Rant - Read at your own risk

crap. Do I have to gain it all back and start over? I hate when that happens.

^^ best response!!

OP- as others have stated all you need a deficit to lose weight. Balance your macros for health.

Okay, I'm just in a ranting mood. I am pointing fingers at no one in particular (I've been on this site all of 9 hours, so I don't know anyone yet). If you are annoyed by what I'm about to say, then stop reading and go find something else to do.

So my rant has to do with calories. I've never bothered counting them before, and decided to give it a month and see how it goes. I cook almost everything from scratch, so it's going to take a time investment to get recipes entered and figure out how much of a dish I actually eat, but whatever... I figured it would be interesting and informative, and I may or may not keep it up after a month.

Anyhow, I'm just a little puzzled at why many people don't seem to realize that calories are not created equal. That, and caloric intake vs. calories burned is only part of the picture.

So let me take the calories are not created equal point. Calories in white pasta are not the same as calories in whole grain pasta. Pizza made from whole wheat and topped with veggies is not the same as pizza with a white flour crust topped with pepperoni. The fat in avocados is not the same as the fat in sour cream. Canola oil is almost always bad (since it is almost always genetically modified--which is another totally different topic), whereas coconut oil (which is saturated) actually stimulates and boosts the metabolism.

Add to that the fact that when you get a craving, it's not that you are actually craving a pizza or spaghetti, but you either craving nutrients. The problem is that your body is probably addicted to the additives and such in the food (ever watched Supersize Me? If you do, you'll know what I mean). So it feels a craving and interprets it as one of those addicting foods. So you eat the food, but you aren't nutritionally satisfied. So you eat too much. If you were to eat something very nutritionally dense, you would probably eat fewer calories yet feel more satisfied.

Then there is the issue of calories consumed vs calories burned. I already mentioned that coconut oil boosts the metabolism, which makes it an excellent source of fat. The idea is that if you use it in place of (not in addition to) other sources of fat, you will burn more calories after that meal. If you eat breakfast, you will boost your metabolism so that you burn more calories. If you get enough sleep, you will have more energy, and therefore burn more calories just by more active than you would otherwise, not to mention that sleep itself seems to make a difference.

I could go on and on (this is a rant, after all), but I guess I've gotten it off my chest, so I'll stop. I just bought bathroom scales, so I'm going to see what I can do in a month. That, and measurements, since I know weight isn't everything either.

I totally agree with you 100%. I don't count calories or carbs. Just eat healthy foods. I learned from John Robbins in his book "The Food Revolution" that counting calories is not the answer.

Strong first day, OP. I see a long future ahead of you in the forums.

this

You've been on this site for nine hours? Please share more of your wisdom.

I think it's kind of magical how it makes my coffee taste if I put barely a teaspoon of it in it along with honey and coffee mate.

I also think it's magic in the morning when I've slept with it in my hair and then wash it and it looks like I was 18 again.

My hair has always been healthy, but I still use it for that too. It makes thick hair more managable. :drinker:

Okay, I'm not so interested in coconut oil for its nutritional properties, but this hair thing has me intrigued. So you keep it in your hair overnight and then wash it out? Do you just rinse it out with water? I may have to try this.

I do this once a month. I saturate my hair with coconut oil, throw it up in a bun and sleep with it in. It usually takes two shampoos to get it out, but my hair is very thick and curly.

Just sleep on a pillow case you don't care for!

I think it's kind of magical how it makes my coffee taste if I put barely a teaspoon of it in it along with honey and coffee mate.

I also think it's magic in the morning when I've slept with it in my hair and then wash it and it looks like I was 18 again.

My hair has always been healthy, but I still use it for that too. It makes thick hair more managable. :drinker:

Okay, I'm not so interested in coconut oil for its nutritional properties, but this hair thing has me intrigued. So you keep it in your hair overnight and then wash it out? Do you just rinse it out with water? I may have to try this.

I do this once a month. I saturate my hair with coconut oil, throw it up in a bun and sleep with it in. It usually takes two shampoos to get it out, but my hair is very thick and curly.

Just sleep on a pillow case you don't care for!

My naturally curly hair LOVES it! I rub a TINY bit in sometimes for shine and bounce, or use it overnight and then, shampoo with a rosemary-mint shampoo. I think I read about it in the book "Curly Girl."

What are your thoughts about gravity?

It's a lie. don't trust it.

only chocolate can be trusted. Even then, sometime milk chocolate fibs. You should be safe with dark.

Thank you! Thinking back, I probably should have used other examples and left out the coconut oil one, but that's really beside the point. I guess that the point was that if you distill it all down, it really has more to do with metabolism than with calories in, although it isn't good to eat too many calories, even if they are healthy (and your body and lifestyle will determine what "too many" is for you). That, and the fact that eating healthy makes it easier to stick with a diet because I believe (based on experience) that cravings are the body crying for something, but we are not always in tune enough to know what and so misinterpret the signal.

Anyhow, I had to smile about some of the posts. I refuse to be drawn into arguments. If I hadn't been ranting, maybe I would have spent more thought on it and really written something worthwhile. But I do appreciate the votes of confidence I got, few though they may have been.

And I thought your first post was funny...

Do you truly believe this? Seriously??

I eat Taco Bell virtually every day of the week. Matter of fact, I lost nearly 40lbs in 3mos eating Taco Bell every day of the week. Additionally, when I have cravings, it's usually for Diet Cherry 7UP.

Or Taco Bell...

Or things that most don't consider food related...

But I digress.

My point is that you're pretty much wrong. The direction you're approaching this from is skewed. Nutrition is absolutely important for overall health, and absolutely irrelevant for weight loss. Food doesn't 'spike' your metabolism, nor does meal timing. The twinkie diet was real, and the guy lost nearly 30lbs in 10wks. Intermittent fasting works, and if you don't agree go ask Martin Berkhan how he eats stupid amounts of cheesecake, drinks like a fish...and maintains a year round 5-8% bodyfat level.

But neither one of them would be at all effective if these people ate over their caloric manitenance level.

Period.

I'd like to believe you're the MFP equivalent of a troll...:ohwell:

You think I am a troll? Does that mean you think I was intentionally trying to upset people? That was not my intention. I'm sorry if it came across that way.

I had a glass of wine last night and that puts me in a funny, bubbly, good mood. So, I did post in a way that would not have been the best choices and was a bit out of character from how I usually talk.

Perhaps I did not read the whole thread very well.

Mainly I saw a new person and was trying to be supportive and welcoming in a nice way. I was sharing some of my own thoughts when I first joined. I did not know what mfp was because I just saw that a friend liked it on facebook and I like fitness, so I decided to check it out.

I had never thought about counting calories because I associated that with dieting or disordered eating, which was something I wanted to avoid because I have never had a weight problem. I had always been really into nutrition and had always thought about food and enjoyed food from that direction. I am a dancer and I have always been into fitness (while going through college, getting my degree in dance, I also worked at the fitness center and had considered also becoming a personal trainer). I am very short and small framed, that's why my weight is low (maybe some of where your confusion about my post also came from). Mfp is not just for weight loss, it's also for health and fitness. I really was surprised to see how many calories were in the food I was eating (especially since I was eating handfuls of nuts all day long and going to restaurants). I was eating 2500 to 3000 a day and often I still do. I am very active, so I need to eat a lot to maintain my weight and high energy levels. But, the higher calorie days were likely offset by lower calorie days in unintentional calorie cycling. I have spent most of my time on mfp counting calories in order to work on fitness and to prevent weight loss.

There are a lot of not so great sources out there for nutrition and I prefer science based sources (that was my other point). I also feel that nutrition is important not just for fitness, but is also reflected in the health of skin and hair and teeth, etc (as well as internal health and well being).

Since joining mfp I have learned a lot about calorie counting. I had learned to count protein and make sure I get good macros during my pregnancies. But, now I know about a whole new way of managing food and that it's ok to count calories as well. I'm 35 and I think it's helpful to understand these things now, as I begin to get older, so I can maintain my fitness as I get older. And I am regaining some of my fitness from when I was younger (I've been dancing intensively since I was 11). Nutrition really was something I have thought a lot about since I was a teenager because when I was 16, my weight had dropped way too low. And that frightened me and made me want to always make sure I was getting great nutrition and meeting my nutritional needs and I was afraid of the idea of diets.

I've also learned about some more efficient ways to lift free weights and so I can actually spend less time at the gym (though I do like going to the gym). I can manage my fitness by also thinking about calories, not just from exercise and activity.

I'm sorry if I upset you. I agree my post was a written in a little bit of a silly/loopy way.

Also, in another post I said that a getty image of a woman drinking coconut water from the coconut was me. I meant that figuratively, not literally.

Now we are back to the fact that it is calories in - calories burned = weight loss!!!! :drinker:

Not necessarily. if your entire daily caloric intake consisted of ice cream, I almost guarantee you won't lose weight. You still have to watch sugar, carbs, and fat.

Like many people here, I lost ten pounds eating crap. I can almost guarantee you will lose weight. Though it's definitely not the healthy way to go, and I'd highly endorse a vegetable or two.

Now we are back to the fact that it is calories in - calories burned = weight loss!!!! :drinker:

Not necessarily. if your entire daily caloric intake consisted of ice cream, I almost guarantee you won't lose weight. You still have to watch sugar, carbs, and fat.

I'd love bet a substantial amount of money on this. I 100% guarantee i can lose weight eating nothing but ice cream.

The coconut oil users were the only ones to lose waist circumference of .005% (that's HALF of a percentage point)

0.005% is not half a percentage point. It's five thousandths of a percentage point. Perchance do you work for Verizon?

Now we are back to the fact that it is calories in - calories burned = weight loss!!!! :drinker:

Not necessarily. if your entire daily caloric intake consisted of ice cream, I almost guarantee you won't lose weight. You still have to watch sugar, carbs, and fat.

Like many people here, I lost ten pounds eating crap. I can almost guarantee you will lose weight. Though it's definitely not the healthy way to go, and I'd highly endorse a vegetable or two.

Do you suffer from diabetes? or any pancreatic problems by any chance?

Now we are back to the fact that it is calories in - calories burned = weight loss!!!! :drinker:

Not necessarily. if your entire daily caloric intake consisted of ice cream, I almost guarantee you won't lose weight. You still have to watch sugar, carbs, and fat.

Do any of you even read?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html

If what you just said was true, that would never have been possible.

Edit ~ And just because I know most of you DON'T READ...here's the first couple paragraphs:

For 10 weeks, Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate one of these sugary cakelets every three hours, instead of meals. To add variety in his steady stream of Hostess and Little Debbie snacks, Haub munched on Doritos chips, sugary cereals and Oreos, too.

His premise: That in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most -- not the nutritional value of the food.

The premise held up: On his "convenience store diet," he shed 27 pounds in two months.

For a class project, Haub limited himself to less than 1,800 calories a day. A man of Haub's pre-dieting size usually consumes about 2,600 calories daily. So he followed a basic principle of weight loss: He consumed significantly fewer calories than he burned.

His body mass index went from 28.8, considered overweight, to 24.9, which is normal. He now weighs 174 pounds.

But you might expect other indicators of health would have suffered. Not so.

Haub's "bad" cholesterol, or LDL, dropped 20 percent and his "good" cholesterol, or HDL, increased by 20 percent. He reduced the level of triglycerides, which are a form of fat, by 39 percent.