Stopped counting calories, still losing weight!

aokoye

smit7633 wrote: »

Breakfast: at least four+ times a week is from Taco Bell. I get the fiesta potato breakfast griller no cheese and no eggs add guac and beans. And a medium Pepsi.
The other days I will have my banana blueberry muffins and fruit, but I always end up starving by 10 am after eating at 8

Lunch: I have Vegan frozen meals from a brand called Amy's they only have two vegan options at my grocery and I eat one or both of those two everyday, they are over 400 calories each and I sometimes have two

Dinner: I eat pizza and cheesy bread at least on night a week. Another night I will go out, either for Chinese or I go to the steak house and get a Philly steak with no steak and mashed potatoes with buttery rolls. The rest of the days I eat whole foods that I meal prepped on Sunday. This week it was a vegan soup, last week it was a vegan meatloaf served with roasted brussel sprouts.

This all sounds very expensive. Taco Bell at least four days a week, 10 plus Amy's frozen meals a week, pizza (that sounds like take out by the way you wrote it), Chinese takeout/and or steak house (sans meat) at least twice a week.

AnnPT77

I've been vegetarian for 44+ years now, eating huge amounts of home-cooked whole foods (emphasis on the "huge"). I got fat, then obese. I stayed obese for decades. Then I got very active, working out routinely and hard, even competing as an athlete, still eating the same way. I got stronger and much fitter, but stayed obese . . . for another decade. Then I lost weight, eating pretty much the same foods I always had, just cutting the portions and changing some relative proportions of certain things, and, yes, calorie counting. That was 3 years ago, and I'm still at a healthy weight, still very active athletically, age 63.

I don't think that counting calories is the only way to lose weight. Different strategies work for different people. I understand the issues & constraints of veganism pretty clearly (it's not just an eating method, BTW). I'm quite certain that I could've and would've done the same life story above while eating no animal-sourced foods whatsoever. Others' experience, including yours, may differ.

I couldn't eat the way you're eating now, not at all: It's an issue of personal preferences and tastes. Many of the things you're enjoying, I don't find tasty or satisfying. (That's not a criticism, it's just a comment about ways we're different. Different strokes, live and let live, alla that.)

At 1600 calories (more or less, I know you're not counting), I also don't think I'd be getting the nutrition I prefer, either, eating those things. Obviously, I can't know for sure, but it doesn't sound like a consistent 100g protein minimum, something that's important to me. I also care about a fat minimum (around 50g, though that's a bit more flexible day to day), and preferring much of it to be MUFAs and PUFAs. While I strongly suspect your current eating has at least that much fat, I'm more doubtful about how it will work out with your routine starting in January, since you're planning to avoid added oils and cooking with oils. With things like olives, avocados, seeds and nuts in there, it could be fine, though.

I don't really see the point of explicitly limiting packaged/processed foods, though my food preferences mostly include primarily the more basic ones, plus lots of home-cooked single-ingredient things (often plants).

Like you, I'd lose on either 1400, 1600, or 1800, too. That's because I estimate my TDEE to be in the low 2000s, (at 5'5", 134 pounds this AM); that's based on 4 years of logging experience (because I do calorie count). Any of those 1400-1800 eating levels would be a deficit for me, so I'd lose weight, just at slightly different rates.

I wouldn't judge you for counting/not counting, vegetarian/WFPB/vegan/omnivore, processed/not, packaged/not, fast/slow food, restaurants/home, or any of those preference things. Why? If it's working for you, go you! I like to see people get sound nutrition and enough calories (counted or not) to stay strong and healthy while achieving weight management goals, but that's about where my judging ends. Reading between the lines of your post, I do wonder whether you may be judging the rest of us, though.

aokoye

smit7633 wrote: »

In 2019 I'm kicking off January participating in a challenge called Veganuary. So that takes care of my cheesy bread and pizza, buttery rolls, and steak house mashed potatoes.
But I am taking it a step further to also avoid added oils, and cooking with oils, soda, and all processed/packaged foods unless the ingredients are super basic, like pasta -salt, water, wheat flour

Judge me!

I somehow just noticed this part. How is this going to work with all of the takeout/boxed food? I mean it seems like it won't which is fine. If you think it will, I'm really curious as to why or how you think that's the case. Are you going to move to cooking most of your meals at home?

wilson10102018

WFPB doesn't mean lower calories. Last time I checked, a tablespoon of sesame oil had 130 calories. Back in the day I could put 1000 calories of oil on a organic baguette for a 1500 calorie snack.

apullum

I was an obese vegetarian for 10+ years. Now I’m an ideal BMI vegetarian because I stayed in a calorie deficit to lose weight. There’s nothing special about eating plants that makes it difficult or impossible to overeat, and people eating plant based diets lose weight exactly like everyone else does: though a calorie deficit.