Calorie Counting 101

Eh, I don't know. Calorie Counting has some pretty obvious advantages. Assuming a lack of complicating factors (e.g. metabolic disorders) along with consistent and relatively accurate logging, counting calories has a very strong rational appeal. Problem >> Data >> Math >> Solution. Fairly simple. Note that the complication factors don't negate an approach centered around looking at the energy balance of a system; it just makes it less simple.

What's simple isn't always what's easy, though. For instance, I could:

-get burned out on counting calories because I have enough other stuff going in my day-to-day.
-become obsessive about tiny inaccuracies.
-End up feeling weird about a natural process (Hunger >> eat) being dictated by a more analytical approach.

All of that is about how someone "feels" which can end up being incompatible with calorie counting. That kind of stress doesn't always have an on/off switch. There is some appeal to following a set of guidelines that isn't based on calories. Obviously it works the same way. To lose weight, you're burning more than you take in. But if I am burned out on counting calories, and I'm left with following hunger signals and satiety as a means of helping me lose weight, then "food quality" becomes more important for reasons apart from overall health, getting my micros, and getting enough fiber.

In no way am I a clean eater just for my own personal ideology. I love my processed foods. But, in my experience, the more highly processed foods that I enjoy also tend to be more energy-dense and less satiating per calorie. For those reasons, if I need a calorie counting break, I kind of have to eat more clean to both stay in a deficit and not feel starved.

Sometimes my inner geek is jazzed by the fact that I scan something, weigh something, track it, and even plot out calories over time. And sometimes there's enough other crap going on in my life that I need to leave the lab coat in the office, so to speak, and not put that much thought into whether I can work the math in some way to fit a brownie into my day; it's easier to just to say that for the a few weeks, I'll stick to an apple instead of a brownie just because I know the apple will fill me up faster on a calorie-per-calorie basis.

That part of it is all personal preference, but personal preference is a pretty major factor. For that reason, I would have trouble telling any individual that calorie counting is best without first having a conversation with them about their life and their eating habits.

I wrote a very detailed response about why I disagree with almost everything you said but then decided not to post it. As I wrote in the original post, this thread is not about debating whether or not you should calorie count or whether or not it's the best way for anyone to go about losing weight. It's simply about what I believe is the best way to enact calorie counting. If you want to debate whether or not someone should or should not calorie count I would ask you please start a new thread.

Final thoughts: Counting calories is in my opinion the best thing one can do to help lose weight.

Some absolutism? That makes no more sense than "kind of pregnant."

+1 on verifying that scanned options are correct. I always assumed that the scanner was tied to product data accurately until I tried to scan an tube of Philadelphia Cream Cheese at a hotel breakfast. It was one of those little packets they put out by the bagels. I scanned and it came up as a bag of mozzarella cheese with 2X the calories!