How does this thing work?

dks1962

I've looked everywhere and can't find a 'how this works' article. Is counting calories the only thing needed to lose weight?
With weight watchers you have to count points for carbs/fat/fiber/protein. Geessh!!! How can a woman know which one is right?

tehzephyrsong

Calories and macronutrients (carbs/fat/protein/fiber/etc) are both important. If you choose entries for food in the database with a lot of member confirmations (it will tell you how many there are when you choose a food, right below the name of the food in the little box that appears where you select how many servings of what size you had), they will usually have the macronutrient breakdown as well as the calorie content.

The basic idea is "calories in < calories out = weight loss," and on some level, a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. You could, theoretically, lose weight on a diet consisting entirely of Twinkies and beer, so long as you kept your calorie intake low enough (and didn't have diabetes, PCOS, insulin resistance, or similar conditions). But you wouldn't be *healthy* if you did that. If health is your goal--and it should be--you need to keep track of macronutrients, too, and MFP can help you do that. You can even choose which macronutrients you want to track (it's in Settings under Food). MFP, by default, sets macronutrient guidelines for you when you set up your profile with your weight and stuff.

Basically, if you stick to good foods - whole fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean protein, and the like - and cut out the processed junk that's less nutritious than the cardboard box it comes in, and keep your calories under your daily calorie goal (which MFP will help you set based on your height, weight, activity level, and goal weight), you will slim down.

runfatmanrun

Just like in weight loss there is not just one right answer. I see people on here on every type of "diet". I like to think that this site is just another tool to help you get healthy.

TeaRexParty

Really whatever method you choose, it all comes down to keeping track of the food you eat. Neither method is wrong, it's just about preference.

I do think WW is appealing because there alot of the work is done for you to get you started. You give them your info and they hand you back the tools and the point range you're supposed to be in.

But it's just as easy to do that with counting calories. What alot of people do is google and use calculators that take into account height, age, weight, gender and give an estimate of calories burned for the day. You can google Harry Benedict's Equation or BMI calculator. It's also a good idea to google for a BMR calculator because your BMR is the amount of calories it takes just for your organs to work etc if you did nothing else and in most opinions it's not a good idea to cut calories to under this.

After you have those numbers, if you take the BMI one and cut it by 1000 calories, in theory you should be able to lose 2lbs a week. Then, since we are talking about just estimatations, it'll take some testing stuff out to find your comfortable range. This really is just a place to start and needs to be tested since we're all different. I always lose more weight than I can account for with these numbers, but if I cut back too far I don't lose at all.

And I really am over simplifying because we're all different, and things that affect one person don't necessarily affect another's weight loss. Eating healthier as well as balanced by keeping an eye on your carbs/fat/sugar/fiber/protein does come into play also but how strict you are about it is up to you. Me personally, I think its better to make this simple and you can focus more as you go so you don't get overwhelmed and quit.

Anyway thats my thoughts Also if you go look at the tools here they have alot and on the food logs, once you figure out the calorie range it breaks down where you want to shoot for on the carbs, sugars etc. So you could just try to stay in range and then if your weight loss stops go look and see if there's a trend where you're overboard in one area and not enough in another.

TeaRexParty

And sorry if I repeated anyone, when I was writing my post nobody had posted yet, lol.