Tracking calories is a good way to manage your diet. It gives you a level of precision that other diet managing systems don’t. Tracking can, however, be tedious and take time to get good at. If you’re like many people and don’t want to track your calories, that’s okay. There are other ways to manage your diet. Calories, after all, are just a unit of measurement and if you’re not measuring them, there’s not much point in caring about them. Instead, let’s take a look at food quality dieting over food quantity dieting. I am not a dietitian or a nutritionist, so these are just my opinions. Be sure to consult your physician before making major changes to your diet.

Food quality dieting is not easy. You have to decide on a personal philosophy as to what good quality food is, build the skill of making quality food choices when you’re at home, and – even tougher – when you’re eating out. You should have a system to ensure you’re staying true to your diet, like a food journal or photo album. This is a healthy lifestyle diet. You’re not likely to get super ripped doing it, but you can change your body composition, make your diet health promoting, and support physical activity.

Choose which foods are high quality and healthy to you. For the general public, I think Canada’s newer food guide, or CrossFit do a good job at setting out a food quality philosophy. Both promote whole foods, prioritizing lean meats and vegetables, while minimizing unnecessary sugars.

Now you need a system to make sure you’re on task. This can be anything from tracking what you eat in a food journal to taking photos of your food. This is important for habit building, because as easy as eating high quality food sounds, it can be tough if you’re not used to prepping, cooking, and serving yourself high quality foods.

Once you have yourself all set up for a food quality diet, you can still implement methods that other diets have, like consistent eating times (breakfast, lunch, supper) or weekly weigh-ins. This will help to keep you stay even more on track with your goals.

Make sure you enjoy your diet style. Try different methods and eventually you’ll find something that sticks.