Are people REALLY counting calories here?

The first few weeks of counting calories are sort of difficult. You have to find and enter almost every food you eat. Once you've been here for a bit you will have a frequent and recent food list you can pull your food from that makes it quicker to log the food. Meal prep also takes a lot more work in the beginning, but it gets easier and faster.

Nope I am just here for the pervy messages and nudz pics

Seriously though, yes, counting calories is key for me. It does take a few weeks to get used to but after that it only takes a few minutes to enter everything.

You need to know how many calories you are eating or you wont know if you are in a deficit.

4 years into maintenance (so around 5 years now), and yep, I still track my calorie intake every day. It's why I'm sitting at a bmi of around a 20 right now, and have normalized glucose numbers (used to be a prediabetic).

It's not hard at all once you get into the swing of it! It's harder at first because all your entries are new and it feels like you're constantly searching for things. As you progress, you'll find you eat a relatively finite group of main foods and the majority of them are right there in the frequent or recently used lists. The hardest part is finding accurate database entries, sometimes. I highly recommend the thread that was linked earlier.

Also, buy (and use) a food scale. They're inexpensive, and you'll be glad you did.

Make little changes here and there over time if big changes all at once seem overwhelming.

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Down 140lbs: My story.

prattiger65 wrote: »

Not being snarky OP, but if you have been overweight for a long period of time, isn't it worth some time to learn how? I can log my entire day in less than five minutes.

Yep, me too. It's the first thing i do every morning or even the night before.

OP I've been weighing and logging for nearly 3 years, it's become a normal part of my day. I don't even think about it anymore, it's just become automatic.

ETA: I have fast food very rarely, maybe once every 3-4mths if that, which does make it easier.

Yes--people really are, and you can too.

Lesismore2011 wrote: »

I just find it crazy hard. How do you all do it? I neeeed to get this 40lbs off me.

I know the biggest negatives in my diet is the daily eating out at fast food places. That combined with my lust for sweets. I like to cook but sticking to my meal plans and counting calories seem pretty impossible.

Please elaborate, what do you find 'crazy hard'?

The actual logging should be easy if you are eating fast food (already in the database),
however hitting your calorie goal may be very hard on typical FF meals.

I spend more time looking at memes while on the toilet than I do logging food on MFP. Once you've been doing it for a while and your main food choices are in you "recent" and "frequent" tabs, it's easy peasy.

mph323 wrote: »

Tiny_Dancer_in_Pink wrote: »

Try counting calories 30 years ago and you think this is hard? This is easy.

The more you do this, the easier it gets.

Haha! I used to have quite a collection of calorie books. And my little notebook for logging my calories. And no idea how many I was supposed to eat! This is like living in a futuristic science fiction book

Lol. I had a dog-eared almanac with its lists of calories at the back. In the 80's, it was all low fat or no fat and how to get a smaller butt!

When I see threads asking about how to get a bigger butt, I can't help but giggle.

I've done it on paper and then on spreadsheets - having to look up calories and calculate each macro. I usually did that for a few weeks to get an idea how I should eat. That's just way too much work.

I was planning to keep this app for a few weeks, (nearly 2 months ago) but instead of being a pain it's actually kind of fun. MFP made it very easy. I don't consider this counting.

First and foremost, do not think of it as a need. If you continue to pressure yourself and make yourself feel worse, it only gets harder. You need to want it. You have to be comfortable taking that step. Do not compare yourself to others in a negative way. If someone is doing better than you with weight loss, ask them what they do. Ask them what they've changed. Don't be afraid to reach out for support and encouragement.

Cutting fast food out of your diet completely will help a lot! I actually ate way more fast food when I lived with my parents than after I moved out and started living on my own. I'm a pretty avid cook and cooking delicious healthy meals is actually really fun and can definitely be easy! I use Pintrest a lot and I also picked up some of those super lame looking lean cooking cookbooks from my local Goodwill to just get ideas. Also, DO NOT think of it as a diet. Think of it as a life long thing. You want to be healthier overall. It makes it a little less pressuring and you feel like you can go at your own pace.

I'm overweight, and I also found the calorie counting to be a tad hard in the beginning because you need to log EVERYTHING in order to get the correct intake. But, each day it got easier. You just have to do it. No excuses. I recently found out I could search foods within the entire database and it just flipped my world upside down. Explore the app. That always helps.

Don't let that overwhelm you though. You will get that 40 lbs down, but it'll take time. Please remember to lose weight steadily and in a healthy way. Rapid weight lose is extremely unhealthy and it's much easier for you to gain it back.

Sorry for the SUPER long post. I just see a lot of people saying "it's easy" or whatever else. Yes, it indeed is easy, but what's not easy is getting over the mental blocks that happen subconsciously on the path to a healthier life.

I hope this helps you or anyone!

annacole94 wrote: »

Fast food is perfectly easy to log, and you can make good choices anywhere. I'd argue that eating fast food would be faster to log than my homemade food, as I cook new recipes frequently.

Yes. Agree completely. Logging a McDonald's Egg White Delight is way easier than a homemade scramble of egg whites, mushrooms, spinach, green onions, bacon, sour cream and salsa.

But OP - it gets much, much easier. Stick with it a bit and you'll get a lot more efficient and you'll gain a lot more insight into why, and how, you might control your weight. From the first response (Marine MP) to many others -- it gets easier, and you learn things you never even thought about trying to learn.