Everything you know about calorie counting is wrong


Hi Reader,


There was a stretch of my life where I knew the calorie count of almost everything before it touched my plate. I could tell you the numbers without thinking. I was still hungry most of the time, and I was still nowhere near where I wanted to be.

I think a lot of us have lived some version of that. Counting, restricting, feeling like the failure must be ours when the number on the scale doesn't move the way it's supposed to.

I read a piece in the paper this week making the case that scientists are now recognising calorie counting has had it wrong all along. Reading it, I felt something close to relief. Not because it told me anything new, but because it was written in black and white, in an ordinary newspaper millions of people read on their commute. Something I've believed for years, finally said out loud where everyone could see it.

It's not about eating less. It's about eating better.

Not fancier. Not more expensive. Just real. Protein. Vegetables as close to how they grew as you can get them. Stepping away from ultra-processed food and cooking more of your own meals, even simply.

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Pick up a ready meal sometime and read the ingredients properly. So much of what's in there is just filler, maize starch, bulking agents, things that stretch a product further and keep it cheap to make. Your body knows the difference between that and something real. So does your thyroid.

None of this needs to be complicated. The woman in the piece didn't overhaul her whole life. She focused on protein and better quality food, and the weight came off without her fighting it every day. No hunger. No obsessing. No white-knuckling through cravings.

That's exactly what I try to help people do here. My snacks these days are a handful of raspberries, or a square of dark chocolate, which genuinely has some real anti-inflammatory properties behind it.

Simple things that make my body feel looked after, rather than punished.

The more we eat like that, the better we tend to feel. And if weight loss is something you're after, I think this is closer to how it actually happens. Not through restriction. Through nourishment...

P.S. We actually have a 30-day self-guided reset inside the community that walks you through exactly this. There's a 7-day free trial if you want to have a proper look around first: https://www.skool.com/hypothyroid/about​

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