Confusing myself!!! Help!!! Slimming world vs calories

Tashlovesfood

I've been trying to lose weight for YEARS. And I keep failing. And I know the problem is my mindset. The thing is I really really want it! But I have trouble sticking with it long term because my mind starts playing games with me. I'm in a dilemma because I currently go to slimming world groups but I find it really restrictive. I don't like the idea of thinking of food as "good" and "bad" because that's when I fail. But on the other hand is it much simpler to follow. I guess my problem is that I love food and don't want to cut it out. Avocado on toast, chocolate, pizza. Can I still lose weight if I eat the foods I love and count calories? Has anyone lost weight eating chocolate on a daily basis? I'm really confused and I keep setting myself up to fail

malibu927

Can I still lose weight if I eat the foods I love and count calories? Has anyone lost weight eating chocolate on a daily basis?

Yes and yes. Focus on eating nutrient dense items first, of course, but definitely save a bit of room for chocolate or another treat if you're meeting your macros/micros.

rwlogan222

Tashlovesfood wrote: »

I've been trying to lose weight for YEARS. And I keep failing. And I know the problem is my mindset. The thing is I really really want it! But I have trouble sticking with it long term because my mind starts playing games with me. I'm in a dilemma because I currently go to slimming world groups but I find it really restrictive. I don't like the idea of thinking of food as "good" and "bad" because that's when I fail. But on the other hand is it much simpler to follow. I guess my problem is that I love food and don't want to cut it out. Avocado on toast, chocolate, pizza. Can I still lose weight if I eat the foods I love and count calories? Has anyone lost weight eating chocolate on a daily basis? I'm really confused and I keep setting myself up to fail

There are a couple things you can do to to slim. There are a couple natural products you can take to increase the fat burning in the body. Also a high protein diet will curb your want for a lot of food. There are a couple good brands and supplements i can suggest that i use, but go ahead and do some research of your own and see what you find.

DBrooks1979

Tash... its about moderation... you can still have the food you like.. just eat less of them.. track what you eat and eat at a deficit and you can achieve your goal of weight loss... I have not cut out any foods.. I just eat smaller portions and watch how much of something I eat... and try to make a bit more healthy choices in the foods I choose but I still eat Pizza, and toast, and Jelly and Peanut Butter and foods some would say you shouldn't eat... Feel Free to add me as a friend and view my food diary.. and you will see that you don't have to cut foods.. just cut how much... calories in - Calories out = weight loss...

ElizabethOakes2

Yes.
It's all calories in/calories out. A few weeks of measuring and counting what you eat, and you'll be able to see how the foods you love will fit into your daily calorie intake.

oocdc2

Yes, I eat chocolate almost daily--right now, in fact. I eat whatever I want, pretty much, I just log it all and use measuring cups and a food scale.

erinc5

I ate a full size cupcake yesterday. And I was down 0.2 lbs this morning. I plan on drinking and eating chicken wings tonight and still losing (weird day for me, I was planning on having more this morning, but I really haven't been hungry, so I've barely eaten all day but I'm gonna eat all the things tonight!)

I don't eat crazy every day, but some days I like to save up for a pig out session (still within my calories allotted).

And , yes, I eat chocolate or treat of some sort pretty much every single day. And I am consistently losing weight.

You can follow/friend me if you'd like to see what I eat - I'm pretty sure my diary is open to everyone.

erinc5

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emmycantbemeeko

Yes. Weight loss is based on calories in and calories out. If you take in fewer calories than you put out, you will lose weight.

Eating nutrient-dense foods is a good idea in general and especially when eating in a deficit because if you eat only high-calorie, nutrient-poor foods, you can wind up hungry and not getting all the nutrition you need. But you will still lose weight as long as your calories in are fewer than your calories out. You can lose weight eating only chocolate if you could somehow bring yourself to eat at a caloric deficit (although I think most people would be sick of chocolate and ravenously craving regular food after a very short while) and you can put on weight eating "health" foods if you eat more calories worth of them than your body requires.

There is no such thing as "good" and "bad" foods, although some foods are better for some purposes than others. Foods are just foods, they aren't moral issues. They have varying physical properties. For the purposes of weight loss, the only really important one is "how many calories of energy are in this food." Macro and micronutrients play their roles in health, but for an obese person wishing to lose weight, calories are the biggest part of the equation.

So: yes, you can absolutely lose weight while eating chocolate as long as you maintain a calorie deficit. I'm not familiar with the service you're using, but anyone telling you there's such a thing as "good" or "bad" food or that there's a way to lose weight *without* somehow accounting for calories in and calories out (whether that's directly or through a points system that corresponds closely to calorie content) does not have your long-term success in mind.

Most restrictive diets that result in weight loss without addressing calories do so by restricting the "allowed" foods so much that people are forced in to a caloric deficit because they can't bring themselves to eat very much of those foods (while it's possible to eat more calories of grapefruit or kale than you actually need, most of us aren't tempted). And for most people this method eventually fails, because people go crazy trying to eat in a way that they hate for the long term and give up.

Even when they succeed in causing weight loss, when you finally stop following the highly restrictive plan and go back to eating what you're used to, you generally gain the weight back, because you're used to eating too many calories for your size and you didn't learn how not to do that. And you blame it on the "bad" foods they warned you against that you're eating, instead of on the change in total amount of calories you're consuming, which is the real culprit. All of which is really unfortunate, because there is no need. You can eat chocolate- you just have to be honest about how much chocolate you're eating, how many calories are in it, and how many calories you need.

emmycantbemeeko

rwlogan222 wrote: »

o to slim. There are a couple natural products you can take to increase the fat burning in the body. Also a high protein diet will curb your want for a lot of food. There are a couple good brands and supplements i can suggest that i use, but go ahead and do some research of your own and see what you find.

This is not true, do not listen to this person. There are no magic fixes for fat loss, the amount of fat burned is determined by the amount of caloric deficit you create by eating fewer calories than you burn through living and moving. There are tons of people who will TELL you that there are supplements that work. These people are either making money selling the supplements, or have willfully duped themselves in to believing the supplements they bought work.

High protein diets make some people feel more satiated, but not everyone. Eating a high protein diet is not appropriate for everyone. The best diet for weight loss for you is the one that creates a calorie deficit and that you are able to stick to for the long term. For most people, this involves getting balanced macronutrients and eating moderate amounts of the foods you really enjoy.

CoffeeNCardio

If you want to see what a crappy diet you can still totally lose weight on, feel free to check out my diary. I've been completely awful about nutrition lately (nutrition is for HEALTH, calories are for WEIGHTLOSS) and I'm still dropping pounds like they're hot because I'm eating less than I burn. It really is that simple.

For just plain old motivation, have a peek at the PHOTO ONLY SUCCESS STORIES thread on the Success Stories forum. Those people all lost weight eating many varying diets, and I bet chocolate and pizza are common among them.

You won't find hardly any chocolate or pizza in my diary, but it's cause i'm not a big fan, not because I'm worried about them, (as I'm sure you'll see by all the Lays entries).

jellio98

I have lost 50 lbs eating a chocolate bar every day.

arditarose

Yes. I eat chocolate or something sweet every day and have lost and maintained weight.

GsKiki

Yes you can eat any food you want and lose weight. It's calories in vs calories out.
I enjoy food, and never restrict anything from my diet, I just watch when, how and how much I eat.
Also you should be focused on getting healthier, fitter and having more balanced meals, then the weight will come off as well.
Yes I do eat chocolate almost every day, but in very small quantities (most of the time :P)

erinc5

CoffeeNCardio wrote: »

If you want to see what a crappy diet you can still totally lose weight on, feel free to check out my diary.

Oh man. I take a look at your diary every now and then when I see your comments, and I am still amazed at the amount of sugar and creamer you use with your coffee. Haha. LOVE IT!!! You know, when you love something you just gotta embrace it

BruinsGal_91

CoffeeNCardio wrote: »

If you want to see what a crappy diet you can still totally lose weight on, feel free to check out my diary. I've been completely awful about nutrition lately (nutrition is for HEALTH, calories are for WEIGHTLOSS) and I'm still dropping pounds like they're hot because I'm eating less than I burn. It really is that simple.

Yep. I've dropped 8lbs this month and have had pizza, beer, curry, chocolate, fajitas, etc. I've just made sure I burn more calories than I eat.

Tashlovesfood

Thanks everyone. I think I am complicating things for myself in my own mind! Slimming world is really famous over hear in the U.K. And when I was telling people my plan was to count calories they would all say but surely eating 300 calories worth of cake is not the same as eating 300 calories worth of vegetables. And that confused me. I need to believe I can do it its just that I've failed so many times!

CoffeeNCardio

erinc5 wrote: »

CoffeeNCardio wrote: »

If you want to see what a crappy diet you can still totally lose weight on, feel free to check out my diary.

Oh man. I take a look at your diary every now and then when I see your comments, and I am still amazed at the amount of sugar and creamer you use with your coffee. Haha. LOVE IT!!! You know, when you love something you just gotta embrace it

You only get one life amiright? I never would have done this or stuck with it without my coffee, and my coffee has GOT to be a certain way. Maybe one day my tastes will change and I won't want it anymore, like oh so many things from my youth, but in the meantime I'm losing weight. I look at it this way: there are people, however foolish, who smoke a pack a day and die at the ripe old age of 80 from natural causes, and there are people who get cancer at age 18. I feel good, I'm losing, and we're all just doing the best we can. No sense in overcomplicating that by getting overly concerned about sugar.

erinc5

CoffeeNCardio wrote: »

erinc5 wrote: »

CoffeeNCardio wrote: »

If you want to see what a crappy diet you can still totally lose weight on, feel free to check out my diary.

Oh man. I take a look at your diary every now and then when I see your comments, and I am still amazed at the amount of sugar and creamer you use with your coffee. Haha. LOVE IT!!! You know, when you love something you just gotta embrace it

You only get one life amiright? I never would have done this or stuck with it without my coffee, and my coffee has GOT to be a certain way. Maybe one day my tastes will change and I won't want it anymore, like oh so many things from my youth, but in the meantime I'm losing weight. I look at it this way: there are people, however foolish, who smoke a pack a day and die at the ripe old age of 80 from natural causes, and there are people who get cancer at age 18. I feel good, I'm losing, and we're all just doing the best we can. No sense in overcomplicating that by getting overly concerned about sugar.

Hey. No judgement here! I had a cupcake yesterday. I plan on having wings covered in sugary sauce tonight. With lots of bourbon on the side! I certainly don't shy away from sugar, fat, alcohol, or anything really. I was honestly saying that I love how you drink so much sugar and still lose! I've tried the no sugar, low carb, low fat, yadda yadda and I agree - too many rules to stick to in order to be sustainable for me.

CoffeeNCardio

erinc5 wrote: »

CoffeeNCardio wrote: »

erinc5 wrote: »

CoffeeNCardio wrote: »

If you want to see what a crappy diet you can still totally lose weight on, feel free to check out my diary.

Oh man. I take a look at your diary every now and then when I see your comments, and I am still amazed at the amount of sugar and creamer you use with your coffee. Haha. LOVE IT!!! You know, when you love something you just gotta embrace it

You only get one life amiright? I never would have done this or stuck with it without my coffee, and my coffee has GOT to be a certain way. Maybe one day my tastes will change and I won't want it anymore, like oh so many things from my youth, but in the meantime I'm losing weight. I look at it this way: there are people, however foolish, who smoke a pack a day and die at the ripe old age of 80 from natural causes, and there are people who get cancer at age 18. I feel good, I'm losing, and we're all just doing the best we can. No sense in overcomplicating that by getting overly concerned about sugar.

Hey. No judgement here! I had a cupcake yesterday. I plan on having wings covered in sugary sauce tonight. With lots of bourbon on the side! I certainly don't shy away from sugar, fat, alcohol, or anything really. I was honestly saying that I love how you drink so much sugar and still lose! I've tried the no sugar, low carb, low fat, yadda yadda and I agree - too many rules to stick to in order to be sustainable for me.

I didn't think you were judging, but in case someone else reads and is too ashamed to admit/ doesn't get it;)

airangel59

I work what I want into my daily menu. I pre plan/ pre log what I want & plan the rest of my day around it.
I eat out, I eat fast food, I eat junk food, am a chocoholic (I have boxes of Hostess cakes in my freezer) and I have not cut anything out.
Eat in moderation. Count your calories etc. Weigh, measure, write what you bite.