All calories may not be equal
Replies
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gonetothedogs19 wrote: »gonetothedogs19 wrote: »I was trying to make two points:
1) If calorie counting, weighing and measuring is too difficult or you just don't want to do it, start off with packaged foods, eggs, etc. that require no counting, weighing and measuring.
2) I never said counting, weighing and measuring is OCD. I said a LIFETIME of counting, weighing and measuring is OCD. You've been counting, weighing and measuring for a year and you reached your goal. That one year has trained you how to eat. And as I said above, if you gain two pounds, start counting, measuring and weighing again to lose the two pounds.
Sheesh!
Yes, you have said all that and you are still wrong.
Like I said, some of us have more goals than a healthy weight that require as much accuracy as we can accomplish. That's not OCD. That's being dedicated to something you ENJOY and working towards goals.
So when you have a salad with lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, olives, etc., you actually ENJOY weighing and measuring each of them.
Really?
I actually enjoy weighing them. I also weigh and log all my beverages. I enjoy watching my trends, seeing the numbers. And I COMPLETELY enjoyed losing 80 lbs doing it. No stress, no brain strain....in maintenance for the last four months, and I'm still weighing, logging, and enjoying doing so...and still not OCD.10 -
VividVegan wrote: »Don't know if the following OCD comment(s) was referring to my original one (that implied my diagnosed and struggle with OCD and MFP) but basically people with OCD often obsess about small things. Just like when I joined MFP and started counting every calorie, I double checked everything and became obsessive over it and its been time consuming. My step-mother has been helping me break this cycle of obsessing over things for years. She's a psychologist with a PHD. With me, the less I know, the better. It didn't hurt my progress before joining MFP anyways. My first 50 pound loss or so was completely intuitive. Have lost a few from MFP but no doubt, its harder (IMO).
Nah, I think you're okay on this one. From what I could see, what set things off was this comment:xjessicaxrx wrote: »I think if a "Newbie" was to read this thread it would scare and put them off straight away! So many judgemental, rude, aggressive people getting their back up!!
I also noticed that a lot of people on here may have developed OCD with weighing and numbers, weighing a pre packaged yogurt haha come on REALLY!
I dont take a food scale out of the house and carry it around with with me, that is just sad.
I have and I am still losing weight just fine.
...and for the record, I am one of those with the .5lb/wk 250 calorie deficit, so weighing everything is important to ensure I have a deficit. Thanks for the "diagnosis".5 -
gonetothedogs19 wrote: »DancingDaffydils wrote: »gonetothedogs19 wrote: »MissusMoon wrote: »xjessicaxrx wrote: »Let me be clear, the OCD comment was aimed at those who stress over weighing a pre-packaged, single serving yogurt just incase the calories are off by +/- 5-10kcal. Those who weigh restaurant food and pick apart meals "just incase".
Counting calories is one thing but that is just not normal behaviour.
If I weren't weighing my food, I would be eating at least 200 more calories more than I should every day. Slices of bread, cups of yogurt, packaged food that says it has "about 1.5 servings" that really has more than three. I'm far from OCD, but yeah, I'm going to weigh all of that--because having lost 75lbs is better than not.
The receptionist at my physical therapist's office and I got to talking. She used to be obese. She has peanut butter and apples for breakfast, and still weighs it all out. She's not OCD either. She's doing what she needs to do to maintain her healthy weight. Over five years and counting.
Labeling people with a mental condition because you don't understand why they do what they do is ridiculous.
If you have reached your goal weight, and five years later you are still counting every calorie and weighing and measuring everything you eat, it is OCD.
God forbid you gain two pounds. Guess what? You can start counting again and lose the two pounds.
You are clueless about OCD and you have no business speaking about it. At this point I think you are purposely being disrespectful.
I mean no disrespect and I do not mean to be argumentative. It is just beyond my comprehension that a healthy person who works out and has reached the correct weight by counting, weighing and measuring, would continue to count, weigh and measure meal after meal after meal, year after year after year.
Just enjoy your food. Weigh yourself every day. I guarantee that nothing bad will happen to you other than gaining two pounds, which you can lose right away by counting, measuring and weighing.
Sorry, but I do not understand the obsession. And it is, in my opinion, an obsession.
Just because you can't grasp the concept doesn't mean it's not useful for someone else. Personally, I only count calories when I cut. I don't when I maintain. Many of us use it in that manor. But honestly, at this point, it takes seconds to use a food scale.
In the end, calorie counting is a tool; no different than a scale, fitbit or weight bench. It's a method to the means. And many of us like quantitative data.7 -
gonetothedogs19 wrote: »DancingDaffydils wrote: »gonetothedogs19 wrote: »MissusMoon wrote: »xjessicaxrx wrote: »Let me be clear, the OCD comment was aimed at those who stress over weighing a pre-packaged, single serving yogurt just incase the calories are off by +/- 5-10kcal. Those who weigh restaurant food and pick apart meals "just incase".
Counting calories is one thing but that is just not normal behaviour.
If I weren't weighing my food, I would be eating at least 200 more calories more than I should every day. Slices of bread, cups of yogurt, packaged food that says it has "about 1.5 servings" that really has more than three. I'm far from OCD, but yeah, I'm going to weigh all of that--because having lost 75lbs is better than not.
The receptionist at my physical therapist's office and I got to talking. She used to be obese. She has peanut butter and apples for breakfast, and still weighs it all out. She's not OCD either. She's doing what she needs to do to maintain her healthy weight. Over five years and counting.
Labeling people with a mental condition because you don't understand why they do what they do is ridiculous.
If you have reached your goal weight, and five years later you are still counting every calorie and weighing and measuring everything you eat, it is OCD.
God forbid you gain two pounds. Guess what? You can start counting again and lose the two pounds.
You are clueless about OCD and you have no business speaking about it. At this point I think you are purposely being disrespectful.
I mean no disrespect and I do not mean to be argumentative. It is just beyond my comprehension that a healthy person who works out and has reached the correct weight by counting, weighing and measuring, would continue to count, weigh and measure meal after meal after meal, year after year after year.
Just enjoy your food. Weigh yourself every day. I guarantee that nothing bad will happen to you other than gaining two pounds, which you can lose right away by counting, measuring and weighing.
Sorry, but I do not understand the obsession. And it is, in my opinion, an obsession.
An opinion is just that AN OPINION! It is not based on facts in the slightest. As a counselor myself, your "diagnosis" of OCD is highly inaccurate and I agree with others that it is disrespectful. If you do not understand something, it is best to have an open mind rather than bash it and call it an obsession or OCD. Do some research before throwing out the judgements.9 -
I only "count" while losing and don't while on maintenance. But if someone must count and weigh on maintenance, then I can respect that.4
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BreezeDoveal wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »gonetothedogs19 wrote: »gonetothedogs19 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »xjessicaxrx wrote: »Let me be clear, the OCD comment was aimed at those who stress over weighing a pre-packaged, single serving yogurt just incase the calories are off by +/- 5-10kcal. Those who weigh restaurant food and pick apart meals "just incase".
Counting calories is one thing but that is just not normal behaviour.
The point about pre-packaged stuff being potentially off was a response to a poster who was claiming that it was better to change one's diet to be all packaged single-serving stuff vs. to have to weigh. IMO, saying you must use pre-packaged to count properly is way more neurotic than weighing one's foods*, and once you weigh it's not much of a hassle to weigh everything you put in a bowl or on a plate or use in cooking.
*If I were going to make such judgments, but I personally think it's wrong to do so.
I was that poster.
Bottom line - the vast majority of people fail at diets, whether they count calories or don't count calories.
My suggestion was that in order to make calorie counting easier for newbies, it would be much better to eat pre-packaged foods (including things like single-serve yogurts, cans of tuna fish and soup) or foods where you don't have to weigh or measure anything (like an egg).
It's hard enough to start any diet (which is why most people fail). Making newbies weigh and measure and obsess over calories on Day 1 makes the situation even worse, and will result in more failure.
The people here on this site who say its easy to weigh, measure and count remind me of vegans who say it's easy to be a vegan. Both are not easy.
You've revealed one of your hidden assumptions here - that the failure of newbies is disproportionately related to being overwhelmed by weighing of food. I would say it's far more likely that the failure of newbies is disproportionately related to not being able to eat everything they want in the portions that they want, which is not resolved by limiting them to specific foods (that will still be off by hundreds of calories).
In fact, you contradicted your own assumption at the start by saying that most people fail at diets regardless of counting calories. So why would counting calories in a way that severely restricts your eating solve the problem?
You missed the point. If you want more people to join the fraternity of calories counters, it is suggested that they start out eating pre-packaged food, eggs, etc.
And another thought - You are more likely to get an accurate count that way (add 10% to the label if you want to), than doing it on your own.
And another thought - Weigh and measuring yogurt because it's in a large container? How about keeping an empty single-serve container, and scooping the yogurt from the large container into the single-serve container? No counting necessary.
Now I'm wondering if you are serious or not.
Fraternity of calorie counters? What is that?
Did we forget to show you the secret handshake? Message me and I'll fill you in. You did go through the initiation, right?
The one where you bathe in coke and get the secret motto written on your forehead in twinkie creme?
Exactly how many grams of Coke and Twinkie creme are used in this ceremony? It sounds amazing.
Now people are linking OCD and religion? This seems a natural progression.
FYI They are kidding around.2 -
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gonetothedogs19 wrote: »MissusMoon wrote: »xjessicaxrx wrote: »Let me be clear, the OCD comment was aimed at those who stress over weighing a pre-packaged, single serving yogurt just incase the calories are off by +/- 5-10kcal. Those who weigh restaurant food and pick apart meals "just incase".
Counting calories is one thing but that is just not normal behaviour.
If I weren't weighing my food, I would be eating at least 200 more calories more than I should every day. Slices of bread, cups of yogurt, packaged food that says it has "about 1.5 servings" that really has more than three. I'm far from OCD, but yeah, I'm going to weigh all of that--because having lost 75lbs is better than not.
The receptionist at my physical therapist's office and I got to talking. She used to be obese. She has peanut butter and apples for breakfast, and still weighs it all out. She's not OCD either. She's doing what she needs to do to maintain her healthy weight. Over five years and counting.
Labeling people with a mental condition because you don't understand why they do what they do is ridiculous.
If you have reached your goal weight, and five years later you are still counting every calorie and weighing and measuring everything you eat, it is OCD.
God forbid you gain two pounds. Guess what? You can start counting again and lose the two pounds.
no, it is not OCD. It is called wanting to be accurate based on said person's individual goal. Some of us have higher goals then just being an "average weight" and want to add muscle, get to a lower body fat%, etc. For those kinds of goals it takes additional precision that one can only achieve with weighing and measuring your intake.
Based on your definition of OCD anyone with a goal to a higher calling like being a college athlete, a pro athlete, a novelist, being the best at work, etc, would be OCD because they take the time to put in the extra effort, which is a ridiculous notion.10 -
This is getting silly. I started out on mfp reading packets and weighing what I normally eat. What i normally eat is a mixture of packaged and cooked from scratch. It wasn't hard. I basically learnt that the big pile of Jersey royals was all of 125kcal and not in need of cutting back, for example. DH did the same and learnt that unless he seriously cut back his bread consumption, he'd never stay within his daily target.
If you buy a single serving ready meal, it's a little pointless weighing it unless it seems really out as the proportions of many of the ingredients vary widely, anyhow. Plus, I might, say, serve myself a couple of tablespoons of fried rice, but only eat half of it, to mop up some sauce, then pick the road out of the rest and eat those. I find it safer to (over) estimate what I eat as a proportion of the packet. Being pernickety about weighing everything only works for foods that are pretty homogeneous.
(Edit, I leave the road on the side of my plate, but do eat the peas, if there's no tarmac embedded in them. Stupid autocorrect)2 -
And the kids have ocd tendencies as part of their asd. It's hellish, sometimes.1
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VividVegan wrote: »Don't know if the following OCD comment(s) was referring to my original one (that implied my diagnosed and struggle with OCD and MFP) but basically people with OCD often obsess about small things. Just like when I joined MFP and started counting every calorie, I double checked everything and became obsessive over it and its been time consuming. My step-mother has been helping me break this cycle of obsessing over things for years. She's a psychologist with a PHD. With me, the less I know, the better. It didn't hurt my progress before joining MFP anyways. My first 50 pound loss or so was completely intuitive. Have lost a few from MFP but no doubt, its harder (IMO).
Nope, I don't give pushback to people who actually have OCD and say that weighing triggers them.
It's people who throw around internet diagnoses for conditions they don't understand who get pushback.4 -
gonetothedogs19 wrote: »I was trying to make two points:
1) If calorie counting, weighing and measuring is too difficult or you just don't want to do it, start off with packaged foods, eggs, etc. that just requires counting.
2) I never said counting, weighing and measuring is OCD. I said a LIFETIME of counting, weighing and measuring is OCD. You've been counting, weighing and measuring for a year and you reached your goal. That one year has trained you how to eat. And as I said above, if you gain two pounds, start counting, measuring and weighing again to lose the two pounds.
Sheesh!
Listen you really need to stop.
There are people who reach their goal weight and can do, as you suggest, a modified version of counting weighing whatever just to stay in check.
And then there are some of us who need the accountability. Once I'm in maintenance, I don't think I'll haul my scale around with me on vacation or to restaurants (not that I would think any less of anyone who did) but I will continue weighing in my day to day. When I don't, I get a very "I don't care!" attitude about my weight and the pounds quickly pile back on. That's how I keep ending up here. I'm not proud of that fact. I'm not proud of the fact that my self control is razor thin and that I have to maintain such a strict relationship with food. And frankly your insistence that anyone who does this is "odd" just kind of reaffirms all my feelings that I'm defective and weird and bad because of my weight. Because without these tools, I fail to stay at a heathy weight.
It's not how you would do it. Fine. But you're being incredibly disrespectful and showing a wealth of ignorance on the subject of mental illness.
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gonetothedogs19 wrote: »xjessicaxrx wrote: »I think if a "Newbie" was to read this thread it would scare and put them off straight away! So many judgemental, rude, aggressive people getting their back up!!
I also noticed that a lot of people on here may have developed OCD with weighing and numbers, weighing a pre packaged yogurt haha come on REALLY!
I dont take a food scale out of the house and carry it around with with me, that is just sad.
I have and I am still losing weight just fine.
I was really stunned to learn that people take the yogurt out of the container and weigh it. The container says 120 calories, but that's not good enough. Like I said, if you are that concerned that it is an under-count, just log 135 calories.
And I agree with you. It gets to the point where it is OCD. The OCD response could be, "how can you log 135 calories when it could be 141 calories?"
No, it's not OCD. OCD is a clinical illness. There is a whole range of "detail oriented" behaviors people can have without being OCD. People suffer with OCD every day, it's be great if you don't toss around a legitimate illness as an insult to other people because you disagree with their choice of habit (weighing all food).
Just because weighing the yogurt container isn't something you want to do, doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the people who do.10 -
BreezeDoveal wrote: »BreezeDoveal wrote: »Have any of you people with OCD ever considered it is just a nutrient deficiency?
To whom are you referring? I don't believe I've seen anyone here say they have OCD.
Nice try. You're trying to make me obesseively look at all the posts to tally who does or doesn't have OCD. I see what you did there.
You can't tell who has OCD from reading their posts. Was this a joke?0 -
gonetothedogs19 wrote: »I was trying to make two points:
1) If calorie counting, weighing and measuring is too difficult or you just don't want to do it, start off with packaged foods, eggs, etc. that just requires counting.
2) I never said counting, weighing and measuring is OCD. I said a LIFETIME of counting, weighing and measuring is OCD. You've been counting, weighing and measuring for a year and you reached your goal. That one year has trained you how to eat. And as I said above, if you gain two pounds, start counting, measuring and weighing again to lose the two pounds.
Sheesh!
You failed on both counts.
1) Using pre-packaged foods could very well lead someone to over eat. Most pre-packaged foods I've weighed are well over their stated calories counts, especially my eggs--which are consistently an egg and half. With a small deficit when I was close to my goal weight, everything mattered.
2) Since no one here has been calorie counting since the day their were born, to refer to your "lifetime" term, this point is completely irrelevant. Unless you now want to debate how many years constitutes a "lifetime," it's done.
It's a shame you're still tossing around OCD like it's an insult and not a mental illness with which people must live. Please stop.4 -
JustMissTracy wrote: »gonetothedogs19 wrote: »gonetothedogs19 wrote: »I was trying to make two points:
1) If calorie counting, weighing and measuring is too difficult or you just don't want to do it, start off with packaged foods, eggs, etc. that require no counting, weighing and measuring.
2) I never said counting, weighing and measuring is OCD. I said a LIFETIME of counting, weighing and measuring is OCD. You've been counting, weighing and measuring for a year and you reached your goal. That one year has trained you how to eat. And as I said above, if you gain two pounds, start counting, measuring and weighing again to lose the two pounds.
Sheesh!
Yes, you have said all that and you are still wrong.
Like I said, some of us have more goals than a healthy weight that require as much accuracy as we can accomplish. That's not OCD. That's being dedicated to something you ENJOY and working towards goals.
So when you have a salad with lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, olives, etc., you actually ENJOY weighing and measuring each of them.
Really?
I actually enjoy weighing them. I also weigh and log all my beverages. I enjoy watching my trends, seeing the numbers. And I COMPLETELY enjoyed losing 80 lbs doing it. No stress, no brain strain....in maintenance for the last four months, and I'm still weighing, logging, and enjoying doing so...and still not OCD.
Me too! I love stats and numbers! Not a calorie counting fraternity, more like a geeky math club. #proudmember
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BreezeDoveal wrote: »BreezeDoveal wrote: »BreezeDoveal wrote: »Have any of you people with OCD ever considered it is just a nutrient deficiency?
To whom are you referring? I don't believe I've seen anyone here say they have OCD.
Nice try. You're trying to make me obesseively look at all the posts to tally who does or doesn't have OCD. I see what you did there.
You can't tell who has OCD from reading their posts. Was this a joke?
I'm not going to go tally and count who has OCD from their posts. As gonetothedogs19 points out, if I pay attention to all those little details, I'd have OCD myself. I'm not falling for SLLRunner's trick to have me give myself OCD.
This still makes no sense to me. You're not going to "give yourself" OCD by counting post, calories, stamps, pennies, petals, butterflies or anything else. Please stop mocking a mental illness.5 -
BreezeDoveal wrote: »BreezeDoveal wrote: »BreezeDoveal wrote: »BreezeDoveal wrote: »Have any of you people with OCD ever considered it is just a nutrient deficiency?
To whom are you referring? I don't believe I've seen anyone here say they have OCD.
Nice try. You're trying to make me obesseively look at all the posts to tally who does or doesn't have OCD. I see what you did there.
You can't tell who has OCD from reading their posts. Was this a joke?
I'm not going to go tally and count who has OCD from their posts. As gonetothedogs19 points out, if I pay attention to all those little details, I'd have OCD myself. I'm not falling for SLLRunner's trick to have me give myself OCD.
This still makes no sense to me. You're not going to "give yourself" OCD by counting post, calories, stamps, pennies, petals, butterflies or anything else. Please stop mocking a mental illness.
Well of course you can't from counting calories. Everyone's math is off by a factor of 1,000 anyway.
1000 is exaggerated. I've read that people underestimate ~170 calories a day. That can impact if there is a small deficit0 -
Y'all need to quit giving the kid suckers...seriously.
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I'm a "Newbie" to this site. I am weighing and measuring and over the weekend when I didn't and just ate like I did before, I gained 2 lbs. Lesson learned!! I need to weigh, measure and keep on track by keeping a log daily for each meal not trying to guess what I ate and "play catch up" at the end of 2 or 3 days. I'm back on track now and even tho it is time consuming, I am actually "enjoying" seeing myself stay within a range. It's more like a game than work. To any "Newbies" who are reading, just stay with it. It is worth the work.
MissDi
PS--It isn't OCD to stay on track and take care of yourself.7
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