Am I the only one that doesn't like counting calories?

ninerbuff

Hey MFP people, I get a lot of inspiration from reading this board and I love that so many of you have made dramatic changes. I see that many of you use the calorie counting so effectively, and to be honest it baffles me! I want to learn how to think about this the right way so it can work for me.


I hate counting calories, as a rule. If I'm running out of calories, but I'm still hungry, then I feel like I still have to eat, so knowing it's over just makes me feel guilty. It's hard to plan meals based on how many calories they have. I can't keep numbers in my head all day (remembering how many I had for breakfast and lunch so I can have xyz for snack) because I have a very poor memory, so I have to pull out the app every time I want to eat something. I feel so limited, ineffective, and discouraged when I try to count calories. I'm not sure exactly what my hold up is, but I KNOW it works for so many of you so can you share any secrets? How do you *think* about the process so it keeps you going instead of discouraged? How do you stay in your goals without spending an hour a day figuring it out? Have you ever felt the way I'm describing, and how did you get over that sort of phsychological bump?


I'm 23, 166lbs, 5'7, and have dealt with double depression (major and chronic) my entire life.

I would ask how many calories are you counting?

A.C.E. Certified Personal Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

57rainbows

MFP is recommending appx 1500 I think. I have it set to lose a pound a week.

JennieAL

I have a strange way of looking at it, and this will not work for everyone, but I started by seeing it as a project or experiment, and it just sort of stuck that way with me. I am a trial and error type of person, so looking at it that way really helps me stick with it. I even weighed several times a day the first few months, to spot patterns in my daily, weekly, and monthly fluctuations. I became obsessed with seeing what I could do to make sure I got a loss each week (and always making sure I ate at least 1200 calories!), and predicting how much the loss would be.
Then I added exercise into the equation and experimented with eating vs not eating my calories back. (Eating them back is definitely the way to go.) Just a couple of days ago I decided to increase my calories from 1200 to 1850, and now I'm experimenting with that. I don't focus as much on the end result, but on day to day results. What seems to make me retain water, what seems to energize me, and what makes me feel tired or less energetic.

I focused on everything EXCEPT the fact that I had 50 pounds to lose and it was going to take a long time and a lot of hard work to do it.

I think this is an excellent approach!!

AntWrig

Even the ones who say the don't count calories, have to work of some sort of caloric base line. Granted, it's much easier trying to hit your protein, carb, and fat totals for the day. However, before you do this you need to establish a general idea of calorie intake and work from there.