What can you eat on a diet?
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maillemaker wrote: »One of my pet peeves around here is when people say so flippantly, "Oh, you/I can eat anything you/I want!"
No, you can't.
To most people, when you say, "You can eat anything you want", that includes quantity. And if you are trying to lose or maintain weight, you don't get that luxury. You don't get to eat anything you want.
You can eat any item you want, but you can only eat it in quantities that won't blow your calorie limit for the day.
If you get 1600 calories for the day and you would like to blow that on a single portion of prime rib and some dinner rolls, you can do that. And then be hungry the rest of the day when you can't eat anything else without going over your limit.
One of our pet peeves is that you are always looking for reasons why people fail instead of applying solutions.
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Let's see here: Drive-by post hitting all the high notes for topics that have recently started flame wars/never-ending threads. User's only post. User's profile indicates a weight loss goal roughly equivalent to an adult manatee.
Don't feed the troll, folks.
" an adult manatee" that make me laugh soooooo loud!!!!!
You made my day!0 -
HappyCampr1 wrote: »INeed2Exerc1se wrote: »Honestly I can't remember when I learned about calories...it seems ingrained in me, that consuming foods higher in calories = the greater the chance of you getting fat.... not sure if I picked that up from TV advertising for "low calorie" things like Diet Soda or Tic Tacs, the 1 & 1/2 Calorie Breath Mint or what. I feel like I always knew a high calorie diet led to being overweight/fat/etc.
Weight Watchers helped me further - the higher the calories, the higher the points for the food.
BUT I also believed a lot of stuff that was thrown around: eating high fat foods was bad, eating after 7 or 8 pm is bad, eat clean foods for they're not bad, etc. I believed the food guide pyramid as it was ingrained in me since childhood. I didn't like exercising though Weight Watchers taught me I could "eat more" if I exercise...
I didn't learn the actual nuts & bolts of calorie counting till I came here and read the forums a while.
Exactly. Information on calories is everywhere. 100 calorie snack packs, 80 calorie yogurt, low calorie this and that. Infomercials out the wazzoo telling us we can burn 1000 calories per hour with this workout. It's mind boggling to think that there are very many people seeing these things regularly without making the connection that calories matter for weight loss.
I think that's part of the problem. Those things get lost in the cacophony of images/headlines we see all the time...fat-busting this...waist-trimming that...low carb...low cal...super-secret workout that will shred inches... It just gets lost in the garbage we've learned to ignore.
I get where you coming from, I think. But ignoring what you know in the search for a quicker easier way, is not the same as not knowing it.0 -
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HappyCampr1 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »HappyCampr1 wrote: »INeed2Exerc1se wrote: »Honestly I can't remember when I learned about calories...it seems ingrained in me, that consuming foods higher in calories = the greater the chance of you getting fat.... not sure if I picked that up from TV advertising for "low calorie" things like Diet Soda or Tic Tacs, the 1 & 1/2 Calorie Breath Mint or what. I feel like I always knew a high calorie diet led to being overweight/fat/etc.
Weight Watchers helped me further - the higher the calories, the higher the points for the food.
BUT I also believed a lot of stuff that was thrown around: eating high fat foods was bad, eating after 7 or 8 pm is bad, eat clean foods for they're not bad, etc. I believed the food guide pyramid as it was ingrained in me since childhood. I didn't like exercising though Weight Watchers taught me I could "eat more" if I exercise...
I didn't learn the actual nuts & bolts of calorie counting till I came here and read the forums a while.
Exactly. Information on calories is everywhere. 100 calorie snack packs, 80 calorie yogurt, low calorie this and that. Infomercials out the wazzoo telling us we can burn 1000 calories per hour with this workout. It's mind boggling to think that there are very many people seeing these things regularly without making the connection that calories matter for weight loss.
I think that's part of the problem. Those things get lost in the cacophony of images/headlines we see all the time...fat-busting this...waist-trimming that...low carb...low cal...super-secret workout that will shred inches... It just gets lost in the garbage we've learned to ignore.
I get where you coming from, I think. But ignoring what you know in the search for a quicker easier way, is not the same as not knowing it.
Ah, but the question is, do you really know it if you think it's just as much BS as everything else? When you don't believe any of it, how are you supposed to know that's the real thing?
Did you really ever think that calories in vs out was BS? It wouldn't be the first thing I was shocked by on this site, but geez!0 -
herrspoons wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »FoodFitnessTravel wrote: »Many of us on this site are not American, i'm not from an English speaking country myself. So i hope the OP didn't mean to sound aggressive.
I don't think OP is trolling, she is probably new to this whole weight loss idea. As someone who's lived in Europe and Asia, I know weight loss principles can vary. As in, the whole US knows about CICO, but in the country that i'm originally from, vast majority be like "if you eat white bread you are gonna get fat, if you eat whole wheat then it's all good".
So let's not judge, OP is probably new to all of this and is trying to lose weight and give us helpful lectures of what she thinks is correct.
Oh and i'm guessing Friday is a bit relaxed, pig out day in whatever country OP is from.
Virtually no one knows how calories work unless they actually decide to track calories. So the whole US definitely doesn't know about CICO, since they still associate foods with being fattening or causing x disease, and associate weight loss with crash diets orcutting out a whole bunch of things and exercising like crazy.
LOL what?
Your reaction does not make any sense to what I wrote. Based on the number of people who will ask others what their "secret" is to losing weight, the countless detoxa nd fad diet threads here, and people who post about exercising for hours and hours every day whilst not losing any weight for months very clearly demonstrates that CICO is not a term that people simply know and understand by default. They have to actually look into it. And America (particularly women) does associate food with causing fat gain and other ailments more so than other countries (based on one study conducted across a few European countries and the US). OH, not to mention all the threads like THIS one asking what is safe to eat for weight loss - if CICO were common knowledge, people wouldn't ask WHAT they can eat but instead HOW MUCH they can eat.
I did not know what calories really were in an actual, practical, applicable-to-me way until I joined MFP. At the age of 23. If CICO were a commonly-held notion then I would have already learned about it, much like I have learned about a plethora of things outside of school simply based on my cultural membership. A girl on my Facebook just posted that she's giving up sugar for fitness goals. A classmate talked about drinking water to remove her eyeball toxins. People are painfully ignorant about calories, macros, and nutrition.
If you made it to 23 years old without knowing that you needed to consume less calories than you expend to lose weight, I would guess you are in the minority.
Why are there so many fat people then?
Laziness.
No desire to put any effort to change their bad habits.0 -
I don't think HappyCampr1 is talking about herself, just people in general.
And yes, a lot of people are throwing up their hands. They are told if you do this, it will work. (i.e., just "eat clean" or just "cut out breads and junk food") It doesn't. They are told eggs are bad, now they're good. Butter was bad, now it's good. Bacon is bad, bacon is good. Do Atkins, low carb, South Beach, Weight Watchers, Bananas, Juicing, No NOT JUICING, SMOOTHIES...eat only organic, blah blah blah...it's no wonder people throw their hands up in surrender and say "Screw it!"0 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »HappyCampr1 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »HappyCampr1 wrote: »INeed2Exerc1se wrote: »Honestly I can't remember when I learned about calories...it seems ingrained in me, that consuming foods higher in calories = the greater the chance of you getting fat.... not sure if I picked that up from TV advertising for "low calorie" things like Diet Soda or Tic Tacs, the 1 & 1/2 Calorie Breath Mint or what. I feel like I always knew a high calorie diet led to being overweight/fat/etc.
Weight Watchers helped me further - the higher the calories, the higher the points for the food.
BUT I also believed a lot of stuff that was thrown around: eating high fat foods was bad, eating after 7 or 8 pm is bad, eat clean foods for they're not bad, etc. I believed the food guide pyramid as it was ingrained in me since childhood. I didn't like exercising though Weight Watchers taught me I could "eat more" if I exercise...
I didn't learn the actual nuts & bolts of calorie counting till I came here and read the forums a while.
Exactly. Information on calories is everywhere. 100 calorie snack packs, 80 calorie yogurt, low calorie this and that. Infomercials out the wazzoo telling us we can burn 1000 calories per hour with this workout. It's mind boggling to think that there are very many people seeing these things regularly without making the connection that calories matter for weight loss.
I think that's part of the problem. Those things get lost in the cacophony of images/headlines we see all the time...fat-busting this...waist-trimming that...low carb...low cal...super-secret workout that will shred inches... It just gets lost in the garbage we've learned to ignore.
I get where you coming from, I think. But ignoring what you know in the search for a quicker easier way, is not the same as not knowing it.
Ah, but the question is, do you really know it if you think it's just as much BS as everything else? When you don't believe any of it, how are you supposed to know that's the real thing?
Did you really ever think that calories in vs out was BS? It wouldn't be the first thing I was shocked by on this site, but geez!
Um, lots of people don't believe in CICO.0 -
I don't think HappyCampr1 is talking about herself, just people in general.
And yes, a lot of people are throwing up their hands. They are told if you do this, it will work. (i.e., just "eat clean" or just "cut out breads and junk food") It doesn't. They are told eggs are bad, now they're good. Butter was bad, now it's good. Bacon is bad, bacon is good. Do Atkins, low carb, South Beach, Weight Watchers, Bananas, Juicing, No NOT JUICING, SMOOTHIES...eat only organic, blah blah blah...it's no wonder people throw their hands up in surrender and say "Screw it!"
I was mostly talking about people in general as well, though HappyCampr1 did offer herself as an example. This whole discussion is freaking me out a little and making me very worried. I think I'm just going to leave it like this.0 -
maillemaker wrote: »One of my pet peeves around here is when people say so flippantly, "Oh, you/I can eat anything you/I want!"
No, you can't.
To most people, when you say, "You can eat anything you want", that includes quantity. And if you are trying to lose or maintain weight, you don't get that luxury. You don't get to eat anything you want.
You can eat any item you want, but you can only eat it in quantities that won't blow your calorie limit for the day.
If you get 1600 calories for the day and you would like to blow that on a single portion of prime rib and some dinner rolls, you can do that. And then be hungry the rest of the day when you can't eat anything else without going over your limit.
That wanting to eat in quantity is something broken about being overweight that you need to fix.
So stop whining about it, learn portion control, and face the fact that your overeating wants were WRONG HEADED.
No, it's not your hormones, your eating made your hormones whack out. Eating correctly can pull them back in line again over time.
It will take focus, determination, and discipline.
NOT EXCUSES.
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I got fat initially during pregnancy. My doctors told me to only gain 35lbs-40 lbs with baby #1. I gained 60+. I was eating for two! I was hungry! I ate!
I didn't lose much before I got pregnant again because I was BREASTFEEDING, and I didn't want to RUIN MY MILK SUPPLY. I was hungry! I ate! After all, I was BREASTFEEDING, and everything I read about BREASTFEEDING said I would get my figure back sooner than if I bottle fed. No joke.
Didn't happen. Got pregnant and lost that baby. Weaned baby #1 off the breast. Lost a decent amount of weight.
Got pregnant again. Gained a ton of weight, formula fed him cause he wouldn't nurse...then got pregnant AGAIN on top of that without having a chance to lose my weight and gained EVEN MORE. BREASTFED THAT BABY AGAIN so it was a year before she was weaned and by now, I was so used to being so huge for so long that I didn't give much thought to my appetite. I figured, at first, that once I stopped BREASTFEEDING (for some reason i feel it should be in all caps.lol...like it was magical or something) I would stop being so darn hungry and I'd go back down to my pre-pregnancy appetite and eating habits.
By the time that baby was 3 or 4 I realized I had a serious problem with being overweight. And that was when my journey began - almost 8 years after my first baby was born.
Did I think about calories all those years? No. I only thought about one thing, filling my stomach, feeding babies, and KEEPING MY MILK SUPPLY GOING.0 -
maillemaker wrote: »I thought he said calorie counting doesn't work anyway?
When did I ever say that? Calorie deficits are the only thing that results in weight loss. I have said this countless times.He says nothing works because our bodies want to be fat.
No, I said most people fail because our bodies actively defend fat stores, and provided the science to back that up, which some of you don't want to take the time to look at.One of our pet peeves is that you are always looking for reasons why people fail instead of applying solutions.
Ignoring the reasons why people most people fail at weight loss just results in more failure. You cannot apply solutions that work without understanding why solutions that fail don't work.
I myself am down 21 pounds total, and 8 pounds since February 18th, by applying solutions that work.
Anyway I'm not going to debate this with you again as clearly you simply like to argue on the internet but don't read or watch information to get educated about the science. You talk a good game but you're a sham.
Your "science" is a sham, because the "science" you quote? Isn't talking about long-term effects. The hormone effect you bang on about has a shelf life.
If you maintain your weight lost past that shelf life, the hormone effect goes POOF and you're back to normal levels.
You cherry pick to hear what you want to justify your mind set.
As for what you said about MrM? HAHAHAHAHAHA Have you seen his profile page?
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Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »FoodFitnessTravel wrote: »Many of us on this site are not American, i'm not from an English speaking country myself. So i hope the OP didn't mean to sound aggressive.
I don't think OP is trolling, she is probably new to this whole weight loss idea. As someone who's lived in Europe and Asia, I know weight loss principles can vary. As in, the whole US knows about CICO, but in the country that i'm originally from, vast majority be like "if you eat white bread you are gonna get fat, if you eat whole wheat then it's all good".
So let's not judge, OP is probably new to all of this and is trying to lose weight and give us helpful lectures of what she thinks is correct.
Oh and i'm guessing Friday is a bit relaxed, pig out day in whatever country OP is from.
Virtually no one knows how calories work unless they actually decide to track calories. So the whole US definitely doesn't know about CICO, since they still associate foods with being fattening or causing x disease, and associate weight loss with crash diets orcutting out a whole bunch of things and exercising like crazy.
LOL what?
Your reaction does not make any sense to what I wrote. Based on the number of people who will ask others what their "secret" is to losing weight, the countless detoxa nd fad diet threads here, and people who post about exercising for hours and hours every day whilst not losing any weight for months very clearly demonstrates that CICO is not a term that people simply know and understand by default. They have to actually look into it. And America (particularly women) does associate food with causing fat gain and other ailments more so than other countries (based on one study conducted across a few European countries and the US). OH, not to mention all the threads like THIS one asking what is safe to eat for weight loss - if CICO were common knowledge, people wouldn't ask WHAT they can eat but instead HOW MUCH they can eat.
I did not know what calories really were in an actual, practical, applicable-to-me way until I joined MFP. At the age of 23. If CICO were a commonly-held notion then I would have already learned about it, much like I have learned about a plethora of things outside of school simply based on my cultural membership. A girl on my Facebook just posted that she's giving up sugar for fitness goals. A classmate talked about drinking water to remove her eyeball toxins. People are painfully ignorant about calories, macros, and nutrition.
If you made it to 23 years old without knowing that you needed to consume less calories than you expend to lose weight, I would guess you are in the minority. While they may not have known the specific number of calories in every food, since I was child everyone I know has known that weight loss is about calories. And sure, many look for that work around, that easy way to cut calories, that method that will not make weight loss seem like deprivation. But that's not the same as thinking calories aren't the key. Dear Lord, I hope the general intelligence level hasn't fallen this far.
You might know it, but you don't grok it, if that makes sense. And the other thing is what you know, vaguely, in the back of your mind, vs. what you want to hear.
You want to hear that there's that one weird trick that will make it easy. You want to hear how it wasn't really your fault, but it was what you ate or when you ate it or something like that.
It's not as simple as you make it sound.
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Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Honestly I can't remember when I learned about calories...it seems ingrained in me, that consuming foods higher in calories = the greater the chance of you getting fat.... not sure if I picked that up from TV advertising for "low calorie" things like Diet Soda or Tic Tacs, the 1 & 1/2 Calorie Breath Mint or what. I feel like I always knew a high calorie diet led to being overweight/fat/etc.
Weight Watchers helped me further - the higher the calories, the higher the points for the food.
BUT I also believed a lot of stuff that was thrown around: eating high fat foods was bad, eating after 7 or 8 pm is bad, eat clean foods for they're not bad, etc. I believed the food guide pyramid as it was ingrained in me since childhood. I didn't like exercising though Weight Watchers taught me I could "eat more" if I exercise...
I didn't learn the actual nuts & bolts of calorie counting till I came here and read the forums a while.
Exactly. Information on calories is everywhere. 100 calorie snack packs, 80 calorie yogurt, low calorie this and that. Infomercials out the wazzoo telling us we can burn 1000 calories per hour with this workout. It's mind boggling to think that there are very many people seeing these things regularly without making the connection that calories matter for weight loss.
But information on exactly how many calories you should eat for your weight and height isn't.
Even my doctor gave me a figure to eat that was way too high.
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Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Honestly I can't remember when I learned about calories...it seems ingrained in me, that consuming foods higher in calories = the greater the chance of you getting fat.... not sure if I picked that up from TV advertising for "low calorie" things like Diet Soda or Tic Tacs, the 1 & 1/2 Calorie Breath Mint or what. I feel like I always knew a high calorie diet led to being overweight/fat/etc.
Weight Watchers helped me further - the higher the calories, the higher the points for the food.
BUT I also believed a lot of stuff that was thrown around: eating high fat foods was bad, eating after 7 or 8 pm is bad, eat clean foods for they're not bad, etc. I believed the food guide pyramid as it was ingrained in me since childhood. I didn't like exercising though Weight Watchers taught me I could "eat more" if I exercise...
I didn't learn the actual nuts & bolts of calorie counting till I came here and read the forums a while.
Exactly. Information on calories is everywhere. 100 calorie snack packs, 80 calorie yogurt, low calorie this and that. Infomercials out the wazzoo telling us we can burn 1000 calories per hour with this workout. It's mind boggling to think that there are very many people seeing these things regularly without making the connection that calories matter for weight loss.
There is a difference between making a connection and actually knowing how it all works. Sure most people know that calories play a role, but that doesn't mean people know what to eat.
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Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Honestly I can't remember when I learned about calories...it seems ingrained in me, that consuming foods higher in calories = the greater the chance of you getting fat.... not sure if I picked that up from TV advertising for "low calorie" things like Diet Soda or Tic Tacs, the 1 & 1/2 Calorie Breath Mint or what. I feel like I always knew a high calorie diet led to being overweight/fat/etc.
Weight Watchers helped me further - the higher the calories, the higher the points for the food.
BUT I also believed a lot of stuff that was thrown around: eating high fat foods was bad, eating after 7 or 8 pm is bad, eat clean foods for they're not bad, etc. I believed the food guide pyramid as it was ingrained in me since childhood. I didn't like exercising though Weight Watchers taught me I could "eat more" if I exercise...
I didn't learn the actual nuts & bolts of calorie counting till I came here and read the forums a while.
Exactly. Information on calories is everywhere. 100 calorie snack packs, 80 calorie yogurt, low calorie this and that. Infomercials out the wazzoo telling us we can burn 1000 calories per hour with this workout. It's mind boggling to think that there are very many people seeing these things regularly without making the connection that calories matter for weight loss.
There is a difference between making a connection and actually knowing how it all works. Sure most people know that calories play a role, but that doesn't mean people know what to eat.
I don't know if this is true for men, but in my personal experience, and in my years of knowing other women and chatting to them online? The psychological aspect of losing weight is like taking a walk on a minefield. It's not a straightforward proposition at all.
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HappyCampr1 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »FoodFitnessTravel wrote: »Many of us on this site are not American, i'm not from an English speaking country myself. So i hope the OP didn't mean to sound aggressive.
I don't think OP is trolling, she is probably new to this whole weight loss idea. As someone who's lived in Europe and Asia, I know weight loss principles can vary. As in, the whole US knows about CICO, but in the country that i'm originally from, vast majority be like "if you eat white bread you are gonna get fat, if you eat whole wheat then it's all good".
So let's not judge, OP is probably new to all of this and is trying to lose weight and give us helpful lectures of what she thinks is correct.
Oh and i'm guessing Friday is a bit relaxed, pig out day in whatever country OP is from.
Virtually no one knows how calories work unless they actually decide to track calories. So the whole US definitely doesn't know about CICO, since they still associate foods with being fattening or causing x disease, and associate weight loss with crash diets orcutting out a whole bunch of things and exercising like crazy.
LOL what?
Your reaction does not make any sense to what I wrote. Based on the number of people who will ask others what their "secret" is to losing weight, the countless detoxa nd fad diet threads here, and people who post about exercising for hours and hours every day whilst not losing any weight for months very clearly demonstrates that CICO is not a term that people simply know and understand by default. They have to actually look into it. And America (particularly women) does associate food with causing fat gain and other ailments more so than other countries (based on one study conducted across a few European countries and the US). OH, not to mention all the threads like THIS one asking what is safe to eat for weight loss - if CICO were common knowledge, people wouldn't ask WHAT they can eat but instead HOW MUCH they can eat.
I did not know what calories really were in an actual, practical, applicable-to-me way until I joined MFP. At the age of 23. If CICO were a commonly-held notion then I would have already learned about it, much like I have learned about a plethora of things outside of school simply based on my cultural membership. A girl on my Facebook just posted that she's giving up sugar for fitness goals. A classmate talked about drinking water to remove her eyeball toxins. People are painfully ignorant about calories, macros, and nutrition.
If you made it to 23 years old without knowing that you needed to consume less calories than you expend to lose weight, I would guess you are in the minority. While they may not have known the specific number of calories in every food, since I was child everyone I know has known that weight loss is about calories. And sure, many look for that work around, that easy way to cut calories, that method that will not make weight loss seem like deprivation. But that's not the same as thinking calories aren't the key. Dear Lord, I hope the general intelligence level hasn't fallen this far.
I made it to 47 and second category obesity without ever having tried to lose weight. The only reason I started when I did was because my knee was hurting and I could hear the voice in my head telling me my knee wouldn't hurt if I didn't weigh so much. So, what did I do? Did I try a diet? No. Did I cut calories? No. I started exercising. That was the only thing I knew should help lose weight. I was woefully ignorant of calories and portion sizes. It took 7 months of busting my butt at the gym to lose 15 pounds and I was unhappy with that rate of loss. That's when I found MFP in the App Store. I basically just wanted a log so I could see what was going on. No concept of CICO until I got started. So, it is definitely possible that the general public really has no clue about calories or how to go about losing weight. I can't be the only one.
You'd think that if the general populace DID know about CICO, or at least know how it actually applied to them as an individual (as in, how do I figure out how much I should be eating based on my activity levels?) then we're probably not be a bunch of fat countries.herrspoons wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »FoodFitnessTravel wrote: »Many of us on this site are not American, i'm not from an English speaking country myself. So i hope the OP didn't mean to sound aggressive.
I don't think OP is trolling, she is probably new to this whole weight loss idea. As someone who's lived in Europe and Asia, I know weight loss principles can vary. As in, the whole US knows about CICO, but in the country that i'm originally from, vast majority be like "if you eat white bread you are gonna get fat, if you eat whole wheat then it's all good".
So let's not judge, OP is probably new to all of this and is trying to lose weight and give us helpful lectures of what she thinks is correct.
Oh and i'm guessing Friday is a bit relaxed, pig out day in whatever country OP is from.
Virtually no one knows how calories work unless they actually decide to track calories. So the whole US definitely doesn't know about CICO, since they still associate foods with being fattening or causing x disease, and associate weight loss with crash diets orcutting out a whole bunch of things and exercising like crazy.
LOL what?
Your reaction does not make any sense to what I wrote. Based on the number of people who will ask others what their "secret" is to losing weight, the countless detoxa nd fad diet threads here, and people who post about exercising for hours and hours every day whilst not losing any weight for months very clearly demonstrates that CICO is not a term that people simply know and understand by default. They have to actually look into it. And America (particularly women) does associate food with causing fat gain and other ailments more so than other countries (based on one study conducted across a few European countries and the US). OH, not to mention all the threads like THIS one asking what is safe to eat for weight loss - if CICO were common knowledge, people wouldn't ask WHAT they can eat but instead HOW MUCH they can eat.
I did not know what calories really were in an actual, practical, applicable-to-me way until I joined MFP. At the age of 23. If CICO were a commonly-held notion then I would have already learned about it, much like I have learned about a plethora of things outside of school simply based on my cultural membership. A girl on my Facebook just posted that she's giving up sugar for fitness goals. A classmate talked about drinking water to remove her eyeball toxins. People are painfully ignorant about calories, macros, and nutrition.
If you made it to 23 years old without knowing that you needed to consume less calories than you expend to lose weight, I would guess you are in the minority.
Why are there so many fat people then?
Because while people may KNOW the basic info, if they don't APPLY it, then it is pretty much worthless. My friend "knows" that you should have about 2000-2200 calories a day. Yet she is still quite overweight. As am I (I always thought 2000 calories was the standard.)
Yet here I am.
I didn't know how much I should eat. I only found out once i came across IIFYM and ran my numbers into calculators. Knowing an estimated number and knowing "calories affect weight" isn't really the same as knowing how that actually applies to a person or how to actually implement it! E.g. I know that people breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, but I Have no idea wtf any of that really means or how that makes people not dead.0 -
jennifershoo wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »HappyCampr1 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »HappyCampr1 wrote: »INeed2Exerc1se wrote: »Honestly I can't remember when I learned about calories...it seems ingrained in me, that consuming foods higher in calories = the greater the chance of you getting fat.... not sure if I picked that up from TV advertising for "low calorie" things like Diet Soda or Tic Tacs, the 1 & 1/2 Calorie Breath Mint or what. I feel like I always knew a high calorie diet led to being overweight/fat/etc.
Weight Watchers helped me further - the higher the calories, the higher the points for the food.
BUT I also believed a lot of stuff that was thrown around: eating high fat foods was bad, eating after 7 or 8 pm is bad, eat clean foods for they're not bad, etc. I believed the food guide pyramid as it was ingrained in me since childhood. I didn't like exercising though Weight Watchers taught me I could "eat more" if I exercise...
I didn't learn the actual nuts & bolts of calorie counting till I came here and read the forums a while.
Exactly. Information on calories is everywhere. 100 calorie snack packs, 80 calorie yogurt, low calorie this and that. Infomercials out the wazzoo telling us we can burn 1000 calories per hour with this workout. It's mind boggling to think that there are very many people seeing these things regularly without making the connection that calories matter for weight loss.
I think that's part of the problem. Those things get lost in the cacophony of images/headlines we see all the time...fat-busting this...waist-trimming that...low carb...low cal...super-secret workout that will shred inches... It just gets lost in the garbage we've learned to ignore.
I get where you coming from, I think. But ignoring what you know in the search for a quicker easier way, is not the same as not knowing it.
Ah, but the question is, do you really know it if you think it's just as much BS as everything else? When you don't believe any of it, how are you supposed to know that's the real thing?
Did you really ever think that calories in vs out was BS? It wouldn't be the first thing I was shocked by on this site, but geez!
Um, lots of people don't believe in CICO.
OMG and I even forgot about that. THe whole "nope, it's not CICO, it's about eating salad all day" which is just ignorant CICO. And was basically what I believed when I first lost weight, that along with salads + chicken and cutting out all delicious food I had to work out all day errday.0 -
Bottom line is that if everyone knew that calories were the main thing when it comes to losing weight, there wouldn't be a billion dollar diet industry based on fads.0
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Bottom line is that if everyone knew that calories were the main thing when it comes to losing weight, there wouldn't be a billion dollar diet industry based on fads.
But people know, and still they believe in fads!
Maybe the definition of "knowing" is important. Someone more fluent in English than me has to be able to pick up on this...0 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »HappyCampr1 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »HappyCampr1 wrote: »INeed2Exerc1se wrote: »Honestly I can't remember when I learned about calories...it seems ingrained in me, that consuming foods higher in calories = the greater the chance of you getting fat.... not sure if I picked that up from TV advertising for "low calorie" things like Diet Soda or Tic Tacs, the 1 & 1/2 Calorie Breath Mint or what. I feel like I always knew a high calorie diet led to being overweight/fat/etc.
Weight Watchers helped me further - the higher the calories, the higher the points for the food.
BUT I also believed a lot of stuff that was thrown around: eating high fat foods was bad, eating after 7 or 8 pm is bad, eat clean foods for they're not bad, etc. I believed the food guide pyramid as it was ingrained in me since childhood. I didn't like exercising though Weight Watchers taught me I could "eat more" if I exercise...
I didn't learn the actual nuts & bolts of calorie counting till I came here and read the forums a while.
Exactly. Information on calories is everywhere. 100 calorie snack packs, 80 calorie yogurt, low calorie this and that. Infomercials out the wazzoo telling us we can burn 1000 calories per hour with this workout. It's mind boggling to think that there are very many people seeing these things regularly without making the connection that calories matter for weight loss.
I think that's part of the problem. Those things get lost in the cacophony of images/headlines we see all the time...fat-busting this...waist-trimming that...low carb...low cal...super-secret workout that will shred inches... It just gets lost in the garbage we've learned to ignore.
I get where you coming from, I think. But ignoring what you know in the search for a quicker easier way, is not the same as not knowing it.
Ah, but the question is, do you really know it if you think it's just as much BS as everything else? When you don't believe any of it, how are you supposed to know that's the real thing?
Did you really ever think that calories in vs out was BS? It wouldn't be the first thing I was shocked by on this site, but geez!
I didn't even know what CICO was. I knew that eating too much was bad - but "too much" was some abstract number.
I also totally believed that you had to eat salads and chicken to lose weight.
I joined this site because my sister did and had a lot of success. It was only when I saw actual numbers that I started to understand what everything meant and how in control of my success or failure I was.
So no, not everyone understands how this works. I was very ignorant.0 -
i eat what i want........ just less of it
and more exercise 0 -
kommodevaran wrote: »Bottom line is that if everyone knew that calories were the main thing when it comes to losing weight, there wouldn't be a billion dollar diet industry based on fads.
But people know, and still they believe in fads!
Maybe the definition of "knowing" is important. Someone more fluent in English than me has to be able to pick up on this...
I know we pump blood through our bodies. I have no idea how it all works.
You can vaguely know something and not have a damn clue as to what it means or how it operates in practice0 -
kommodevaran wrote: »Bottom line is that if everyone knew that calories were the main thing when it comes to losing weight, there wouldn't be a billion dollar diet industry based on fads.
But people know, and still they believe in fads!
Maybe the definition of "knowing" is important. Someone more fluent in English than me has to be able to pick up on this...
Have you ever watched TV shows like 600lbs life and the likes? Some of those people don't know why they are that fat. They literally say "i don't understand". They don't know how many calories are in the food they eat. Heck, they probably don't know the word "calories".0 -
herrspoons wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »FoodFitnessTravel wrote: »Many of us on this site are not American, i'm not from an English speaking country myself. So i hope the OP didn't mean to sound aggressive.
I don't think OP is trolling, she is probably new to this whole weight loss idea. As someone who's lived in Europe and Asia, I know weight loss principles can vary. As in, the whole US knows about CICO, but in the country that i'm originally from, vast majority be like "if you eat white bread you are gonna get fat, if you eat whole wheat then it's all good".
So let's not judge, OP is probably new to all of this and is trying to lose weight and give us helpful lectures of what she thinks is correct.
Oh and i'm guessing Friday is a bit relaxed, pig out day in whatever country OP is from.
Virtually no one knows how calories work unless they actually decide to track calories. So the whole US definitely doesn't know about CICO, since they still associate foods with being fattening or causing x disease, and associate weight loss with crash diets orcutting out a whole bunch of things and exercising like crazy.
LOL what?
Your reaction does not make any sense to what I wrote. Based on the number of people who will ask others what their "secret" is to losing weight, the countless detoxa nd fad diet threads here, and people who post about exercising for hours and hours every day whilst not losing any weight for months very clearly demonstrates that CICO is not a term that people simply know and understand by default. They have to actually look into it. And America (particularly women) does associate food with causing fat gain and other ailments more so than other countries (based on one study conducted across a few European countries and the US). OH, not to mention all the threads like THIS one asking what is safe to eat for weight loss - if CICO were common knowledge, people wouldn't ask WHAT they can eat but instead HOW MUCH they can eat.
I did not know what calories really were in an actual, practical, applicable-to-me way until I joined MFP. At the age of 23. If CICO were a commonly-held notion then I would have already learned about it, much like I have learned about a plethora of things outside of school simply based on my cultural membership. A girl on my Facebook just posted that she's giving up sugar for fitness goals. A classmate talked about drinking water to remove her eyeball toxins. People are painfully ignorant about calories, macros, and nutrition.
If you made it to 23 years old without knowing that you needed to consume less calories than you expend to lose weight, I would guess you are in the minority.
Why are there so many fat people then?
What i meant to say is that countries like US and Great Britain have higher obesity rate, and therefore more knowledge about fitness and weight loss-i am aware that it sounds contradictive. When I was traveling in the US, I saw a lot of restaurant menus have calories for each item available for customers to see, even in bakeries. In the supermarkets, there's a whole lot of low calorie replacements to regular products. It's like American people are more aware of nutrition. You don't see that stuff in Asia and most countries of Europe.
BUT i guess that people are not educated enough or simply don't care enough about their personal calorie needs and expenditure. It's not easy to stick to the calorie goal, even if you know you can eat whatever you want, it's not easy to have just two cookies and so on.
Also some people stick to old fashioned ideas "avoid white flour, avoid fat, don't go near sugar" and it's hard to change their minds. My roommate is one of them.
I mean whatever floats her boat, i'm happy with my calorie counting plan. Btw, OP, give it a go.0
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