Counting Cals vs Body's Natural Instinct

I think if i was able to tell when i was naturally 'topped off' calorie wise....i wouldnt be on MFP to lose weight.

I'll stick to calorie counting so i KNOW how much i have consumed. Not hope Im interpreting my bodies signals correctly.

Growing up in a poor-financial family, it has been ingrained in my mind not to waste any food. And it is always carb-heavy. So I always try to eat whatever's on the plate.

And nowadays if I wait till my body says full, I can eat a whole 6 pcs pizza, with close to 2000 calories. I log to avoid doing this again.

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I've never been a fan of counting calories either, but if I listened to my "internal calorie counter," I would never stop eating or gaining weight. I need to track everything I eat so I can interpret my body's signals correctly. Basically, I log and eat my meals, then wait about 15 minutes to see how I feel...hungry or satiated. Tracking helps me control how much I eat. As tedious as it is, it works.

My guess is that the vast majority of people are born with a reliable switch but that early programming (clean your plate!) and living in a culture where we're absolutely surrounded with inexpensive, highly processed food full of fat and sugar that has been intentionally engineered to make us want to eat more and more short circuits that switch at a very early age. In most people anyway. As @ElkeKNJ said, very few people overeat broccoli.

Nature vs nuture. We might all have it when we are born, but for some of us, it gets 'broken' when we grow up.

That's why there are naturally thin people with great self control and people who like to overeat on delicious foods. If you have a weight problem, it's fair to say that your 'natural satiety instinct' is FUBAR.

It actually reminds me of advice I was reading when I got my kids... that babies naturally stop drinking milk when they are full, but when moms add rice to their bottle to make them sleep longer, it messes it up and they will just learn to overeat.

Got to wonder if there's truth to it now. Of course all the moms I know who did that say it was BS, but who knows.

Francl27 wrote: »

It actually reminds me of advice I was reading when I got my kids... that babies naturally stop drinking milk when they are full, but when moms add rice to their bottle to make them sleep longer, it messes it up and they will just learn to overeat.

Got to wonder if there's truth to it now. Of course all the moms I know who did that say it was BS, but who knows.

I absolutely refused to put anything in my kids' bottles except for formula or milk. I always said If babies were ready to eat solid food, they could eat it from a spoon. With a sample size of 2 (lol) both my kids are at a great weight and stop eating when they are full. Who knows, they may have been this way even if i had put cereal in their bottles....but i look at all my friends who did that and all their kids are overweight, from the youngest, a 1 year old, to the oldest, to a 7 year old.

I did get a lot of nagging and forceful pressure to add stuff to my kids' bottles, though.

i think the "fullness" feeling is your brain responding to how much is in your stomach and not the nutrient content of what you eat. Foods today are so dense in calories, you could eat something that is the size of your fist and not be full but it would contain almost half your days worth of calories in it.

fat2fitaddict wrote: »

So I have never really been a fan of counting calories..until recently..about 2 months ago. But something I read the other day hit me pretty good and so I wanted to get your take on it as well!

The article was long and detailed but it basically stated that we as humans have a natural "cut off" or "calorie counter" built into us and that we should eat until full and that our bodies will tell us when to cut off the feed! It went on to even say that counting cals in his opinion was a eater disorder within itself. The article concluded by stating that the problem with obesity isn't that our internal cut off alarm doesn't work, but rather that we fail to listen to it and adhere by it. He also stated that it's not always our faults as foods today (sugary, additive, etc) are basically hijacking and short circuiting our system. Causing us to continue eating after we have had enough.

What's your thoughts on this? Should we be "less conscience" on cals and MORE CONSCIENCE on our internal switch?

It all comes down to how serious you are about your program, how precise you want your results to be, and what exactly you define as ”counting calories” in the first place.

What exactly are calories anyway?

Calories are simply a measurement of the total amount of energy contained in the foods you eat.

If your goal is to burn fat, you need to create a calorie deficit by burning more calories than you consume. If your goal is to build muscle, you need to create a calorie surplus by consuming more calories than you burn (as some of you, may already know). It's all about the numbers.

This is the most foundational, fundamental dietary principle there is and it must be followed if you want to see progress. It’s not that cut and dry, though. There is also an optimal range that you’ll want to hit in order to achieve the best results. If you’re not counting calories in any real way, there’s a decent chance you’ll get the deficit/surplus aspect met (though even this fails in a lot of cases), but a pretty good chance that it won’t be in the optimal range.

What are the consequences of this?

Well, if your goal is fat loss, and your deficit is less than 15-20%, you simply won’t lose fat at your maximum potential. If it’s greater than 15-20%, you’ll still lose fat, but you’ll also lose an excessive amount of lean muscle tissue in the process.

If your goal is muscle gain, and your surplus is less than 15-20%, you won’t gain muscle at your maximum potential. If it’s greater than 15-20%, you’ll still gain muscle, but you’ll also gain an excessive amount of fat as well.

This is where counting calories comes into play. It’s a way to hit your diet with precision so that you:

a) Maximize fat loss while minimizing muscle loss.

Or

b) Maximize muscle gain while minimizing fat gain.

If you simply “wing” your diet, it’s going to be pretty hard, if not impossible to accomplish this.

One thing is for sure though, you definitely need some sort of system in place where you understand what your daily calorie/protein/carbohydrate/fat needs are and have a reasonably accurate idea of what you’re taking in through your diet. Otherwise, you’re just shooting darts with a blindfold.

Try to completely “wing” your diet and there’s a very good chance that you’ll be burning fat or building muscle well below your potential (or losing muscle/gaining fat to an excessive degree), or even worse, wasting your time in the gym altogether.

Proper fitness nutrition is not rocket-science, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that calories don’t matter. If you truly want to achieve an impressive, head-turning body, they absolutely do.

In the end, It’s really up to you. It depends how serious you are about your results and how much effort you're willing to put into your diet.

One of the reasons I have to count calories is that my "natural instinct" is to eat until I'm uncomfortably full, or until there's nothing left in sight to consume!