Can someone explain a little more to me please?...

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Fluffy_Fury
Fluffy_Fury Posts: 9
in Food and Nutrition
So I've been calorie counting for the last 70 odd days. I've been a little easier on myself over some days, and a little stricter on others, but on a whole I've lost 8lbs so far and managed to stay within count. Even my treats are usually small amounts (I've made a bag of peanut butter M&Ms last me a couple of weeks now!) My doctor is happy with my progress and the changes I've made, and I lead a fairly active lifestyle outside of my office job (I usually average between 5 and 7 hours of exercise classes a week and try and walk in my lunch breaks when the weather isn't too bad).

I guess now I'm used to the monitoring and calculating, I'd like to know more about healthy eating side. I know small amounts of treats here and there aren't bad, but is this affecting my weight loss even when I stay within counts? I stay within macros where possible. But (this is a sweeping generalisation - I'm not trying to justify a binge on pounds of chocolate- just trying to better understand calories) say I calculate that I can stay within macros and calorie and still have five chocolate bars, is this going to have an effect on my overall weightloss? If it's not pushing my calories, salt, sugar etc. over the top, is it still stopping me from losing weight? Apart from the obvious difference in size of meal (and sugar, salt etc.), would 300 calories of chocolate be worse than 300 calories of salad? I'm just trying to understand :)

Does that make sense? I'd just like to know a little more of the science behind what I'm doing :)

Replies

  • redfisher1974
    redfisher1974 Posts: 614 Member
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    You are doing fine, Stay under cals and meet your macros and you will lose slow and steady until you hit the goal.
  • rsclause
    rsclause Posts: 3,103 Member
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    I really like french fries but realized that they pack too many calories, fats and don't really provide nutrition. I decided they had to go along with chips and other unhealthy foods. Combined with exercise the weight came off fast. I now eat them occasionally but only if my activity is enough to burn them off. Hate to say it but I would put the chocolate away completely until you meet your goal, it packs too many calories in a small package. Some fruit or tree nuts can be a nice snack and have what I call good calories. Not science based but it worked for me. Good luck!
  • daydreams_of_pretty
    daydreams_of_pretty Posts: 506 Member
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    If your treats are fitting in with your calorie and macro goals, then they're not going to hurt your weightloss. If you start having days where you're hungry and using up too many calories with treats, then you should cut back so that you can use those calories for filling foods. Otherwise, all that matters for weightloss is a deficit. :)
  • pinkiezoom
    pinkiezoom Posts: 409 Member
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    To answer your actual question which i guess is, for example, does 300 cals worth of choc delay weight loss compared to 300 cals of say chicken....the simple answer is as long as you keep in your goal cals, then NO, however, the nutrition of course is more the issue lol!.

    I eat all sorts, the good, the bad and the ugly, and i am still losing weight, but I dont eat back my exercise cals very often, and i am for the majority of the time under my cal allowance.

    Good luck on your journey :smile:
  • Fluffy_Fury
    Fluffy_Fury Posts: 9
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    Thank you everyone! I thought that may be the case, and obviously I try very hard to opt for the healthier options where I can. It was a real hypothetical, I just wanted to make sure I understood correctly! :)

    Thank you all :D

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