These Photos Will Forever Change the Way You Think About Calories
When it comes to losing weight and becoming healthier, it's easy to get swept along in a cycle of counting calories and cutting food to make sure you don't exceed your daily target. But as fitness Instagrammer Lucy Mountain points out, it's not always as simple as that.
Mountain recently started a second Instagram feed, TheFFFeed, where she posts a series of food-related pictures which have given us a whole lot of perspective on calories, and what it means to count them.
Acknowledging that she's "aware calories don't necessarily mean healthy," Mountain does note that "if you're looking for weight-loss/gain having an awareness will help."
And that awareness involves a number of things; from realizing that the amount of calories in an item of food doesn't necessarily reflect how healthy it is, to remembering that keeping your calories to a minimum doesn't always mean cutting down on portion sizes.
In one picture, Mountain posts a handful of almonds and a handful of fruit pastilles. Both, she points out, equal an intake of 188 calories. "I'm fully aware that a handful of almonds contains lots of wonderful nutrients that would keep me fuller for longer," she writes, adding: "Some days (no matter whether I'm looking to gain, maintain or lose weight) I'll choose to eat sweets or a chocolate bar as a snack. Why? Because when the majority of my diet has consisted of well-balanced food that's full of micronutrients, I have no issue eating something thats less so just because I love the taste of it."
And allowing yourself to enjoy a balanced diet isn't the only important point Mountain makes in her Instagram account about calories. In several other posts, she pictures two plates of food which look identical to the naked eye. The number of calories written above, however, differ quite substantially.
In the post pictured above, Mountain explains that the only differences leading to the almost-200-calorie-discrepancy are "the percentage of fat in the meat and the oil used to cook it." Clarifying that both fat and calories are good for you because your body needs them as fuel, she adds: "Making a simple swap like this could be useful if your goal is weight management and you're getting adequate fat in the REST of your meals through-out the day."
Here are some other meal examples where the swaps are negligible, but the difference in calories is fairly substantial:
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