Counting calories vs 'clean eating'

You can gain weight eating clean and lose weight eating dirty. Consuming fewer calories than you burn is how you lose weight.

If you eat too many calories you will gain weight no matter what the food is. I'm 5'6 171 lbs and eat between 1600-2000 calories daily, and have lost a little weight. I do wash my food if needed and don't eat off the floor so it's clean. My dairy is open.

It would be difficult to gain weight eating fresh fruits and veggies, lean white meat and grainy bread. Really, really hard. For one thing, the food isn't high in calories. For another, it isn't so yummy that you want to stuff yourself full. Very few people would over-eat having dry tuna and strawberries for lunch...especially the 1000th time they did it. But it could be done, I suppose.

Healthy food makes healthy bodies, but you can absolutely lose weight without it. I think the more junk you eat, the harder it might be, because those calories add up fast.

The more healthy food, the fuller you can be. You can eat so much fruit and lettuce for so few calories.

But the choice is entirely up to you and you can absolutely succeed eating junk food. Most people do!

Here's some information that might help

Log your food accurately and honestly. Go for 80% good choices the other 20% don't worry so much about. I eat lots of delicious food and have consistently lost. Keep it simple find a REASONABLE deficit:

If you have 75+ lbs to lose 2 lbs/week is ideal
If you have 40-75 lbs to lose 1.5 lbs/week is ideal
If you have 25-40 lbs to lose 1 lbs/week is ideal
If you have 15 -25 lbs to lose 0.5 to 1.0 lbs/week is ideal
If you have less than 15 lbs to lose 0.5 lbs/week is ideal

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1234699-logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide?hl=logging+step+guide

Find an activity you enjoy doing - I found I love to ride my bike and lift heavy stuff

Here are 2 more threads that will help take the time to read them:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1235566-so-you-re-new-here?hl=so+you're+new+here

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/819925-the-basics-don-t-complicate-it

Here's some information that might help

Log your food accurately and honestly. Go for 80% good choices the other 20% don't worry so much about. I eat lots of delicious food and have consistently lost. Keep it simple find a REASONABLE deficit:

If you have 75+ lbs to lose 2 lbs/week is ideal
If you have 40-75 lbs to lose 1.5 lbs/week is ideal
If you have 25-40 lbs to lose 1 lbs/week is ideal
If you have 15 -25 lbs to lose 0.5 to 1.0 lbs/week is ideal
If you have less than 15 lbs to lose 0.5 lbs/week is ideal

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1234699-logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide?hl=logging+step+guide

Find an activity you enjoy doing - I found I love to ride my bike and lift heavy stuff

Here are 2 more threads that will help take the time to read them:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1235566-so-you-re-new-here?hl=so+you're+new+here

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

This was really helpful! Thank you

You're very welcome, keep it simple. It works

I am eating clean lately rather than focusing on calories and it seems to be working for me!

Correlation, not causation.

If your long term goal is to be healthier rather than just smaller then cleaner eating is certainly worth pursuing. On fewer calories you've got more chance of missing out on important vitamins and minerals you might have got more of when you were eating a third more. Adopting good eating practices can only be a good thing right?

"Healthy" juices usually more fattening than soda. "Healthy" granola bars can be more fattening than candy bars. No need to fall for any weight loss ideas that are not based on counting calories. People who avoid counting calories but instead their strategy is to eat healthy or exercise or eat one meal a day or cut out sweets or whatever, or "cut back" on food without counting calories-- these folks are doomed to remain fat and possibly get fatter. Same goes for those who decide to abandon their scale in favor of losing inches instead of pounds. And counting carbs or fat grams instead of calories will not work either. You will lose the same weight whether you get your calories from french fries, cake, steak or collard greens.

This is a confusing post. If we are talking about 100 calories of juice or 100 calories of pop , neither is more "fattening". Is it not the same idea as your last line? Even if it is 200 calories of juice and 100 calories of pop, so long as the daily calorie intake isn't exceeded, again, neither is "more fattening".

I'd hardly say that people who use different strategies are doomed to fail. They are simply controlling their calories in vs calories out in another method. It is still the same basic principle. And there are many people who are successful. That said, if you aren't, counting calories would be a good place to start but it isn't always necessary.

How on earth would abandoning your scale in favor of measuring inches lead to failure? If your inches are going down, at some point your weight is too.

"Healthy" juices usually more fattening than soda. "Healthy" granola bars can be more fattening than candy bars. No need to fall for any weight loss ideas that are not based on counting calories. People who avoid counting calories but instead their strategy is to eat healthy or exercise or eat one meal a day or cut out sweets or whatever, or "cut back" on food without counting calories-- these folks are doomed to remain fat and possibly get fatter. Same goes for those who decide to abandon their scale in favor of losing inches instead of pounds. And counting carbs or fat grams instead of calories will not work either. You will lose the same weight whether you get your calories from french fries, cake, steak or collard greens.

This is a confusing post. If we are talking about 100 calories of juice or 100 calories of pop , neither is more "fattening". Is it not the same idea as your last line?

12 ounces of unsweetened apple juice is 170 calories. 12 ounces of Dr Pepper is 150 calories. I think that's the kind of things referenced.

"Healthy" juices usually more fattening than soda. "Healthy" granola bars can be more fattening than candy bars. No need to fall for any weight loss ideas that are not based on counting calories. People who avoid counting calories but instead their strategy is to eat healthy or exercise or eat one meal a day or cut out sweets or whatever, or "cut back" on food without counting calories-- these folks are doomed to remain fat and possibly get fatter. Same goes for those who decide to abandon their scale in favor of losing inches instead of pounds. And counting carbs or fat grams instead of calories will not work either. You will lose the same weight whether you get your calories from french fries, cake, steak or collard greens.

This is a confusing post. If we are talking about 100 calories of juice or 100 calories of pop , neither is more "fattening". Is it not the same idea as your last line?

12 ounces of unsweetened apple juice is 170 calories. 12 ounces of Dr Pepper is 150 calories. I think that's the kind of things referenced.

I edited to add as well. There are more factors than just calorie count. While I am a believer in CICO, you can't just consider calorie content. Assuming a person is still at a calorie deficit, neither is fattening, regardless of calorie content.

I have also gained weight while eating clean and running 5 to 10 miles a day. Calorie counting is integral to my losing or maintaining my weight. I do not appear to have a shut-off switch. :-)

The theory behind this is basically the same as the theory behind the Weight Watcher's "free" foods. The idea is that you will replace calorie dense/nutrient poor foods like white bread, frozen lasagna, etc., with nutrient rich/low calorie foods and that you therefore won't overeat.

Going by volume, for example, a 1 cup (110g) serving of green beans is 34 calories whereas a 1 cup (170g) serving of Stouffer's macaroni and cheese is 340 calories or TEN TIMES the calories for the same volume of food. So you choose the "diet" version and eat the single-serving package of Lean Cuisine macaroni and cheese. That is still 250 calories or over seven times the calories of the green beans.

Since there is no "true" definition of clean eating everyone agrees to, your version may simply avoid packaged foods and aim toward tasty, homemade foods. Well, trust me, that diet got me where I am today. Delicious homemade bread with real butter , a nice buerre blanc on your chicken, some multigrain pancakes with real grade B maple syrup, homemade chicken pot pie with fresh vegetables and a schmaltz pie crust. Ah, yes, you can indeed get fat on these -- but, oh, the deliciousness!

James Beard, the famous chef and cook book author did not get fat (and die from the side effects) by eating fast food. He was in France, visiting with Julia Child and other famous chefs, eating delicious meals made from fresh ingredients.

It's all about portion control and counting calories, folks. So, I had green beans for supper last night but they were dressed with a butter-mustard-honey-cornichon dressing and they were DA BOMB! And, of course, they fit within my TDEE-20% for the day.

I edited to add as well. There are more factors than just calorie count. While I am a believer in CICO, you can't just consider calorie content. Assuming a person is still at a calorie deficit, neither is fattening, regardless of calorie content.

The language or word choice may not have been as precise as possible, but I think the gist -- just because something is considered "healthy" doesn't mean it has fewer calories than the same amount of "junk" -- is something to bear in mind. That the "healthy" juice has more calories than Dr Pepper is an example of "clean" perhaps being misleading with respect to weight loss or maintenance.

I'm not sure I agree with the whole "no matter what you eat you will lose as long as your under your calories". I'm so nauseous from meds that I haven't eaten a lot in months but what I did eat was junk. Mostly hundred calorie packs of special K bars or just one mcdonalds meal a day. I gained at least 20lbs doing this and I can be positive I was under 1200 calories 80-90% of the time.