Living The Lifestyle Thursday 8/1/24

imastar2

This is a thread for everyone. If you're new to GoaD, or to weight loss, your questions and comments are always welcome. If you're maintaining, or a long-term loser, your thoughts on the topic may be just what someone else needs to hear. If you're reading this, join in the discussion!

Each weekday, a new topic is offered up for discussion.

Monday - crewahl (Charlie)
Tuesday – Wildcard
Wednesday-misterhub (Greg)
Thursday -imastar2 (Derrick)
Friday - Wildcard

Today's Topic: Monotonous Points vs Calories.
While we all made our way here through WW some of us have wondered off into the desert with points vs calories.
The question for the experienced or scholarly persons of this group is how did you or do you currently balance or derive at your point or caloric limit per day. It must have changed through the years.

Philtex

I fit the experienced rather than the schoarly description, but I do have what is probably a unique method. I did WW under their 'Points Plus' program. After I drifted away from the meetings, and WW moved on to whatever their next program was, I could no longer easily follow PP. I probably still have one of their calculators around here somewhere, but I quit using it a long time ago. When I decided to get back in the game several years later, I went with a very simple substitute. I call 40 calories a point. In practice that is usually anything 30 - 60 calories. Fruits and vegs don't count anything. I found a Ponts Plus site on the Internet that helped me set my point targets while I was in loss mode. In maintenance now I have a soft target of about 40 points per day. Crude and unsophisticated, but it works for me.

crewahl

I think Phil's last line is sort of the key, and that's “ . . . but it works for me.” I think we all have to determine our own methodology for the quantities and qualities of foods we can eat, and I suspect we all have a slightly different approach.

As I reflected on the question, the phrase that kept coming to mind was “know thyself”, because arriving at and maintaining effective limits is all about knowing what motivates you and what derails you. What can you tolerate as a limit and still stay in the game? What sets you off into the wilderness of uncontrolled eating?

For me, feeling deprived or feeling externally constrained is a big problem, so I plan for evening snacking - because it lets me feel I’m the one making the choices. Similarly, I know not having an indulgent meal sometimes creates that feeling of “deprivation”, so I consciously choose to eat more indulgently the last three days of my week. I can accept limiting my choices early in the week (or day) because I know I’ll be able to have that indulgent meal or snack later, and still manage my weight.

At the base of it all, however, is an underlying assumption that these choices and tradeoffs are worth it - that it’s worthwhile to live a life with a self-defined set of food boundaries if it helps me stay at a socially acceptable weight that aligns with long term health.

Al_Howard

I track both WW points, and calories. I attempt to stay within guidelines in both, but, like yesterday, WW charges outrageously for ice cream, and the calories aren't bad. Conversely, on WW apples are 0 points, and they are about 130 cal.
WW=50 points (still have some weeklies) 2338 calories (into the "earned" activity cals.)still only 338 cl. over my set calories of 2000/day.
And that explains the see-saw.

steve0mania

I've only rarely tracked calories (or points) since quitting WW 10+ years ago. In those rare occasions where I did want to set a calorie target, I just used some random on-line calculator, and set my exercise level to 0/sedentary (because I didn't want to "run for cookies" and didn't want my weight-loss to be dependent on exercise). I believe I came up with ~1300 cal/day for weight loss, and maybe 1500-1700 for maintenance. That's one drawback of being short--there isn't much leeway for intake if you want to lose weight.

Flintwinch

I am currently counting both WW points and calories. Both have advantages and disadvantages. The combination is helpful for the time being. The big bugaboo for me is that the WW system gives you points for exercise which I need in order to stay within my points. In my calorie tracker, I don't count exercise. I'd just as soon leave exercise out of the equation for WW.

cakeman21k

Like most of the rest of us I arrived here through WW and I was a points only guy for many years. I tried tracking both points and calories (with the mfp App) and found the double tracking thing to be kind of onerous. I dropped my WW subscription when they did their big contraction of locations last year. My local studio closed, and the next closest one was over an hour away. Once that happened attendance a weekly meetings became undoable for me, so I dropped my subscription and went to only tracking calories. Honestly I don't see where their is an advantage of one over the other, the lesson is weigh measure and track!