All calories may not be equal

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Replies

  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    As a newbie, I find the process of measuring and weighing everything to be tedious and very nearly overwhelming. IMO it's more important to make a habit of keeping track of what you eat. If measuring and weighing helps me to be more accurate when I keep track, that will be a good thing. But if it lengthens my prep time significantly, I'm probably not going to keep doing it. I'm not going to risk being late to work in the morning or play practice in the evening. I'm not willing to cut back on sleep, and I would certainly prefer not to cut back on what little exercise time I have.

    LOL it is not that time consuming to weigh your food.

    No, but it can be really time consuming to measure with cups and spoons which need scraping out and cleaning. Much easier to put toast on plate on scale, hit tare, add almond butter, hit tare, add honey than dinking around with tablespoons and teaspoons. And if you always weigh out the same amount, the logging is much faster too. I strongly suspect that most people who complain about the effort of measuring food are using cups/spoons.

    Yep, I definitely can not be bothered flaffing about with measuring cups and spoons. That, i do not have the time or patience for.

  • Isabelle_1929
    Isabelle_1929 Posts: 233 Member
    ninerbuff wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    Hornsby wrote: »
    Actually we aren't talking about Dr. Lustig, but Dr. Ludwig.
    I am going to go ahead and cut sugar, potatoes and processed foods out of my diet for 6 months anyway. I know a lot of you don't agree and to that I say- don't do it then! I spent two years off of sugar and flour and lost 79 pounds. So many people were bothered by this and convinced me that I should be able to eat anything I wanted in moderation. Of course I love sugar and flour and so I gave it a try- and gained back 50 pounds in the process. I am driven to overeat these things. Those of you who can't relate to this don't have that problem and I am happy for you because it really sucks. I know that I was more energetic and overall healthier when I wasn't consuming sugar and flour. Did I insist that everyone else did it? No! I didn't even make my children do that because everyone is allowed to make their own choices.
    I posted this morning looking for likeminded individuals, not looking for reasons not to cut out refined sugars and flour. I found a couple, so thanks to them.
    I'm not a newbie in any sense. I need support to go down the abstinence road because people are constantly telling me how stupid it is. It isn't easy but I know that it is right for me. And yes, eating 4000 calories a day won't end in weight loss.

    You know, maybe if you didn't cut them out entirely and instead tried to get a healthy relationship with it you wouldn't have binged on it and wouldn't need a second try at losing weight.
    Just a thought.

    Last time I checked, there is not one method - NONE - including CICO, that will make people lose weight once and for good. How many people are (re-re-re-) re-starters, on this thread alone ?
    I'm all for CICO, but gimme a break. I've lost weight, and gained back, and lost again.

    Open mind and curiosity has never killed anyone. If OP want to try out something, why not? Good lord, he did not say he's going to eat cucumber and vinegar for 6 months straight !

    I read the whole thread, and I find it extremely strange that people get borderline angry and aggressive about the way someone they don't even know decides to eat. No really.

    Have a doughnut and chill a bit.

    - A CICO-fan.

    Wrong. CICO works for everyone. If you regained wait, that's on you, not on CICO.

    My point exactly. So if OP regained, it's not necessarily because at some point he decided to eat this, or not to eat that.

    And my second point is that there are very few persons here who can afford looking down on anyone, as regards weight and diet, and related psychology. And typically, those people won't have to resort to using a frigging app to monitor what they eat, so they would not be here, debating over CICO or no sugar or high protein or clean food and whatnot.

    To be fair, there are plenty of people who use MFP because they are training and need to make sure their macros on point, or are dealing with a health issue and need to keep track of specific nutrients or macros. There are also many users on the forum who are trainers or dietitians, as well as people who successfully lost weight by keeping the food log and now that they are maintaining (and sometimes not even counting anymore) they stick around the forums to help people find success like they did.

    Possibly true. But in such case Psychology 101 was obviously not part of their curriculum.
    Oooh. A bit of a insult there to others.
    So training over 1000 people in the last 20 years or so, all with different goals and personalities as well as preferences, I think I got Pyschology 101 down pretty well.


    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

    9285851.png


    So you're rude to your clients because, why, you're successful so you earned the right to?
    You believe that something good can come out of belittling someone?
    You believe that the knowledge you possess at this time, is the universal and eternal truth?

    No? You don't? Well then, my comment was not meant to include you.
  • gonetothedogs19
    gonetothedogs19 Posts: 325 Member
    I think if a "Newbie" was to read this thread it would scare and put them off straight away! So many judgemental, rude, aggressive people getting their back up!!
    I also noticed that a lot of people on here may have developed OCD with weighing and numbers, weighing a pre packaged yogurt haha come on REALLY!
    I dont take a food scale out of the house and carry it around with with me, that is just sad.
    I have and I am still losing weight just fine.

    I was really stunned to learn that people take the yogurt out of the container and weigh it. The container says 120 calories, but that's not good enough. Like I said, if you are that concerned that it is an under-count, just log 135 calories.

    And I agree with you. It gets to the point where it is OCD. The OCD response could be, "how can you log 135 calories when it could be 141 calories?"
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    I was really stunned to learn that people take the yogurt out of the container and weigh it. The container says 120 calories, but that's not good enough.

    Personally, I weigh yogurt because it's cheaper to buy the big tubs and weigh some into a bowl.

    True, I buy the 1L tubs and only buy the small single servings when they don't have my flavour/brand in the larger tubs.
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,942 Member
    As a newbie, I find the process of measuring and weighing everything to be tedious and very nearly overwhelming. IMO it's more important to make a habit of keeping track of what you eat. If measuring and weighing helps me to be more accurate when I keep track, that will be a good thing. But if it lengthens my prep time significantly, I'm probably not going to keep doing it. I'm not going to risk being late to work in the morning or play practice in the evening. I'm not willing to cut back on sleep, and I would certainly prefer not to cut back on what little exercise time I have.

    Well done. As long as you're getting your results, then what you are doing is working just fine.
  • bethannien
    bethannien Posts: 556 Member
    I think if a "Newbie" was to read this thread it would scare and put them off straight away! So many judgemental, rude, aggressive people getting their back up!!
    I also noticed that a lot of people on here may have developed OCD with weighing and numbers, weighing a pre packaged yogurt haha come on REALLY!
    I dont take a food scale out of the house and carry it around with with me, that is just sad.
    I have and I am still losing weight just fine.

    I was really stunned to learn that people take the yogurt out of the container and weigh it. The container says 120 calories, but that's not good enough. Like I said, if you are that concerned that it is an under-count, just log 135 calories.

    And I agree with you. It gets to the point where it is OCD. The OCD response could be, "how can you log 135 calories when it could be 141 calories?"

    I mean some people are OCD but one behavior that you wouldn't personally do isn't necessarily OCD. Like it's fine if weighing and measuring isn't for you. But your advice is that all newbies buy almost exclusively prepackaged foods. That also might work for some but it sounds kind of restrictive to me. And, the fact is, not every individual serving container is going to contain necessarily what it says on the package.
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,942 Member
    It's true that a calorie is a calorie, just like one pound of muscle and one pound of fat are still each equal to one pound. One calorie of high fructose corn syrup and one calorie of blueberries are both still one calorie each. But there's also no doubt that different foods are metabolized and processed differently by our bodies and affect not only our satiety and weight but also our energy, sleep and mental clarity, to name a few. It's not the same to eat 1,200 calories of junk food a day, versus 1,200 calories of healthy, low-glycemic food a day. It may be possible to lose weight eating junk, but it's still a bit of a struggle that includes feelings of hunger and deprivation. In contrast, eating 1,200 calories of healthy foods is easy and satisfying!!

    Nope, as to the bold part. For weight loss, your body only knows a calorie is a calorie, it does not distinguish between "healthy, low-glycemic food" and "junk" (besides, one mean's "junk' may be another man's only meal). Eat more calories than you burn and you will gain weight, eat less calories than you burn and you will lose weight and eat just about the right amount of calories and you will maintain.
  • gonetothedogs19
    gonetothedogs19 Posts: 325 Member
    SLLRunner wrote: »
    I think if a "Newbie" was to read this thread it would scare and put them off straight away! So many judgemental, rude, aggressive people getting their back up!!
    I also noticed that a lot of people on here may have developed OCD with weighing and numbers, weighing a pre packaged yogurt haha come on REALLY!
    I dont take a food scale out of the house and carry it around with with me, that is just sad.
    I have and I am still losing weight just fine.

    I was really stunned to learn that people take the yogurt out of the container and weigh it. The container says 120 calories, but that's not good enough. Like I said, if you are that concerned that it is an under-count, just log 135 calories.

    And I agree with you. It gets to the point where it is OCD. The OCD response could be, "how can you log 135 calories when it could be 141 calories?"

    Nah.......this is plain silly, and a bit on the judgmental side as well. Just because someone uses a certain tool that works for them does not mean OCD is involved. ;)

    If I went around and said in a low carb thread they're all OCD with their fear for carbs, I'd be behind bars before I could say "double standard".

    You don't know the definition of OCD. They are not counting and agonizing over each little single carb. They are just avoiding them (other than from green veggies). Big difference between that, and obssessing over the fear that the calories on the label could be 10% lower than the actual number of calories.
  • Isabelle_1929
    Isabelle_1929 Posts: 233 Member
    edited August 2016
    ninerbuff wrote: »
    ninerbuff wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    Hornsby wrote: »
    Actually we aren't talking about Dr. Lustig, but Dr. Ludwig.
    I am going to go ahead and cut sugar, potatoes and processed foods out of my diet for 6 months anyway. I know a lot of you don't agree and to that I say- don't do it then! I spent two years off of sugar and flour and lost 79 pounds. So many people were bothered by this and convinced me that I should be able to eat anything I wanted in moderation. Of course I love sugar and flour and so I gave it a try- and gained back 50 pounds in the process. I am driven to overeat these things. Those of you who can't relate to this don't have that problem and I am happy for you because it really sucks. I know that I was more energetic and overall healthier when I wasn't consuming sugar and flour. Did I insist that everyone else did it? No! I didn't even make my children do that because everyone is allowed to make their own choices.
    I posted this morning looking for likeminded individuals, not looking for reasons not to cut out refined sugars and flour. I found a couple, so thanks to them.
    I'm not a newbie in any sense. I need support to go down the abstinence road because people are constantly telling me how stupid it is. It isn't easy but I know that it is right for me. And yes, eating 4000 calories a day won't end in weight loss.

    You know, maybe if you didn't cut them out entirely and instead tried to get a healthy relationship with it you wouldn't have binged on it and wouldn't need a second try at losing weight.
    Just a thought.

    Last time I checked, there is not one method - NONE - including CICO, that will make people lose weight once and for good. How many people are (re-re-re-) re-starters, on this thread alone ?
    I'm all for CICO, but gimme a break. I've lost weight, and gained back, and lost again.

    Open mind and curiosity has never killed anyone. If OP want to try out something, why not? Good lord, he did not say he's going to eat cucumber and vinegar for 6 months straight !

    I read the whole thread, and I find it extremely strange that people get borderline angry and aggressive about the way someone they don't even know decides to eat. No really.

    Have a doughnut and chill a bit.

    - A CICO-fan.

    Wrong. CICO works for everyone. If you regained wait, that's on you, not on CICO.

    My point exactly. So if OP regained, it's not necessarily because at some point he decided to eat this, or not to eat that.

    And my second point is that there are very few persons here who can afford looking down on anyone, as regards weight and diet, and related psychology. And typically, those people won't have to resort to using a frigging app to monitor what they eat, so they would not be here, debating over CICO or no sugar or high protein or clean food and whatnot.

    To be fair, there are plenty of people who use MFP because they are training and need to make sure their macros on point, or are dealing with a health issue and need to keep track of specific nutrients or macros. There are also many users on the forum who are trainers or dietitians, as well as people who successfully lost weight by keeping the food log and now that they are maintaining (and sometimes not even counting anymore) they stick around the forums to help people find success like they did.

    Possibly true. But in such case Psychology 101 was obviously not part of their curriculum.
    Oooh. A bit of a insult there to others.
    So training over 1000 people in the last 20 years or so, all with different goals and personalities as well as preferences, I think I got Pyschology 101 down pretty well.


    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

    9285851.png


    So you're rude to your clients because, why, you're successful so you earned the right to?
    Who said rude? You seem to think that refuting what you say seems rude when it's just cordial debate. It's not an attack on your person, it's a disagreement with your approach. How you decipher it is based on how you see it.
    You believe that something good can come out of belittling someone?
    Didn't see where you were belittled. Copy and paste it.
    And there's a difference of belittling someone and being flat up honest and truthful. Trust that I've heard just about every reason on how someone should lose weight. And I always let them try it. If it works, then fine. If it doesn't work, then I have them count calories. And believe it or not, it's like a light bulb moment for many.
    You believe that the knowledge you possess at this time, is the universal and eternal truth?
    I still research and learn on a daily/weekly basis. The knowledge I have is from information passed on by Journals of science, physiology, kinesiology, endocrinology and metabolism, etc. I didn't invent it.
    No? You don't? Well then, my comment was not meant to include you.
    Should I feel offended that I wasn't included? ;)


    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

    9285851.png


    @ninerbuff You should read the whole thread, if you had a solid 30 minutes to waste ...
    I was originally replying to someone who, in my opinion, was arrogant in his reply to OP.
    Then I was referring to those who confuse "bragging / showing off" and "helping /giving advice".

    As we say where I live: if the hat does not fit you, just don't wear it. ;-)
  • Shadowmf023
    Shadowmf023 Posts: 812 Member
    SLLRunner wrote: »
    I think if a "Newbie" was to read this thread it would scare and put them off straight away! So many judgemental, rude, aggressive people getting their back up!!
    I also noticed that a lot of people on here may have developed OCD with weighing and numbers, weighing a pre packaged yogurt haha come on REALLY!
    I dont take a food scale out of the house and carry it around with with me, that is just sad.
    I have and I am still losing weight just fine.

    I was really stunned to learn that people take the yogurt out of the container and weigh it. The container says 120 calories, but that's not good enough. Like I said, if you are that concerned that it is an under-count, just log 135 calories.

    And I agree with you. It gets to the point where it is OCD. The OCD response could be, "how can you log 135 calories when it could be 141 calories?"

    Nah.......this is plain silly, and a bit on the judgmental side as well. Just because someone uses a certain tool that works for them does not mean OCD is involved. ;)

    If I went around and said in a low carb thread they're all OCD with their fear for carbs, I'd be behind bars before I could say "double standard".

    You don't know the definition of OCD. They are not counting and agonizing over each little single carb. They are just avoiding them (other than from green veggies). Big difference between that, and obssessing over the fear that the calories on the label could be 10% lower than the actual number of calories.

    So someone who tells others to meticulously look on ingredient lists for "hidden carbs" ranging in the low single digits and avoid them at all costs is not OCD? Good to know only the people you personally disagree with may be accused of mental illness.

    Speaking for myself here and not for other low carbers, but I don't look at ingredient lists. Because I eat mostly nuts, seeds, oils, meat and full fat dairy (milk and cheese) and green vegetables. No need to look at ingredients because it's pretty obvious that spinach contains...well, spinach. :wink:
  • gonetothedogs19
    gonetothedogs19 Posts: 325 Member
    bethannien wrote: »
    SLLRunner wrote: »
    I think if a "Newbie" was to read this thread it would scare and put them off straight away! So many judgemental, rude, aggressive people getting their back up!!
    I also noticed that a lot of people on here may have developed OCD with weighing and numbers, weighing a pre packaged yogurt haha come on REALLY!
    I dont take a food scale out of the house and carry it around with with me, that is just sad.
    I have and I am still losing weight just fine.

    I was really stunned to learn that people take the yogurt out of the container and weigh it. The container says 120 calories, but that's not good enough. Like I said, if you are that concerned that it is an under-count, just log 135 calories.

    And I agree with you. It gets to the point where it is OCD. The OCD response could be, "how can you log 135 calories when it could be 141 calories?"

    Nah.......this is plain silly, and a bit on the judgmental side as well. Just because someone uses a certain tool that works for them does not mean OCD is involved. ;)

    If I went around and said in a low carb thread they're all OCD with their fear for carbs, I'd be behind bars before I could say "double standard".

    You don't know the definition of OCD. They are not counting and agonizing over each little single carb. They are just avoiding them (other than from green veggies). Big difference between that, and obssessing over the fear that the calories on the label could be 10% lower than the actual number of calories.

    I'm not sure you know the definition of OCD either. It's not just one behavior that you perceive as obsessive because you personally wouldn't do it.

    Literally everyone is going to do something trying to lose weight that someone else will think is a little out there. But throwing around a term used to describe a very real and often debilitating mental health issue for those who actually deal with it isn't exactly making your point for you.

    There are plenty of people with OCD who have spouses and children, and successful careers. I know a few who are so pathologically neat that they could be classified as OCD. Other OCD's are much more debilitating.

    Counting every single calorie, years after you met your weight goal, is OCD. Not a debilitating OCD. Not an OCD that requires therapy. Just and OCD like the pathological neat-freak who can't leave a crumb on the kitchen counter, or has to make the bed no matter what.
  • gonetothedogs19
    gonetothedogs19 Posts: 325 Member
    SLLRunner wrote: »
    I think if a "Newbie" was to read this thread it would scare and put them off straight away! So many judgemental, rude, aggressive people getting their back up!!
    I also noticed that a lot of people on here may have developed OCD with weighing and numbers, weighing a pre packaged yogurt haha come on REALLY!
    I dont take a food scale out of the house and carry it around with with me, that is just sad.
    I have and I am still losing weight just fine.

    I was really stunned to learn that people take the yogurt out of the container and weigh it. The container says 120 calories, but that's not good enough. Like I said, if you are that concerned that it is an under-count, just log 135 calories.

    And I agree with you. It gets to the point where it is OCD. The OCD response could be, "how can you log 135 calories when it could be 141 calories?"

    Nah.......this is plain silly, and a bit on the judgmental side as well. Just because someone uses a certain tool that works for them does not mean OCD is involved. ;)

    If I went around and said in a low carb thread they're all OCD with their fear for carbs, I'd be behind bars before I could say "double standard".

    You don't know the definition of OCD. They are not counting and agonizing over each little single carb. They are just avoiding them (other than from green veggies). Big difference between that, and obssessing over the fear that the calories on the label could be 10% lower than the actual number of calories.

    So someone who tells others to meticulously look on ingredient lists for "hidden carbs" ranging in the low single digits and avoid them at all costs is not OCD? Good to know only the people you personally disagree with may be accused of mental illness.

    There is nothing OCD about removing grains from your diet to reduce your carbohydrate intake. Just like there is nothing OCD about being a vegan.

    OCD means you are doing something active, like counting and obsessing over every calorie years after you met your weight goal. Removing something from your diet (grains, or sugar, or animal fats) is not OCD.
  • robertw486
    robertw486 Posts: 2,399 Member
    Mentali wrote: »
    I wonder if this is a good time to point out that I, the person who set this person off on their wild repeated mental illness accusations, don't actually weigh anything outside of raw meat...because my deficit is high enough that I don't have to worry about a 20% (now that it's been pointed out to me, actually more than 20%) variance. Unfortunately, I won't always have this large deficit as I get closer to my goal and many people don't, so for them the difference between eating 1500 and 1800 calories a day is important.

    Sometimes I wonder about people who think it's appropriate to pull out "if you don't do things the way I do them you must be mentally ill!" What a terrible thing to say.

    Unfortunately, telling other people they are wrong is becoming the way of the internet in general.

    I've never weighed food through my loss or maintenance. I guess I just guess close enough that it balances out over time. But I do spend time figuring out more accurate calorie burn estimates for my exercise. I guess I've got it all wrong.

    But I suspect that in your case, your wrong method should work just as well as mine, because if it's working now, it will probably work when you hit maintenance. :)