Does healthy eating = low-calorie eating?
It can… but it depends a great deal on the individual person. In many cases, I’d argue that a low-calorie diet is not ideal for optimum health (such as the case of an athlete, a growing child or teen, an underweight or healthy-weight adult, etc.).
Today’s post is going to be a little different.
It’s a topic about which I’ve been meaning to write for quite a while; ever since there was a bit of drama and confusion over it in the comment section of this post.
You see, I don’t want to send out the wrong message or give people the impression that I only eat low-calorie foods… or that anyone else should only eat low-calorie foods if he/she doesn’t medically need to do so. My website is not a “this is what I ate today” food blog, and the photos you see on this site are usually just of the recipes (as opposed to the entire meal I might’ve eaten along with the recipe. I can tell you I hardly ever eat just a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast!).
Due to the fact that healthier foods are often lower in calories, and because I know a large number of my blog’s readers are watching their weights, many of the recipes on this blog are—or can be—quite low in calories.
In the photo above: Low-Calorie Peanut Butter Ice Cream
To help the large percentage of my readership that doesn’t want the extra calories, I try to always point out when lower-calorie options exist in my recipes (such as when one can sub applesauce, how to make a recipe lower in fat, etc.).
However, the cool thing is that many of my recipes are easily adaptable to almost any diet. Perhaps I need to pay better attention to the other portion of my readers; those who do not have weight to lose?
It’s a common (and dangerous) misconception that a person who needs to gain weight or eat a high-calorie diet must consume exorbitant amounts of junk food in order to meet this goal. You can meet your nutritional needs without downing milkshakes at every meal, and you’ll probably feel much less sluggish.
Today, I thought I’d highlight a few of the tricks I use to calorically bulk up my food while still being healthy.
In the above picture: Chocolate-Strawberry Truffle Pie.
1. Focus on calorie-dense foods.
Eat these first at a meal, so you don’t feel too full before you’ve gotten in enough calories. Here are some calorie-dense, yet healthy, foods:
- all nuts and nut butters
- oils (such as olive, sesame, or coconut) in their pure form (not the hydrogenated stuff they put in packaged goods!)
- avocados
- Thai coconut meat (really good in smoothies, pies, or puddings)
- dried fruit
- canned coconut milk
- giant bowls of pasta (my favorite!)
- dark chocolate (oh wait, that’s my favorite!)
Raw recipes are often calorie-dense. Here are my favorites.
2. Don’t skip the veggies
…because you’re afraid they’re too low-cal. But do be sure to not just eat them plain and steamed. Try sautéing or roasting with a generous drizzle of olive or coconut oil (so so good).
3. Bigger portions.
For example, I post oatmeal recipes that are for one serving. But when I make them for myself, I always times the recipe by 1.5. Try it sometime… you probably won’t even notice you’re taking in more calories!
4. And eating more often.
Instead of three huge meals per day, space it out with 5-6 smaller meals and snacks throughout the day, giving your stomach a chance to digest. Personally, my job as a recipe developer means I never stop snacking! Chocolate is always close to my heart greedy fingers.
5. Non-healthy treats… sometimes.
I’d say I probably eat healthy foods 80% of the time. But does that mean I’ll turn down a friend’s cookies that she veganized just for me? Or Hangawi’s incredible cheesecake in NYC? No, it does not. (I probably should get a post up about this topic, too… but not today. I think I’ve already talked your ears off enough for one day!)
Do you eat a high-calorie diet? A low-calorie diet?
Or maybe you have absolutely no idea how many calories you consume! Please take an introspective look at your life and make responsible food decisions for you. If that means eating a low-calorie diet, my recipes are here to help. But if that means not eating a low-calorie diet, please take advantage of some of the higher-calorie options listed both in this post and in my recipe posts!
For more, see the following: High Calorie Recipes.
Sorry for double commenting. It said error so I tried to send it again.
Katie, I cannot express how grateful I am to you for all your work. Your Blog literally saved my life, I was borderline anorexic (i didnt think i was fat i just didnt eat much) but your site helped me to realise that little, active people (me) need plenty of food and calories and you can get them in a healthy way. I rarely used to have anything high calorie, but your blog has encouraged me to bake loads more, and therefore eat all the foods which I baked! You also taught me how important healthy fats are and now i probably eat way too many lol (my mum asked if someone had thrown the bottle of olive oil away…)
Please keep doing all your hard work and effort because it does make a difference <3
Thank you so much
love katy
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Aww that really makes me so happy!
And lol about the olive oil thing… There is absolutely nothing in this world as good (or maybe as good for you either!) as caramelized, roasted veggies drizzled with olive oil). I always buy the biggest container :).
I know you get plenty of comments, so I thought why not add one more? lol! Anyways, as others have mentioned, I would not have survived if it wasn’t for your blog. My suggestion is that you post some high-calorie vegetable recipes because I am one who typically avoids low-cal. veggies (plus, weird looks from people thinking a thin girl can’t eat veggies just turns it off for me) to bulk up on healthy fats. I know my reason is no excuse, but that is just a recipe suggestion haha. I am a weight gainer who is gluten-free, soy-free, and vegan. I have been an avid reader for about a year, and I just HAD to thank you so much for all you have given to me to gain weight and deal with food allergies:)
Aw thanks, Chloe! I will definitely try to get some savory recipes up… but I must admit I like dessert posts better. Veggies are so darn hard to photoshoot! Green ones esspecially ;).
Hi Katie!
I’m glad to finally find a healthy food blogger who is actually trying to gain weight! I am too. You’re really encouraging and inspiring. I’m in high school, and am very active with track and cross country. It’s really hard for me to gain weight because I do not like eating big portions, I like healthy food, and I am so busy, active, and have a high metabolism. I am self-conscious about how skinny I am, and I HATE it when people tell me I’m too skinny. Why is it not okay to tease someone for being overweight, but it’s acceptable to make fun of someone for being too skinny? Anyway, I think you are a great role model and really enjoy your blog!
-Eliza
Thank you so much for posting this. I’m a recovering anorexic and it’s difficult for me to find other blogs that promote a healthy lifestyle whatever that means for the individual, not one that sends a “Do what I do because I’m a blogger and I’m thin” type message. I really appreciate you writing this. Thank you.
Hi Katie- I haven’t read your blog very much but it seems interesting. Looking forward to checking out the recipes. Seems like this last post has brought a lot of discussion… I don’t have anything to add that’s not been said but as far as my current diet, I don’t count calories and follow a meal plan with exchanges.
I love this post! I’m a fifteen-almost-sixteen-yeatr-old girl who just somewhat recently got out of treatment for an eating disorder (mostly orthorexia, but anorexia as well, and I have a ridiculous metabolism. At the treatment center, they were kind of irked by my veganism and adverseness to any foods that I considered unhealthy (anything processed, with refined sugar, etc.). I’m always looking for ways to condense healthy foods, and I’ve pretty much figured it out, but you’ve summed it up pretty nicely. (-: Love your blog, by the way; your recipes are delicious!
Hi Katie!
I wondered: could you make chocolatecoveredkatiestyle Waffles?
A fan from Belgium.
It’s definitely on my to-do list!!
yay! 🙂
I must to apologize, Katie: I got tangled into the rumors that you’re anorexic and all those other conspiracies for a spell; I really regret it. It’s absurd to sit here on my computer half-way across the country while speculating about how much you eat. Who am I to say if you’re anorexic or orthorexic, just based on what you publish on this blog? I certainly haven’t met or seen you, much less known you!
In fact, I’ve known a couple of girls who were, from what I can see, about your size growing up. They were constantly taunted and derided about their weight; ironically, I was the one standing up for them. I knew then, even as a bigger-boned child, that it was logically faulty to compare your own weight with your peers; everyone’s built differently, and there’s myriad factors that come into play.
I shouldn’t forget my initial logic on this matter, and once again, I apologize for being so judgmental. Thank you for being so candor with your readers and yourself – it’s time that I do the same.
Aw Catalina, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your honesty and kindness in leaving this comment.
I am certainly not above making snap judgements about people… I think it’s just human nature!
Great post! There have been a few times in my life where I’ve wanted to gain weight, and it wasn’t until I learned to do it by incorporating healthy foods that I managed to form good habits that kept me in a comfortable place. You’re so right—when you fill up on junk, it’s harder to work up the enthusiasm for a filling meal that’s going to give you the nutrients your body needs.
I had to go back to that post to find the (very judgmental) post about your breakfast choices, and I have to say…as someone who has struggled with being on the plump-side for the majority of my life, I know FOR A FACT that when I was in college, and would run for an hour each day, do millions of sit-ups and crunches in my room, drink nothing but Diet Coke and Water (Oh, the unhealthiness!), eat nothing but salads with fat-free dressing, and have a teensy bowl of PLAIN oatmeal for breakfast, my friends would pat me on the back for being so “healthy.” If I had been naturally thin, I would have been accused of anorexia in a heartbeat. But with identical eating and exercise habits, if you add 30 pounds to the woman, everyone congratulates her on trying to improve her health. It’s wrong. And even though I *did* have some weight to lose, that was in NO way a healthy way to live!!! I got very sick (surprise, surprise!), and when I appeared on stage (I’d been trying to slim down for a starring role in a play–I was supposed to be the “pretty” girl, and felt like if I went up there at my current weight, everyone in the audience would be snickering at the idea of ME being the “pretty” one), I had to be caked in brightly-colored makeup to keep me from looking ashen and pale. I was sickly, I was weak, and I was applauded for it–because of my weight. People need to realize that healthy is healthy is healthy, no matter what someone weighs!!!!
I am watching my calories from both sides. I have a few (50) pounds to lose, but I’m also nursing my (very fat, always hungry, super healthy) baby. I’ve had my calories drop too low, which caused my milk supply to drop, and then increase too much, putting me at an unhealhty weight. I’m not a big junk food eater, and I always eat “healthy” foods, but I’m learning about portions and feeding my body not only good foods, but also good amounts.
My 5yo, however, is sometimes frighteningly thin. He was a sickly baby, had digestive problems, and just never has been much of an eater. He enjoys your recipes enormously and always eats well when I cook them. They are free of the foods that upset his tummy, so I can feel good feeding him 🙂
Thank you for this post, for his sake. I always worry that I’m not nourishing him adequately. I offer him healthy, nutritious foods, but I can’t, and won’t, force him to eat. I want him to eat because he’s hungry, not because Mom says he has to. I hadn’t really thought of adding extra calories to his food (separately from the rest of us, who are normal or above average weight). Your suggestions are simple and so much better than what I’ve heard before, ( feed him ice cream, butter everything, feed him more often, give him more meat) most of which are not in keeping with our lifestyle.
Hey Katie, just wanted also to add my support – I love your recipes and my little boy loves some of them too – especially ‘chocolate on a spoon’ (your sugar free cookie dough dip!) – so hard to find healthy high calorie options that he will actually eat, but I have no qualms about giving him things made from your recipes 🙂
I don’t focus on calories and I’m not super fit but I’m a healthy weight, and while I eat a moderate amount of unhealthy treats I like to have healthier options too… Everything in moderation…. And your recipes really are delicious!
I have no idea how many calories I consume. I just eat. LOL! 🙂 Your peanut butter ice cream looks amazing by the way! 🙂
I’ve never commented here before, but my sister was raving on Facebook last week about the homemade lara bars so I had to come check out your site. After making up some raw gingerbread bones (couldn’t find my tiny gingerbread man cutter so I used the bone-shaped one instead) and a double batch of the peanut butter cookie dough cookies for lunches this week, my fiance and are hooked. We’ve both struggled with weight control and food cravings ever since we can remember and I have recently discovered that I am also gluten intolerant. I don’t even have a guess as to how much time I spent clicking around here over the weekend, but I love all of the “ball” recipes and I also totally love that you give a nutrition info breakdown for your recipes. I also love that I don’t have to go out and buy expensive special ingredients to make such delicious desserts and OHMYGOSH THE OATMEAL RECIPES! Thank you so much for doing what you do and for sharing so freely!
*/end over-appreciative fangirling moment*
Answering your question: My diet is variable between low-calorie and high-calorie depending upon what I am craving on any given day. I don’t own a scale (bad for my mental health and triggers disordered eating for me) or depend a whole lot on calorie counting to keep track of what I consume. I’ve recently begun journeying into the world of intuitive eating after years of yoyo diets and disordered eating and I believe it is working well for me.
I think you touch on very important and interesting points regarding health and weight in our society and I thank you for understanding that what works and is healthy for one person might not be for another and that that is OK. I have struggled with disordered eating, body image, and weight for what feels like my entire life. The healthiest I have ever been was early high school and my body was a US size 18. I was really, really dang healthy, but because my body was bigger than my schoolmates’ bodies, even though I met every other parameter of healthiness, I was pressured, teased, taunted, and shamed into thinking that I needed to lose weight both by my schoolmates as well as family members. Acting upon that shame and pressure led me to drastic measures in order to get my body to conform to what those around me deemed an acceptable size, but that wasn’t what my body was meant to look like.
Most of the last 15 years of my life have been spent on diet after diet with my weight and health yoyo-ing back and forth. All because society at large conflates health with weight and gives individuals whose bodies are perceived to conform to this health/weight standard the idea that they are free to comment about those whose bodies do not, regardless of the actual health of either individual. And this happens also to those who appear to be ‘too small’ or ‘too thin’ to be healthy by the weight/health conflation standard. (I can’t even begin to describe how angry it makes me when I hear someone say something to the effect of “Someone go make that girl a sandwich!” when looking at an image of a thinner woman. Absolutely livid.) I am so glad to have found the Body Acceptance movement and Health At Every Size. I am sure permanent damage to my metabolism and my body has already happened, but it doesn’t have to continue and I’m learning how to be as healthy as I can be in the body/metabolism I have now.
*/steps off soapbox*
Thanks for such a great comment, DK! I really wish society didn’t do this to women, pitting us against each other. I think we’d all be a lot healthier. Just look at babies… or animals! You hardly ever see a baby or animal with eating issues (unless it’s a dog who’s fed by humans).
Hi Katie, I’ve been a regular reader for about a year or so. As soon as I found your blog, I read all the way back through the archives to the start because I enjoyed it so much, and I remember you having to write this kind of post before. I stopped commenting a few months ago because I thought, “She has over 100 comments to read, she really doesn’t need another one saying ‘Looks yummy Katie, thanks!'” but I felt compelled to after reading your post.
I’ve (really) read all the comments on this post, and I’m surprised to see no one mention the word “troll” because it’s the first word that came to mind when I read the comments on the Sugar Cookie Oatmeal post. Then the words, “Don’t feed the trolls.”
A few points:
1) Anyone who doesn’t understand that this is a recipe blog, not a food diary, is clearly a moron … OR they are wilfully misinterpreting your blog and your intentions and taking things out of context in order to cause aggravation and upset. This is pretty much the definition of a troll.
2) As you mention above, your foods are not particularly low in calories anyway – I should know because I’ve been counting calories for nearly a year now using MyFitnessPal and it’s changed my life: taught me so much about what foods contain and truly made me value high quality foods, having made me realize that some foods I thought were ‘healthy’ actually weren’t. I eat about 1600-1700 calories a day depending on how much exercise I do (about 40-60 mins usually, I’m doing Beachbody TurboFire at the minute) because I need to lose weight and after ten years of what I thought was “eating healthILY,” counting calories has given me an education in nutrition and finally got me progressing with my weight loss. Before calorie counting, and learning about macros as a result, I would have thought, “I’ll have this Mr Kipling Trifle Bakewell cake as a ‘treat’, it’s only small, it won’t harm my weight loss efforts,” I’ll think, “That is nutritionally void: I’ll have one of CCK’s Larabars instead! It’s about the same amount of fat only the fat is the good type, and it has fewer calories so I don’t have to compensate by eating less of my main meal in order to fit in a (real) treat.”
3) Your recipes are also often not low in fat: your milkshakes, made with coconut milk and sometimes coconut oil are extremely high in fat! This bothered me about the TV spot about you: the presenter kept going on about ‘low fat’ and yes, perhaps your recipes are lower in calories and fat than the common alternatives made with lots of butter and sugar – which for some reason people insist on calling “the real thing” which is laughable because those things are full of artificial crap and highly processed foods whereas your recipes consist of very little refined products and plenty of whole foods – but that’s usually because it’s a CHEAP and easy way to sell products to the sugar-addicted masses. It’s unnecessary and detrimental to your health; your recipes are wholesome, taste great and are good for you. Which brings me to…
4) The nutritional count is incidental: you kindly put it in because many people have asked you to because it’s genuinely useful information for them.
5) You are clearly healthy. You radiate healthiness. Anyone who says or insinuates otherwise is being purposely obtuse to provoke a reaction.
Anyway, I doubt anybody will read this, but I hope you do Katie, and I’d like to repeat something I’ve said before: thank you for your blog, and all of the effort you put into writing it to help your readers (for FREE) to live better, healthier, happier lives. You are beautiful inside and out, creative, hugely talented, and you seem genuinely lovely as a person. I’m sorry for the long comment, but I’m pretty verbose when I feel strongly about things, especially personal attacks on people who so blatantly do not deserve it!
You have my love and support, Jenny xoxox
Aw Jenny, your comment meant so much to me. You are absolutely AWESOME for taking the time to lift my spirits!