I hate counting Calories- any other methods?
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Monna2
Posts: 100 Member
Hello guys
I have tried counting calories for ages, but I hated it. It makes me constantly think of food.
Have you tried any other methods of losing weight?
I have tried counting calories for ages, but I hated it. It makes me constantly think of food.
Have you tried any other methods of losing weight?
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Replies
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This is a calorie counting website...0
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I'm not sure you'll be inundated with responses on a website dedicated to calorie tracking, but Happy Tuesday anyway.0
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I know that MFP is primarily about counting and keeping track of what you eat.
But I'm posting this here in the success stories forum just in case anyone has made it without taking the trouble of counting calories.0 -
But they're unlikely to be a calorie-counting website, aren't they?0
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Well, if you're okay with doing a low carb diet, ketogenic diets mainly focus on the carb limit and not the calories. Eventually, when you can get the 5/30/65 macros for meals down by memory, you don't really track your food intake at all. Still, it requires careful thinking about what you're eating.0
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I mean, you probably should think about food more often. So often we eat mindlessly out of emotions, habit. The proportion sizes are also insane.
If anything, not thinking about your food choices will likely not help you.0 -
If you haven't already, try sticking to set meal plans. Sure it takes a bit of time to input it all into MFP but its will be worth it for the rest of the week as all you need to do is measure out your food and you're away.
I personally follow a diet called If It Fits Your Macros (IIFYM.com). I eat what ever I want as long as I don't under or over eat on my set Carbohydrates, Fat & Protein.
If none of the above makes sense, perhaps look into an online personal trainer who can work out a great plan for you. Don't give up!
Best of luck.0 -
Have you tried any other methods of losing weight?
I tried to tip the calorie balance with long duration, high intensity exercise. Got fitter, stronger and stayed the same weight as I ate more to compensate.
Tried to increase daily activity to tip the balance by swapping a train journey to work with a long walk. Worked for a while and then I ate more to compensate.
Tried intuitive eating. Weight rocketed upwards to my highest ever weight.
Calorie counting plus 5:2 way of eating worked for me though. Lost weight slowly and steadily, retained/gained lean mass, got fitter/stronger and now maintaining comfortably.
You could try 5:2 in the way people not on a calorie counting site do it perhaps? i.e. only counting calories on the two fasting days and "eating normally" on the other five days a week. Maybe that would reduce the feeling of daily food obsession?0 -
Hello guys
I have tried counting calories for ages, but I hated it. It makes me constantly think of food.
Have you tried any other methods of losing weight?
I would say that I have had 2 long term success stories with weight loss and both times I did it by counting all those darned little calories. If I ever hit a 'plateau', it is always because I stopped counting and started guessing.
Good luck0 -
Calorie counting plus 5:2 way of eating worked for me though. Lost weight slowly and steadily, retained/gained lean mass, got fitter/stronger and now maintaining comfortably.
You could try 5:2 in the way people not on a calorie counting site do it perhaps? i.e. only counting calories on the two fasting days and "eating normally" on the other five days a week. Maybe that would reduce the feeling of daily food obsession?
And this ^^0 -
Try weight watchers, but that will probably just make you skinny, not healthy. Unless you do it correctly which weight watchers doesn't necessarily promote as far as I can tell. But MFP is free. WW is not.0
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Thank you guys0
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Not sure when mfp became specifically a calorie counting site.
You could try low carbing, 5:2 to get you around daily cal counts. The meal plans thing sounds like a good short cut too. Cal counting is something mfp gives you a nice free easy to use tool to do. But mfp also provides help advice and inspiration as well as a way of logging weight and measurements.
Cal counting is tried and tested but if it doesnt suit you by all means experiment - you may well end up realising cal counting is the only way. Or you could find something else works for you.0 -
Im low carbing rather well at the moment after spending months just not really managing to log and finding logging counter productive. Not sure how this will turn out long term, Im guessing a slow tack back to logging once Im at a weight I like. But its my fitness pal not my calorie counting pal actually0
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Yes I lose weight without counting every single thing and it's so much easier than all of this. Basically, you need to know for a starting point how much you should eat to lose weight (so use MFP for that), then decide you're going to have 3 meals and 2 snacks a day or whatever, and figure out how you're going to allot calories to them. Then just live and make healthy choices based on a pattern, rather than worrying about minutiae. So then don't log every day, try maybe once a week to see if you're on track. I also hate counting calories, it's such a waste of time and mental energy to be thinking about food like that all the time, I feel you! Good luck!0
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No matter what diet you choose it still comes down to you need to be in a Calorie deficit. The thing is if most of us on this site were able to do that without counting calories we wouldn't have got fat. Even something like weight watchers is just another way of counting calories0
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Counting calories (while using this site) is the only thing that has ever worked for me, and believe me I tried everything else.0
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There was this really good diet that I heard about, where you have to eat three pounds of carrots first thing in the morning, then you eat whatever else you want. It didn't really work out for Garfield, but I'm sure you could give it a go.
Seriously, just get over it, calorie counting sucks for the first few weeks but then it's a habit and a good one at that.0 -
You could try MyPlate.gov
They have portion guidelines for each meal, and you can get specific amounts for your goals and stats.
I think calorie counting is the best way overall, but the best way for you is one you'll stick to. Good luck!0 -
One option would be doing a crap ton of cardio and burning a LOT of calories. I did this. I used to aim to burn 500+ cals a day by running. It worked for awhile. If I had been at least estimating calories, I would have lost weight faster.
Another option is coming up with a routine for food. Determine how many calories you need...and eat the same few meal options every single day. I've done this too. Well, just for breakfast. I ate oatmeal every morning for a year and a half. Needless to say, I stopped eating oatmeal for awhile after that.
It took me awhile to lose weight, b/c I wasn't strict with the calories. Now that I have lost the weight...I started strength-training, and that has made a huge difference for me and not having to micromanage my calories.0
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