Bread.... How much is too much?

you need to be logging in your food. If you go over, then cut back sweetie it is a lot of bread. Are you eating any fresh produce?

I agree. The only way to really be successful in losing weight or knowing where your "problem" areas are (too many carbs, sugars, etc) is to log your foods.

Editing to say... Sara lee has 45 calorie a slice bread. It's delish! I usually have two slices at the most a day but I eat a lot of carbs in other places like in pasta.

you need to be logging in your food. If you go over, then cut back sweetie it is a lot of bread. Are you eating any fresh produce?

I agree. The only way to really be successful in losing weight or knowing where your "problem" areas are (too many carbs, sugars, etc) is to log your foods.

Editing to say... Sara lee has 45 calorie a slice bread. It's delish! I usually have two slices at the most a day but I eat a lot of carbs in other places like in pasta.

Check the sugar content on ALL Sara Lee Breads....and I've found most Sara Lee has high fructose corn syrup. A better alternatice is Nature's Own 100% Whole Wheat Bread...50 calories per slice, and it's full size bread, not the little lite type slices.

I gave up logging my food. Maybe I should eliminate one thing, so I'm not too focused in one area. It's hard to stay under all of those. The sugar and the protein are hard to stay where I'm supposed to stay. Unless I'm eating the same thing everyday, it's hard to judge where I'll be at. The carbs, sugar, cholesterol and sodium are what bother me the most.

The idea is to make the changes you need to make to start reaching your number goals. By the way, going over on protein is fine, and even prefferable if you go by the default numbers MFP gives you, as the default protein % is quite low.

Personally, I usually plan my days ahead of time. Yesterday evening I planned out my whole day today. I know that all I have to do is eat what I have planned to eat, and I'll make all of my numbers just fine.

As far as bread, it flat out doesn't matter. If you use more calories then you take in, you'll lose weight. TBH, all the other numbers aren't nearly as important as calories, and if you meet your calorie goal on a regular basis you'll lose weight.

I gave up logging my food. Maybe I should eliminate one thing, so I'm not too focused in one area. It's hard to stay under all of those. The sugar and the protein are hard to stay where I'm supposed to stay. Unless I'm eating the same thing everyday, it's hard to judge where I'll be at. The carbs, sugar, cholesterol and sodium are what bother me the most.

I highly recommend you go back to logging and just work on a little at the time. Try to plan your meals a head of time so you know you'll be making good choices. Back when I started, I just worked on staying at the right calorie level. Over time, I worked on improving my overall diet - adding in more veggies, eating less processed food, eating less sodium, tweaking the split between carbs/protein/fat, etc. I didn't do all this at once. Take baby steps. Focus on one or two categories at a time.

This is just my opinion, but the most important things to focus on right now are probably overall calories, sodium and fiber. It is important to eat enough protein and healthy fat - but it's not going to be a big deal if you're a little over on carbs.... the quality of the food you are eating is much more important. I don't even bother tracking Cholesterol because more research is suggesting that dietary cholesterol has little impact on blood cholesterol, and that it's much more impacted by genetics. I don't go overboard (I know what foods are high in cholesterol, and I eat those in moderation), but I see no need to track it and stress if I'm over on the recommended limit for it.

Edited to add: regarding tracking your sugar, it's important to note that the sugar tracking isn't incredibly useful because it doesn't differentiate between added and natural sugars. General rule of thumb - don't worry about dairy/fruit sugars, as long as you're eating those foods in moderation - most other sugars will be added and you want to eat as little of that as possible. Many people on MFP choose not to track sugar because of this. It's pretty easy to keep sugars under control as long as you read labels and only buy the foods that have very little (or no) added sugar.

you need to be logging in your food. If you go over, then cut back sweetie it is a lot of bread. Are you eating any fresh produce?

I agree. The only way to really be successful in losing weight or knowing where your "problem" areas are (too many carbs, sugars, etc) is to log your foods.

Editing to say... Sara lee has 45 calorie a slice bread. It's delish! I usually have two slices at the most a day but I eat a lot of carbs in other places like in pasta.

Check the sugar content on ALL Sara Lee Breads....and I've found most Sara Lee has high fructose corn syrup. A better alternatice is Nature's Own 100% Whole Wheat Bread...50 calories per slice, and it's full size bread, not the little lite type slices.

Thanks for this!! I knew the sara lee had HFCS but tried to pretend it didn't! I had no idea there were other choices as low calorie.

I get the Natures Own honey wheat light bread. 35 cals per slice! The down side to it is it's very thin bread..but once you get used to that it's fine. When I have a sandwich somewhere other than home I'm always amazed at how thick regular bread is.. I usually have at least one sandwich per day (sometimes two).

I gave up logging my food. Maybe I should eliminate one thing, so I'm not too focused in one area. It's hard to stay under all of those. The sugar and the protein are hard to stay where I'm supposed to stay. Unless I'm eating the same thing everyday, it's hard to judge where I'll be at. The carbs, sugar, cholesterol and sodium are what bother me the most.

The idea is to make the changes you need to make to start reaching your number goals. By the way, going over on protein is fine, and even preferable if you go by the default numbers MFP gives you, as the default protein % is quite low.

Personally, I usually plan my days ahead of time. Yesterday evening I planned out my whole day today. I know that all I have to do is eat what I have planned to eat, and I'll make all of my numbers just fine.

As far as bread, it flat out doesn't matter. If you use more calories then you take in, you'll lose weight. TBH, all the other numbers aren't nearly as important as calories, and if you meet your calorie goal on a regular basis you'll lose weight.

I decided to quote myself for you guys saying this (or any amount) of bread or anything else is bad.

Doesn't matter. Eat under your calories and you'll lose weight.

That is NOT true. I lost ZERO pounds WITH exercise and a somewhat low carb intake while meeting my calorie goals. The truth is, I'm pretty sure that I was going over on my sodium, cholesterol and sugar and didn't know it because I hadn't modified my food diary until a month ago. It wasn't until i upped my calories burned and started making an effort to try to stay under most of my numbers that I lost five pounds, which I gained back on Thanksgiving. lol :blushing:

I was talking specifically about macros. Protein, carbs, and fats. Sugar and sodium can srew with how your body acts. I'd argue that the numbers of those would actually matter more for most then the 3 macros.

It's true, however, that we are all different, and react differently to different things we eat. My main point is that the focus should be calories. Everything else is just about optimization.

Haha, it was definitely an over-generalization. I guess my biggest worry is that people will lose focus by taking advice that's worked for others, then get frustrated when it doesn't work. Also, some people think that they can trick their bodies into losing weight without having to follow the calorie number if they "mess" with the combination of macros.

For me, when trying to lose fat I avoid carbs. For some reason, they make me feel hungrier sooner then fats and proteins, even when I only take in complex carbs, and the spikes in hunger are hard to take. If I favor protein I tend to not have those bursts of hunger that come when you know you shouldn't be hungry yet. I HATE those.