What are your feelings on calorie counting?
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whaddupw8loss wrote: »Calorie counting only teaches the counter to have a relationship with food on a basis of calorie intake. Meaning, they'd opt for unhealthy choices with low calories instead of healthy choices that will essentially fill them up longer. When I counted calories, I would consume the same old crap that made me gain weight in the first place. Junk food almost ALWAYS has one serving to be an okay amount of calories, but the serving does nothing nutritional in the body, and then you want more...cause you're still hungry. I think calorie counting should ONLY come after the person knows about nutrition. And, I honestly don't care about the "ALL IT IS IS CICO, NOTHING ELSE" people, because lets face it...a body full of nutrition works with you, and your weight loss. A body full of crap, works against you, and your weight loss. So, yes, calorie counting is beneficial when used with nutritious foods. But sites like MFP are taking advantage of the user by saying "eat anything, as long as it's in your calorie range, you'll lose weight." Except when the user pigs out on 500 calories worth of junk, feels hungry for the rest of the day, continues to pig out, and goes way over calorie goal. Then what? "I'll shrug it off and start again tomorrow...and again the next day...and so on." I only use MFP to read community posts, and log my weight. I'm losing weight MUCH faster than I ever did about obsessing over calories, and just eating healthier.
A body full of crap only works against you weight loss wise if you continually eat over maintenance.
You may not care about the CICO people but that doesn't mean they're wrong.
My 115 lb weight loss while eating more "crap" than anyone else's definition of moderation is comfortabe with while still eating less calories (or points when I was on weight watchers) and still eating every calorie (or point) I was allowed kinda proves it in my opinion.
Disclaimer: I eat healthy stuff too.
Edited to add that I'm pro calorie counting. 0 -
whaddupw8loss wrote: »Calorie counting only teaches the counter to have a relationship with food on a basis of calorie intake. Meaning, they'd opt for unhealthy choices with low calories instead of healthy choices that will essentially fill them up longer. When I counted calories, I would consume the same old crap that made me gain weight in the first place. Junk food almost ALWAYS has one serving to be an okay amount of calories, but the serving does nothing nutritional in the body, and then you want more...cause you're still hungry. I think calorie counting should ONLY come after the person knows about nutrition. And, I honestly don't care about the "ALL IT IS IS CICO, NOTHING ELSE" people, because lets face it...a body full of nutrition works with you, and your weight loss. A body full of crap, works against you, and your weight loss. So, yes, calorie counting is beneficial when used with nutritious foods. But sites like MFP are taking advantage of the user by saying "eat anything, as long as it's in your calorie range, you'll lose weight." Except when the user pigs out on 500 calories worth of junk, feels hungry for the rest of the day, continues to pig out, and goes way over calorie goal. Then what? "I'll shrug it off and start again tomorrow...and again the next day...and so on." I only use MFP to read community posts, and log my weight. I'm losing weight MUCH faster than I ever did about obsessing over calories, and just eating healthier.
Do you at least have another account? This one says your first "visit" is November 5 - I'm not sure if that's when you signed up or when you first visited the forums, but two months is likely not enough time to properly learn how to use a tool and incorporate it with your lifestyle, IMO0 -
Well I'm loving it and it has taught me so much. Counting calories and weighing food has been a life saver for me. To be honest though, I don't see myself doing this for the rest of my life. I'm hoping I can get to a place where I don't need to log nor weigh food anymore. Maybe beginning of 2017 I'll be ready for that. Maybe not.0
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whaddupw8loss wrote: »Calorie counting only teaches the counter to have a relationship with food on a basis of calorie intake. Meaning, they'd opt for unhealthy choices with low calories instead of healthy choices that will essentially fill them up longer. When I counted calories, I would consume the same old crap that made me gain weight in the first place. Junk food almost ALWAYS has one serving to be an okay amount of calories, but the serving does nothing nutritional in the body, and then you want more...cause you're still hungry. I think calorie counting should ONLY come after the person knows about nutrition. And, I honestly don't care about the "ALL IT IS IS CICO, NOTHING ELSE" people, because lets face it...a body full of nutrition works with you, and your weight loss. A body full of crap, works against you, and your weight loss. So, yes, calorie counting is beneficial when used with nutritious foods. But sites like MFP are taking advantage of the user by saying "eat anything, as long as it's in your calorie range, you'll lose weight." Except when the user pigs out on 500 calories worth of junk, feels hungry for the rest of the day, continues to pig out, and goes way over calorie goal. Then what? "I'll shrug it off and start again tomorrow...and again the next day...and so on." I only use MFP to read community posts, and log my weight. I'm losing weight MUCH faster than I ever did about obsessing over calories, and just eating healthier.
^^Wow, really? MFP is a calorie counting site. Many of us have learned a lot from using this site and are healthier for the experience. Over the past 4 years, I have changed my eating habits, learned appropriate portion sizes, make better choices, and have achieved (hopefully) a sustainable program to keep myself at a healthy weight. You can call it what you will, but the bottom line is eating less calories than you burn, results in weight loss. If you are saying that your system is not counting calories, just what do you think it is? Ultimately, you ARE eating less calories than you are burning if you ARE losing weight. Semantics.
How you choose to spend your calories, is each persons choice. No one can tell anyone else how to do it, or what is right for anyone else. We are all different. What works for me, may not necessarily work for anyone else, as far as choices in foods we eat. CICO does work if you log everything, and stay within your calorie allotment.
I don't call it obsessing over calories, I call it educating yourself about the actual amount of calories you need to sustain a healthy weight.
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In response to all: I never said that CICO isn't the way to lose weight. I said, there's a lot more to it that would prohibit the weight loss only using the base of CICO. Yes, obviously there is going to be a loss of weight with any calorie deficit. However, there are PLENTY of people who stop calorie counting once they achieve their desired weight and gain it all back. Why? Because they never formed healthy eating, they only formed reducing calories. I'm not saying that anyone has to only eat healthy, of course you should be able to have treats or unhealthy foods in moderation. Now for those of you who have learned better eating habits from MFP, good for you. I never said you couldn't. In fact, there are people who do. But there are plenty more people who don't have that experience. I don't know how many posts I've read where they just yo-yo and yo-yo, because it's hard to maintain eating junk food with no nutrients at a deficit, your body inevitably gets hungry. You eat, and sometimes you eat WAY too much due to this. So, no. Calorie counting is not the devil, it can be VERY beneficial. However, I don't seem to find too many overweight, calorie-counting, avid MFP users who have a well balanced diet, with nutrients. Obviously there is a reason people get obese, or overweight. If it's from junk food, then they cannot continue eating like *kitten*, and expecting life long results. Yes, you can restrict and eat like *kitten*, but how long will that last. Just take a look at how many "I fell off the bandwagon...again" posts you see on this site. So, if this site manages to give you the right tools you need to be healthier, then great. My original post was NOT ABOUT YOU. "If it doesn't apply to you, then don't get insulted by it."
Also, there are other calorie counting sites that don't require you to purchase a "premium" account to enable you to use all of it's offered tools. If you think this site isn't to line the pockets of the creator, then I believe you're misguided. Weight loss is a BIG market for making money, the creators of MFP were well aware of that. There are plenty of sites that give you all the tools for free and came way before MFP. MFP hasn't done anything new or special. You could search on google, find ANY calorie counting site, and you'd have the same results on those as you would MFP, it's about the habits of the user, not the site. If the user is determined to lose weight, they'll do so on any calorie counting platform. Weight Watchers, another popular calorie counting mechanism, has such a poor long term success rate, and guess what? When the user "falls off the bandwagon" because they only learned points, and CICO, they go right back to it. Weight loss websites and companies are in it for the money.0 -
Do you at least have another account? This one says your first "visit" is November 5 - I'm not sure if that's when you signed up or when you first visited the forums, but two months is likely not enough time to properly learn how to use a tool and incorporate it with your lifestyle, IMO [/quote]
I've had a MFP account before, for several months. I made this new one just to track my weight loss, and read forums. Reducing the calories in my *kitten* diet worked for awhile, but then...I was NEVER satisfied. So, I began to eat healthy. Now I can have a calorie deficit, not be hungry 24/7, and I don't even need to count calories to do so. When I followed MFP, I found myself to often falling off and restarting. I've been able to steadily lose weight by eating healthy, and not depriving myself.0 -
laurabolt500 wrote: »Calorie counting is the only thing that keeps me on track! If I don't do it, I either over or underestimate my intake and end up not knowing why or how I gained or lost the weight.
Yep, same here.
Pre-logging my day has become my morning ritual. Make a cup of tea, turn on the computer, fill out my food diary.0 -
@whaddupw8loss I keep an eagle eye on my macros and micros as well as my calories. Good nutrition is equally as important as calories IMO.0
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whaddupw8loss wrote: »In response to all: I never said that CICO isn't the way to lose weight. I said, there's a lot more to it that would prohibit the weight loss only using the base of CICO. Yes, obviously there is going to be a loss of weight with any calorie deficit. However, there are PLENTY of people who stop calorie counting once they achieve their desired weight and gain it all back. Why? Because they never formed healthy eating, they only formed reducing calories. I'm not saying that anyone has to only eat healthy, of course you should be able to have treats or unhealthy foods in moderation. Now for those of you who have learned better eating habits from MFP, good for you. I never said you couldn't. In fact, there are people who do. But there are plenty more people who don't have that experience. I don't know how many posts I've read where they just yo-yo and yo-yo, because it's hard to maintain eating junk food with no nutrients at a deficit, your body inevitably gets hungry. You eat, and sometimes you eat WAY too much due to this. So, no. Calorie counting is not the devil, it can be VERY beneficial. However, I don't seem to find too many overweight, calorie-counting, avid MFP users who have a well balanced diet, with nutrients. Obviously there is a reason people get obese, or overweight. If it's from junk food, then they cannot continue eating like *kitten*, and expecting life long results. Yes, you can restrict and eat like *kitten*, but how long will that last. Just take a look at how many "I fell off the bandwagon...again" posts you see on this site. So, if this site manages to give you the right tools you need to be healthier, then great. My original post was NOT ABOUT YOU. "If it doesn't apply to you, then don't get insulted by it."
Also, there are other calorie counting sites that don't require you to purchase a "premium" account to enable you to use all of it's offered tools. If you think this site isn't to line the pockets of the creator, then I believe you're misguided. Weight loss is a BIG market for making money, the creators of MFP were well aware of that. There are plenty of sites that give you all the tools for free and came way before MFP. MFP hasn't done anything new or special. You could search on google, find ANY calorie counting site, and you'd have the same results on those as you would MFP, it's about the habits of the user, not the site. If the user is determined to lose weight, they'll do so on any calorie counting platform. Weight Watchers, another popular calorie counting mechanism, has such a poor long term success rate, and guess what? When the user "falls off the bandwagon" because they only learned points, and CICO, they go right back to it. Weight loss websites and companies are in it for the money.
It sounds like you are projecting many of your own choices on the community as a whole. Because you chose to eat mostly junk food, weren't satiated, and then gave up doesn't mean that most people do that or that calorie counting and MFP encourages that. In fact, most of the "I gave up but am now back again" posts come from people who have unrealistic expectations about weight loss, whether it be trying to lose weight too fast, trying to restrict entire groups of food (aka cutting out sugars or "white foods" or only eating "clean"). The people who come to MFP, with reasonable expectations and use the tool the way it is designed, are the ones who have long term, sustainable results. If you aren't seeing people who are using this tool with well balanced, nutrient dense diets, and losing weight in the process, then I think you're not looking in the right place0 -
I do like knowing the calorie content of things, and feel it's important in the grand scheme of things. The thing I really like about MFP is that I know how much protein, carbs, fats and fiber I'm getting in as well. I know that they digest at different rates, and there are things that can be done to help you stay more sated - not be as hungry all the time. I'm one of those that thinks knowledge is power. The more you know about it - nutrition, digestion rates, caloric intake, calories burned, etc. etc., the easier it makes the rest of the journey.0
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I love it. Keeps me accountable, helps me make better choices, helps me learn more, it helps me lose weight.0
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It's effective but, can be sometimes annoying. Like I have a groupon for a pizza place that only has 2 locations. Instead I'm eating a pretty good frozen pizza for dinner because the box has calories printed on it. I haven't had a burrito from my local mexican place in 4 months because i don't know quite how to log it. I didn't get drunk the other night because i wasn't sure if my shot glasses were 1oz or 1.5oz shot glasses (probably for the best). Maybe I'm being too obsessive about this0
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shadows2424 wrote: »I personally don't like it. I spent over 60 years of my life not counting calories without problems. I was not obese/fat, I always liked to exercise and I was active. I don't binge and I never did, and I don't have a sweet tooth or a love affair with food. I eat to live not the other way around.
Then all of the sudden I put 10 extra lbs due to inactivity due to surgeries, a heavy business travel schedule, and a stupid thyroid that decided to became "hypo;" somebody told me about MFP and I joined. Now I am hooked and I have an OCD approach to calories counting and logging that makes me unhappy. But, and since have been maintaining for 5 years, I don’t log while on vacation, I take a break once in awhile or a delete my account for few months in order to get my sanity back.
There are many people in MFP that don’t count or log anymore and are doing fine. Others came back with all the weight that they lost or more, because they lost the structure. We are all different, just do what works for you and don’t worry about the rest of the world.
Im sorry its dragging you down.
Thank you but it is not dragging me down (very few things do that to me), but I dislike the fact that I became so attached to MFP and to the whole process of counting, weighting my food and logging. That's is why I take breaks from all of it. I appreciate your sympathy
Well you're welcome.0 -
pinklotus_56 wrote: »I've tried many other methods, but calorie counting is the only thing that works for me. I've lost 93lbs calorie counting.
Congratulations.0 -
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It's effective but, can be sometimes annoying. Like I have a groupon for a pizza place that only has 2 locations. Instead I'm eating a pretty good frozen pizza for dinner because the box has calories printed on it. I haven't had a burrito from my local mexican place in 4 months because i don't know quite how to log it. I didn't get drunk the other night because i wasn't sure if my shot glasses were 1oz or 1.5oz shot glasses (probably for the best). Maybe I'm being too obsessive about this
The changes you make to help achieve your weight loss, nutritional and health goals are supposed to be a lifestyle change. With that said, if they start to interfere dramatically with parts of your life that you really enjoy then I think it may be time to take a step back and see if you are being too rigid with your approach. I've lost 30 lbs and am successfully maintaining and still eat delicious pizza, Mexican food, and drink alcohol quite regularly. There are reasonable estimates in the database for all of those things. The difference in 0.5 oz of hard alcohol is probably 50 calories and not significant enough to make a difference, or, get out a measuring cup and pour yourself a shot in the shot glass, them pour it in the measuring cup so you know for sure.
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GuitarJerry wrote: »You're asking people on a calorie counting site what they think of calorie counting. That's like going to a Republican convention and asking them if Republicans have it right. Lol
I figured someone would say this. Just because you are counting calories/using a calorie counting app and have found that it works for you doesn't mean you like having to do it. Thats why i asked.0 -
WinoGelato wrote: »It's effective but, can be sometimes annoying. Like I have a groupon for a pizza place that only has 2 locations. Instead I'm eating a pretty good frozen pizza for dinner because the box has calories printed on it. I haven't had a burrito from my local mexican place in 4 months because i don't know quite how to log it. I didn't get drunk the other night because i wasn't sure if my shot glasses were 1oz or 1.5oz shot glasses (probably for the best). Maybe I'm being too obsessive about this
The changes you make to help achieve your weight loss, nutritional and health goals are supposed to be a lifestyle change. With that said, if they start to interfere dramatically with parts of your life that you really enjoy then I think it may be time to take a step back and see if you are being too rigid with your approach. I've lost 30 lbs and am successfully maintaining and still eat delicious pizza, Mexican food, and drink alcohol quite regularly. There are reasonable estimates in the database for all of those things. The difference in 0.5 oz of hard alcohol is probably 50 calories and not significant enough to make a difference, or, get out a measuring cup and pour yourself a shot in the shot glass, them pour it in the measuring cup so you know for sure.
Yeah I'm on amazon right now shopping for a decent shot glass with the markings on it for ounces/ml. And I haven't really had a craving for mexican in awhile but, I at least know what brand of tortillas they use from walking past on a windy day and seeing boxes spread out behind. I'm sure guessing once a week wouldn't be too bad.0 -
HappyCampr1 wrote: »
Most of the difference between pizzas is going to be in the crust. Cheese is pretty much cheese and pepperoni is pretty much pepperoni. For local pizza places, I try to find a similar size pizza, with a similar crust (thin/crispy, hand tossed, pan...) from a national chain and use their entries. It's not exact, but it's generally close enough.It's effective but, can be sometimes annoying. Like I have a groupon for a pizza place that only has 2 locations. Instead I'm eating a pretty good frozen pizza for dinner because the box has calories printed on it. I haven't had a burrito from my local mexican place in 4 months because i don't know quite how to log it. I didn't get drunk the other night because i wasn't sure if my shot glasses were 1oz or 1.5oz shot glasses (probably for the best). Maybe I'm being too obsessive about this
For Mexican, On the Border has pretty good online nutrition information for traditional Mexican food. Also, Moe's will let you customize burritos, nachos, tacos... and give you the nutritional information based on what you put on it. http://www.moes.com/food/nutrition/burritos/ At least it will give you an idea.
I can't help you with the shot glass. A food scale will fix that issue though and will also help with a whole host of logging issues you're sure to encounter in your journey. Good luck!
Yep, I just use the data from pizza hut, even though I never get pizzas from there. Same with other take away foods, I can usually find a substitute in the data base.0 -
I'll try that moes site for sure. I know exactly what brand of tortillas they use because last time i walked past it was windy and the boxes were everywhere. Then it's just a matter of the amount of meat and other stuff on there. Maybe I'll just weight the meet once. It's too convenient and delicious not to eat there (10 minute walk).0
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