We're just gonna dive straight into today’s topic because I know it’s one that resonates with so many: and that is “unnecessary calories.” This episode is dedicated to one of my amazing clients, because – just like my recent episode on not knowing how much to eat, this topic of unnecessary calories has been swirling around in my mind for years. Yeah, definitely years.

But you know how sometimes you just need something to come up in conversation at precisely the right moment for you to then turn that thought into action? Well that’s what a recent message exchange did for me.

What Prompted Me to Talk About Unnecessary Calories on the Liv Label Free Podcast

So to set the scene, I’ve been working with one of my clients on slowly increasing her intake, and, as is it is for many people with anorexia, specifically butter is a huge fear food for her. Which again, it was for me too. Butter was right at the top of the list, along with sugar – unless of course, it was sugar from fruit or some other natural source that diet culture hasn’t demonized. Although, to be fair, I’m pretty sure diet culture has found its way to demonize everything nowadays, I mean one moment kale is the top superfood and another moment “oh wow, study shows kale causes cancer”!

There’s SO much freaking noise out there, and especially for the autistic mind, my goodness how overwhelming this can all be. Which of course, is precisely where the eating disorder swoops in. Not only is it a manifestation of those autistic traits like literal thinking, masking through trying to conform and follow the herd, fear of judgment – I mean, I totally have to do an entire episode on Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria which is basically the fancy description for all of us people-pleasers that have a visceral fear of people hating us. Yeah, I know the feeling my friend. It is fucking hard.

The REAL Reason You Fear Eating Fats in Anorexia Recovery

Anyways, circling back to our message exchange, me and this client have been peeling back the layers of her fear of butter – because, as we all know – it’s not ACTUALLY about the butter. Or even the fear of weight gain! It’s about everything underneath that. It’s about the fear of discomfort (I mean, weight gain made me want to crawl out of my skin). It’s about the fear of fullness – and of course, even that has a deeper layer because, for me, I equated making peace with fullness as making peace with myself and making peace with this body which was totally not okay because then everyone would think I’m fine, even though, because I’m an autistic person navigating a neurotypical world, I’m not fine. I’m fucking struggling. I still struggle a lot with, just, well, life! And the eating disorder was a way for me to prove that struggle to myself and to the world at large.

Which leads us into another underlying fear of weight gain and that is the fear of being healthy. I did a whole podcast episode on this, which you can check out here. There’s the fear of judgment we talked about, and specifically for this client, she has situational mutism, so for her, the ED is a way to “compensate” for what she believes is a flaw. I mean even if you don’t have situational mutism or another trait that society has pathologized, you probably resonate with this statement: If I’m thin, my presence is “tolerable,” and thus, people won’t have a reason to “hate me.”

Well, obviously, there’s SO much to unpack here – all aspects I’ve been working on with this client that go beyond the scope of today’s episode, but the reason I mention all of this is because it was the recent conversation we were having about butter that sparked me to create this episode. More specifically, we were reflecting on how she’s doing with her current nutritional goals and she told me she wasn’t able to complete the full amount of butter.

Replacing Judgment With Curiosity

Now, traditional treatment – such as FBT and approaches that are taken in centers and such – treat an individual’s difficulty with completing food goals as being “non-compliant” and “treatment-resistant.” But we don’t do any of that here at Liv Label Free. No, in my coaching practice, we invite curiosity. If a goal isn’t being met, it’s because the individual doesn’t feel safe enough to take that step.

So my curiosity is rooted in, okay, why didn’t you feel safe enough to take that step? Because when we know that, well then we can continue being curious and then we can ask, “Okay, what might need to change to make the situation or environment safe enough to take that step next time?”

Well, obviously, I don’t phrase every question to every client like that, because my coaching approach is very intuitive and I want to use language that actually applies to the specific situation and also just get a better idea of how a specific client is feeling or experiencing that situation. So in this case, I asked her: “What was the thought that went through your head when you decided NOT to do the full amount of butter?”

And she replied “It’s unnecessary calories.”

Defining “Unnecessary Calories”

Again, I always want to be on the same page as my clients, so I asked her if she could define unnecessary calories for me. And honestly her description was SO poignant (and if you’ve listened to previous episodes of this podcast, yes, we are still obsessed with this word poignant people! I mean, does anyone else ever just discover a word they haven’t used for a while and then you just can’t stop using it? We’ll, that’s me and poignant right now.)

Anyways, her poignant description was this: “In my mind unnecessary calories are the calories from foods added to a meal that are not needed for the meal to taste good. They don’t provide anything to the meal besides energy. Necessary calories are the calories from foods that provide nutrients and/or are needed to make a meal taste good.”

OH MY GOSH, AGAIN, SO MUCH TO UNPACK HERE!!!

Fear of “Wasting” Time and Energy 

So let’s start with my lived experience: I totally resonate with that, and what immediately comes to mind is this idea that unnecessary calories extend way beyond food. If I felt that activities weren’t “productive,” well, then they were a “waste” of time. In other words, when I used the term “unnecessary calories,” I was, in essence, applying the same logic to energy consumption that I applied to time. Just as I feared “wasting” calories on “unnecessary” foods, I feared “wasting” my energy on “unnecessary” activities. Both fears stem from the same scarcity mindset; this deep-rooted belief that there's never enough to go around, and thus, everything we do needs to be justified and optimized.

So where the heck am I even going with all of this? Well, naturally, I am me, and if you know me from listening to previous podcasts, you know I am very philosophical. I think deeply about everything, constantly wondering what’s below the surface. Which means we can now transition into my favorite part of this conversation which is the philosophical element. Because arguably, nothing is necessary or productive, which could also make everything necessary or productive. But Livia, how can these two things coexist? Well they can coexist because these words – these labels – necessary, unnecessary, productive, unproductive, they are ALL subjective stories. There is no absolute truth defining what is necessary or unnecessary, and even IF there was, we would never know it because humans are, by definition, subjective beings!

And me, being an autistic human – or rather, an autistic being that feels trapped in a human costume – have always been plagued by this knowledge that I can never know. Which Socrates said so well, right? To know is to know you know nothing.

A Philosophical Exploration of Knowledge and Stories

When you have this awareness that you will never be able to know, well THIS can be so overwhelming. So instead, what we do to protect ourselves from this overwhelm is we pretend to know. In other words, we tell ourselves the STORY – often unconsciously – that we know. I mean, this is why I love the acronym of FEAR being False Evidence Appearing Real so freaking much, because that’s all fear is right? It’s a story we tell ourselves, a way to convince ourselves we have “evidence” of something that’s literally just a construct of our minds!

When we pretend to know something, what we're actually doing is placing a judgment on it. “This food has unnecessary calories.” “This activity is unproductive.” These aren’t absolute truths. I mean, how could they be? What one person claims is absolutely necessary or productive might be the complete opposite for someone else!

I know we are really going down deep into the tunnel of nuance here, so I’d like to move into something more practical. If you’re struggling with this concept of necessary and unnecessary, productive and unproductive, what can you do to start moving into the space of a colorful existence? To start taking steps towards a life that is in alignment with your authentic values? Well, I believe the key lies in living label free. That is to say, removing judgment and being relentlessly curious and open to discovery.

Living Label Free

What does this look like in practice? Well the first step to living label free – and particularly relevant to today’s topic – is to acknowledge that labels are made up. They’re societal constructs. They are not facts. Once you establish that these labels – including unnecessary and productive ARE made up – well then you can start to be curious about what story you want to start writing instead.

And this leads us into the second step, which is claiming the permission to explore your wants and desires. Now, I can’t help but get philosophical again, because oh my, it’s these wants and desires that we don’t want to be confronted with!

The underlying fear of the eating disorder is the existential fear – the fear that your authentic wants and desires are “wrong.” It's so much safer to convince ourselves we “need” to do something rather than admit we “want” something else. We tell ourselves the story that we need the eating disorder – that it’s “necessary” to feel safe, to cope, to survive this overwhelming world.

To question that story means confronting the terrifying prospect of there being another way to exist. But because we can’t see what that way looks like (yet), we pretend that the eating disorder is the only way forward. And we are able to trick ourselves into this story being a reality by drowning ourselves in labels: necessary, unnecessary, productive, unproductive, healthy, unhealthy…the list goes on.

I Still Struggle With Productivity

Now, I’m gonna be real honest with you in saying that I still struggle a lot with this concept of productivity. Just last night, I had written quite a decent chunk of a chapter of the book I’m currently working on, and I hit a tipping point where I went from hyperfocus mode into full-on exhaustion. I knew my brain was done for the day, and yet, I felt this intense guilt for stopping. I considered watching some Netflix, reading the fiction book I’ve had on my iPad for months now and keep telling myself “I don’t have time for,” and yet, it just felt viscerally “wrong.” It’s in these moments that I remember something my editor said to me when we met for coffee a few months ago: “Sometimes the most necessary work happens when we’re doing the unnecessary work.”

For my identity as a writer, some of my most creative insights come to me the moment I step away from the laptop. In fact, my upcoming book How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery is one that I nearly wrote the entire thing frantically typing into my notes app on my walks amongst the palm trees in LA last year!

What’s Necessary to Live a Meaningful Life

That being said, I think there are so many things we (consciously or unconsciously) label as unnecessary: watching a movie, reading a fiction book, taking a bath, spending money on yourself. You could say they’re unnecessary for survival. But are they unnecessary for a meaningful life? For joy? For connection?

The same goes for food because technically, I could eat stale, tasteless food for the rest of my life. This would be “necessary” for my survival while indulging in a brownie or taking the time to make myself a nourishing smoothie could be “unnecessary” pleasure. But my friend, what’s the point of life if you’ve already decided not to enjoy it? What’s the point of life if you’re constantly chasing a made-up story that isn’t serving you?

To conclude this episode, I believe the real question isn’t whether something is necessary or unnecessary. It’s not about whether you “need” it or not. Rather, it’s about asking yourself: Are you willing to discover another way? A way where the “unnecessary” activities might just be the most necessary of all when it comes to living a meaningful life?

And that is all I have for you today my friend! If you ARE willing to discover another way and you’d like my help on that journey, apply for 1-1 coaching here!