Losing Weight is NOT that simple..imo..
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PaulaWallaDingDong wrote: »
But your precise numbers don't matter. Only results matter..
Which was part of the OP'S point - telling people to weigh food to 4 significant figures doesn't ensure weight loss.
Telling them to weigh food when they arent weighing and are complaining they arent losing does make sense though. If people are at a consistent calorific deficit then they will lose weight over time. So his calim about it being impossible to know how much you are eating is pretty much baloney. Accurate deficit control is the most effective method of estimating.
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Accurate deficit control is the most effective method of estimating.
Don't understand. Controlling something is the best way of estimating ? Or accurate intake control to eliminate or minimise variation ?
Ultimately if you aren't losing weight eating less is a good idea however you achieve that - fewer spoons, packets, grams or whatever.
I agree with the OP that one's actual deficit is almost unknowable other than by assessing it from the achieved weight loss.
So it's an iterative process rather than a case of " setting a deficit ".0 -
I suppose it could be the case that for the last year and three months I've just been lucky enough to buy food that has nutritional values that are unusually close to the values on the labels. That seems like a pretty unlikely explanation, though.0
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After losing 40 pounds the body is completely different. What worked 40 pounds ago might not work now. Also when you start exercising, a 1 mile run might burn a lot of calories, but as you get fitter you will need to run more and faster to burn the same amount of calories.970Mikaela1 wrote: »After losing 40 pounds you have enough data that it really shouldn't be guesswork anymore. Accurately tracking your data points should all but eliminate the guesswork.
But you have the data to help you understand your TDEE and calorie burns, even at the lower weight. I've lost 30 and I can look back and see what my TDEE is and what I'd need to lose, just by reading my data. Same goes for calorie burns (though I don't do cardio so I don't know quite as much about it).0 -
So who actuallt agrees with the points that the OP made?
Put to one side whether people are smug or whether hes eating a healthy amount. Does he make good points in his OP or say anything new?
I do disagree, but was hesitant to post (editing out a couple of comments because @999tigger's question requests that we put a couple of things aside. My apologies!).
It's easy to ignore the basics of weight loss by stressing out over the inaccuracies of calorie content and calories burned.
But those inaccuracies are inevitable - this is life, not a laboratory, and those of us who have enjoyed weight loss success are very aware of that. Those inaccuracies fall within a reasonably defined range if you apply the MFP tools correctly (which also isn't hard to do), and as @PAV8888 points out, "A collection of small errors unless systematically inaccurate in the same direction tends to minimize not maximize the overall error". That's important information to take in.
If you focus too much on inaccuracies and "we just can't know for sure", it becomes a deflection and a way to rationalize yourself right into failure.
In my experience, losing weight HAS been simple. I wouldn't call it easy - it definitely has its challenges. But simple? Yes. The tools I've learned here have set me free from so much anxiety over whether what I'm doing will work or not. I resisted logging and weighing food for so long, and now I sort of laugh at myself over that, because it's the single most powerful change I made that led to success.
Unfortunately, it's always easy to cave in to generalizations that are so broad that they are pretty much meaningless when we're trying to help each other sort out the actual practical steps that support weight loss. "Everyone is different" sounds like a nice thing to say, but it doesn't really say anything at all that's helpful. It turns out to be just another deflection. So I guess that makes me mean or something, I dunno. I just know that counting calories + logging + weighing has resulted in great success for me, and that it has been beautifully simple.
I agree so much with all you've said
But the bit I bolded...yes, hell yes...that happens here so often0 -
Yeah. It's like saying your speedometer isn't 100 accurate therefore it can give you absolutely no valuable information about your speed, so you might as well just floor it.So who actuallt agrees with the points that the OP made?
Put to one side whether people are smug or whether hes eating a healthy amount. Does he make good points in his OP or say anything new?
I do disagree, but was hesitant to post (editing out a couple of comments because @999tigger's question requests that we put a couple of things aside. My apologies!).
It's easy to ignore the basics of weight loss by stressing out over the inaccuracies of calorie content and calories burned.
But those inaccuracies are inevitable - this is life, not a laboratory, and those of us who have enjoyed weight loss success are very aware of that. Those inaccuracies fall within a reasonably defined range if you apply the MFP tools correctly (which also isn't hard to do), and as @PAV8888 points out, "A collection of small errors unless systematically inaccurate in the same direction tends to minimize not maximize the overall error". That's important information to take in.
If you focus too much on inaccuracies and "we just can't know for sure", it becomes a deflection and a way to rationalize yourself right into failure.
In my experience, losing weight HAS been simple. I wouldn't call it easy - it definitely has its challenges. But simple? Yes. The tools I've learned here have set me free from so much anxiety over whether what I'm doing will work or not. I resisted logging and weighing food for so long, and now I sort of laugh at myself over that, because it's the single most powerful change I made that led to success.
Unfortunately, it's always easy to cave in to generalizations that are so broad that they are pretty much meaningless when we're trying to help each other sort out the actual practical steps that support weight loss. "Everyone is different" sounds like a nice thing to say, but it doesn't really say anything at all that's helpful. It turns out to be just another deflection. So I guess that makes me mean or something, I dunno. I just know that counting calories + logging + weighing has resulted in great success for me, and that it has been beautifully simple.
I agree so much with all you've said
But the bit I bolded...yes, hell yes...that happens here so often
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Its all estimation. The greater the degree of accuracy the more likely you will be at your wanted deficit.
Weighing is a better method than spoons and cups or eyeballing. Whats so hard to understand about that?
These forums are chock full of people who try other methods but it doesnt work for them hence they are told to weigh. Nobody ever said weighing was the only method.
Ps caitwyn agree with what you said. I put the provisos in because people get distracted and go off on a tangent instead of answering the points made. Weighing isnt the only way and I dont think the people who respond ever say that, they normally answer posts to people who are not losing and whose existing method of estimating is not working for them. its bizarre to start criticisng a method that is more likely to get you results. If people just did the basics correctly then a lot more succeed. Its that simple.
I prefer the word straightforward, which is what I normally use. That doesnt mean its easy.
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If one peruses the forums with regularity, one will find that one of the biggest obstacles is not from the lack of 100% accuracy from food labels, food weighing, or workout time, it is mental.
Granted, some people have a difficult time losing weight due to a medical condition. I am not making light of that in any way. I think that that segment of the weigh less / fitness community here is small, at least from the overall responses I have read thus far.
In my opinion, losing weight / getting fit (barring a medical condition) (for the first time or part 2, 3, or whatever pertains to you) is as hard as one makes it. Often times, we create our own mountains. Work on getting rid of the stinkin' thinkin' and you will see that the mountain you need to climb to your goal is not that tall at all, it just looks that way because you have so many excuses blocking your path.
Do your best to get into a routine. That will help losing weight / getting fit to become a more natural part of your life, and you won't come to look at your new journey as a place where you are in some kind of unpleasant jail biding your time.0 -
Eat less and move more works, that's why it's being said over and over. Weigh your food, measure, under estimate activity burn can give you a better handle on doing this. Nothing will be 100% accurate but it will at least give you a baseline and go from there. If you lose you are going in the right direction, if you don't modify something. I do think its frustrating when you start out and think that you are eating 1200 calories in your best guess and then find out for the 3 weeks you were doing this, you were really eating 1900. Then your mind has to adjust to the fact...you have to eat even less.0
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We do have to distinguish between the truth of CICO and how to make that happen in our own lives on a daily basis. It is a little off putting to tell a newcomer sumply "eat at a calorie deficit and you'll lose weight." If that were so easy then there would not be any folks on MFP. It is true but people need help with the how as much as the what. I think the OP is correct in that there is trial and error and people need to know that. We are different with different lifestyles, different strengths and different weaknesses, different health issues and body types. I know that as far as CICO is concerned that I can eat anything I want and lose weight as long I eat at a calorie deficit but I know through experience that if I eat certain foods I will be unsuccessful eating at a calorie deficit for a variety of reasons (not just because they are trigger foods.) I know this through trial and error and patiently evaluating the how of eating at a calorie deficit.0
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kimberlyjoy159 wrote: »We do have to distinguish between the truth of CICO and how to make that happen in our own lives on a daily basis. It is a little off putting to tell a newcomer sumply "eat at a calorie deficit and you'll lose weight." If that were so easy then there would not be any folks on MFP. It is true but people need help with the how as much as the what. I think the OP is correct in that there is trial and error and people need to know that. We are different with different lifestyles, different strengths and different weaknesses, different health issues and body types. I know that as far as CICO is concerned that I can eat anything I want and lose weight as long I eat at a calorie deficit but I know through experience that if I eat certain foods I will be unsuccessful eating at a calorie deficit for a variety of reasons (not just because they are trigger foods.) I know this through trial and error and patiently evaluating the how of eating at a calorie deficit.
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This is false. Plenty of people here, let alone who aren't here, think it is different, and more complicated, than that. People think that eating fat makes you fat, for example. Or that eating after 8PM will.kimberlyjoy159 wrote: »We do have to distinguish between the truth of CICO and how to make that happen in our own lives on a daily basis. It is a little off putting to tell a newcomer sumply "eat at a calorie deficit and you'll lose weight." If that were so easy then there would not be any folks on MFP.
No, many, many newcomers have no clue at all about CICO. They think weight loss is complicated and magical. Step one is getting past that and step one is "eat at a calorie deficit and you'll lose weight." Step two can be worrying about how to accomplish that.
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But sometimes people need to see the second step in order to grasp the first step. Sometimes understanding CICO comes when they get help in that process. There is the truth or fact of CICO and there is how to apply it in my setting.0
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Maybe some people think like that. I think, for most people, if you don't buy CICO, how to apply CICO is irrelevant and meaningless.kimberlyjoy159 wrote: »But sometimes people need to see the second step in order to grasp the first step. Sometimes understanding CICO comes when they get help in that process. There is the truth or fact of CICO and there is how to apply it in my setting.
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DeguelloTex wrote: »
This is false. Plenty of people here, let alone who aren't here, think it is different, and more complicated, than that. People think that eating fat makes you fat, for example. Or that eating after 8PM will.kimberlyjoy159 wrote: »We do have to distinguish between the truth of CICO and how to make that happen in our own lives on a daily basis. It is a little off putting to tell a newcomer sumply "eat at a calorie deficit and you'll lose weight." If that were so easy then there would not be any folks on MFP.
No, many, many newcomers have no clue at all about CICO. They think weight loss is complicated and magical. Step one is getting past that and step one is "eat at a calorie deficit and you'll lose weight." Step two can be worrying about how to accomplish that.
I watched someone in another thread say you could eat 10k calories of fat a day and literally not gain an ounce. I think boiling it down to "eat less than you burn" is the best step to take for beginners.0 -
kimberlyjoy159 wrote: »We do have to distinguish between the truth of CICO and how to make that happen in our own lives on a daily basis. It is a little off putting to tell a newcomer sumply "eat at a calorie deficit and you'll lose weight." If that were so easy then there would not be any folks on MFP. It is true but people need help with the how as much as the what. I think the OP is correct in that there is trial and error and people need to know that. We are different with different lifestyles, different strengths and different weaknesses, different health issues and body types. I know that as far as CICO is concerned that I can eat anything I want and lose weight as long I eat at a calorie deficit but I know through experience that if I eat certain foods I will be unsuccessful eating at a calorie deficit for a variety of reasons (not just because they are trigger foods.) I know this through trial and error and patiently evaluating the how of eating at a calorie deficit.
This seems contradictory to me. You can eat whatever you want and lose weight, except you can't eat whatever you want? Huh?
I can eat whatever I want and lose weight--but if I get into that mindset of wanting to aimlessly rummage through the kitchen in search of junk after I have eaten my calorie allowance, it's over. Because CICO still applies.0 -
kimberlyjoy159 wrote: »We do have to distinguish between the truth of CICO and how to make that happen in our own lives on a daily basis. It is a little off putting to tell a newcomer sumply "eat at a calorie deficit and you'll lose weight." If that were so easy then there would not be any folks on MFP. It is true but people need help with the how as much as the what. I think the OP is correct in that there is trial and error and people need to know that. We are different with different lifestyles, different strengths and different weaknesses, different health issues and body types. I know that as far as CICO is concerned that I can eat anything I want and lose weight as long I eat at a calorie deficit but I know through experience that if I eat certain foods I will be unsuccessful eating at a calorie deficit for a variety of reasons (not just because they are trigger foods.) I know this through trial and error and patiently evaluating the how of eating at a calorie deficit.
BUT it still comes down to CICO. How one get's there may vary, but science is science.0 -
Think you will find that in the selection of answers people get cico (although thats fundamental) they get a lot of advice on how to do it, plus they do get reminded they will need to adapt it for themselves and adjust as needed. I see that on the forums all the time in the year ive been here and the hundreds of questions answered.
If people are unhappy about how questions are responded to then its always open to them to post their own responses or point out where they feel people are going wrong.0
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