Does calorie counting really work?

This may sound silly but are you eating enough sometimes if your not taking in enough especially with that exercise your body may go into starvation mode which means its holding on to the fat x...just an idea x

6 miles is AWESOME!! I'm only up to about 3! I've heard that health and losing weight is 90% what you eat, and only 10% exercise. Take a look at what you are eating.

Lost 41 here, counting calories... it is totally about what you are eating, the 6 mi/day walking is a catalyst to faster weight loss, but the trick is to create a calorie "deficit", so use this site to figure out what you should be eating each day to achieve your goals, plan your meals around that, log them, and you will lose weight! This is a marathon, not a sprint, so don't quit! I've been at it for seven months now, have 20 more to go! Depending on how much you want to lose and your age, set realistic expecations around time. Also, use the South Beach Phase II diet as an eating guide... One thing for sure that has helped me is NO ALCOHOL AT ALL. There's something about alcohol and what it does to your body, it just isn't good, for more than the obvious reasons. My husband, who also quit drinking in March, along with me, has lost 65 lbs, so in total we've lost 107 lbs in seven months! ALL BY LOWERING CALORIES/EXERCISING... no pills, no magic spells. This is the ONLY thing that truly works long term, it forces the lifestyle change that is required to keep the weight off, and no matter what, if you do something "quick" to get it off, it'll all come back and thensome. Good luck!

It definatly works but as the others said its about what you eat too. I have lost 45lb by counting cals and just moving around more (I don't really work out much)

It could be that your workouts are gaining you muscle weight, which would offset any loss on the scale. The best way to measure weight loss is in your clothes and how they fit.

Also, depending on your diet you may be retaining water. A lot of times during a prolonged exercise and diet routine, weight will fluctuate due to the seesaw effect of retaining and losing water from your body.

Welcome! Yes, it really works-- but not in a nice linear way like you might expect. Some weeks you'll gain, some weeks you'll lose several pounds, some weeks you'll maintain-- but if you eat the number of calories you should each day (it's just as important that you get enough calories as it is that you don't eat too many), then over time you'll lose the weight at about the rate that you have set. It's also important to eat your exercise calories-- so if you burn 500 calories walking 6 miles, you need to eat 500 more calories because your calories are already set to reflect a deficit.

Really, the key is to make sure that you're measuring your calories accurately. If you don't have one yet, I would strongly recommend buying a kitchen scale since that will help you ensure that you're not over or underestimating how much you're eating-- kitchen scales are fairly inexpensive, and you can find some great options on Amazon.com. If you're willing to spend a little more money, I would also recommend buying a heart rate monitor to measure how many calories you're burning when you work out-- but you can also get some really good estimates using various exercise apps if you have smartphone or can use the estimates on MFP (though they tend to be a bit high for most people).

The other thing to keep in mind is that your body weight is going to fluctuate a few pounds from day to day, depending on what you do, so don't panic if you step and the scale and seem to have gained a couple of pounds overnight. For instance, I'm generally up a couple of pounds the morning after a hard workout, after eating a higher sodium dinner, after a day with too little water, after a glass of wine the evening before, etc-- but those extra couple of pounds will be gone the next day because all of those things cause your body to retain a little more water for a while.

I've been using this for about 2 months now and if you stick with it you will see progress it works and it works well!!!

I've lost 94 pounds so far, so, yes. It works. It doesn't happen overnight. It takes time.

Seconded.

It works when YOU work. If your idea of a cup of cereal is more like 2 cups and your idea of a workout that burns 1000 calories is more like 500... then no.. it wont work.

I have lost a few pounds counting calories......... Best of Luck...... :drinker:

I'd say you have lost more than a "few" pounds! Good job on your success!

Calorie counting does work but also what those calories are are important too
2,000 calories of sugar is not the same as 2,000calories of the food groups.
Some calories help burn others, such as hot peppers

It's also harder to lose weight when you have less to lose. The last 10 pounds tend to be the hardest. Watch your sodium intake, and drink plenty of water. When I started logging every day (no matter how ugly) and tracking sodium and water, I found that besides being right close to calories, having a moderate amount of sodium (the "goal" is 2500mg, I try to stick to that but can go a bit over) and drinking 8 glasses of water, the weight started coming off better.