Counting Calories

[Judy2]

i'm simply curious to survey this and encourage some awareness regarding what's helpful and what isn't:)  there are no right or wrong answers - feel free to share what you personally feel works (or doesn't work) for you. 

[bazera]

Yes I track calories, protein and carbs.

The reason why I track these is that I find it extremely effective when losing weight.

I've gained 30kg (66 pounds) over the last couple of years, and the only sustainable way of actually seeing decreased number on a scale for me is to eat X amount of calories (+-100). So, counting calories helps me lose weight and adjust my food intake over weeks to continue losing weight.

I could potentially just reduce the portion size instead of calorie counting, but again, I prefer to be more precise. I tried portion control, but I sucked at it. I underestimated food volume and then I discovered I was eating at maintenance calories.

And in order to not go insane with counting every day, I have the same meal routine 5-6 days a week (pre-counted) and I eat something different on the weekends just to stay sane 

As for protein, I try to retain as much muscle mass as I can during weight-loss and high (150g+) protein intake supposedly helps me with that. 

As for carbs, I need them for energy to weight lift and run.

That's it. All 3 has practical purposes.

[Judy2]

@bazerathank you for sharing!

how do you think you'll handle this when trying to maintain your goal weight? if you have given that any thought so far. 

[bazera]

@Judy2 Actually that turned out to be harder for me than losing weight in the first place.

Last year I lost 15kg but later I regain all that back and +5kg more. So now I have a very hard learned lesson that I need to change my eating habits or else losing weight wil be meaningless because I'll regain all back.

Then I analyzed my eating habits, reasons behind binge junk-eating sessions, trigger points etc, and now I'm working on fixing some behavioral patterns that are causing over-eating. It's not hunger, it's not addiction to junkfood or anything, I found it was just an emotional coping mechanism that was triggered after guilt, shame, bitterness, etc. And I did things that caused all that. 

Anyways, to keep the story short, when I reach goal weight, I'll still track calories for 1-2 months to just get additional feel for what portion size maps to what calories, and then I'll try to eat 80% clean, and break binge eating habit. Hope it goes well.

If you are considering counting calories, it's just an effective strategy if you don't want to leave weigh loss / maintenance up to chance. Also if you have unhealthy eating habits, it's a nice way to get used to and measure what's the proper amount of food for your physique / goals.

But if you don't want counting, you could always just eat less and move more. That's the golden rule. 

Edited Tuesday at 03:42 PM by bazera

[Judy2]

7 minutes ago, bazera said:

Anyways, to keep the story short, when I reach goal weight, I'll still track calories for 1-2 months to just get additional feel for what portion size maps to what calories, and then I'll try to eat 80% clean, and break binge eating habit. Hope it goes well.

that sounds like a decent plan!

8 minutes ago, bazera said:

If you are considering counting calories, it's just an effective strategy if you don't want to leave weigh loss / maintenance up to chance. Also if you have unhealthy eating habits, it's a nice way to get used to and measure what's the proper amount of food for your physique / goals.

But if you don't want counting, you could always just eat less and move more. That's the golden rule. 

i have gone through many different extremes, hence why i am trying to figure out what's healthy for me in the long-term and it's why i am asking what works for other people. 

i know a lot of nutrition labels by heart after having had an eating disorder for a long time, so i have a lot of knowledge about nutrition, but i am uncertain to what degree it's good or bad for me to let that influence my food choices. i'm still figuring that out. 

[bazera]

4 minutes ago, Judy2 said:

i have gone through many different extremes, hence why i am trying to figure out what's healthy for me in the long-term and it's why i am asking what works for other people. 

Me too. And in the end I'm trying to get used to what I found is most sustainable. It's just eating more or less healthy unprocessed home cooked meals 80-90% of the times and leave some room for deserts or something processed every once in a while (after I lose access fat)

Calorie counting is a temporary tool that I use to make weight-loss easier.

Quote

i'm still figuring that out. 

Good luck 🙏

[Judy2]

11 minutes ago, bazera said:

Me too. And in the end I'm trying to get used to what I found is most sustainable. It's just eating more or less healthy unprocessed home cooked meals 80-90% of the times and leave some room for deserts or something processed every once in a while (after I lose access fat)

Calorie counting is a temporary tool that I use to make weight-loss easier.

Good luck 🙏

thank you:)

Good luck to you, too! 

[Elliott]

I know sugar and refined food are bad, even outside of calorie counting, and I also have a belief that eating any more than necessary is unhealthy even outside of weight: it seems to contribute to most every disease, including cancer all the way down to brain fog in myself. For myself, calorie counting does not make sense: I only eat bad when I'm 'ran thin' in daily life, like prolonged stress. I just focus on arranging my life to where I naturally eat perfectly, which is minimally and unprocessed, I only eat for nutrition and energy, not for hunger or anxiety. I actually enjoy weekly fasting, I'm not strict about it, but I generally target (2) 40 hour fasts per week, it feels cleansing to me and it alters my psychological relationship with food. The only macro I pay attention to is protein, I consciously try to eat a lot of protein(plant protein). I take a vitamin occasionally  and try to eat a wide variety of food, but I have no idea of even my protein values.

[Judy2]

45 minutes ago, Elliott said:

I only eat for nutrition and energy, not for hunger or anxiety

how do you "eat for energy" without paying attention to hunger cues? if hunger isn't your metric and tracking isn't, either, what is?

47 minutes ago, Elliott said:

The only macro I pay attention to is protein, I consciously try to eat a lot of protein(plant protein). I take a vitamin occasionally  and try to eat a wide variety of food, but I have no idea of even my protein values.

are you plant-based or vegan/vegetarian?

[Elliott]

8 hours ago, Judy2 said:

how do you "eat for energy" without paying attention to hunger cues? if hunger isn't your metric and tracking isn't, either, what is?

are you plant-based or vegan/vegetarian?

Go by my energy level, what I expect to do the next day, and how much energy I've come to notice I get from what and and how much food. This is how i try to keep my life, but i still do often get busy and then eat more like a routine like normal people, or eat somewhat unconciously when im stressed, but that's all kind of okay because I aim for a healthy lifestyle. Plant-based.

Eating out of hunger seems dysfunctional to me, I consider it dysfunctional, given overweight people get hungry and how ive noticed what hunger is in myself, it seems more psychological than physical. I'm not skin and bones or anorexic, that's not healthy either, there's a minimum body fat threshold too. I try to be the commonly accepted idea of healthy, I'm not going for the ghandi look, my fasting is the only odd thing I do. Hunger is not connected to energy level, even at the end of a 80 hour fast I'm fine with energy, I also won't be hungry after the first 20 hours of the fast until forever, i get tired when I restart eating. Hunger is connected to something like hormones, like treating food as a drug, why people eat unhealthy stuff and over-eat. Feeling that hunger feeling in your stomach does not mean you need to eat, it just means your stomach is empty, which is good, it should not always have food. Go past the hunger feeling and you'll feel BETTER, physically, it lasts maybe a few hours then you feel BETTER than before being hungry.

I believe the term "hungry" is essentially incorrect, deceiving, the term itself and the way we use it. We have the ability to gauge our energy needs outside of hunger, hunger is the same as a drug addiction. It's probably better to identify the physical feeling of hunger as an empty stomach, which does not mean you need to eat. The psychological feeling of hunger is the drug addiction hormones type thing.

Edited 4 hours ago by Elliott

[LastThursday]

I don't track my my calories. I eat similar food every week, so I know what's going in. Then again I don't generally snack or eat junk food. Could I clean up my diet? Absolutely: more veg and less processed food. But I know I'm neither gaining or losing weight over time, so the balance is correct in that respect.

I have calorie counted when I was doing a 5/2 fasting diet because you have to for that. I started that because I'd put on a lot of weight (for me) and that was mostly because of having a sedentary job, and not exercising at all. But even on that diet, I just ate similar things on my fast days, so I didn't have to think too hard about calorie counting. The diet was brutal especially in the afternoons, but was effective for me. I'd do it again if necessary.

[Judy2]

4 hours ago, Elliott said:

Eating out of hunger seems dysfunctional to me, I consider it dysfunctional, given overweight people get hungry and how ive noticed what hunger is in myself, it seems more psychological than physical. I'm not skin and bones or anorexic, that's not healthy either, there's a minimum body fat threshold too. I try to be the commonly accepted idea of healthy, I'm not going for the ghandi look, my fasting is the only odd thing I do. Hunger is not connected to energy level, even at the end of a 80 hour fast I'm fine with energy, I also won't be hungry after the first 20 hours of the fast until forever, i get tired when I restart eating. Hunger is connected to something like hormones, like treating food as a drug, why people eat unhealthy stuff and over-eat. Feeling that hunger feeling in your stomach does not mean you need to eat, it just means your stomach is empty, which is good, it should not always have food. Go past the hunger feeling and you'll feel BETTER, physically, it lasts maybe a few hours then you feel BETTER than before being hungry.

I believe the term "hungry" is essentially incorrect, deceiving, the term itself and the way we use it. We have the ability to gauge our energy needs outside of hunger, hunger is the same as a drug addiction. It's probably better to identify the physical feeling of hunger as an empty stomach, which does not mean you need to eat. The psychological feeling of hunger is the drug addiction hormones type thing.

hm, interesting:) 

i think it's certainly a confusing subject, and agree with you that hunger cues can be dysregulated and misinterpreted - but i wouldn't go so far as to say hunger itself is dysfunctional. yes, hunger (and appetite) cues may be disturbed at times, for sure, especially in our modern society with an oversupply of food available at all times. but that doesn't mean a core biological need is delusional or dysfunctional in its essence - i think the essence can be legitimate, it's just that it's become very out of balance for many people. 

if you had a toddler, you wouldn't tell them they're being dysfunctional for experiencing hunger. imagine telling them they are bad or broken every time they experience something so natural, something central to their biology and their overall well-being -  and the degrees of psychological and physiological dysfunction it would bring about to make them feel wrong for it every time it comes up, multiple times a day. i.e., is it really healthy to reject hunger if that is a part of YOU, of your biology, of your body's daily lived reality? 

but i get where you're coming from - most people should re-evaluate what they count as hunger vs "just craving something because it looks good". 

[Elliott]

26 minutes ago, Judy2 said:

hm, interesting:) 

i think it's certainly a confusing subject, and agree with you that hunger cues can be dysregulated and misinterpreted - but i wouldn't go so far as to say hunger itself is dysfunctional. yes, hunger (and appetite) cues may be disturbed at times, for sure, especially in our modern society with an oversupply of food available at all times. but that doesn't mean a core biological need is delusional or dysfunctional in its essence - i think the essence can be legitimate, it's just that it's become very out of balance for many people. 

if you had a toddler, you wouldn't tell them they're being dysfunctional for experiencing hunger. imagine telling them they are bad or broken every time they experience something so natural, something central to their biology and their overall well-being -  and the degrees of psychological and physiological dysfunction it would bring about to make them feel wrong for it every time it comes up, multiple times a day. i.e., is it really healthy to reject hunger if that is a part of YOU, of your biology, of your body's daily lived reality? 

but i get where you're coming from - most people should re-evaluate what they count as hunger vs "just craving something because it looks good". 

Have you fasted before?

I don't mean that you should your deny your need to eat, but what most people call "hunger" is not a need to eat, it's a misnomer.

If you fast, hunger goes away, but a different way of realizing that you need to eat occurs, you can sense your energy level.

[Judy2]

8 minutes ago, Elliott said:

I don't mean that you should your deny your need to eat, but what most people call "hunger" is not a need to eat, it's a misnomer.

If you fast, hunger goes away, but a different way of realizing that you need to eat occurs, you can sense your energy level.

ok:)

[bazera]

44 minutes ago, Elliott said:

If you fast, hunger goes away, but a different way of realizing that you need to eat occurs, you can sense your energy level.

Once I water faster for 5 days, I was hungry and dizzy all the time. Hunger didn't go for me.

I don't know, maybe you are more sensitive then me. 

[Judy2]

1 hour ago, Elliott said:

Have you fasted before?

fasting isn't the difficult part for me. it's knowing how to eat normally after the fast, because like you described, hunger cues do get confusing. which is also why i'm currently not aiming to fast regularly, but to figure out how to have a balanced diet on a day-to-day basis.