Are all calories the same?

spaghettiburger wrote: »

I already acknowledged that it was... why can I not respond back to people's comments??

You can respond. It just sounds like the answers you got are ones you don't want to hear. If you're confused be specific on what you're concerned about.

I'll just leave this: WEIGHT LOSS IS NOT LINEAR regardless of how consistent you think you may be.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

I'm going to say exactly what others have said, but say it in a very different way.

We/you do not have a "true body weight", now or ever.

We/you have a near term weight range (of a few pounds, depending on digestive system contents, water weight, and the like), relevant over a period of hours to days. Scale readings are momentary snapshots within this range.

We/you also have a longer term weight trend. Over weeks to months, our short term weight range is moving up (we're gaining), down (we're losing), or staying pretty consistent (we're maintaining).

The long term trend is an outcome of calories consumed and burned, pretty much entirely. Individual food choices - brown vs white rice, Snickers vs. fruit - are irrelevant to the trend. (They matter for nutrition, satiation and health - of course).

The short term weight range is influenced by many, many things, including whether we're ill or injured, have started a new workout, have hormonal fluctuations going on, drank liquids recently, sweated a lot recently, urinated a lot recently, ate a bunch of food recently, have eaten extra (not necessarily excess) carbs or sodium, have had a BM recently, and much much more. Our recent food choices affect it somewhat.

Our fat loss affects the short-term weight range only a tiny amount, compared to other factors. Often, the other factors will mask or hide our fat loss, even though fat loss is happening, perhaps masking that fat loss for days at a time.

The short term range is complicated and confusing. If you try to control it, it will drive you mad . . . so don't. These short term fluctuations are part of how a healthy functions. It's best to understand and accept that, in order to stay calm and reduce stress.

Instead, trust the process. Once you find the right calorie level, you will lose weight. You will see that loss over a longer time scale, but not day by day.

Best wishes!

spaghettiburger wrote: »

3bambi3 wrote: »

spaghettiburger wrote: »

TeaBea wrote: »

spaghettiburger wrote: »

Does it matter what you eat as long as you're within calorie limit set by mfp? I was losing weight for the first 4 days then went up .2 lbs then another 1 lb even though I've been eating my net calorie limit 1240.

1240 net calories...........how did you measure this number?

If you food intake is measured incorrectly......if you calorie burn estimates are inflated, then you are not at 1240 net calories.

Daily weight fluctuations are meaningless. Water weight fluctuates for many reasons - higher sodium day, sore muscles, hormones.....even your bathroom visits affect the scale.

You can eat anything you want for weight loss, but you may want to make changes for long term health. If I eat a higher % of "junky" calories and eating fewer calories altogether....I'm going to be hungry. Getting more "bang for my calorie buck".....more protein and more fiber, will help be stay full longer.

I'm trying to introduce noise to this question. So I'm using cookies as an example. I am trying to eat a balanced diet but the root of it was that I started at 166.6 and went these weights per day (before I get this, same time in AM, naked, after peeing, etc)

166.6, 166.0, 165.4, 165.0, 164.2, 164.0, 164.2 165.0, 165.0, 165.2

So I'm trying to ask, which some have already answered, is it that I'm eating white rice over brown rice or using a hamburger bun instead of lettuce for a bun type food choices but still within my calorie limits that's causing me to see the weight to go back up and not moving downwards. Of course I want to see progress. It's a reward for sticking with my calorie limits and saying no to additional eating.

And the difference between eating junky food versus "heathy" food is how I feel well I'm ok with that consequence for now if I don't have to theoretically eat a hamburger without a bun. My whole point here is that I'm not trying to drastically change my diet to unrealistic means where then I start binging because I didn't have 1 cookie and then get into cravings later. I rather do portion control. But if it means that I'm not losing weight because I'm eating white rice over brown rice then I'll eat the damn brown rice.

Anyway, the net calories mean the food minus exercise. I already know exercise is generally overestimating calories so I try to ignore mfp and do 100-300 calories instead of 400-600 calories eating back the exercise calories.

I'm sorry, but you've lost 1.4 pounds over 10 days. What's the problem? Seriously, stop focusing on the day to day minutia and look at overall trends.

This is the EXACT reason I did not want to include unnecessary info into this question. The amount of weight loss is not the problem here. I am seeing my weight go back up and it's been stable there for 3 days. Refer to my original question where I'm asking does it matter what I'm eating as long as I'm sticking with my calorie limit to see weight loss.

Weight fluctuations happen. Period.

You need to accept that, and move on.