For this article, I'm going to attempt something a little different. I normally write for either personal trainers trying to get better or for fitness enthusiasts trying to reach their potential. Today, I'm going to write for BOTH audiences and hopefully help everyone. 

We are going to learn different ways to monitor and control calorie intake WITHOUT tracking calories. This is in stark contrast to what most coaches do with their clients, which boils simply down to "are you tracking?"

Although calorie counting and macro tracking is a fantastic tool that can be very successful, it can also have some drawbacks. It also requires a solid investment of time and resources to do well and is something that not a lot of people enjoy doing. 

What is most important in helping a client or yourself obtain a body composition change is adherence to a sustainable process. 

Luckily, with the other strategies presented here we can:

• Lose body fat without having to take a food scale everywhere
• Learn how to eat out without guilt
• Understand our own bodies internal cues and signals, developing a healthier relationship with food
• Make maintaining our ideal bodyweight effortless rather than strenuous. 

It's time to take action. Let's dive in.

1. Eat slowly and to 80% full

Mindful eating strategies are one of the best eating practices to implement and adopt whether or not you count calories our use calorie counting with clients. Doing this has the following benefits:

• Leads to gradual, sustainable fat loss
• Improves appetite regulation due to slower, mindful eating
• Increases body awareness, helping you to better regulate stress and emotions
• Encourages good digestion
• Builds your tolerance for slight discomfort (this is highly underrated)

Eating to 80 percent full means you stop eating when you’re just satisfied. Not still hungry, but not stuffed or even completely full. It’s about feeling content, with a little room left over.

The reason we love this practice so much for weight loss?

You still get to be satisfied at meals, but over time, you’ll likely end up in a calorie deficit.

So how do we do it?

1. Start with a slightly smaller portion. This will start the practice already.
2. Tune into how your body feels and how hungry you really are.
3. Eat slowly. Chew more. Put down your cutlery between mouthfuls.
4. Check in throughout the meal. Take a bite, chew and swallow, taker a breath and rest. How do you feel?
5. When you feel like you are at 80% full, stop.
6. Do something physical after eating to see how the meal is sitting with you.
7. Take notes about what you are and what it felt like. After a while, you will know how most of your meals make you feel. 

2. Use the hand method

Hand portioning is a simple yet effective tool for portion control. It is highly individualised as it is relevant to your own hand. It is also incredibly useful for eating out as hands are family portable. 

There’s no one-size-fits-all recommendation that’ll work for everyone, but we do have some general guidelines for people who want to try it out. Most people will meet their needs with a starting framework of:

• 1-2 palms of protein-dense foods at each meal
• 1-2 fists of vegetables at each meal
• 1-2 cupped handfuls of carbohydrates at most meals
• 1-2 thumbs of fat-dense foods at most meals

Of course, depending on your goals, you may need to adjust these general recommendations in order to see results.3. Use a Food Journal to figure out the WHY behind your eating habits

When we start working with clients or changing our dietary intake, one thing we learn quickly is that people do not have memories aren't as good as they say, or aren't as honest as they seem to be.

We learn this when we ask our clients about how they have been going with their nutrition and they say they have been "eating really well", but there is no evidence of weight loss. We have all experienced this to some degree personally as well, when we think we are eating well.

This is where a food journal, comes into play, we can start to see what people are really consuming. This makes it really simple to see if they are simply under-reporting what they consume (which is incredibly common) and from here, making adjustments is a relatively simple task.

The REAL value of a food journal is not in the food it records, but from the questions you can ask your clients and the trends you can identify. Here is a list of things you can glean from their food journal.

- How much sleep did they get?

- How much stress are they under?

- What state they were in when they ate that meal

- How hungry they got after each meal

- How each meal affected their digestion and energy levels

- What their emotional state was before a binge or blow out

As you can see, these questions and information gathered can be very powerful for helping a client overcome disordered eating, using food as an emotional crutch or even for identifying foods that can problematic for an individual.

How to Implement

Ask your clients to fill in a food journal for one week. Initially you will be met with a great deal of resistance. This is your first clue they are either under-reporting and/or have some emotional issues around food. Do not force the issue if they are particularly apprehensive. use build up to it gradually. One benefit of food journals is people often spontaneously eat less high calorie foods as they can start to see the impact, minimising the amount of coaching you have to do whilst improving their results. 

Start your clients with a small time frame (one to two weeks) and as they see the impact, it will generally carry out for longer. No more than 12 weeks although some clients end up enjoying it for the power it gives them over food and their results. 

Understanding how to eat without relying on calorie and macro counting is an amazing tool for helping your clients succeed. It is also an essential tool for people to learn for long term body compotiion. However, as the late, great Kobe Bryant said:

"Jobs not finished"

See you next week. 

Whenever you're ready, there are 3 other ways I can help you:

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