Abandoned calorie counting for something else?

Over 30 years of Yoyo dieting I never counted calories and lost tons of weight over and over. It can be done.

Where I fell short was maintaining my losses. Im thinking I will have to at least do some sort of calorie counting, but I'm not sure what form it will take when I reach goal.

I am logging right now but am working on menu plans by calories. I have recipes that fall within a certain calorie count. I also have a list of snacks/desserts that will fit in. As long as I select a recipe that I know will keep me within range then at the end of the day I should be close to my allotted calories. At least in my head this will work so that I don't have to weigh and measure everything.

I do however weigh and measure my recipes and use the calculator to find the calorie content of my portions when I cook. I seldom eat out nor buy fast food but on those rare occasions when I might I will know the next day to eat a little lighter.

My activity level varies day by day so I stopped using TDEE and now just add a few calories the days that I am more active.

"Clean" is so subjective, the little things would trip me up. Nuts, nut butters, beans come to mind. "Handful" of nuts could blow 400 cals no problem, I could make dinner out of that.

I never found that processed foods accounted for most of my high cal foods (well, I guess oils and butter are processed and they have high cals). Therefore, cutting them out would make some things more of a hassle (I used to be super into making everything my self as much as possible, all "natural," etc., so I know from experience), but refusing to use canned beans or bagged spinach or frozen fruits or smoked salmon or cottage cheese or even occasionally getting lunch from a place I know has foods that fit in my plan like Pret a Manger or (local chain) Protein Bar or some such wouldn't make my calories lower. They would just make things less easy.

I found it was easy to gain weight eating as "natural" as possible (my old and IMO silly version of "clean" before I knew "clean eating" was a thing). I also could definitely gain on low carb (all the cheese I could eat? oh, yeah).

But again, as I said, it's easy enough to lose just by being mindful and cutting calories and writing things down or whatever helps you stick to it, without counting calories. Just depends on whether you have the right frame of mind or personality for it.

Also, of course, I'd say that eating healthfully you are likely to eat as many vegetables and other low cal things as "eating clean," and certainly as many as "low carb," so I'm not sure why having a specific diet would make a difference to that.

ThatUserNameIsAllReadyTaken wrote: »

It was true for me. It is easy to get 150 calories from something like potato chips or well 200-300 calories form cookies, cake, cheese dip, ice cream etc.... than it is to get those same calories from grapes, apples, jicama and the like. Some exceptions such as an avocado do exist to name just one example. Butter isn't "processed" in the same sense as some of the other things I mention. Yes there is a process but when we discuss processed food we are usually talking about the types of things that have a lot of extra ingredients added as opposed to something derived from a single source. But I do see what you are saying.

I didn't eat a lot of potato chips, dip. cookies, cake, etc. (And when I did eat cookies and so on or dip or whatever I normally made them myself, so they didn't have lots of extra ingredients added, yet they still had just as many calories.) Nor did I eat higher cal foods to the exclusion of lower cal -- I certainly ate plenty of vegetables when overeating, since to me eating vegetables has always been a requirement of an adult, healthy diet, and even when fat I tried to eat an adult, healthy diet.

I get what you are saying and I do think it's easier for a variety of reasons to keep calories down just by being mindful when doing a lot of home cooking from whole foods (although it's possible not to, just as it's possible to eat reasonable calories with lots of pre-made foods). Part of this is you are more aware of what you are eating, on average, and it's less convenient to eat, so you aren't as likely to be eating all the time/impulse eating. My pet peeve is just focusing on "processing" being the issue as opposed to choosing foods that happen to be higher in cal, whether it's a burger and fries from a restaurant or fried chicken and fries made at home (which actually is not something I ever did, since I dislike frying things, just like I never really ate cake since I dislike baking cake).

I will add, I did not necessarily say "natural" as much I said low calorie and avoiding "most" processed food. I do eat my share of goat cheese and brie (both of which can be considered "processed" as they do come from milk) but those don't usually take up any huge chunk of my calories.

No, the natural was my thing. I didn't know about "clean eating" until the past few years (and especially with MFP and some of the podcasts I listen to), but I basically was obsessive for a while about making everything from scratch and even flirting with locavore-ism, and I described it (stupidly, IMO) as being about eating "naturally." It seems like "clean eating," though, and since I know it's quite easy to eat high cal and overeat doing that (well, locavorism would be harder since seasons, but also harder to eat well because of). I think because of my particular trajectory the idea that avoiding processed foods would make a difference to calories inherently or that one must "eat clean" to eat lots of vegetables or that it would inherently lower calories is one I'm skeptical of.

Oh, and when I was on the natural kick I'd make an exception for artisan and local cheese, or good cheese in general (there is a great cheese shop not far from me), and I certainly could take up a huge chunk of calories with that, or nuts, or dried fruit (processed, but something that's easy to process yourself), if I allowed myself.

savithny wrote: »

My relative was doing GREAT on Atkins. Boasting about how easy it was and he could eat everything he wanted.

And then he got a Costco membership and started buying Costco-size buckets of nuts and other atkins-approved snacks.

It turns out that calories matter, and it is absolutely possible to eat too many of them while low-carbing or Paleoing or any of those other "don't count calories just count carbs" plans.

Nuts.... healthy, delicious and SOOO easy to overeat. I gained weight --no lie-- on the diet DH followed to lose 40 lb. precisely because, even thought it was restrictive, there was no counting. I easily overeat healthy, clean, low carb, you name it. Counting calories is the only thing that has worked for me the past 6 years (since a career change lowered my activity level).

savithny wrote: »

My relative was doing GREAT on Atkins. Boasting about how easy it was and he could eat everything he wanted.

And then he got a Costco membership and started buying Costco-size buckets of nuts and other atkins-approved snacks.

It turns out that calories matter, and it is absolutely possible to eat too many of them while low-carbing or Paleoing or any of those other "don't count calories just count carbs" plans.

this i agree with, i left MFP to try slimming world as it worked for me before ( at 20 stone so why not again? well i didnt lose 1 bit on it, turns out that with a under active thyroid, i couldnt eat "free" foods freely. everything had to be monitored. so i came back to mfp, 2 weeks in and 9 pounds lighter. boom.

calories so matter.

Even if you grew up with normal portions (and you would have to be probably over 35 to have grown up wtih normal portions), over time, "normal" gets redefined.

In 2002, I travelled to Ireland for 2 weeks. We had a lovely time, ate loads of wonderful food. Felt like we really indulged ourselves, never went hungry.

We got back late in the afternoon and had several hours to drive from the airport to home, so we stopped on the way at Friendly's. And ordered our "usual" meals. And were STUNNED at the piles of food on our plates. "Wow, portion sizes really are different in America!" we said.

And then we ate the whole thing. Because that's what you do.

We weren't hungry on half as much food while we travelled, because the portions were normal. But when offered an obscene pile of chicken covered in sugar syrup next to an obscene pile of deep fried potatoes? THat was also "normal."

IT's hard to renormalize an actual reasonable (in terms of daily consumption) portion of food after too long spent thinking US restaurant portions are what you should actually eat.

savithny wrote: »

Even if you grew up with normal portions (and you would have to be probably over 35 to have grown up wtih normal portions), over time, "normal" gets redefined.

In 2002, I travelled to Ireland for 2 weeks. We had a lovely time, ate loads of wonderful food. Felt like we really indulged ourselves, never went hungry.

We got back late in the afternoon and had several hours to drive from the airport to home, so we stopped on the way at Friendly's. And ordered our "usual" meals. And were STUNNED at the piles of food on our plates. "Wow, portion sizes really are different in America!" we said.

And then we ate the whole thing. Because that's what you do.

We weren't hungry on half as much food while we travelled, because the portions were normal. But when offered an obscene pile of chicken covered in sugar syrup next to an obscene pile of deep fried potatoes? THat was also "normal."

IT's hard to renormalize an actual reasonable (in terms of daily consumption) portion of food after too long spent thinking US restaurant portions are what you should actually eat.

I lived in Singapore for 6 years. There were a few American restaurants there (Tony Roma's, Dan Ryan's) that had "WARNING: We serve American-sized portions" on their menu. It was SO MUCH FOOD compared to anywhere else. I could never finish a meal there.

When I moved back to the US, it took about a month, but I started cleaning my plate in restaurants. I have to make a conscious effort to leave half now, and I get this sense of fake hunger if there's still food on my plate. I know I've had enough, but it seems like I need the whole thing. The tricks our minds can play on us...

I gained 10lbs about 4 years ago and panicked and became a vegetarian because I was told I could eat as much as I want as a vegetarian. I gained more weight so I cut out carbs I ended up gaining 30+lbs and was miserable. I have lost 20lbs counting calories. Some people need to count calories and others can reduce their calories by using a plan but remember it's still all about a calorie deficit no matter how you get it.

ThatUserNameIsAllReadyTaken wrote: »

It was true for me. It is easy to get 150 calories from something like potato chips or well 200-300 calories form cookies, cake, cheese dip, ice cream etc.... than it is to get those same calories from grapes, apples, jicama and the like. Some exceptions such as an avocado do exist to name just one example. Butter isn't "processed" in the same sense as some of the other things I mention. Yes there is a process but when we discuss processed food we are usually talking about the types of things that have a lot of extra ingredients added as opposed to something derived from a single source. But I do see what you are saying.

I will add, I did not necessarily say "natural" as much I said low calorie and avoiding "most" processed food. I do eat my share of goat cheese and brie (both of which can be considered "processed" as they do come from milk) but those don't usually take up any huge chunk of my calories.

On MFP, I find it helpful to say Ultra Processed and refer to the Brazilian definition: http://189.28.128.100/dab/docs/portaldab/publicacoes/guia_alimentar_populacao_ingles.pdf

I don't count. I am vegan and couldn't lose weight. Then I went WFPB (whole food plant based). Once I cut out the oil and processed food, the weight started dropping off. And I get to eat nuts and avocados every dday.