Obsessed with Counting Calories
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janejellyroll wrote: »neiltillbrook wrote: »I've used MyFitnessPal.com for a while, on and off, with my most recent stint seeing me drop 3.5 stone over the last six months. However, family and friends are starting to imply I've become obsessed with counting calories.
Obviously, I need to count them in order to make sure I'm staying on track, but I also don't want to let calorie counting consume me. For example: If I can't find the nutritional information for something, a majority of the time I won't eat it.
What do people do when you can't find the information on something, do you put it down and walk away, or do you just accept it's not going to be 100% right all the time and just enjoy it - even though the difference could be 10-100 calories difference in some cases.
In my book, that (bolded) is being obsessive, so you may need to really work on that before it consumes your eating habits.
As far as your question of what to do when I can't find the information on line or in the MFP database. I just eat less. I don't log or estimate the calories because know that it would not be accurate. Just increase exercise, don't eat all the exercise calories and/or carry a bigger deficit during the week to compensate for more caloric intake during the weekend.
Question: wouldn't you want to log *something* even as a placeholder value so it doesn't look like you're way under for the day in question? Your log is your log, obviously, but I like having something there at least. My estimate is still going to be more accurate than "0."
Nope! Since I am in maintenance estimates don't mean much to me. And honestly, I had the same approach before maintenance. I do write in the comment section of my food diary what I had and where I ate, but that is all. For the most part, I do know if I am under or over and as long as the scale and my clothes are good to me, I am fine with this approach.
Thanks for sharing your approach. I like to hear about all the different ways that people make logging work for them.1 -
@janejellyroll
Thank you Jane. I need to add that I am old, short and petite and that I only had about 12 lbs to lose when I joined MFP over seven years ago. Since I never had a weight problem before and I am not a foodie, losing and maintaining was/is not too much of a problem. Although I still weigh and log my home made food.0 -
cmriverside wrote: »I can throw a huge wrench in all this, I think
Those packages? Yeah - the exact calorie count can be off by as much as 20%, by law. Are you weighing everything? Even those prepared meals? Breads? Cereals? Everything? Doubtful.
I don't buy a lot of pre-prepared foods other than yogurt, bread, and some dressings. I weigh out all my home-prepared recipes and meals on a food scale, etc. I think it's a good thing to learn to do so that you can gauge a serving of any type meal.
It isn't an exact science. When you accept that - errors and all - you'll be better able to look at the Big Picture. I accept that I am making a couple hundred calories worth of errors on any given day, and that is how it is. Even using a food scale. I forget a bite here and there, add too much or too little to the food diary. Whatever. I'm still the same weight.
I do remember in the beginning of this I wanted so badly to get everything exactly right. It just isn't that way, doesn't need to be, and isn't possible.
Relax. Jump on the body-weight scale, do the best you can.
Not to mention that your "calorie out" estimate is even more of a crap shoot, especially if you're trying to factor in cardio burns. The only way to really get a good handle on things is to find out what works. If you're losing weight at a steady pace, keep it up. If not, make some adjustments until you are.2 -
You can use your scale as your logger. If your weight goes up eat less. Less accurate than logging everything but much easier and it has worked for me for a couple of years.2
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I think having a new year's resolution to work on accepting some uncertainty in your logging could be a wonderful idea. As people have mentioned above, both calories in and calories out are always estimates; there's no way to be 100% accurate in measuring either of those variables. That means you're already living with inaccuracy and uncertainty, but you're sort of artificially convincing yourself that it doesn't exist.
Could you start by doing something like taking one day per week where you don't measure your food so exactly, or eating one meal per week where you can't log it accurately? Keep watching your overall weight trend and adjust if necessary, but purposefully introduce something that can't be logged to the degree of accuracy that you're using now. One meal isn't enough to derail your weight loss (assuming that you make intelligent choices and don't use it as an excuse to overindulge).
Some techniques you could use include:
*Eyeballing or using measuring cups/spoons (still tracking, but more loosely than you are now)
*Choosing an entry that basically matches what you ate (I do this when I eat at independent restaurants that don't post nutritional information -- I just choose basically the same thing but from a chain restaurant and figure that it's more or less accurate)
*Just plain guesstimating and using a Quick Add2 -
neiltillbrook wrote: »@cmriverside: Yeah, I remember reading and seeing on some programs that the information on packages can legally be off to a certain degree, and that they average out over time. I weight things like cereal, frozen veg, and anything that can be portioned (chips, etc.) not slices of bread, ready meals or things already in a portion (chicken burger).
I think that's the mentally I need to focus on. I need to accept that, though I weight a good 90%+ of the things I eat, that the details aren't always going to be accurate and day-to-day I'm likely to be a little up, then down.
@TavistockToad: I logged in the first week, but I haven't since Christmas Day. In the first week I'd put on a couple of lbs, but I expected that to happen. On a regular week I might lose, or not, or put on a 1lb, so it varies from week to week, but all in all it's a steady decrease over the six months I've been logging this year.
Before you say anything, I know that points to me doing all the right things, and I know I know that - it's just the niggling doubts in the back of my mind that stop me from focusing on it.
use your results to nullify your doubts, you're doing so awesome...and yeah i don't think stopping counting is the answer. EVERY TIME i stopped, i regained weight! counting calories and weighing yourself daily or at least weekly are the keys to long term success...1 year, 5 years, 10 years from now. my dad lost weight 7 years ago and still counts daily. he just gets as close as he can when logging, and doesn't worry about it, because the results speak for themselves. i think in time your doubting demons will lessen, and you'll know it's not exact, but you are close enough to meet your body's needs and reach your goals!2 -
I have an interesting observation to add to this post. For my first 6 months on MFP, I didn't own a food scale. I simply logged my best "guestimates" of food portions. Nonetheless, I managed to lose 12 lbs over 3 months using this method, while also going to the gym regularly. I've been on maintenance since September.
For Christmas, I finally received a digital food scale. For curiosity's sake, I spent the last two days checking the weight of ingredients in some of my routine meals (shredded wheat at breakfast and spinach and avocado salad at lunch, for example).
I was surprised by how far off my "guestimates" were. 1 cup of shredded wheat wasn't 47 grams, it was 70! That banana that I thought was 6-6.5 inches long was much smaller once the peel was removed. My 75 gram avocado was actually 100 grams.
In my case, I assume that these mistakes must have evened themselves out over the course of 6 months. I lost the 12 lbs and managed to maintain my weight between 132 and 134 these past few months, although I have to admit that I didn't eat back any of my exercise calories most of the time.
Even so, there's a lesson to be learned here: buy a food scale if you're serious about losing weight. No one can accuse you of being obsessive if you've been trying to cut back on your portions, but just can't seem to make any headway simply by eyeballing it.2 -
neiltillbrook wrote: »@cmriverside: Yeah, I remember reading and seeing on some programs that the information on packages can legally be off to a certain degree, and that they average out over time. I weight things like cereal, frozen veg, and anything that can be portioned (chips, etc.) not slices of bread, ready meals or things already in a portion (chicken burger).
I think that's the mentally I need to focus on. I need to accept that, though I weight a good 90%+ of the things I eat, that the details aren't always going to be accurate and day-to-day I'm likely to be a little up, then down.
@TavistockToad: I logged in the first week, but I haven't since Christmas Day. In the first week I'd put on a couple of lbs, but I expected that to happen. On a regular week I might lose, or not, or put on a 1lb, so it varies from week to week, but all in all it's a steady decrease over the six months I've been logging this year.
Before you say anything, I know that points to me doing all the right things, and I know I know that - it's just the niggling doubts in the back of my mind that stop me from focusing on it.
use your results to nullify your doubts, you're doing so awesome...and yeah i don't think stopping counting is the answer. EVERY TIME i stopped, i regained weight! counting calories and weighing yourself daily or at least weekly are the keys to long term success...1 year, 5 years, 10 years from now. my dad lost weight 7 years ago and still counts daily. he just gets as close as he can when logging, and doesn't worry about it, because the results speak for themselves. i think in time your doubting demons will lessen, and you'll know it's not exact, but you are close enough to meet your body's needs and reach your goals!
There are many people in maintenance in this forum that don't log anything at all or very sporadically, and they are very successful. And there are other members that gained weight after they stopped weighing and logging their food. We are all different so you can not say that the only way is to log for ever. Sorry that it didn't work for you.
I have been in maintenance for over 7 years and I log sporadically and without much accuracy and I have been keeping my weight within 2 lbs. I don't consider myself a special snowflake.4 -
I think I am somewhere in between. I am in my maintenance. I also enjoy eating out a few times per month and I know that I cannot know the exact calories in something unless I prepare it myself. I try not not to eat on a whim. If I am going to eat out I like to know what I am going to eat and therefore have some idea of the calories. Sometimes I do feel like I cannot enjoy food because I am thinking of the amount of calories. I do not offer calorie amounts to others, but everyone that knows me knows that I am conscious of calories. It does not bother them though. I do not know why, but the hardest thing for me to enjoy is a big burger and fries. Even if if fits in my calories for the day. I may have one every couple of months if I really want it. For me it also makes it more pleasurable if I do not make decadent food items part of my regular menu. I enjoy them more when I do not have them all the time, but I must have some type of chocolate every day.1
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do it long enough and you get pretty good at estimating.0
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...Said me never.neiltillbrook wrote: »...For example: If I can't find the nutritional information for something, a majority of the time I won't eat it...
I guesstimate it, call it good, and enjoy every bite of it.neiltillbrook wrote: »...What do people do when you can't find the information on something, do you put it down and walk away, or do you just accept it's not going to be 100% right all the time and just enjoy it - even though the difference could be 10-100 calories difference in some cases.
I'm certainly not that fast and loose with it all the time, but on the occasions we go out to eat or go to a party or something where nutritional information is all going to be a loose guesstimate, I don't sweat it. Throughout my weight loss I eyeballed a lot of things and went off the information on food packages (which are allowed up to a 20% error by law) - if we're eating at home I usually use a food scale on calorie-dense items where a little error can make a big difference, or things that are hard to visually estimate, but even that wasn't an "all the time" thing. I'm down over 70 pounds and in maintenance since September of last year, so I guess I can say it worked for me.3 -
...Said me never.neiltillbrook wrote: »...For example: If I can't find the nutritional information for something, a majority of the time I won't eat it...
I guesstimate it, call it good, and enjoy every bite of it.neiltillbrook wrote: »...What do people do when you can't find the information on something, do you put it down and walk away, or do you just accept it's not going to be 100% right all the time and just enjoy it - even though the difference could be 10-100 calories difference in some cases.
I'm certainly not that fast and loose with it all the time, but on the occasions we go out to eat or go to a party or something where nutritional information is all going to be a loose guesstimate, I don't sweat it. Throughout my weight loss I eyeballed a lot of things and went off the information on food packages (which are allowed up to a 20% error by law) - if we're eating at home I usually use a food scale on calorie-dense items where a little error can make a big difference, or things that are hard to visually estimate, but even that wasn't an "all the time" thing. I'm down over 70 pounds and in maintenance since September of last year, so I guess I can say it worked for me.
i do the same thing. but i also think thats only effective (at least in my case) when youve actually weighed and logged your food for a considerable time period, and KNOW what youre looking at. i dont advise someone new to it to do it that way
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callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »
...Said me never.neiltillbrook wrote: »...For example: If I can't find the nutritional information for something, a majority of the time I won't eat it...
I guesstimate it, call it good, and enjoy every bite of it.neiltillbrook wrote: »...What do people do when you can't find the information on something, do you put it down and walk away, or do you just accept it's not going to be 100% right all the time and just enjoy it - even though the difference could be 10-100 calories difference in some cases.
I'm certainly not that fast and loose with it all the time, but on the occasions we go out to eat or go to a party or something where nutritional information is all going to be a loose guesstimate, I don't sweat it. Throughout my weight loss I eyeballed a lot of things and went off the information on food packages (which are allowed up to a 20% error by law) - if we're eating at home I usually use a food scale on calorie-dense items where a little error can make a big difference, or things that are hard to visually estimate, but even that wasn't an "all the time" thing. I'm down over 70 pounds and in maintenance since September of last year, so I guess I can say it worked for me.
i do the same thing. but i also think thats only effective (at least in my case) when youve actually weighed and logged your food for a considerable time period, and KNOW what youre looking at. i dont advise someone new to it to do it that way
No, it's not a great idea for newbies. But sometimes people are very resistant to the idea of weighing/logging, and at that point I say try eyeballing and see how it works for you. Then if you're not losing weight, you know why and you know what you need to do.
OP is completely to the other extreme, though.0 -
I usually log 3 big mac meals on days where I dont want to do real logging and dont feel inclined to be healthy anyway
it's about 2x my normal daily calories so thats plenty for me unless I eat chips all day...it also reminds me that I was not healthy that day.
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neiltillbrook wrote: »@cmriverside Like most people I've tried several diets, but calorie counting is the only thing that's ever really worked for me, too. See, I've never really prepared my own foods that aren't either a ready meal or frozen things that I can throw in the oven. I know that's because they've nutritional information on and at least that way I know what I'm eating is the right information.
You're actually better off making your own meals and using the recipe builder.
Packaged foods and ready meals calories can be up to 30% off on the nutrition label.1 -
I'm the same, I don't like to eat something if I don't know the nutritional values as I can't log it accurately. Using an estimation or substitution makes me anxious in case I have underestimated. Counting calories is the only thing that works for me and being sloppy about it will hinder my progress so on the rare days I use estimations I count this as my maintenance day.0
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As someone who had a severe eating disorder, I'd definitely say working on being more flexible is a good goal. If you under or overestimate on something while you're out, you'll likely at most be off by a couple hundred, which over the course of a week if it's once or twice won't make that big of a difference. Worst case is you lose a tiny bit slower that week or whatever. It's no big deal.1
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I bring up the analogy of balancing a checkbook when discussing this.
You would think me insane if you found out that I had no clue how much I had in my financial accounts. Budgeting calories is the same idea although the ramifications associated with eating are slow reacting and take months/years before we are faced with the consequences.
As for accuracy or precision...how much is required? BMR is an estimation as is calorie usage, but the degree of error is marginal when applied to the overall formulae.0
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