"You can eat whaver you want, as long as you eat at a deficit" is true, but it's garbage advice.

1…2425272930…48

Replies

  • AntoinetteAngus
    AntoinetteAngus Posts: 58 Member
    kimny72 wrote: »
    AntoinetteAngus wrote: »
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    BlueSkyShoal wrote: »
    Thumbs up on the Snorlax picture, I love Pokemon.

    I do think that a lot of the cheerful talk about how "you can eat ANYTHING and lose weight!" needs a footnote: "You can eat anything, but if it's high in calories you can only have a tiny bit."

    Now personally, if I order a pizza I don't want to eat just one slice, hold the breadsticks. Sure, cold pizza is a great snack the next morning, but there's something especially delightful about a piping hot pizza with the cheese still gooey (and breadsticks on the side.)

    What I do is I have days where I eat over my "normal" calories without worrying about it, and then I eat under the normal calories the next day. (This works best if the pig-out meal was dinner, since you usually still feel pretty full the next morning.) I don't consider that to be "a cheat day". It's not cheating, it's just moving the calories around so I can get what satisfies me--tons of pizza. :)

    To the bolded... don't you think that sort of caution is unnecessary (and maybe presumes ignorance) on a site where people are logging and tracking calories? A person who is entering the foods they eat in their diary would know that 2 pieces of Dominos chicken, spinach and roasted red pepper pizza (my latest go to on pizza night) is 560 calories and 4 pieces of Parmesan bites are 150 which leaves me 190 calories to keep this meal under 800 which is what I aim for for splurge dinners. So another piece of pizza, or a salad, or some dessert or a glass of wine.

    Caveating every post with information that posters should already know or be able to figure out themselves, seems redundant and insulting to me. I feel the same way about you the disclaimer, , even though I and many others do explicitly state, "but nutrition is also important"when someone asks if calories are all that matter for weight loss. My 5 year old knows that nutrition is important. Do I really have to add that to every post for grown adults so that my comments are not misinterpreted by people like the OP?

    YES...you should add this to every post. Anyone new to this forum would believe... based on the abundance of ridiculous comments that you can just eat whatever you want as long as it fits in your calorie goals. This is irresponsible and I've actually taken the liberty to look at people's diary's who advocate this and alot of them are actually eating healthy! So why advocate to others that you can eat whatever you want instead of promoting a healthy, balanced lifestyle with moderated indulgences. The fact that you have an issue with someone throwing nutrition in the mix is absolutely ridiculous. A reminder about nutrition is definitely needed on a forum such as this one.

    Why would you assume "Eat whatever you want" means "Eat nothing but junk food"?

    Again, for all the threads criticizing this advice, I have NEVER seen someone post that they actually did take this advice to mean "Go ahead and eat all junk food" and now are struggling or failing because they're full of Twinkies and Big Macs by noon and have no calories left. Yet I see time and time again people respond by saying, "You mean I can have a treat every once and awhile and still lose weight? Thank goodness!".

    And again again, for every post that just says, "You can eat whatever you want" there are two that follow that say "You can eat whatever you want to lose weight, but obviously you want to eat enough nutritious food for your health". And then someone will chime in to make sure you get enough fiber and protein. And then someone will post that if you eat Keto you'll never get hungry and your skin will glow. And then another will say that cutting out processed food was the only way they could lose weight.

    I seriously wonder if there is an alternate MFP universe with all of these threads where newbies are given no info but to stuff their pieholes with poptarts to lose weight and I am just too dense to find it. :confused:

    WHATEVER implies whatever. People are not providing enough context to that statement and are not being responsible. I have posted several times on various forums and have been met with angry comments...well I eat pizza everyday, or I eat Macdonald's everyday nobody can tell me otherwise! I completely advocate treats from time to time...we're human and what would life be without them...but people tend not to display their true story. I would like to re-highlight the fact that I mentioned previously in this thread that I have taken the liberty of looking at peoples diaries that advocate that you can eat WHATEVER you want and they actually eat a fairly decent diet so why not clarify that I eat healthy most of the time but I indulge as well instead of implying I eat WHATEVER I want. This is all that I am saying...
  • fitoverfortymom
    fitoverfortymom Posts: 3,452 Member
    quiksylver296 wrote: »
    Chef_Barbell wrote: »
    quiksylver296 wrote: »
    fitoverfortymom wrote: »
    pinuplove wrote: »
    GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
    Chef_Barbell wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    Tacklewasher wrote: »
    Quick comment for @dfwesq Like you, I've moderated board elsewhere. But there is a different "feel" here when it comes to new posters. Anywhere else I've posted, people who come to a board lurk first to get a feel for what the board is like, and that simply doesn't happen here. I've no idea why or maybe the boards I participate in are different and this is the norm.

    Yes, this is one thing that has surprised me too. I lurked first and read some of the stickies, and I didn't start a thread for ages and ages. Because that was my pattern. I also always searched for threads on a topic of interest before posting, although I know we are not supposed to suggest that that would be better forum behavior.

    I think it's kind of odd that people don't here, but I am sure we are all biased by where we are most familiar with.

    I am also used to forums where debate is common (sometimes polite, sometimes less so, depending on the forum, although I like polite better). Here lots of people seem to take disagreement as, well, mean, which I find puzzling. My main other forum was a book one, but I've also played around or had a lengthier relationship in forums that discussed politics, law, religion, and music -- all topics that can be contentious (and indeed I recall a knock-down blow-out about Great Gatsby back in the day and a long debate about postmodern lit (mostly what it is and does it suck or not), so the internet can be weird).

    I get the sense that the newbie posters on MFP are more likely to be familiar with areas of the internet I am not (YouTube followers, instagram, of course FB), and less so some of the areas I find most interesting (and some maybe aren't particularly into forums or different forum cultures -- this one definitely is moderated much more than the others I've been part of, even though they were quite friendly overall, so nothing bad came of light moderation and self-moderation).

    I admit that all of these impressions may be related to the fact that I am old (I remember usenet), and I never did fitness internet pre MFP.

    I have to agree with this. I too lurked for a long time before posting anything. I read stickies in any forum I visit before I do anything else. It always puzzled me how people can post questions that a few seconds on Google can answer as well as not read anything before posting.

    I was also a member of a certain popular baby board and if you want to see mean drop a cloth diapering is the only way thread and watch the explosion. :laugh:

    Breastfeeding vs. Bottle is way worse than cloth diapering :wink:

    I also lurked and read everything before I started posting. I thought that was basic internet etiquette.

    One of the things regarding the push back veterans see from newbies I think has to do with the psychology of dieters. How to phrase this... dieting is personal. A lot of people are mired in a set of complex feelings regarding their weight and losing that weight and bring all of that with them when they come to these forums.

    I'm not saying this justifies how they act, mind you. I think, in an ideal world, people should accept responsibility for their actions and be civil to each other and give other people credit for treating them with good intent. Saying that, I know that a lot of people on certain parts of their path to weight loss aren't really at a place where they're truly accepting full responsibility for their part in being overweight in the first place, and are defensive and come here in that sort of vulnerable fragility that being on the defense places you.

    It puts anyone giving them advice in a damned if you do, damned if you don't position.

    Cloth vs. disposable and breast vs. bottle, oh memories! Don't forget c-sections, VBACs, and the holiness of unmedicated childbirth! I'm so *kitten* happy my kids are older now and don't give a crap about how they were birthed, diapered, or fed. Age and experience has given me some perspective I didn't have as a new mom.

    I wonder if all those natural childbirth moms ever received their medal in the mail.

    I'm still waiting for mine, and the kid's almost 13. ;)

    ETA: To be fair, he came so quick I wasn't given an option.

    It's going to come in the form of teenage sass. :laugh:

    I'm sure a medal for not killing them during the teenage years is much more impressive/needed than one for childbirth. :D

    Mine just turned 13 and I am punishing him with glasses to correct his severe farsightedness and braces to straighten his ridiculous overbite. He can thank me later for the hot stud he will turn into by high school.
  • The_Enginerd
    The_Enginerd Posts: 3,982 Member
    Z_I_L_L_A wrote: »
    I just want a triple whopper with bacon and cheese but I saw that video where it sat on a shelf for a long time without spoiling and the fries lasted a year without changing at all.

    This is due to it dehydrating too quickly when left out to support mold growth. A home made hamburger would do the same.
    http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/11/the-burger-lab-revisiting-the-myth-of-the-12-year-old-burger-testing-results.html
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,876 Member
    AntoinetteAngus wrote: »
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    Z_I_L_L_A wrote: »
    ninerbuff wrote: »
    jdb3388 wrote: »
    People don't want to eat 1 slice of pizza, or a 1/4 of a plate of Loco Rice, or 7 chili cheese fries. They want to have a meal. If you eat the "right amount" of junk food to stay within your calorie limits, you're going to be starving to death and it's going to cause you to eat more. Eating food that doesn't taste as good as what you want is much better than satisfying a craving and then derailing later because you were so hungry you caved. There are a few people around here who have done their time, lost their weight, and they are in good shape. These people give advice from the "look at me, I lost a ton of weight so I know what I'm doing" stand point, but seem to have forgotten what it was like to ACTUALLY live as a fat person. So when someone tells you you can have junk food, don't listen to them, not because they are lying to you - they aren't, it's true - but because the advice isn't helpful in practice.
    Really? I have success rates with ALL my clients and I don't preach eating "clean" at all. In fact, I do tell them to eat whatever they like AS LONG AS they don't exceed the calorie intake set for them. Do you know why people fail at diets? Because they usually are restricted from eating things they actually like. If one LEARNS how to control how much of something like eat, then the chances are higher that they will adhere to that habitual behavior.
    Sorry if you can't do it, but that's an issue you deal with that you have to fix. Unless you have some actual peer reviewed clinical study that one CAN'T be taught moderation, you're just opining what you believe.

    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


    I scratch my head when you say eat what you want.....and then show what experience you have for 30 years in nutrition.
    I'm not a know it all, don't claim anything. Just kinda seemed strange, with all the bad food's out there. All the preservatives and crap they put in food now days. Maybe it's a 2 step process, lose weight by eating your favorite foods at less calories then maybe changing over to clean later on after you lose the weight.

    How specifically do preservatives make food "bad"? Isn't that kind of the point of preservatives, to keep food from going bad? ;)

    But seriously - eating clean is not a requirement for weight loss, or for overall health. There are plenty of nutrient dense processed foods with preservatives that can be incorporated into the context of a healthy diet. Additionally, eating "junk" food in moderation does not make a person unhealthy. What I think @ninerbuff has described about his approach, particularly with overweight and obese clients, is that simply losing weight, regardless of the types of foods one eats while losing, improves overall health. Then from there, it is possible to become more health and nutrition focused - but again, as has been said COUNTLESS times in this thread - telling someone they can eat what they want and still lose does not mean that they should eat nothing but junk food. Presuming that someone plans to eat nothing but junk food, simply because a personal trainer, or someone on the MFP boards tells them it is ok - is a strange assumption to make about someone.

    Preservatives are chemicals to make your food last longer. This is not natural. Food should spoil when it spoils. You should not be injecting it with stuff to make it last longer.

    So glad you clarified the following because most people tend to leave it at 'you can eat WHATEVER you want' - 'telling someone they can eat what they want and still lose does not mean that they should eat nothing but junk food'

    People have been preserving foods for pretty much ever...they used to salt their meats and hang them to dry...pickling and fermenting foods is age old...my grandma used to do a lot of that.
  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,442 Member
    I eat canned vegetables (store-bought, not home-canned) regularly, and I LIKE THEM! Am I going to die?
  • STLBADGIRL
    STLBADGIRL Posts: 1,693 Member
    Tacklewasher wrote: »
    STLBADGIRL wrote: »
    jdb3388 wrote: »
    You guys just take every single word someone writes literally, to the t. I don't mean that you have to spend the rest of your life not eating things you enjoy. I also don't mean that you can NEVER have things you enjoy, or that are calorie dense. What I do mean, and was obvious in the original post, that is if you aren't just looking for something to complain about, is that dieting under the idea that "you can have whatever, so long as it fits in your calorie count" is not an effective long term solution because MOST people, especially larger people, run out of calories waaaaay before they become satiated. If you are a 135lb woman that's 5'9 which I think was an example somewhere in this thread, and you're only eating at a 500 calorie deficit, no *kitten* you are gonna be full before you run out of calories. You're small, even if you aren't at your "goal" you are going to feel satiated. If you are the kind of person who is accustomed to eating 3500-4000 calories a day and your prescribed amount is 2500, there is absolutely NO WAY that you can eat the calorie dense foods you enjoy, but at a lower quantity, and not be absolutely starving to death. Which will lead to a derailment in most people. Contrary to popular belief, will power is not a dominant trait. So there you go, here's another post for you guys to pick apart to for *kitten* that is obviously not what I meant.

    I agree and I agreed with your original post as well. I knew exactly where you were coming from. But of course, the one's that have it all figured out (now) or never struggled with it will tear apart your statement....

    My Lord. Never struggled? The folks who never struggled are not here. I know they exist, but the old timers giving advice here have all struggled. So now that they've worked through the struggles and figured things out,t hey can't offer insight and advice to those still struggling?

    SMH

    I'm talking to the one's that attacked his post and suggested it meant something that it didn't or read too much into it, or simply offered their opinion. If you happen to fit that bill, then....take it how you will. SMH to all the posters that took his intentions out of control. And just like you have an opinion, I have one as well.
  • southernoregongrape
    southernoregongrape Posts: 117 Member
    Salt and sugar were our methods of preserving foods. We would always can enough fruits and veggies to last the winter. And we would store our apples and corn on the cob in the hayloft. Not recommended unless you have barn cats though. We usually had about a dozen.
  • ThatUserNameIsAllReadyTaken
    ThatUserNameIsAllReadyTaken Posts: 1,530 Member
    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    ThatUserNameIsAllReadyTaken wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    ThatUserNameIsAllReadyTaken wrote: »
    Right here! I would rather have a lot of food than a little bit. If I have some teensy-weensy, tee-niney, pigmy sized pea shaped piece of something magically delicious I will not be satisfied. I save the junk for when I REALLY want it. I may blow my calories that day but man is it ever worth it when I do! Some people really are content with two Oreos or a half-cup of ice cream. I I eat that and it's gonna be on like Donkey-Kong.

    I consider this a form of moderation too, though.

    One form is eat a serving (or whatever amount regularly fits in your calories) more regularly. For example, I went through a stage where I had about 200 calories for dessert every night. I'd have ice cream or cheese usually, or else a more indulgent dinner.

    Another is a rare blow out. There are some things I'm not interested in eating in moderation or are hard to fit -- a Mexican restaurant, Indian restaurant, Ethiopian restaurant, rare multi-course tasting menu at a new place, maybe. So I do them more rarely (at maintenance it doesn't have to be that rarely, as I tend to do a weekend long run and long bike, but depends), but when I do them I don't try to fit a calorie goal or skip the naan and get the tandoori chicken and so on. I eat what I want and without really worrying about it and since it's not something I do weekly regardless of workout it doesn't matter. It's a form of moderation. If I felt like that about ice cream or cake (I really don't, I'd rather just have a sensible amount and not overdo), then I'd follow a similar schedule there. But I wouldn't claim that meant "eat what you want within your calories" didn't work, since that would still be what I was doing.

    I love pie, I have it basically on holidays only anymore, because baking it is a bad idea unless I have other people to eat it, and because if I bake it I will want more than a piece. I haven't cut out pie and wouldn't tell anyone else you need to cut out pie. 'Cause that's not so, even though I don't eat much pie anymore.

    Moderation comes in many forms. I choose to abstain more often. However the kind of moderation most often referred to around here is the "make it fit on a daily basis" moderation.

    Then why do so many posts advocating for moderation say "sure, you can have X just maybe not every day?"

    Because there are so many thousands of comments on these boards you will easily find "so many" of almost anything if you look for it. Many push making it fit daily, many advocate a cheat day, many advocate saving it for one when you just want it so bad you don't want to resist. You tell me why so many different views, opinions and ways of eating exist. There are many different types of people on these boards is the likely answer.
  • southernoregongrape
    southernoregongrape Posts: 117 Member
    The only foods that I tend to overeat is fruit. I can eat 3-4 pomegranates a day when they are available. Grapes and plums too.
  • Z_I_L_L_A
    Z_I_L_L_A Posts: 2,399 Member
    I need it now, wonder if Amazon drone can drop it off at work for me.
This discussion has been closed.

Categories