Everything is an Estimate ......

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Shropshire1959
Shropshire1959 Posts: 982 Member
in Motivation and Support
Pretty much everything on here is an Estimate .... Calories Consumed (Even if you weigh everything that you log) =Estimated.... Basal Metabolic Rate = Estimated, Calories Burnt .. Estimated

Unless you do EVERYTHING under fully controlled Lab' conditions...everything that you log is prone to error (I'm not even going to estimate the error rate :-p ).

The ONLY thing that you 'may' be able to rely on to any degree of accuracy is how tight your cloths are and 'maybe' your Weight (and only then if you have a good set of scales) - and even these won't give you your true body weight .BUT if you log over a long period of time you'll get the trend and if you are trending towards lighter (and you want to lose weight) - Then you're doing something right and moving towards your goal.

People set too much store on a whole bunch of Estimated values and then wonder why they have hit the mythical plateau.[DOH].

Eat Less (but hit you MACROS), GOYA and Move more and wait for your cloths to become loser and your weight to trend down AND REPEAT........... SIMPLES

Replies

  • lalexcox
    lalexcox Posts: 6 Member
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    First post, not to wholly disagree, but to express my own thoughts on what you've said.
    They are estimations, but for me they work well as a guideline, especially when making choices among similar foods, food substitutions, and tracking what and how much I eat. The numbers give what I'm eating a value, and I keep track like a score card on the day. I am an emotional eater, and I have difficulty differentiating between hunger and cravings. Part of my problem is I didn't always think about how much I was eating, and honestly didn't want to. I am learning mindful eating, and eating until I am just enough full, but as I work on these concepts, the numbers help ensure I mentally stick with it.
    No, these aren't laboratory conditions. I'm sure the numbers are off by a certain degree on everything we eat. Not to mention, the little tricks companies pull with nutrition labels to hide various fats and other components with odd serving portions does not help (In the US, I'm not sure how they work in your neck of the woods). While they are estimations, don't underestimate the effect they can have when used as an additional tool for guidance.
  • zoeysasha37
    zoeysasha37 Posts: 7,088 Member
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    Of coarse everything is an estimate. I just try to get as close as possible and try to not leave too much room for error. Like you said, you'll see a trend after logging for a while, and take it from there. Nothing is going to be exact.
  • jackielou867
    jackielou867 Posts: 422 Member
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    They may be estimates, but a few of us seem to be pretty good at estimating our intake and our burns and have lost weight, or gained muscle, or burned fat.
  • Shropshire1959
    Shropshire1959 Posts: 982 Member
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    They may be estimates, but a few of us seem to be pretty good at estimating our intake and our burns and have lost weight, or gained muscle, or burned fat.

    Bully for you .. but you may have noticed that there are a lot of folks here who can not get the system to work for them and can't see why. My post was to assist THEM to to see one possible reason why.

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