Do I HAVE to count calories?

Whole grain corn isn't food? Interesting.
[/quote]

GMO ROUND UP READY CORN engineered by the Monsanto Corporation IS NOT FOOD

I must be missing something because I can see very little "real food" in this poster's diary.
[/quote]

You really are missing something when attacking the messenger's credibility is more important than the message.

Whole grain corn isn't food? Interesting.

GMO ROUND UP READY CORN engineered by the Monsanto Corporation IS NOT FOOD

What?? I don't even know what's happening here. Corn isn't a food anymore? I mean, I've heard debates over what food group it should be classified as, but... Anyway, I'm in, because this is entertaining and I'm pretty sure this guy is a troll.

OP- You don't have to count calories to lose weight. But most people are more successful at losing weight when they have some way of quantifying what/how much they are eating- it's surprisingly easy to under/over-estimate.

And just for the record- I absolutely think that you can lose weight while eating 'junk food,' although I hate to refer to it that way. If you're consistently meeting your goals (calories/macros), chances are that you have to eat primarily 'whole, healthy' foods to get there. But that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with treats that fit your goals. Go for it! Personally, I've already had six servings of veggies (not even dinnertime yet), and I can't wait for my ice cream tonight

Please explain what is 'food' and what is not.

Food nourishes the body and maintains it. Non-food tastes good and is heavily advertised.
Non foods include anything with: sugar, flour, white rice, refined oil.

C'mon dude seriously?

I'm just beginning to try to lose weight, and I think that counting calories might just be more effort/more destructive or discouraging...thoughts?

Takes 5 minutes (if that per day)....

Seriously?!? What do you eat? It takes me more than 5 min to enter one recipe. I realize the problems MFP experiences with keeping a clean database, especially on a free site, but all the differing entries in the database do make entering meals very time consuming.

Every item must be looked up, then verified, to see which of the dozen or so entries is correct. And if one cooks most meal from scratch, this much be done for every ingredient. And for produce and other foods that come without a nutrition label, that means going to another web site for that verification.

I suppose if one eats the same foods often, or eats a lot of prepared foods that have the information on a label it would be faster, but not everyone eats that way.

That can be a challenge, and I must admit that I do benefit from making one breakfast, one lunch, and one dinner meal on Sunday and spreading them out over the week.

Something that I found helpful is that I evaluate every new recipie I try. If it's something that I will do again, I'll save it in my recipes. If not, then I just enter it on Monday and copy it through the rest of the week (again, my aforementioned menu habits help with that).

Other times, I just trust that whoever input the food item (especially things like produce and meat that don't have nutrition labels on them) has done so in good faith and with as much accuracy as possible. I would hope that, if someone is going to input it into the MFP database, they're going to check those other sites, first, rather than just take a wild guess. Yes, it does mean there's a risk for being off, but it's worked out fairly well for me so far.

I must be missing something because I can see very little "real food" in this poster's diary.

You really are missing something when attacking the messenger's credibility is more important than the message.
[/quote]

[/quote]
[/quote]

The message is untrue and completely out of touch with reality. As is the messenger.

I'm just beginning to try to lose weight, and I think that counting calories might just be more effort/more destructive or discouraging...thoughts?

I'm really wound up right now and I don't get why people ask stuff like this??

This is MFP ... it is a calorie counting website ...

If you want to use it for exercise or to watch 1 macro...okay...then don't say you want to lose weight.

GAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWD

I recently stopped counting after counting my calories for about6 or 7 months. It took me that long honestly to know what a REAL portion was. Even a tablespoon is deceptive (I was using three tablespoons of coffee creamer on a normal basis. I was counting only 1 serving. When I measured an actual tablespoon into one of my big mugs I almost lost it! I couldn't believe how ridiculous healthy portions looked in the massive plates and bowls I had. I bought smaller plates, used bowls for cereal that I used to put dip in, I mean it was EYE OPENING. Now I feel a little more comfortable checking in now and then. Going back to measuring if I feel like I'm starting to get complacent or just checking something that I'm new to eating for correct portion sizes.
If you are serious about losing weight - just try it for a while. Even if you learn only one thing from counting calories and measuring your food, it will be worth it!
Good luck!!

The message is untrue and completely out of touch with reality. As is the messenger.

You bring up a very valid point. We are so accustomed to seeing food advertised that we are starting to believe the claims. Anyone who tries to expose processed food for being poison is labelled as out of touch with reality.

Yeah, I guess you can't argue with crazy.

Yes, people who warn about the dangers of processed foods are all insane crackpots. GOOD LUCK

The only calories I kept track of was junk food. I tried to limit those but not get rid of completely. I knew myself and was completely realistic about that fact. Other than that, no you dont have to count calories as long as most of your diet is whole foods. You have to keep in mind that what works for some people may not work for others. I took bits and pieces of advice from others and made it my own. The only time I didnt enjoy my adventure is when I got injured. And even those setbacks turned out be a blessing and came out stronger than before. DO WHAT WORKS FOR YOU!

I'm just beginning to try to lose weight, and I think that counting calories might just be more effort/more destructive or discouraging...thoughts?

Seriously? No, this is WRONG. YES, you should be eating REAL food, but not "as much as you can possibly stuff into yourself". It is absurd to think you will not gain weight by eating unlimited amounts of anything. It is STILL calories in verses calories out!

By "stuff into yourself" I only meant that you should never deprive yourself of eating until you are full. Calories are not all the same. That is why counting calories is a short term solution at best, eventually it will catch up to you. What you need is wholesome food which will not harm you. Modern research has proven that deprivation causes metabolism to slow and results in weight gain. Conversely, some foods are known to increase metabolism and eating more can actually help you lose weight along with appropriate activity. I apologize for the silly way in which I approached the subject and alienated people. I do actually know my stuff when it comes to nutrition but my weakness is proper communication. I successfully passed practice exams for dietician registration but I prefer to learn on my own rather than spend structured time in a classroom setting. WHAT YOU EAT is far more important than HOW MUCH when it comes to controlling your weight. Sorry for getting carried away with "stuffing" .
ps. people who look at my diary notice a lot of sugar in my diet when I am out and get thirsty like in a mall etc. but I also mitigate the sugar intake by muscular activity which uses sugar as energy (if you examine my logs you will see my fitbit goal is a marathon every day)

I'm just beginning to try to lose weight, and I think that counting calories might just be more effort/more destructive or discouraging...thoughts?

Seriously? No, this is WRONG. YES, you should be eating REAL food, but not "as much as you can possibly stuff into yourself". It is absurd to think you will not gain weight by eating unlimited amounts of anything. It is STILL calories in verses calories out!

By "stuff into yourself" I only meant that you should never deprive yourself of eating until you are full. Calories are not all the same. That is why counting calories is a short term solution at best, eventually it will catch up to you. What you need is wholesome food which will not harm you. Modern research has proven that deprivation causes metabolism to slow and results in weight gain. Conversely, some foods are known to increase metabolism and eating more can actually help you lose weight along with appropriate activity. I apologize for the silly way in which I approached the subject and alienated people. I do actually know my stuff when it comes to nutrition but my weakness is proper communication. I successfully passed practice exams for dietician registration but I prefer to learn on my own rather than spend structured time in a classroom setting. WHAT YOU EAT is far more important than HOW MUCH when it comes to controlling your weight. Sorry for getting carried away with "stuffing" .
ps. people who look at my diary notice a lot of sugar in my diet when I am out and get thirsty like in a mall etc. but I also mitigate the sugar intake by muscular activity which uses sugar as energy (if you examine my logs you will see my fitbit goal is a marathon every day)

Stop... just stop. It's embarrassing.

I'm just beginning to try to lose weight, and I think that counting calories might just be more effort/more destructive or discouraging...thoughts?

Seriously? No, this is WRONG. YES, you should be eating REAL food, but not "as much as you can possibly stuff into yourself". It is absurd to think you will not gain weight by eating unlimited amounts of anything. It is STILL calories in verses calories out!

By "stuff into yourself" I only meant that you should never deprive yourself of eating until you are full. Calories are not all the same. That is why counting calories is a short term solution at best, eventually it will catch up to you. What you need is wholesome food which will not harm you. Modern research has proven that deprivation causes metabolism to slow and results in weight gain. Conversely, some foods are known to increase metabolism and eating more can actually help you lose weight along with appropriate activity. I apologize for the silly way in which I approached the subject and alienated people. I do actually know my stuff when it comes to nutrition but my weakness is proper communication. I successfully passed practice exams for dietician registration but I prefer to learn on my own rather than spend structured time in a classroom setting. WHAT YOU EAT is far more important than HOW MUCH when it comes to controlling your weight. Sorry for getting carried away with "stuffing" .
ps. people who look at my diary notice a lot of sugar in my diet when I am out and get thirsty like in a mall etc. but I also mitigate the sugar intake by muscular activity which uses sugar as energy (if you examine my logs you will see my fitbit goal is a marathon every day)

Wow that's brightened my day. That's hilarious. What do you do for an encore juggle?

I didn't read all of the comments, so I may just be repeating someone:

If you do some 'miracle' diet and lose a lot of weight, all you're really doing is counting calories even if it's indirect. If you're losing weight, you're cutting calories, period. I'm raw vegan about 70% of the year, I don't track calories but I lose weight eating as much as I want. How? Because I'm not taking in a lot of calories. Sometimes I play around with a rice diet (because I love rice anyway, so it's not really a diet) and I lose weight. How? I'm cutting calories. People on Atkins lose weight too - how? They're cutting their calories. So regardless of what you think you're doing diet-wise, it all boils down to the almighty calorie. It really just comes down to if you want to experiment with pre-planned diets which will inevitably cut your calories or just take the control into your own hands and count the calories on your own with a wider range of acceptable foods. But it is IMPOSSIBLE to lose weight without a calorie being involved one way or another.

ETA: I'm sorry, I'm so pro-veganism and I just have to say how wrong it is to say not all calories are the same. If it's 10 calories, it's 10 calories. One 10 calorie may be more nutritional than the next 10, but it's still 10, and your body will still burn that 10 like any other 10. That's like saying 1+1 =/= 2. It's a unit of measurement. It's MATH. There are no "maybes" in math, it's either accurate or it isn't. If I eat 3,000 calories of "clean organic raw vegan" foods, or whatever, and 3,000 calories of delicious Taco Bell, I'm gaining weight either way. If I eat 1,200 calories of "clean organic raw vegan" foods (lol) or 1,200 calories of Taco Bell, I'm losing weight. I'm going to get a hell of a lot more of the "healthy" foods because they're lower in calories overall, but IT IS STILL A CALORIE. If there were some mystical foods that your body didn't require burning or were only a fraction of the GOVERNMENT APPROVED AND ADVERTISED CALORIE COUNT believe every channel would have commercials with a diet plan based around those foods, but they don't exist. Instead we get pill commercials. There wouldn't be people with serious EDs eating 300-500 calories a day because they'd just eat that food group all day long. Obesity wouldn't be a problem, and the majority of us who have done diet research because we have experienced weight problems wouldn't even be here posting because we'd be eating these "not all calories are created equally" foods (and if they did exist, there'd be news articles, tons of authenticated and proven research, sixty seven blogs, Youtube videos, etc). But no, instead we're counting calories because no matter what you eat, you still need to take your calories into consideration.