Is everybody just "counting calories"?

theres a lot more to losing weight than just counting calories. it's a nice starting point, but there is sooooo much more to being fit than just calorie count.

Since starting logging food, I realised quickly that what you eat does matter in the battle. If you want to be able to stick to your calorie goal, you can't be consuming a day's worth of calories in one sandwich, for instance. So the flip side of that is that if you choose foods which are more filling, but low calorie, you can go through your day feeling satisfied and stick to your plan... and success will follow.

With that in mind I started out by looking at Calories, and also Carbs / Protein / Fat, with a vague aim of eating more protein and less fat. After a while I noticed that the Sodium column was out of control (just never really looked at it before) so I started to pay more attention to all information on labels.

For what it's worth, I'm on 1400 cal/day and most days I am fine with it, when I am making good choices. As I go about my day, I mentally allow an average of 300-350 cals for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner, plus 350 for snacks. If one of my meals is higher, I compensate with the others. So when I am making those good choices, an example would be for lunch I might have a big salad (about 600g) and then add to it 100g of either ham / cold chicken / tuna / egg. My calories for that lunch would come in between 200 and 320, with protein of up to 35g and carbs of less than 10g. And after that, I am not remotely hungry for a few hours, it really is satisfying. On the other hand if I had something like I would have before I started paying attention, the same calorie allowance might "buy" me half a sausage roll, and I know for a fact I would be hungry again a couple of hours sooner if that is what I ate. So yes, there's more to it than calories.

I have a follow-on question though - any suggestions on ways to increase protein without increasing carbs and sodium?
My current macros are set at Carbohydrates 40% / Protein 40% / Fat 20%

In reality, I am consistently very close to my macro goals on carbs and fat, but only managing to eat about half of my protein goal most days.
I am finding that the majority of food I would normally have has significantly more carbs than protein, so if I stop when I get to the carb limit, I am naturally going to end up with only half of the Protein.
Also, on the rare days I managed to get all the protein and only go over a little on carbs, I see that I am WAY over on sodium!
Protein and sodium seem to go together in many foods. Any tips would be welcome.

I don't count calories so much as I watch my macros and micros. I consider myself an athlete, I focus on the active side of the equation and feed myself to either fuel my workouts or recovery. Everything I eat has a purpose from that perspective, and I watch my macros and micros to decide what I need to eat when. If I need more protein, I choose something with protein. If I need more potassium, that's what I choose. So many people do it backwards.. they eat and then try to exercise it off. Remember, dieters aren't skinny.. athletes are.

I use a small kitchen scale to weigh fruits and vegetables and breakfast cereals (i.e. 100 g. fresh strawberries and . 52 g. Fiber One with Honey Clusters) and measure (i.e. 1/2 cup soy milk, starting the day watching the fiber and calcium first, During the day balance the macros, and later in the day, watch the calories and stop eating before reaching the calorie goal.

Yup, just calories. I do not bother with sodium because I really dont care about water weight. Fat weight is whats important. I eat whatever I feel like eating.