I have a new pet-hate – tweetwhatyoueat. For those people who don’t know what it is, and until a day or two ago, I didn’t, it is a twitter-like website on which you enter what you have eaten ( or ‘tweaten’, a word that now joins ‘veg’ and ‘carb’ on my list of annoying words ).
I have no issue with listing what you eat ( although one has to ask if it is really that interesting to anyone else ) but the page suggests you list the calorie content too as if calories were the only thing worth listing. I have read that the site has helped people lose weight as they can see how many calories they are consuming, but reducing calories isn’t the only factor when it comes to weight loss, far from it. Highlighting the calorie content of food misses the point completely, and simply perpetuates the notion that food is something that has to be conquered, a battle that is waged, which some days you win, other days you don’t.
I see that they also offer a service whereby one can “track and manage your taboo food list” simply by making a note of it. Oh dear.
If you see an avocado and simply see it as having 340 calories, then you are completely missing the point. What about the mono-unsaturated fats, vitamin K, folic acid, vitamin B6, potassium and lutein? To my mind they are more important than calories.
As long as you see food as something that either makes you fat or thin, and whilst sites like this may have some benefits, they do perpetuate this notion, then you are more likely to battle with your weight.
Understand food instead, educate yourself about what to eat and how the food groups work and you will never have to count another calorie again. Nor will you have to log on and write it down.
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