I understand and then I don't (scales and weighing and calorie worrying)
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OP, you have 2,200 cals to work with. You seem to be aiming for a 1,000 cal deficit. So even if you are off by 300 cals, you will lose weight at a good clip.
I am a smaller woman at a healthy weight. My maintenance is 1700 cals, so I only shoot for a 250 cal deficit. When I was eyeballing, I didn't lose weight, because after 50 cals here and 50 cals there, my deficit was gone.
Eyeballing how much pasta to put on my plate, or putting my plate on a food scale and adding pasta until I see the right number take basically the same amount of time. I would guess I maybe spend an extra 5 minutes a day using the scale, at most.
As far as "sticking with what I know, and not expanding", what I "knew" was eyeballing and measuring cups. I "expanded" to using the food scale. And now I am much better at eyeballing when at a restaurant or someone else's home. But I am a very number oriented person, so when I have access to the food scale I LIKE to use it.30 -
I don't weigh either, but I understand how, mainly to people that are counting calories and still not losing, that it can be beneficial. Instead of weighing my food, I just don't add in my exercise calories. And I try to overestimate my calorie intake vs underestimate. It works for me, but if it didn't then I would definitely invest in a food scale and go from there.7
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endlessfall16 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »endlessfall16 wrote: »OP, I already saw this side a few weeks in. I realize the body is really good at managing surplus and deficit and in a lot longer than 24 hours. I stopped weighing foods after 2 months in. It's unnecessary to be precise with 1xxx calories. Life (at least mine) is much more spontaneous and up/down than such precision. I have enough worries and I don't need another worry about calories. All the work and concern about foods are pale in comparison to a bit of effort used for self control around foods.
That said, everyone is different. Many people are comfortable with what they only know and not expanding. It's good that they are losing weight with what they learned on first day. You don't have to, and you cannot, understand everyone's tendencies.
Choosing to weigh doesn't mean that one is only comfortable with what they know and not expanding. It just means they have found a method that works for them.
I don't know if there are "tendencies" to "understand" as much as there are different methods that people can choose based on their lifestyle, goals, and preferences.
It's controversial when intelligence or capability is discussed. So we better not go there. But think about this, as most things in life there tends to be superior ways and rudimentary ways. Do you think all fit people need to weigh? The answer is obviously No. If people could get fit without weighing, do you think they would take that option? Yes.
I do get this comment..
But, with MFP it is all about numbers.. Everything is about the numbers. Has nothing really to do with getting fit per se, etc....
If you hate numbers or math, then calorie counting is the absolutely wrong thing for you to be doing and should find an alternate way to achieve your goals.
Why OP is doing something he despises is what I do not understand.
There is always more than one way to get to the destination or to the end result, it is what you choose to get you there and the path you choose!3 -
I'm glad you've found a way that works for you and that you find sustainable.
For me, weighing stuff is kind of a way of life now. It doesn't bother me.
However I've got other factors at play too - weighing helps me be accurate with my carb count which helps me manage my type 1 diabetes better so I have a bigger payoff to the time invested in weighing things out.
Great work on getting more activity into your routine, it sounds like you're doing all kinds of good things for your health.
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My maintenance calories are 1445. I need to be SUPER vigilant about my intake and 50 calories off here and there DOES add up. I have tried not weighing my food on numerous occasions and have always gained weight. Unless I workout a crap ton, I can't eat a lot of food, and every calorie needs to be accounted for.
For me, it isn't overdoing it. It's a fundamental part of my lifestyle change.
Color me surprised when the steak I weighed last night was 13.8 oz. I estimated it at 8 oz. That's a calorie difference of 377. A quarter of my maintenance calories.13 -
My initial run with MFP I lost about 90 +/- pounds. Life stuff happened and I stopped logging and hitting the gym. However, I thought I "had" this thing. For the most part, I paid attention to what I thought I was eating, with a lot of eyeballing and guessing.
Fast forward to today. While I never gained all the weight back, I did gain a large chunk of it back. I've started tracking again and it has made the difference, down 20ish pounds in the last 2-2 1/2 months. Do I weigh everything? Nope. But I do make it a habit of weighing most things. I don't weigh pre-packaged food of the single serving variety, but if it's something where I only eat part of it, then yes, I weigh it when I am at home and have the scale handy. I'll never be one of those who brings a scale out to a restaurant...it's just not THAT important to me. I'll either not log it, count it as one of those days, and move on. The goal is to have more logged days than not logged days.
I still haven't gotten back in the gym, but tracking my food is what is currently working. I could probably lose more or eat more if I started back in the gym, I'm just...to be honest...too lazy for that at the moment. I don't want to take the time out to get it done. That's all on me. I'm in no hurry and so far what I'm doing is working; when it stops working, I'll do something else.
People lose weight different ways. That's not to say that it's still not calories in/calories out, but the way they go about CI/CO is different. Keto, paleo, IIFYM, vegan, etc., the goal is the same. The bottom line is to find what works for you, and when it stops working, change it up a little until you find something that you can maintain. Personally, I found what works for the dropping portion of the game, it's the maintaining that I need to work on.3 -
cmcollins001 wrote: »My initial run with MFP I lost about 90 +/- pounds. Life stuff happened and I stopped logging and hitting the gym. However, I thought I "had" this thing. For the most part, I paid attention to what I thought I was eating, with a lot of eyeballing and guessing.
Fast forward to today. While I never gained all the weight back, I did gain a large chunk of it back. I've started tracking again and it has made the difference, down 20ish pounds in the last 2-2 1/2 months. Do I weigh everything? Nope. But I do make it a habit of weighing most things. I don't weigh pre-packaged food of the single serving variety, but if it's something where I only eat part of it, then yes, I weigh it when I am at home and have the scale handy. I'll never be one of those who brings a scale out to a restaurant...it's just not THAT important to me. I'll either not log it, count it as one of those days, and move on. The goal is to have more logged days than not logged days.
I still haven't gotten back in the gym, but tracking my food is what is currently working. I could probably lose more or eat more if I started back in the gym, I'm just...to be honest...too lazy for that at the moment. I don't want to take the time out to get it done. That's all on me. I'm in no hurry and so far what I'm doing is working; when it stops working, I'll do something else.
People lose weight different ways. That's not to say that it's still not calories in/calories out, but the way they go about CI/CO is different. Keto, paleo, IIFYM, vegan, etc., the goal is the same. The bottom line is to find what works for you, and when it stops working, change it up a little until you find something that you can maintain. Personally, I found what works for the dropping portion of the game, it's the maintaining that I need to work on.
I agree with most of your post, just want to point out that veganism isn't a weight loss plan. It's an ethical position. The goal is to avoid unnecessary animal exploitation, not to lose weight.1 -
You are 100% right of course but, a food scale is $10 and makes it easy for me to portion about my food. This way I eat a single serving instead of entire bag of chips. It's about the same effort to just put the bowl on the scale and toss some in so why not? If I'm eating an entire container of something or if im out I don't fret using the estimate on the label but,if I'm portion controlling at home and I'm not going to create an extra dish to wash it's not really any extra effort and it saves me from over indulging4
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I lost 100 pounds 3-4 years ago and never weighed a thing, I lost another 50 with a food scale, but I bought the food scale mostly because I couldn't be bothered to wash measuring spoons/cups all the time! lol. So, I agree, in my experience, weighing your food does not make or break you. I'm sure I ate muffins and sandwiches and whatever else on a daily basis with double the amount of calories they were supposed to have according to weight, but the pounds kept coming off. I ate out at restaurants 4-5 times a week and relied on the calories posted online.
I do weigh my food now. I'm just a bit more cautious the second time around and want to make sure my projected deficit is where I want it to be. But this post also reminds me that it's okay to "let go" sometimes. Actually I was thinking today when I put 3 grams of honey in my cottage cheese and 5 grams of sriracha on my black beans for lunch and I logged a whopping 11 calories for those two addititions. Silly. I could forget to log that every day, for every meal, and not be affected.
Edit:
Just wanted to add that I think, for me, it's bordering on obsession and eating disorder territory to weigh individual packages of food like a bag of chips or a tub of yogurt. My food scale is primarily used for things that need to be portioned out (like chips from a family sized bag or homemade recipes) or veggies, meats, cheese, rice etc. I was told to weigh slices of a bread because they could be wildly off, but at least with the brand I'm using, every single slice has been spot on. I don't bother with it anymore.7 -
If you're losing, then it's not an issue. The problem comes when people are closer to their goal weight, think they are logging accurately, when in reality it's very easy to eat several hundred more calories than they think they are every day which adds up really quickly.4
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My first 45 pounds came off in 4 months! The next 15 also took 4 months.
I spent my working career attempting to quantify many mathematical puzzles. One was "what happens on the computer that runs slowly with 5000 users if we add another 1000"?
What I learned was to be very accurate with what I could actually measure, there are always plenty of variables that will need to be estimated.
YMMV5 -
emmylootwo wrote: »Edit:
Just wanted to add that I think, for me, it's bordering on obsession and eating disorder territory to weigh individual packages of food like a bag of chips or a tub of yogurt. My food scale is primarily used for things that need to be portioned out (like chips from a family sized bag or homemade recipes) or veggies, meats, cheese, rice etc. I was told to weigh slices of a bread because they could be wildly off, but at least with the brand I'm using, every single slice has been spot on. I don't bother with it anymore.
If I like playing with numbers and do not get stressed out about my calories, and if weighing packages of food does not keep me from eating like anyone else, does not keep me from socializing around food, does not cause me health issues, etc., how is it "bordering on obsession and eating disorder territory"?7 -
I find it very strange that you have such a strong opinion about something you seem to not care about.
If I had to guess I'd say that you are worried and bothered by the idea that you may have to start tracking your calories more accurately to continue to lose weight.
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I've got under 1400 calories per day before exercise. I started out with quite a bit more. I lost loads really fast when I weighed 40lbs more than I do now. Things change drastically as you get smaller, especially if you're female.10
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emmylootwo wrote: »Edit:
Just wanted to add that I think, for me, it's bordering on obsession and eating disorder territory to weigh individual packages of food like a bag of chips or a tub of yogurt. My food scale is primarily used for things that need to be portioned out (like chips from a family sized bag or homemade recipes) or veggies, meats, cheese, rice etc. I was told to weigh slices of a bread because they could be wildly off, but at least with the brand I'm using, every single slice has been spot on. I don't bother with it anymore.
If I like playing with numbers and do not get stressed out about my calories, and if weighing packages of food does not keep me from eating like anyone else, does not keep me from socializing around food, does not cause me health issues, etc., how is it "bordering on obsession and eating disorder territory"?
I think FOR ME it is bordering on obsession and eating disorder territory. FOR ME. I have a history of bulimia nervosa and struggle with losing weight now in a healthy mindset. Please don't "pick fights" if you're not going to read my original post.9 -
justincooper405 wrote: »I find it very strange that you have such a strong opinion about something you seem to not care about.
If I had to guess I'd say that you are worried and bothered by the idea that you may have to start tracking your calories more accurately to continue to lose weight.
That's what I said in a longer version..
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justincooper405 wrote: »I find it very strange that you have such a strong opinion about something you seem to not care about.
If I had to guess I'd say that you are worried and bothered by the idea that you may have to start tracking your calories more accurately to continue to lose weight.
That's what I said in a longer version..
That's cause I liked it Roxie
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I've never weighed or measured foods, and I only log periodically, and have lost about 50 lbs and kept it off for nearly three years. I'm currently in maintenance (after losing the baby weight from my fourth pregnancy), but I seem to still be losing about .25 lbs per week on average (I'm 142 lbs currently). I imagine that will stop eventually. For me, simply sticking to foods that promote satiety is the key (I was never a boredom eater, an emotional eater, or a stress eater, so I didn't have those concerns). Logging (based on eyeballing) shows me that my calories tend to be all over the place (as low as 1200 some days, high as 2500 others) but it all seems to average out.
That said, I found what works for me. Had I ever gotten "stuck" I would have known (thanks to this site) to start weighing and measuring to get a more accurate picture of how much I am eating. As it stands I only have a ball park guess. I think the reason that weighing gets so heavily promoted here is because there are so many "I'm eating X number of calories and still not losing" type posts, where the person is eyeballing, or using imprecise measurements (package labels, measuring cups and spoons) and so only has a ball park guess as to their true consumption. Eyeballing is great, if you are good at it (one of many useless talents I possess, lol). But most people suck at it. And no wonder - portion sizes, package sizes, heck, even plate sizes have all increased dramatically in recent years warping our sense of what a "serving" really is.
Weighing is a useful tool. One that many people use with great success. As you get closer to goal, OP, you may find that you need to use it too.2 -
To each their own. I had the same mindset as the OP when I first joined MFP. Honestly, I thought the weighers sounded a bit anal-retentive. Where would I find the time to weigh everything? Wouldn't that be a TON of work? I was wrong on all counts.
I'm so glad I started weighing my food. Weighing has not only helped me to lose weight, it helped me to maintain my weight, too.
Like the OP, I tried to estimate and overestimate the number of calories in everything I ate, but I was still underestimating the number of calories in each serving. I was eating an additional 200 to 600 calories a day. That may not sound like much, but it really adds up over time. Just 500 extra calories a day can cause you to gain approx. a pound a week. That slow creep is how I got fat in the first place. It didn't happen overnight.
I view weighing as a lifestyle change. It's something I intend to continue doing long after I reach my goal weight.9 -
Great work so far you probably have another little while before you might have to use a scale, maybe not! I think you have a great mindset. Worrying doesn't do us any good, anyway. Living a healthy life is much better than worrying.
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