself without me ever touching a calculator.

When I was breastfeeding and walking miles every day, I was probably eating a lot. Now that I am not, I am probably eating less. I honestly could not tell you the number either way, and I have never needed to.

You never need your magic number

This is the bit that people find hardest to believe. To go from maintaining to losing, you do not need to work out some magic calorie target. You just need to lower your intake a little from wherever you are right now.

Swap the oat milk in your tea for soya milk. That saved me a good 100 calories a day, and I have a lot of tea. Cook without oil. Trade a handful of nuts for a bowl of berries. Add a big pile of veg to the front of every meal so you eat a bit less of the starchier stuff. None of that requires a number. It just requires knowing which foods are heavy and which are light.

And when you plateau, because everyone plateaus eventually, you lower it marginally again. No numbers needed. No weighing and measuring. Reduce from where you are. It really is that simple.

The night-time snacking that was not hunger

The single biggest change for me was cutting out the snacking after dinner. An apple with peanut butter powder. A banana cookie. Nothing terrible. But my body did not actually need those calories. I was eating out of habit, not hunger.

So now I brush my teeth after dinner, around the time I am putting the kids to bed. That is my signal that eating is finished unless I am genuinely hungry. I make a cup of tea, put a film on, chat, play a game. The urge passes. And that one change, on its own, probably did more than any clever recipe.

Start now, not Monday

Can I say something about Mondays? I used to dread them. Every Sunday night was the same pep talk in my head. Come on Ami, you can do this, it is all about willpower, do not eat the Ben and Jerry's. And every Wednesday was the same collapse.

That is diet culture talking. A diet needs a start date because it is something you endure. A lifestyle does not need a start date because it is just how you eat. So if you are reading this on a Thursday afternoon, start now. Have an apple. Add some broccoli to whatever is for tea tonight. Have porridge tomorrow morning. You do not need to swap everything overnight. Add one thing, then another, and let the habits stack up.

I watched a plant-based YouTuber for about ten years before I actually did anything about it. Ten years. I wish somebody had grabbed me and said just start, right now, imperfectly. So I am saying it to you.

What I ate that day

If you want to see what "no numbers" looks like on a plate: unsweetened mango sticky rice from the instant pot, bulked out with apple and frozen berries. Oat wraps stuffed with black beans, sweet potato, tomato and a bit of avocado. A bowl of leftover rice and beans while dinner was cooking. Carrots and an apple as a preload. A big plate of broccoli and sweet potato for dinner. Every day feels like a feast, and I mean that.

Watch: I filmed the whole day, baby on the floor with a potato to play with while I chopped onions, in What I eat in a day and do I count calories?. It is chaos. It is real.

Reduce from where you are, lovely. Eat the light stuff, pile it high, and start today. No numbers required.

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