Before you get on a diet plan consider tracking your calories…at maintenance. Log into your fitness tracker, change your goal to maintain. Make sure your weight is accurate and enjoy eating all the calories recommended to maintain.

Why on earth would you do this? This might be helpful for a chronic dieter that wants to work on a healthy relationship with food. Many of us have a goal to lose weight even when we are not actively on a plan to lose weight. I think this can make it appear harder or like a problem we can not fix. Imagine giving yourself permission to eat all your recommended calories and coming at it with the attitude of, ‘What do I get to eat today?’ and ‘What foods can nourish my body?’

This shifts the focus. Intention is important. Compare this to trying to lose weight, without a real plan and feeling like you are sabotaging it when you decide to eat something that you think you shouldn’t. There is a self deception created and a mistrust with oneself that may carry over. Imagine instead learning how to maintain one’s weight and not rewarding with food but allowing oneself to eat all the recommended calories.

This approach can also come in handy even when you are on a diet. The knowledge you have gained can help you on a day where you know you are going over. You aren’t going backwards, you are just having a maintenance day. Many times dieters will continue eating to blow the whole day when they believe they have missed their goal. Your likely set your goal to lose, which means when you don’t hit your goal it doesn’t mean you are going backwards. We don’t think about this when we get so focused on perfection.