eat right and no need to count calories
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I've read in a number of books and articles, one today, that if you are eating right (or healthy or clean or however you call it) then you don't need to measure food or count calories. Since this is a calorie-counting site I assume you have not found this to be the case? Is it likely one will continue to carry excess fat even when eating healthy, if calories aren't controlled too?
The assumption is that it is much more difficult to overeat when you're eating primarily whole foods and meals prepared from scratch, whole ingredients. Calories are what matters, it's just harder to over-eat your calorie goals when you're primarily eating whole foods
I find this largely to be true and weight control has been pretty easy for me without counting calories for over 1.5 years now. My diet overwhelmingly consists of whole foods with a smattering of "junk" here and there.
That said, counting calories is what taught me how to eat and how much of that "junk" I can have in combination with my other nutrition and still achieve my weight control goals.0 -
It isn't my definition, lol. I take advice from experts.
Your definition of healthy includes sticking to lean, white, meats. That's not everyone's definition of healthy. I happen to think eating salmon, mackerel, steak, lamb, avocado, almonds, etc is perfectly healthy. This is an inherent problem with trying to "eat healthy". There is no definition of what "healthy" is. I also find no reason to pay much attention to sodium. I do not have hypertension or kidney disease and until I do, I find no problems with eating twice the RDA for sodium some days. Someone who has moderate to severe hypertension really aught to watching their sodium. While it's not necessarily "unhealthy" for me to eat a lot of sodium, it can be quite "unhealthy" for someone else too. This is why it is an exercise in futility to classify individual foods as clean and dirty, or healthy and unhealthy. It's completely subjective and in the end, it's how those foods fit together in a total diet and how that total diet complements the individuals needs that matter.
Healthy eating includes watchingcholesterol, sodium, fat content and sticking to lean, white meats. You won't be able to eat too many of those eggs sticking to All Healthy, All The Time.
I completely disagree with this. There are too many high calorie choices that could be considered "healthy". If I ate grass fed steak, eggs, almonds/almond butter, milk, avocados, coconut oil, bananas, natural peanut butter, oats, granola, etc I could easily eat above my maintenance, and my maintenance is over 3000 calories. Someone with a smaller maintenance could do it even easier.When I began, I was advised to eat healthy, exercise and not worry about anything else. I had special restrictions in addition to that, but could eat all the fruits and veggies my little heart desired.
Without logging, counting, weighing myself or doing any of the things that are so common for weight loss, I lost my first forty pounds. I was shocked when I found out how much I'd lost. Since my clothes got bigger and too big, I knew I'd lost, but was FLOORED by forty pounds. I literally got off and back on the scale and considered that I might've been weighed wrong in the first place, but it would've required like a dozen people doing it wrong in six or eight different places, so there was no error.
If you eat only the healthiest of foods - all healthy, all the time - it's really hard to overeat. You'll see people here asking about how to get to 1200 eating only the healthiest of food. While it's theoretically possible, it would be very difficult to gain weight eating All Healthy, All The Time.
I'm not saying you couldn't gain weight eating whatever you choose to eat, just that people sometimes have a really hard time hitting 1200 when doing All Healthy, All The Time.
But I respect your opinion and think the boards are better when there are multiple opinions posted. Not trying to start a big fight, just clarify.
I know many MFP people do not trust:
Doctors, because they're not smart
CDC, because government lies
Health associations, like Amercian Heart, because they have an agenda
Etc.
I do trust all those people when they all say that eating healthy (as they define it) may help me avoid illness. Avoiding illness is something I'm in favor of doing!
For various reasons, they suggest avoiding certain foods and keeping the salt lower than most Americans do.
If you stick to their recommendations and only their recommendations - All Healthy, All The Time - it's hard to gain weight.
If you add a bunch of stuff that they don't recommend and call it "healthy," that's a different ball game.
If you overdo it on the sodium, you may end up regretting it later. I'm not sure where you got the info that it's cool to eat "a lot" of sodium until it causes cardiovascular problems and then cut back, but I know it is said here a lot. You may end up wishing you'd done it differently.
I don't personally care how much sodium you eat. Eat only salt all day, every day. I don't care. I'm not trying to be Right On The Internet because then I feel smarter and more confident. Just a heads up. For whatever it's worth.
I'm posting this as FYI and not attempting to begin a Link Duel. I'm not suggesting it makes me smarter or right about anything. Just in case you're interested in reading what some people - people who you may or may not trust! People you may or may not wish to hear out! - have to say:
http://sodiumbreakup.heart.org/sodium-411/sodium-and-your-health/
Sigh more nonsense
Truly so, especially about it being difficult to gain weight if you eat "all healthy all the time."
Kalikel,
The only requirement to gain weight is to eat more calories than you burn. Unfortunately, fat builder gremlins do not discriminate as to type of food. It's easy to overeat on any type of food.0 -
allanakern wrote: »you could get fat off of broccoli if you ate enough of it
That's extreme. Chances are it's no one food making you fat but the entire combination of that surplus.0 -
It's not that simple. Different people define "clean" eating as different things.
When I ate a plant based diet (no meat, no dairy, no processed foods), I didn't have to count the calories...but I did anyhow (primarily to ensure I was hitting nutritional goals of calcium, etc.) I would consistently eat over my calorie goal - and I lost weight anyhow. That was for me. I can't say for everyone's experience. But I ate tons of avocados and pistachios (high in calorie and fat) and was still losing.
But for me, it's not a lifestyle I will keep 100% of the time. I like the idea of it, sure...and often, I will eat a plant-based diet, but once in awhile, if I want to eat prime rib or sweet french bread, I will.
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Fact is, when people mostly ate nothing but home-cooked meals, fewer people were overweight. Fact is, wherever the fast food industry takes hold, obesity rates rise in previously normal-weight populations.
Nearly all my meals are home cooked, yet I am obese. I am now eating less in general, and I have 53 lbs off. Not because I changed what I am eating, but because I changed how much I am eating.0 -
While it's hard to argue when people say you gain weight from oreos or carrots, I will say this from personal experience: it is effing hard to overindulge on raw veggies (like eat 1500 calories over my goal); it is the easiest thing in the world to overindulge in buffalo wings and beer. So while it's true you can gain from anything, you'd be working pretty goddamn hard to gain serious weight chomping on balanced amounts of chicken breast, egg whites, raw veggies and fruits. Not saying it's impossible, but much more difficult.-1
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in my opinion you can be healthy and fit without tracking. tracking macros are really helpful if you have specific goals, like getting six pack....but hey if you take EXACTLY what you are eating now and eat a little less of it next week and the week after, and reach a point where you eat just enough for your body to maintain...you will most likely lose weight0
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allanakern wrote: »you could get fat off of broccoli if you ate enough of it
I should have quoted this in my response.0 -
I would agree that it is hard to gain weight if you are following standard diet recommendations consistently. That is because our weights are generally stable. If you don't do too much eating for non-hunger reasons and eat a reasonable diet, your weight will most likely stay stable (unless you had lost a lot of weight, in which case your body's tendency will lead you to eat enough to regain the weight).
However, that is very different from losing weight. Generally you won't lose significant weight just doing that. For most people that takes a much more determined effort.0 -
I'm not arguing that anyone should change anything. Hear me now, believe me whenever you want: I do not care what anyone else eats. No caring. At all. Even if someone knows their whole diet is unhealthy and chooses it eat it anyway, it's fine by me.lemurcat12 wrote: »I know many MFP people do not trust:
Doctors, because they're not smart
CDC, because government lies
Health associations, like Amercian Heart, because they have an agenda
Etc.
It's not that. It's that there are varying advice and studies and advice given in the past that has been somewhat discredited. For example, the idea that we should eat no more than 2 eggs per week. If we go beyond the interminable (but kind of fun) debates about whether we should think of individual foods as "healthy" or not, we have to get into the discussion of which ones are which, and that's one where the proponents of "healthy" or "clean" foods end up all pitted against each other, since you all have different ideas (backed by various doctors) as to what is "healthy" and what isn't.
Another reason why just "eating healthy" isn't really enough.
If anyone or everyone wants to eschew any or all recommendations made by experts because the recommendations have changed before and may again, I not only am not against it, I totally support their right to do it.
Everyone should do what is right for them.
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You can still eat too much of healthy foods. My husband and I have this debate every day, as he claims he isn't losing weight even though he eats the same things that I do. Today, he had a bowl of oatmeal with granola and fruit that actually overflowed the bowl, while I measure all my portions.
My partner and your husband have brains that work the same way. Of course, mine also thinks he can eat three plates of pasta and then go to the gym for an hour and make up for it. I guess this is an easier delusion to live with when your 6ft 2
. 0 -
JustinAnimal wrote: »While it's hard to argue when people say you gain weight from oreos or carrots, I will say this from personal experience: it is effing hard to overindulge on raw veggies (like eat 1500 calories over my goal); it is the easiest thing in the world to overindulge in buffalo wings and beer. So while it's true you can gain from anything, you'd be working pretty goddamn hard to gain serious weight chomping on balanced amounts of chicken breast, egg whites, raw veggies and fruits. Not saying it's impossible, but much more difficult.
<golf clap>
Now make the defintion of "eating right" to be "focusing on foods it is hard to over-eat", and you have something.
:drinker:
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I say it's difficult to gain weight eating All Healthy, All The Time and you say it isn't.
It isn't my definition, lol. I take advice from experts.
Your definition of healthy includes sticking to lean, white, meats. That's not everyone's definition of healthy. I happen to think eating salmon, mackerel, steak, lamb, avocado, almonds, etc is perfectly healthy. This is an inherent problem with trying to "eat healthy". There is no definition of what "healthy" is. I also find no reason to pay much attention to sodium. I do not have hypertension or kidney disease and until I do, I find no problems with eating twice the RDA for sodium some days. Someone who has moderate to severe hypertension really aught to watching their sodium. While it's not necessarily "unhealthy" for me to eat a lot of sodium, it can be quite "unhealthy" for someone else too. This is why it is an exercise in futility to classify individual foods as clean and dirty, or healthy and unhealthy. It's completely subjective and in the end, it's how those foods fit together in a total diet and how that total diet complements the individuals needs that matter.
Healthy eating includes watchingcholesterol, sodium, fat content and sticking to lean, white meats. You won't be able to eat too many of those eggs sticking to All Healthy, All The Time.
I completely disagree with this. There are too many high calorie choices that could be considered "healthy". If I ate grass fed steak, eggs, almonds/almond butter, milk, avocados, coconut oil, bananas, natural peanut butter, oats, granola, etc I could easily eat above my maintenance, and my maintenance is over 3000 calories. Someone with a smaller maintenance could do it even easier.When I began, I was advised to eat healthy, exercise and not worry about anything else. I had special restrictions in addition to that, but could eat all the fruits and veggies my little heart desired.
Without logging, counting, weighing myself or doing any of the things that are so common for weight loss, I lost my first forty pounds. I was shocked when I found out how much I'd lost. Since my clothes got bigger and too big, I knew I'd lost, but was FLOORED by forty pounds. I literally got off and back on the scale and considered that I might've been weighed wrong in the first place, but it would've required like a dozen people doing it wrong in six or eight different places, so there was no error.
If you eat only the healthiest of foods - all healthy, all the time - it's really hard to overeat. You'll see people here asking about how to get to 1200 eating only the healthiest of food. While it's theoretically possible, it would be very difficult to gain weight eating All Healthy, All The Time.
I'm not saying you couldn't gain weight eating whatever you choose to eat, just that people sometimes have a really hard time hitting 1200 when doing All Healthy, All The Time.
But I respect your opinion and think the boards are better when there are multiple opinions posted. Not trying to start a big fight, just clarify.
I know many MFP people do not trust:
Doctors, because they're not smart
CDC, because government lies
Health associations, like Amercian Heart, because they have an agenda
Etc.
I do trust all those people when they all say that eating healthy (as they define it) may help me avoid illness. Avoiding illness is something I'm in favor of doing!
For various reasons, they suggest avoiding certain foods and keeping the salt lower than most Americans do.
If you stick to their recommendations and only their recommendations - All Healthy, All The Time - it's hard to gain weight.
If you add a bunch of stuff that they don't recommend and call it "healthy," that's a different ball game.
If you overdo it on the sodium, you may end up regretting it later. I'm not sure where you got the info that it's cool to eat "a lot" of sodium until it causes cardiovascular problems and then cut back, but I know it is said here a lot. You may end up wishing you'd done it differently.
I don't personally care how much sodium you eat. Eat only salt all day, every day. I don't care. I'm not trying to be Right On The Internet because then I feel smarter and more confident. Just a heads up. For whatever it's worth.
I'm posting this as FYI and not attempting to begin a Link Duel. I'm not suggesting it makes me smarter or right about anything. Just in case you're interested in reading what some people - people who you may or may not trust! People you may or may not wish to hear out! - have to say:
http://sodiumbreakup.heart.org/sodium-411/sodium-and-your-health/
Sigh more nonsense
Truly so, especially about it being difficult to gain weight if you eat "all healthy all the time."
Kalikel,
...
It's easy to overeat on any type of food.
Were you expecting me to say, "Yuh huh! Is too!"
I'm not. You disagree. Big deal.-4 -
It isn't my definition, lol. I take advice from experts.
Your definition of healthy includes sticking to lean, white, meats. That's not everyone's definition of healthy. I happen to think eating salmon, mackerel, steak, lamb, avocado, almonds, etc is perfectly healthy. This is an inherent problem with trying to "eat healthy". There is no definition of what "healthy" is. I also find no reason to pay much attention to sodium. I do not have hypertension or kidney disease and until I do, I find no problems with eating twice the RDA for sodium some days. Someone who has moderate to severe hypertension really aught to watching their sodium. While it's not necessarily "unhealthy" for me to eat a lot of sodium, it can be quite "unhealthy" for someone else too. This is why it is an exercise in futility to classify individual foods as clean and dirty, or healthy and unhealthy. It's completely subjective and in the end, it's how those foods fit together in a total diet and how that total diet complements the individuals needs that matter.
Healthy eating includes watchingcholesterol, sodium, fat content and sticking to lean, white meats. You won't be able to eat too many of those eggs sticking to All Healthy, All The Time.
I completely disagree with this. There are too many high calorie choices that could be considered "healthy". If I ate grass fed steak, eggs, almonds/almond butter, milk, avocados, coconut oil, bananas, natural peanut butter, oats, granola, etc I could easily eat above my maintenance, and my maintenance is over 3000 calories. Someone with a smaller maintenance could do it even easier.When I began, I was advised to eat healthy, exercise and not worry about anything else. I had special restrictions in addition to that, but could eat all the fruits and veggies my little heart desired.
Without logging, counting, weighing myself or doing any of the things that are so common for weight loss, I lost my first forty pounds. I was shocked when I found out how much I'd lost. Since my clothes got bigger and too big, I knew I'd lost, but was FLOORED by forty pounds. I literally got off and back on the scale and considered that I might've been weighed wrong in the first place, but it would've required like a dozen people doing it wrong in six or eight different places, so there was no error.
If you eat only the healthiest of foods - all healthy, all the time - it's really hard to overeat. You'll see people here asking about how to get to 1200 eating only the healthiest of food. While it's theoretically possible, it would be very difficult to gain weight eating All Healthy, All The Time.
I'm not saying you couldn't gain weight eating whatever you choose to eat, just that people sometimes have a really hard time hitting 1200 when doing All Healthy, All The Time.
But I respect your opinion and think the boards are better when there are multiple opinions posted. Not trying to start a big fight, just clarify.
I know many MFP people do not trust:
Doctors, because they're not smart
CDC, because government lies
Health associations, like Amercian Heart, because they have an agenda
Etc.
I do trust all those people when they all say that eating healthy (as they define it) may help me avoid illness. Avoiding illness is something I'm in favor of doing!
For various reasons, they suggest avoiding certain foods and keeping the salt lower than most Americans do.
If you stick to their recommendations and only their recommendations - All Healthy, All The Time - it's hard to gain weight.
If you add a bunch of stuff that they don't recommend and call it "healthy," that's a different ball game.
If you overdo it on the sodium, you may end up regretting it later. I'm not sure where you got the info that it's cool to eat "a lot" of sodium until it causes cardiovascular problems and then cut back, but I know it is said here a lot. You may end up wishing you'd done it differently.
I don't personally care how much sodium you eat. Eat only salt all day, every day. I don't care. I'm not trying to be Right On The Internet because then I feel smarter and more confident. Just a heads up. For whatever it's worth.
I'm posting this as FYI and not attempting to begin a Link Duel. I'm not suggesting it makes me smarter or right about anything. Just in case you're interested in reading what some people - people who you may or may not trust! People you may or may not wish to hear out! - have to say:
http://sodiumbreakup.heart.org/sodium-411/sodium-and-your-health/
As the daughter of doctor for the CDC, and as someone who holds a Master's in Public Health with a specific interest in obesity studies, I think I clearly do not fall into the category of someone who thinks doctors are stupid (they're not) or mistrusts the CDC (they're right and they have extended all our lives, even though we give them so little credit).
That being said, I still agree with Vismal. Your definition of healthy is healthy (it sounds like), however it is not the only definition of healthy, and is not the only definition most doctors would give you. Healthy is a flexible term in food, exercise, and the results seen in people. The point is that eating foods that many consider healthy, without paying attention to calories, can still cause gains. An obese person who cuts out everything they consider "unhealthy" (like fried food or fast food for instance) likely will see a loss... but that is BECAUSE they are eating less calories now than it takes to maintain their obese structure. Eventually they will have to take a look at their caloric intake and output to continue to lose.
When it comes to weight loss, a caloric deficit is what matters. That's it. There are a thousand ways to achieve that deficit and many arguments on which of these tactics work best, but in the end it comes down to calories in and out.
Also, sodium... I tend to side with Vismal on that too - but that's just another great example of how healthy is a broad term and not one-size-fits-all. Sodium affects some and not others, just like sugar gives some people cavities and not others.0 -
Unless I missed something, It seems like people are disagreeing with Kalikel for things she did not even say.-1
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She's saying if you eat all "healthy" all the time, you won't gain weight.
People are parsing that and disagreeing with different parts of it.
What is "healthy"? She defined her healthy, and people disagreed with it.
As for the eating healthy all the time? I ate my version of healthy and gained weight for sure. So there's that.
"Healthy" can't outrun CICO.
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Well, obviously if you eat "right" you won't be gaining weight, since I automatically assume eating "right" means eating the right amount of calories.
More seriously – if you overeat on healthy food, you will still gain weight. What may be true is that it is harder to overeat on healthy food, thus making it harder to gain weight. Whereas a lot of stereotypically unhealthy foods – fries, burgers, pizzas – have very high calorie count and taste awesome, hence making it easier to have "just a little more…" and BOOM! You just ate another 500 calories without even noticing.
ETA: I recognise the same can be applied to "healthy" foods such as nuts or even olive oil. Hence the "may be true".0 -
mbcieslak87 wrote: »
It isn't my definition, lol. I take advice from experts.
Your definition of healthy includes sticking to lean, white, meats. That's not everyone's definition of healthy. I happen to think eating salmon, mackerel, steak, lamb, avocado, almonds, etc is perfectly healthy. This is an inherent problem with trying to "eat healthy". There is no definition of what "healthy" is. I also find no reason to pay much attention to sodium. I do not have hypertension or kidney disease and until I do, I find no problems with eating twice the RDA for sodium some days. Someone who has moderate to severe hypertension really aught to watching their sodium. While it's not necessarily "unhealthy" for me to eat a lot of sodium, it can be quite "unhealthy" for someone else too. This is why it is an exercise in futility to classify individual foods as clean and dirty, or healthy and unhealthy. It's completely subjective and in the end, it's how those foods fit together in a total diet and how that total diet complements the individuals needs that matter.
Healthy eating includes watchingcholesterol, sodium, fat content and sticking to lean, white meats. You won't be able to eat too many of those eggs sticking to All Healthy, All The Time.
I completely disagree with this. There are too many high calorie choices that could be considered "healthy". If I ate grass fed steak, eggs, almonds/almond butter, milk, avocados, coconut oil, bananas, natural peanut butter, oats, granola, etc I could easily eat above my maintenance, and my maintenance is over 3000 calories. Someone with a smaller maintenance could do it even easier.When I began, I was advised to eat healthy, exercise and not worry about anything else. I had special restrictions in addition to that, but could eat all the fruits and veggies my little heart desired.
Without logging, counting, weighing myself or doing any of the things that are so common for weight loss, I lost my first forty pounds. I was shocked when I found out how much I'd lost. Since my clothes got bigger and too big, I knew I'd lost, but was FLOORED by forty pounds. I literally got off and back on the scale and considered that I might've been weighed wrong in the first place, but it would've required like a dozen people doing it wrong in six or eight different places, so there was no error.
If you eat only the healthiest of foods - all healthy, all the time - it's really hard to overeat. You'll see people here asking about how to get to 1200 eating only the healthiest of food. While it's theoretically possible, it would be very difficult to gain weight eating All Healthy, All The Time.
I'm not saying you couldn't gain weight eating whatever you choose to eat, just that people sometimes have a really hard time hitting 1200 when doing All Healthy, All The Time.
But I respect your opinion and think the boards are better when there are multiple opinions posted. Not trying to start a big fight, just clarify.
I know many MFP people do not trust:
Doctors, because they're not smart
CDC, because government lies
Health associations, like Amercian Heart, because they have an agenda
Etc.
I do trust all those people when they all say that eating healthy (as they define it) may help me avoid illness. Avoiding illness is something I'm in favor of doing!
For various reasons, they suggest avoiding certain foods and keeping the salt lower than most Americans do.
If you stick to their recommendations and only their recommendations - All Healthy, All The Time - it's hard to gain weight.
If you add a bunch of stuff that they don't recommend and call it "healthy," that's a different ball game.
If you overdo it on the sodium, you may end up regretting it later. I'm not sure where you got the info that it's cool to eat "a lot" of sodium until it causes cardiovascular problems and then cut back, but I know it is said here a lot. You may end up wishing you'd done it differently.
I don't personally care how much sodium you eat. Eat only salt all day, every day. I don't care. I'm not trying to be Right On The Internet because then I feel smarter and more confident. Just a heads up. For whatever it's worth.
I'm posting this as FYI and not attempting to begin a Link Duel. I'm not suggesting it makes me smarter or right about anything. Just in case you're interested in reading what some people - people who you may or may not trust! People you may or may not wish to hear out! - have to say:
http://sodiumbreakup.heart.org/sodium-411/sodium-and-your-health/
As the daughter of doctor for the CDC, and as someone who holds a Master's in Public Health with a specific interest in obesity studies, I think I clearly do not fall into the category of someone who thinks doctors are stupid (they're not) or mistrusts the CDC (they're right and they have extended all our lives, even though we give them so little credit).
That being said, I still agree with Vismal. Your definition of healthy is healthy (it sounds like), however it is not the only definition of healthy, and is not the only definition most doctors would give you. Healthy is a flexible term in food, exercise, and the results seen in people. The point is that eating foods that many consider healthy, without paying attention to calories, can still cause gains. An obese person who cuts out everything they consider "unhealthy" (like fried food or fast food for instance) likely will see a loss... but that is BECAUSE they are eating less calories now than it takes to maintain their obese structure. Eventually they will have to take a look at their caloric intake and output to continue to lose.
When it comes to weight loss, a caloric deficit is what matters. That's it. There are a thousand ways to achieve that deficit and many arguments on which of these tactics work best, but in the end it comes down to calories in and out.
Also, sodium... I tend to side with Vismal on that too - but that's just another great example of how healthy is a broad term and not one-size-fits-all. Sodium affects some and not others, just like sugar gives some people cavities and not others.
Thank you for an expert opinion. Now, will anyone listen...
I've always said the number one thing for health improvement is to get to a healthy weight.0
This discussion has been closed.
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