Eat whatever you want AND Lose Weight!!
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ThatUserNameIsAllReadyTaken wrote: »Nice except it's not entirely true. Not everyone has a huge calorie allowance. Some people can have one of those 800+ calories in a double cheeseburger meal and be left trying to manage the rest of the day with not many calories to work with and end up hungry. So yeah. It's true, more true for people with larger allowances. But it just is not worth it to spend half of my daily allowance on a single meal.
Your preference to eliminate certain foods rather than incorporate them into your day by any number of methods (smaller portions, less frequency, intermittent fasting, "banking" calories through the week...) does not make the facts presented by the OP "not entirely true."
The fact that you CAN eat the foods you like and still lose weight is entirely true regardless of whether or not you WANT to or whether or not you have the willpower/ability to moderate your intake of said foods.10 -
The main reason most diet plans fail is because they're so freaking complicated. But human nature dictates that if it is complex and restrictive and has a bunch of arbitrary rules it must work. Everyone starts of gung-ho thinking they've finally found the holy grail of weight loss, only to discover that once their enthusiasm wears off, compliance flies right out the window with it.
It doesn't have to be so damn hard.
Just figure out how many calories you need to eat in a day to realize your weight loss goal, buy a digital food scale to make sure you stay on track and hit those numbers, and then JUST EAT within that allotment. With food you already enjoy.
After a few weeks of this, you'll soon figure out what different foods 'cost' in terms of calories, and whether or not you can fit one particular thing or another into your budget for that day, Can I *afford* a cup of ice cream? No? How about a half cup instead?
With a little time, education and practice you will absolutely find the best way to eat for you and still achieve your goals.12 -
great info here, I found all this to be true also1
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ThatUserNameIsAllReadyTaken wrote: »Nice except it's not entirely true. Not everyone has a huge calorie allowance. Some people can have one of those 800+ calories in a double cheeseburger meal and be left trying to manage the rest of the day with not many calories to work with and end up hungry. So yeah. It's true, more true for people with larger allowances. But it just is not worth it to spend half of my daily allowance on a single meal.
My calorie goal isn't that huge when I don't exercise and I can fit in what I like. I eat 1 meal and 1-2 snacks.2 -
The OP falsely assumes that every (healthy) person's genetic, physiological, psychological, cultural, age and life style variables/constraints are exactly the same. I assure you they are not.
To be successful in your diet you have to find the approach that works best for you.
Know thy self and to thine own self be true. If you notice that just counting calories is not working out because you have difficulty sticking to it then there is something wrong in your process. Evaluate how you feel, and notice trends.
If eating LCHF diet WORKS for you... Do that. (It DOES work for some people)
If cutting out meat works for you... Do that.
If eating small portions of all your favorite foods works for you. Do that!
If Meal Replacement Shakes works for you. Do that.
If Fasting on the weekend works for you Do that
If Having a cheat meal once a week helps you have something to look forward to... do that.
If rules works for you and you find you are successful and it's EASIER for you to just boycott certain things. Do that
Don't make the following assumptions about other people's diet:
1) Your way and philosophy is how everyone should approach it.
2) There is no way X person's life is any more stressful than yours. (Your broken leg doesn't make their broken arm hurt any less. We all have different ways of dealing with these things.)
3) Goals don't matter. (A body builder "cutting" is not going to have the same goals or diet demands of a teenage girl in search of the thigh gap.)
4) Everyone just needs to count calories and they will be able to mentally handle the natural evolutionary biological response to famine. (If you think this, I suggest reading "Will Power Instinct" or at least look up Kelly McGonigal on youtube. It's great insight on how outside influences can horribly derail your self discipline and how we are biologically programmed to collapse when strawberry cheese cake is in our line of sight while on a diet.)
5) X didn't work for me, so it won't work for you either.
Finally and my favorite:
5) A person is fat again, clearly it didn't work for you or you wouldn't have gotten fat. Maybe they stopped doing what worked for them due to some life craziness and used food for coping rather than drugs and alcohol. It happens.
So while CICO is a HUGE piece of the puzzle and rarely can be ignored... There is a lot of fine tuning that comes into play to ensures success. That fine tuning is the result of evaluating the variables in your life, recognizing your limitations and strengths and working that into your approach
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ThatUserNameIsAllReadyTaken wrote: »Nice except it's not entirely true. Not everyone has a huge calorie allowance. Some people can have one of those 800+ calories in a double cheeseburger meal and be left trying to manage the rest of the day with not many calories to work with and end up hungry. So yeah. It's true, more true for people with larger allowances. But it just is not worth it to spend half of my daily allowance on a single meal.
Your last sentence is the only one that matters. If it is not worth it to you to use 800 calories on a double cheese burger, then don't. If a cheeseburger is something you desire and you want to work it in, I'm sure you can find a way to do that: extra exercise, banking calories in days leading up to it or ending a little under on days after, eating at maintenance calories for one day, cutting the burger in half, making a lower calorie version of the burger (a single instead of a double) , etc.
The point is that by having an understanding of CICO and your own individual calorie needs, there's no reason, other than personal preference, that someone can't eat the foods they want. If you can't figure out a way to fit that cheeseburger in, then you don't want it that much to begin with and it's a moot point.11 -
nm0
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You can eat whatever you want within your calories and still lose weight.
But I don't *want* to eat candy!
That's fine. You can eat whatever you want within your calories still lose weight.
But I don't *want* a big burger!
Okay. You can eat whatever you want within your calories and still lose weight.
But I don't *want* fast food, or sugar, or french fries, or any of that stuff!!
You can eat whatever you want within your calories and still lose weight. If you don't want certain foods, don't find them tasty, don't find them worth the calories, or find they don't work for you, then don't eat them. You can eat whatever you want and still lose weight doesn't mean that you have to eat foods you don't want to eat.23 -
tmoneyag99 wrote: »The OP falsely assumes that every (healthy) person's genetic, physiological, psychological, cultural, age and life style variables/constraints are exactly the same. I assure you they are not.
To be successful in your diet you have to find the approach that works best for you.
Know thy self and to thine own self be true. If you notice that just counting calories is not working out because you have difficulty sticking to it then there is something wrong in your process. Evaluate how you feel, and notice trends.
If eating LCHF diet WORKS for you... Do that. (It DOES work for some people)
If cutting out meat works for you... Do that.
If eating small portions of all your favorite foods works for you. Do that!
If Meal Replacement Shakes works for you. Do that.
If Fasting on the weekend works for you Do that
If Having a cheat meal once a week helps you have something to look forward to... do that.
If rules works for you and you find you are successful and it's EASIER for you to just boycott certain things. Do that
Don't make the following assumptions about other people's diet:
1) Your way and philosophy is how everyone should approach it.
2) There is no way X person's life is any more stressful than yours. (Your broken leg doesn't make their broken arm hurt any less. We all have different ways of dealing with these things.)
3) Goals don't matter. (A body builder "cutting" is not going to have the same goals or diet demands of a teenage girl in search of the thigh gap.)
4) Everyone just needs to count calories and they will be able to mentally handle the natural evolutionary biological response to famine. (If you think this, I suggest reading "Will Power Instinct" or at least look up Kelly McGonigal on youtube. It's great insight on how outside influences can horribly derail your self discipline and how we are biologically programmed to collapse when strawberry cheese cake is in our line of sight while on a diet.)
5) X didn't work for me, so it won't work for you either.
Finally and my favorite:
5) A person is fat again, clearly it didn't work for you or you wouldn't have gotten fat. Maybe they stopped doing what worked for them due to some life craziness and used food for coping rather than drugs and alcohol. It happens.
So while CICO is a HUGE piece of the puzzle and rarely can be ignored... There is a lot of fine tuning that comes into play to ensures success. That fine tuning is the result of evaluating the variables in your life, recognizing your limitations and strengths and working that into your approach
The OP made no such assumptions. Different approaches to maintaining adherence, different preferences and different goals do not negate the fact that it is possible to lose weight while eating food you enjoy so long as a calorie deficit is maintained.7 -
Black is white :huh:2
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What @skyblu263 said was 100% right on the mark. Well said. Too bad so many people twisted it into something it's not.2
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Carlos_421 wrote: »tmoneyag99 wrote: »The OP falsely assumes that every (healthy) person's genetic, physiological, psychological, cultural, age and life style variables/constraints are exactly the same. I assure you they are not.
To be successful in your diet you have to find the approach that works best for you.
Know thy self and to thine own self be true. If you notice that just counting calories is not working out because you have difficulty sticking to it then there is something wrong in your process. Evaluate how you feel, and notice trends.
If eating LCHF diet WORKS for you... Do that. (It DOES work for some people)
If cutting out meat works for you... Do that.
If eating small portions of all your favorite foods works for you. Do that!
If Meal Replacement Shakes works for you. Do that.
If Fasting on the weekend works for you Do that
If Having a cheat meal once a week helps you have something to look forward to... do that.
If rules works for you and you find you are successful and it's EASIER for you to just boycott certain things. Do that
Don't make the following assumptions about other people's diet:
1) Your way and philosophy is how everyone should approach it.
2) There is no way X person's life is any more stressful than yours. (Your broken leg doesn't make their broken arm hurt any less. We all have different ways of dealing with these things.)
3) Goals don't matter. (A body builder "cutting" is not going to have the same goals or diet demands of a teenage girl in search of the thigh gap.)
4) Everyone just needs to count calories and they will be able to mentally handle the natural evolutionary biological response to famine. (If you think this, I suggest reading "Will Power Instinct" or at least look up Kelly McGonigal on youtube. It's great insight on how outside influences can horribly derail your self discipline and how we are biologically programmed to collapse when strawberry cheese cake is in our line of sight while on a diet.)
5) X didn't work for me, so it won't work for you either.
Finally and my favorite:
5) A person is fat again, clearly it didn't work for you or you wouldn't have gotten fat. Maybe they stopped doing what worked for them due to some life craziness and used food for coping rather than drugs and alcohol. It happens.
So while CICO is a HUGE piece of the puzzle and rarely can be ignored... There is a lot of fine tuning that comes into play to ensures success. That fine tuning is the result of evaluating the variables in your life, recognizing your limitations and strengths and working that into your approach
The OP made no such assumptions. Different approaches to maintaining adherence, different preferences and different goals do not negate the fact that it is possible to lose weight while eating food you enjoy so long as a calorie deficit is maintained.
Actually if you read in the thread you will see that she discusses how simple this is and that you can lose weight just by calorie counting. You can eat whatever you want and lose weight. (See title) She also goes on to invalidate her comment by saying eating higher quality food satiates more and increases likelihood to succeed. The thing is what satiates one person may not satiate another. Thereby requiring each person to fully understand the limits and constraints they work within. Those constraints can be mental, financial, physiological or even emotional. Here's a challenge for you. Spend a week eating your calories in just jellie bellies or Apples. Then please come back here and tell us how easy it was to stay with in your calories and still manage your body's biological response to the lack of dietary variety. (something that we are engineer to crave in the absence of emotional and mental food conditioning)
Finally, I am pretty sure I never said that it does negate them infact my whole post was about Finding and doing what works for you. However that may look. For some people, having a strong emotional connection to certain foods will preclude them from enjoying it while losing weight. It is *Possible* (that word means less than 50% statistically speaking) for Some people (More than one but less than all) to do it that way. However, it is probable (>50%) that not all of dieters can use the same approach of some dieters. Make sense? Because my statement is 100% logically sound.0 -
Op I agree 100% with your post
It's what worked for me and how I lost my weight
To others it is isn't easy as I still have loads of moments of going overboard but then I remember to rein it back in again. I have to do this to maintain my weight lost.
AND yes everyone's calorie allotment is different but that's no one's fault, just work it in as best you can .don't blame me I am 5 ft 8, it's not my fault. I am not concerned with taller people and those who are allowed to eat double my allowance because what's the point.0 -
What @skyblu263 said was 100% right on the mark. Well said. Too bad so many people twisted it into something it's not.
She figured out what works for her. Her post is incredibly simplistic and ignores the idea that other people can and successfully succeed in long term weight loss differently than she. That is my beef. I'm glad she figured out what works for her. But because there are so many variations in approaches, it is unlikely that one approach and mental consideration will work for all others.
Example the idea of the cheat meal. For some people "cheat meals" can result in a domino affect in their discipline. Ever hear the phrase "Success breeds success" well for certain personalities, staying on course and deviating as little as possible is what works for them. In fact for these people it's more helpful to tell them "Way to go you're so strong" rather than undermine their discipline by making them feel like a weirdo for being intensly convicted to their goals.
I know because I am one of those All or nothing personalities. Do it right or don't do it at all. My 2 year old son is the same way. So guess what... her method would never work for me.
For me focusing on QUALITY over quantity of calories works for me. When I focus on the quality of my calories (ie 250 calorie almonds vs 250 calorie snickers) then my quantity almost always falls in line with my goals.
I'm also a rules follower. I like structure and I like rules. I have a dozen other things I have to worry about. Rules helps me make my approach easy. They help me make good choices in difficult situations. Granted I try to plan as much as possible, but life sometimes puts you in a spot where your best laid plans are like that of mice and men.
I'm easily demoralized. I know this about myself. So I avoid those behaviors that lead to poor choices.
2 different approaches, 2 different outcomes. I have no doubt I will succeed as long as I am honest with my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to certain foods, emotional eating, and poor food choices.1 -
One will succeed for the reason the OP said...
Calories in must be less than calories out.
If one wants to attach more rules to it that is perfectly fine and all along the way congrats will come as the weight comes off. After all if one chooses almonds over a snicker isn't that what THEY want to eat?
At the same time one cannot begrudge those of us who attach only one rule (in terms of eating for weight loss). Eat less than you burn.
A note: eating what one wants doesn't mean
1. in unlimited quantities
2. in sacrifice of OVERALL nutrition
3. eating less nutritious foods for breakfast, lunch and dinner
4. its not bragging as some seem to imply - how do you know what I want?
Within the confounds of CICO - I've said it many times - the best diet is the one you will stick to.9 -
I totally agree with this posting. I recently heard a Doctor say "If you put more calories in your mouth than your body is burning, you gain weight, simple as!" I still have my glass of wine with lunch and enjoy it, but it's always within my daily allowance and mentally, I'm feeling great about what I eat now.2
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ThatUserNameIsAllReadyTaken wrote: »oliverneedsyou wrote: »ThatUserNameIsAllReadyTaken wrote: »Nice except it's not entirely true. Not everyone has a huge calorie allowance. Some people can have one of those 800+ calories in a double cheeseburger meal and be left trying to manage the rest of the day with not many calories to work with and end up hungry. So yeah. It's true, more true for people with larger allowances. But it just is not worth it to spend half of my daily allowance on a single meal.
But that's your preference. I'm on 1200 a day for like 17 more pounds and I have been known to save all of my calories for some olive garden at dinner.
It's my preference to not walk around starving half the day. Exactly. And for a great many people spending hours each day feeling seriously hungry leads up to hunger fueled binging. I think that is a ridiculous thing for you to say in regards to preference. The general sentiment is for people to eat in a way that prevents out of control binging because you won't have success if you continue that pattern. Not everyone wants to starve all day just for a single meal. So if starving all day just for one meal at night works for you then go for it. But the point here is that this is not going to help a lot of people in their efforts to lose weight.
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I used to feel hungry all the time, but that's because I was eating fast carbs like bread, white rice and pasta. I then checked out the low GL/GI index and realised that if I wanted to lose weight and not feel hungry, I needed to change what I ate for slow release carbs that kept me fuller for longer. It works and now I have a healthy eating plan along with mfp calorie counter which has lowered my blood pressure and given me lots more energy. We are what we eat.0
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Eating what you want I THINK is KEY to keeping it off too. I think if you "TRY" vegan, vegetarian, LCHF, LCHP etc and it's not the way you normally eat it MAYBE harder for you to stay on it for the rest of your life. Note I do understand people like Vegans totally change up their diet and give up animal products for ethical reasons.
maintenance has been my problem mostly because I didn't understand TDEE until this go round of losing...
Congratulations. This round of losing might be your last now that you understand. People need to be taught how to find their TDEE and try not to go over it (on average) to maintain once they get to a weight they want to stay in . I see so many people gain back their hard earned loss. The best thing would be to calculate TDEE at the goal weight and try to aim for that calorie range at maintenance.
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cgreen120288 wrote: »Of course CICO dictates weight loss.
But do people simply want to lose weight? Or are they interested in body composition and getting in all the essential nutrition for healthy bodily function and hormone regulation?
Nutrition happens on a bell curve. Getting absolutely horrible nutrition continuously is as rare as getting absolute perfect nutrition continuously.10
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