In this vlog, Julia Fedorin reflects on a year‑long habit of logging every bite with MyFitnessPal and explains why she finally quit. She shares a detailed account of a typical week’s meals after abandoning calorie counting, describing breakfasts, lunches, dinners, snacks, and occasional treats like sushi, shawarma, ice cream, and Built Bars. Throughout the narrative she critiques how obsessive tracking eroded her intuitive relationship with food, citing issues such as inaccurate nutrition labels, the tendency to avoid healthy fats, and the psychological stress of constantly watching numbers. Julia offers practical, incremental strategies for others who want to wean off tracking—deleting the app, eyeballing portions, keeping phones away from the kitchen, and limiting tracking to high‑sugar or processed items. She also ties her nutrition shift to her Epic Heat/Epic Eat workout program, noting how exercise and food freedom complement each other. The video balances personal anecdotes, nutritional insights, and product mentions while emphasizing that calorie counting can be a useful tool in moderation but becomes counterproductive when it dominates one’s eating mindset.
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I said goodbye to MyFitnessPal, goodbye to my 1-year streak of tracking everything I ate, and this is what a full week of eating looks like after quitting calorie counting. MyFitnessPal has probably been one of my most used apps in 2020, besides Instagram and YouTube, of course. I mean, I was on it before breakfast, lunch, dinner, and any snacks, making sure I tracked every bit of food I put into my system. Looking back now, I don't know how I did it. Measuring every bit of food just to make sure it added up to my calorie requirements was not easy business. On top of that, it made eating a complicating and overwhelming task. I simply couldn't enjoy any high-calorie foods without checking the nutritional values first. Using MyFitnessPal became such an ingrained habit, I was blind with how much it was holding me back. And just like any habit, it was difficult to quit at first. Whenever I skipped a day of not counting, I would always feel guilty, like I let myself down. But if anything, I was letting myself down by tracking calories, not trusting my body and its hunger cues from the start. For lunch, I prepared avocado toast with the spread we got from the Russian store. I also had some cherries and almonds on the side, and then I had a few traditional Russian chocolates. They are so, so delicious. My favorites are probably Alyonushka or Karol Willykan. They're so good. For dinner, we ordered some shawarma, and I had some veggies and salad to pair with. And to finish off the day, I had some ice cream while watching the new movie Cruella. I was still really, really hungry for some reason, so I had a rice cake and I made myself some oatmeal, and that was the last thing I ate, I promise. A little disclaimer before we start: after watching this video, I don't want you to leave thinking calorie counting is bad because it isn't. It has helped me become a little bit more aware of what I was eating on a daily when I first started, but there is a limit to everything you do. I exceeded that limit with calorie counting and started relying on it more often than I should have. It made eating less enjoyable knowing that whenever I bit into something, I had to log it in or else I'd fail. There came a point in my calorie tracking journey where I just got insanely annoyed every time I had food. Who would have thought that food could be annoying? That's when I knew I had to change something. And the something was self-explanatory: just to quit calorie counting. It's been such a long time since I've had yogurt bowls. This is so good. This is so nourishing. But stopping wasn't that simple. I remember at the beginning, I quit tracking for one day, but then I went back into the habit the next few days just because I couldn't imagine giving up all the control. Without tracking, I was stepping into the unknown. Calorie counting, it grounded me, kept me organized. Now that I'm not doing it, I find that I don't care at all. That's why I love MyFitnessPal. It told me when enough was enough. For lunch, I had some scrambled eggs with avocado and our own homegrown baby tomatoes on the side. And then I ended off my day by just snacking on random but delicious foods. Honestly, you can never go wrong with lots of snacks. Calorie counting is just a whole mess. While it did make me aware of how much food I was eating, it took intuitive eating away from me. With calorie tracking, I was relying on numbers to tell me when to stop. The thing is, unlike a calorie goal that stays the same, our bodies are constantly constantly growing, thus are very unpredictable. There are days where I would reach my calorie goal but I was still hungry, and other days I felt satisfied but there was still 100 more calories to go. I couldn't ever say I loved it, so I left it in the dust. Now I'm taking more trips than the Enterprise. After a year of tracking, I would say counting calories is very counterproductive. Something I initially started using to lose weight would later on be one of the reasons for my weight gain. I guess the sun sets. As I mentioned previously, my goal for this video isn't to tell you to avoid calorie counting and to never do it because there will be times it'll be helpful. What I do want to do is convince you how enjoyable and free life is when you stop paying attention to the numbers linked to every food you eat because all that these numbers are doing is creating unnecessary fear. Today I had a very eventful afternoon. After lunch, we went over to our nearest pharmacy to get my first ever vaccine dose. Hey guys, I'm getting my vaccine today. So exciting. Pretty exciting. I'm vaccinated now. My arm did hurt a little bit for the first day, but that's normal. Success! Anyways, after that we ordered lots of sushi to celebrate me and my sister's return from camp. I was craving sushi for the longest time and I was super happy to finally eat it. It left me feeling satisfied and complete for the rest of the day. Of course, I also had to have dessert, so I ate pirozhok, which is a Russian cheesecake treat, and it was very delicious. Now I want to give you some tips on how to slowly move away from calorie counting if that's what you're struggling with. The most simple and obvious tip is just to delete MyFitnessPal or any other tracking app you might have. If it's out of sight, then it's out of your mind. But if that's something you don't want to do, instead of stopping calorie counting right away, the first thing I did was stop measuring. I would still count everything, but instead of weighing, I would just eyeball it. This way you're still tracking, but you're doing it in a less precise and accurate way. Hey guys, I just finished the workout. That was so insane. I'm sweating like always. So excited once I finish this whole Epic Eat program so I can show you guys my full honest review and like my results and everything like that. So super exciting. Now I'm super hungry, so let's go make breakfast. This is definitely a very exciting What I Eat in a Week to film because your girl gets to eat something other than camp food for once. I don't want to spread any hate as the camp itself was good, but the meals there were just not it. I'm just super happy I get to make my own food for once. I started off my day with doing a lovely Epic Heat workout, and then I made a simple breakfast of 2 waffles with peanut butter and banana slices. I also had lots of frozen fruit on the side. Now, I probably missed peanut butter the most while I was away because the camp was nut-free. I simply couldn't have anything peanut buttery for a whole month, and that really did affect me mentally, spiritually, and physically. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating. The point is, I'm glad to be eating it again. For dinner, as you can see, I had some noodles with baked beans, and my mom made this delicious salad with sweet potato, onion, beets, and seasoning. And then I also had some cereal. Another tip I have is to keep your phone away from the kitchen while preparing meals. This way you're less likely to grab it and track. If quitting calorie counting altogether is a challenge, which I assure you it definitely is, you can shift to only tracking certain food groups. I, for instance, am aiming to track only the high sugar and high processed foods I'm eating in a day. Without tracking, I realized that I've been eating so much unnecessary junk food, and it has made me feeling very gross. With tracking, I'll be much more aware of percentages of processed food I'm eating throughout the day. And even though it's not the healthiest way, it's all about baby steps. The one thing I realized is the more I counted calories, the less I was paying attention to the food in front of me. This whole tracking calories was literally a battle between the calculator and my stomach. If I went over, it was a bad day, and if I went under, it would be an excuse to eat more food. Thanks to a website I found, I'm gonna give you 3 reasons why calorie counting isn't an answer to your weight loss goals. The first reason is labels can lie. Did you guys know the labeling laws allow for a 20% margin of error on the nutrition facts table? So that's why you shouldn't rely on the numbers to tell you when to stop, because those numbers you're logging in could be much higher than anticipated. I've been making the same type of oats for a while now, and I thought it'd be a good idea to change it up a bit. So what I did is I took a few frozen pineapples, added them into the mixer, and created the sauce, which I then added into a pan with the oats. I basically made this pineapple-flavored oats creation, which was So delicious. After eating, I let all the food digest while doing some work, and then I did a workout from the Epic Heat program, and it was a killer like always. I've always had this assumption that more calories means more weight. So many people on the internet say in order to lose weight you have to be on a calorie deficit, decreasing calorie intake, burning more than you eat, along with calorie deficit Sits, we see the media recommending low-calorie, low-fat diets. The problem is when you focus on calories, you're likely to eat less fat since fat is more calorie dense than carbs or protein. And when you eat less fat, then you end up eating more carbs. A 2012 study found that the people on a low-carb diet burned more than people on a low-fat diet. Ironically, turns out foods with fat are the foods you want to be eating more of when losing weight, even though they are more calorie dense. Guys, I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's been a whole month since I've had one of my all-time favorite snacks, Built Bars. The sweetness is balanced by the 17 to 19 grams of protein each bar has. That's a lot of protein for a small bar. One of my favorite flavors at the moment is either strawberry or raspberry, but honestly, every flavor is to die for. Wow, this actually tastes really good. Built Bars with yogurt is a such a great combination. If you guys are interested in these, then click the link in description for a 10% discount code. Guys, if you have Built Bars, then I really do recommend you guys try to add them into your yogurt bowls. They add an extra protein and taste so good. After breakfast, I went on my daily walk and I stumbled upon an apple tree. And you know me, always scavenging for food like a raccoon. So I took 2 apples and ate them on my way back. And then I had a pretty filling lunch of an omelette with some bread and avocado. And then I also had veggies on the side. I then snacked on some grapes and had some dinner that my mom made. And then I had a rice cake to finish off this good day. The last reason is focusing on calories often means we restrict healthy foods. For example, we often avoid higher fat foods, as mentioned previously, just because they have more calories. What we don't care to realize are these foods have the most positive benefits towards our health. First of all, they keep us fuller for longer and they give us more energy. There are so many times I would choose a rice cake with avocado rather than bread with avocado just because I knew the rice cake had less calories. But the thing is, rice cake did not fill me up as much as toast with avocado would, that I find myself snacking lots afterwards. Probably the biggest mistakes I made while calorie counting was choosing lower calorie, less nutritious meals. And now I really try my best to find the most high fat foods so I could fill up way more and then snack less throughout the day. Do I regret counting my calories? To some extent, not really. When I first started, it did help me get the physique I always wanted. With calorie counting, I was much more aware of the food I was eating and the nutrients behind it. But doing it for as long as a year was not a good idea, and that's probably the part I regret the most. It really did mess up my whole relationship with food, and I was soon listening to MyFitnessPal more than I was to my own body, and that's sad. So I hope after watching this video you have learned the real truth, or at least my truth, behind calorie counting, what it can do to you in both positive and negative ways, and why I'm never gonna do it again, or at least I'm definitely not doing it every single day for a year because that was— I don't even know how I did it. That was really hard. So what are your thoughts and opinions about it? Let me know in the comments, and as always, I'll see you guys in my next video.
