Counting Calories

[Lyubov]

On 3/30/2026 at 4:53 PM, bazera said:

Do you trust it? Some ingredients that are invisible to Claude can really add up those calories. Like butter or oil.

Ideally the only way to have precise counting is cooking at home and measuring everything out with a scale and whatnot and referencing the nutrition tables of your ingredients. So yeah it's not exactly accurate. And thus my results aren't great. I eat out a lot so yeah there's probably calories in my diet not being accounted for. The thing is measuring everything out is unsustainable for me and doesn't fit the dominant parts of my lifestyle.

My rule of thumb for losing weight is cutting back 20%, so however you're eating, learn what foods have the macros and nutrients you need, and then eat 20% less overall. It's easier to cut out bad habits than it is to build good habits for precision results, so just cutting out all sugar, deep fried food, etc can go a long way for the average guy. Throw in two scoops of whey protein a day to hit your protein goal. Done. It's not great but it's def better than just doing the protein and being undisciplined with the rest. Sugar and oil is where you gotta be careful, Claude is also decent at advising on what will potentially put you over into a surplus. 

There are various rules and things you can learn that can sorta replace calorie counting and still get decent results but if you are like a professional body builder or have a super stable and chill life and the time, it's def better to count precisely at home. I travel way too much for this and just don't have the lifestyle to train and count precisely for like 9 months to get ripped.

Edited 4 hours ago by Lyubov