To spend time counting calories or to spend time educating yourself about your body and its needs?

To count calories or to redirect your energy into educating yourself about your bodies needs? . This is an intensely debated topic, and ultimately every client I have wants to lose weight and tone up. The issue with this is firstly it isn't specific, losing weight and toning up looks different for everybody, and secondly, to lose weight the theory is you need to be a calorie deficit. However, this alone will not necessarily allow you to lose weight and it certainly won't enable you to tone up. . Often people are afraid of putting in the work and committing themselves, especially when changes aren't happening over night. Losing weight is one goal which takes time, education, and a degree of discipline. Toning up, is another goal, which also takes time, education and a degree of discipline. Calorie counting on its own is fantastic, if you know firstly how many calories your individual body requires to maintain its weight, lose or gain weight. This is specific to each and everyone of us, it depends on sex, activity levels, occupation, and lifestages among other factors. Once you've got a roughly accurate number you can start counting...But, this also means that you need to be accurate in measuring your food out and recording it. Otherwise counting calories becomes inaccurate and then slowly but surely you've missed of the creamy salad dressing which you had, 3 lattes, and the mayo in your tuna sandwhich. You can begin to see how calorie counting can be brilliant, but also how it can be inaccurate, time consuming, and above all slightly obsessive, which of course can damaging for your relationship with food, your body, and your mental wellbeing. On the other hand, you could educate yourself about the better foods you could be eating to help fuel your body. This might being slightly outside your comfort zone to begin with. Not paying attention to the numbers, the calories, or the scales. This doesn't mean going wild and eating 4 take away pizzas a week, with no veg, and endless energy drinks...this means educating yourself about balance, understanding your bodies hunger ques, and eating 'mindfully'. Thoughts?