And we definitely don’t have all the variables. Our bodies are so amazing and smart, but if you believe the diet world, they’re legit mathematicians.

Every day, they’re hard at work converting each carb into 4 calories and each gram of fat into 9 calories and ice water into negative calories and triple-checking that you didn’t put too many olives in your 2.7-ounce orange container.

What.

If you can’t remember a time that you weren’t counting and tracking your food intake by some arbitrary metric, this is as normal as breathing. But please, I beg you, take a step back and think about this.

These are guidelines, at best. Why do they feel like dogma?

Why do we let them dictate our lives?

Why do we trust diet plans more than the human body’s most innate instincts — to eat when it needs fuel, and stop when it’s full?

We’ve all heard the “calories in, calories out” concept a million times but is it really that clear cut? I’m not so sure. This article from the New York Times about the lives of Biggest Loser contestants post-weight loss (an excellent read, btw) points to an equation so much more complicated than that.

Maybe someday we’ll have all the variables, but in the meantime, wouldn’t it be nice to stop white-knuckling through life? Eat what you want, and let your body tell you when it’s had enough. Intuitive eating was the exit ramp I was so desperately seeking, and I hope it brings you peace too.