are all calories equal?

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blessedwith3boys
blessedwith3boys Posts: 136 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I"m a bit confused as to why i'm not losing. Should I be counting anything besides my calories? Grams of fat? Grams of carbohydrates?

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  • scd78
    scd78 Posts: 77 Member
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    I track the calories, fat, sodium and carbs. I really pay close attention to the calories and fat. I am not saying this is the right way, just that this is what I do.
  • lessertess
    lessertess Posts: 855 Member
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    There's no clearly correct answer.

    In short, for most people without special health or dietary needs all calories are equal in terms of weight loss. Calories in must be less than calories out. So, in theory, you could eat nothing but snickers bars all day and, if you are under calories, you would lose weight.

    However, reality is not that simple. Your body needs a certain level of nutrients and if you don't get them, it will try to compensate and that can negatively impact weight loss in the long run.

    MFP defaults to a certain level of protien/carbs/fats. Those levels aren't the holy grail of weight loss but they are a good starting point in terms of making good balanced choices. Focus on those three and potentially fiber. Don't worry of obsess is you don't hit the numbers exactly because usually over a week or so they end up balancing out if you're eating a balanced diet.

    As to what is a balanced diet: it's nothing new. You're mother probably told you when you were a kid. Eat lots of veggies and fruit, lean protien, dairy, legumes, whole grains. Essentially some version (old or new depending on your personal philosophy) of the food pyramid.
  • Meganne1982
    Meganne1982 Posts: 451
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    I'm reading this brilliant book that my mother recommended to me. It's call "Why We Get Fat- And What to do About it" by Gary Taubes. The biggest theme of this book is NO, NOT ALL CALORIES ARE CREATED EQUAL. And that for a lot of people the calories in/ calories out concept doesn't work for successful weight loss.
  • RMinVA
    RMinVA Posts: 1,085 Member
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    I'm reading this brilliant book that my mother recommended to me. It's call "Why We Get Fat- And What to do About it" by Gary Taubes. The biggest theme of this book is NO, NOT ALL CALORIES ARE CREATED EQUAL. And that for a lot of people the calories in/ calories out concept doesn't work for successful weight loss.

    Totally agree!!! You don't need to look any further than the journals of some people that say they are struggling to lose weight. Yet their journal is loaded with fast food and refined carbs w/o a vegetable or piece of fruit in sight,!! Of course they are going to struggle...everything is nutritionally void. So my first question for you is what does your journal look like? Feel free to take a peek @ mine, especially the weekdays. I'm not perfect, but you should get a good picture of the variety of foods in my diet. And my weekends are a great example of how to completely sabotage yourself :-)

    Becomes even more important the closer you get to your goal.

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