Healthy does not mean calorie free
dsboohead
Posts: 1,899 Member
I have been losing steady and slow and logging on MFP.
One of the ladies I work with is semi trying to lose and doesn't understand why she is not losing.
As we were eating our lunches she looked at my container of a casserole I made and yes, it was small. She said is that what your having and she then looked at her container which was quite large. I proceeded to tell her that she had close to 4 servings she was eating and I was eating a single serving.
She then replied....."but its healthy ingredients"!
I answered, but, its NOT calorie free just cause its healthy.
Do others have the concept in their minds that "healthy" "whole" "raw" "vegan" means calorie free?
My co worker sure did and I'm not sure she wanted to hear it.
One of the ladies I work with is semi trying to lose and doesn't understand why she is not losing.
As we were eating our lunches she looked at my container of a casserole I made and yes, it was small. She said is that what your having and she then looked at her container which was quite large. I proceeded to tell her that she had close to 4 servings she was eating and I was eating a single serving.
She then replied....."but its healthy ingredients"!
I answered, but, its NOT calorie free just cause its healthy.
Do others have the concept in their minds that "healthy" "whole" "raw" "vegan" means calorie free?
My co worker sure did and I'm not sure she wanted to hear it.
44
Replies
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Oh my gosh yes! Exactly this!1
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I don't think they believe it's calorie free, but they assume eating "healthy" is all that's required for weight loss33
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I don't know anyone like this in real life, but I get frustrated when I look for snack ideas on the internet that would be nice to have on a weight loss diet and I get tons of energy balls full of nuts, dates, and peanut butter. If I wanted to waste 100 calories I would save myself the hassle and buy cookies, at least I would get more than one bite out of them.44
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Sure, lots of people assume eating "healthy" is all that's required for weight loss or have the converse opinion that one can never eat [insert 'unhealthy' food here] and still lose weight.
Your coworker might find the 'calorie budget' concept helpful.9 -
I’m in the sort of opposite boat where I scoff my face with snack food at work and it freaks everyone out because they consider me to be ‘skinny’. I just make sure it fits my calories and so I don’t gain, but I guess other people don’t really know that.7
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amusedmonkey wrote: »I don't know anyone like this in real life, but I get frustrated when I look for snack ideas on the internet that would be nice to have on a weight loss diet and I get tons of energy balls full of nuts, dates, and peanut butter. If I wanted to waste 100 calories I would save myself the hassle and buy cookies, at least I would get more than one bite out of them.
Oh I have witnessed this too! Friend brought energy balls to work and were 120 calories each little ball!!! WTH!? I wanted to spit it out and wipe my tongue off....it wasnt worth it to me!17 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »I don't know anyone like this in real life, but I get frustrated when I look for snack ideas on the internet that would be nice to have on a weight loss diet and I get tons of energy balls full of nuts, dates, and peanut butter. If I wanted to waste 100 calories I would save myself the hassle and buy cookies, at least I would get more than one bite out of them.
Oh I have witnessed this too! Friend brought energy balls to work and were 120 calories each little ball!!! WTH!? I wanted to spit it out and wipe my tongue off....it wasnt worth it to me!
But it's healthy, right? lol
Seriously. Drives me nuts. So many of those 'healthy' recipes have as many calories as the normal stuff. Sure, it might be a bit more filling sometimes, but that doesn't mean it's actually worth the calories taste-wise.9 -
A lot of people have no idea that cico Works. The media and diet fitness industry have said it does not. If people succeeded at weight loss than a lot of people would be unemployed in the diet fitness industry.7
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lucerorojo wrote: »A lot of people have no idea that cico Works. The media and diet fitness industry have said it does not. If people succeeded at weight loss than a lot of people would be unemployed in the diet fitness industry.
Which is a fact I find utterly bizzare given what really a simple concept CICO really is. Your body requires energy, you get energy from food, if you get more energy than you need your body stores the excess as fat, if you get less energy than you need then your body will turn to your fat stores and utilize them. The unit of energy in common usage in the food industry is the "Calorie" (kcal). So if you track how many calories your body is using and how many calories your body is taking in you will know if you are in the process of losing, gaining or maintaining your fat stores.
That is literally all there is too it. The rest is just distractions and different means to establish a deficit.18 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »I don't know anyone like this in real life, but I get frustrated when I look for snack ideas on the internet that would be nice to have on a weight loss diet and I get tons of energy balls full of nuts, dates, and peanut butter. If I wanted to waste 100 calories I would save myself the hassle and buy cookies, at least I would get more than one bite out of them.
Oh I have witnessed this too! Friend brought energy balls to work and were 120 calories each little ball!!! WTH!? I wanted to spit it out and wipe my tongue off....it wasnt worth it to me!
But it's healthy, right? lol
Seriously. Drives me nuts. So many of those 'healthy' recipes have as many calories as the normal stuff. Sure, it might be a bit more filling sometimes, but that doesn't mean it's actually worth the calories taste-wise.
So true...but its "healthy"0 -
I was shopping with my wife one day. We bought bacon, potatoes, and I bought some candy. Malteesers or something like that. So looking at what we put on the belt, I asked her what she thought of my diet food.
It is so true that people don't get that calories drive your weight changes. I could replace all the "bad" food I had on the belt with whole food, but without knowing and watching the calories, I'd be 330 lbs again.11 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »I don't know anyone like this in real life, but I get frustrated when I look for snack ideas on the internet that would be nice to have on a weight loss diet and I get tons of energy balls full of nuts, dates, and peanut butter. If I wanted to waste 100 calories I would save myself the hassle and buy cookies, at least I would get more than one bite out of them.
Yes!
Just today I saw blueberry muffins that were 2000 kj / 500 cals.
Then there are the 200 cal muesli bars.
So many people have no concept of how many calories they need a day, or that you can manage your weight by reading calorie information on products. I know I was like that 3 years ago.12 -
lucerorojo wrote: »A lot of people have no idea that cico Works. The media and diet fitness industry have said it does not. If people succeeded at weight loss than a lot of people would be unemployed in the diet fitness industry.
It goes to show two things:
1) How clever (and deceptive) the marketing is in the diet/nutrition/fitness industry.
2) How uneducated the general population is about diet/nutrition/fitness.25 -
Calories count, so count your calories.6
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I suppose this is to do with the conflation of the concepts of health (or nutrition) and weight loss. For optimum health in the broad sense: good foods, exercise, etc. are all on the proverbial menu; the targeted issue of weight loss is simple thermodynamics. It seems that you understand this but your coworker hasn't been exposed to this separation of concepts yet and from what I've seen she seems to be in the majority. Don't know if this would help her (or someone else with this issue) to watch, but I showed this 5-minute video to a friend of mine who is a hardcore yogi who's prone to talking my ear off about organic foods, yet gained 15 pounds and didn't understand what happened, and it did make things click for him (it's from Vox and is called 'The science is in: Exercise isn't the best way to lose weight'):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXTiiz99p9o 6 -
lucerorojo wrote: »A lot of people have no idea that cico Works. The media and diet fitness industry have said it does not. If people succeeded at weight loss than a lot of people would be unemployed in the diet fitness industry.
Yes but it's true that it's not totally black and white either. Supposedly, protein uses more calories to burn than carbs, so you'd 'get' less calories from protein than carbs. Nuts too. Heard so much about 160 calories of nuts really being 120 calories or something. I have NO IDEA how true all of that is, and obviously it's still CICO in the end, it's just hard sometimes to figure out how much of the 'calories in' you're really getting. Oh, and did you hear about reheated pasta supposedly being less calories because it's metabolized differently?
And protein is related to muscle growth/loss in a way that carb isn't as well... so even if it's still CICO, you still have to make better choices somewhere.
But people are still hung up on the whole 'you are what you eat' thing. Honestly, I just wonder if people who have no issues eating whole foods only just have completely different tastes than I do or something, that it's easy for them to stick to it and to say no to chips or cookies.
In the end though, you still have to admit that making better choices so you're not hungry all the time kinda helps with sticking to CICO lol.24 -
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I have been losing steady and slow and logging on MFP.
One of the ladies I work with is semi trying to lose and doesn't understand why she is not losing.
As we were eating our lunches she looked at my container of a casserole I made and yes, it was small. She said is that what your having and she then looked at her container which was quite large. I proceeded to tell her that she had close to 4 servings she was eating and I was eating a single serving.
She then replied....."but its healthy ingredients"!
I answered, but, its NOT calorie free just cause its healthy.
Do others have the concept in their minds that "healthy" "whole" "raw" "vegan" means calorie free?
My co worker sure did and I'm not sure she wanted to hear it.
People don't understand the concept of calories. Sometimes I wonder if they know what calories do.0 -
lucerorojo wrote: »A lot of people have no idea that cico Works. The media and diet fitness industry have said it does not. If people succeeded at weight loss than a lot of people would be unemployed in the diet fitness industry.
It goes to show two things:
1) How clever (and deceptive) the marketing is in the diet/nutrition/fitness industry.
2) How uneducated the general population is about diet/nutrition/fitness.
It's a little bit of both. I roll my eyes when my coworkers don't understand how I can lose weight with carbs. I explain them carbs is not what matters for weight loss, calories do. But they get confused. They think if your high on either carbs or calories that you get fat when in the end it's just the calories that matter.3 -
lucerorojo wrote: »A lot of people have no idea that cico Works. The media and diet fitness industry have said it does not. If people succeeded at weight loss than a lot of people would be unemployed in the diet fitness industry.
It goes to show two things:
1) How clever (and deceptive) the marketing is in the diet/nutrition/fitness industry.
2) How uneducated the general population is about diet/nutrition/fitness.
It's a little bit of both. I roll my eyes when my coworkers don't understand how I can lose weight with carbs. I explain them carbs is not what matters for weight loss, calories do. But they get confused. They think if your high on either carbs or calories that you get fat when in the end it's just the calories that matter.
I've tried explaining the concept of calories to a few people and they either don't "get it" or don't believe it....0 -
Noreenmarie1234 wrote: »lucerorojo wrote: »A lot of people have no idea that cico Works. The media and diet fitness industry have said it does not. If people succeeded at weight loss than a lot of people would be unemployed in the diet fitness industry.
It goes to show two things:
1) How clever (and deceptive) the marketing is in the diet/nutrition/fitness industry.
2) How uneducated the general population is about diet/nutrition/fitness.
It's a little bit of both. I roll my eyes when my coworkers don't understand how I can lose weight with carbs. I explain them carbs is not what matters for weight loss, calories do. But they get confused. They think if your high on either carbs or calories that you get fat when in the end it's just the calories that matter.
I've tried explaining the concept of calories to a few people and they either don't "get it" or don't believe it....
Yea, but I don't blame people for not knowing. When I started lifting, I didn't know any better. It took a couple of years of doing personal research to find out what's true and what info is false. There are too many conflicting information especially on the internet. I thank God for people like Alan Aragon, Brad Schoenfeld, Mike Matthews andthe aworkoutroutine website.8 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »I don't know anyone like this in real life, but I get frustrated when I look for snack ideas on the internet that would be nice to have on a weight loss diet and I get tons of energy balls full of nuts, dates, and peanut butter. If I wanted to waste 100 calories I would save myself the hassle and buy cookies, at least I would get more than one bite out of them.
Oh I have witnessed this too! Friend brought energy balls to work and were 120 calories each little ball!!! WTH!? I wanted to spit it out and wipe my tongue off....it wasnt worth it to me!
But it's healthy, right? lol
Seriously. Drives me nuts. So many of those 'healthy' recipes have as many calories as the normal stuff. Sure, it might be a bit more filling sometimes, but that doesn't mean it's actually worth the calories taste-wise.
One day I needed a snack before an active evening but I only had time stop at the gas station on the way and I just really wanted a Twix. My hangry brain made me get trail mix instead and I ended up eating the whole bag. Healthier than the Twix, sure, but 800 cals in the bag and 220 for the Twix I should have just got.26 -
So true!2
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I usually just smile and nod when I hear "just go vegan you don't have to count calories, the weight will fall off" etc. Like there are no calorie dense vegan foods...coconut cream, nuts, pasta, veganaise, french fries in veg oil, Oreos...
13 -
I have been losing steady and slow and logging on MFP.
One of the ladies I work with is semi trying to lose and doesn't understand why she is not losing.
As we were eating our lunches she looked at my container of a casserole I made and yes, it was small. She said is that what your having and she then looked at her container which was quite large. I proceeded to tell her that she had close to 4 servings she was eating and I was eating a single serving.
She then replied....."but its healthy ingredients"!
I answered, but, its NOT calorie free just cause its healthy.
Do others have the concept in their minds that "healthy" "whole" "raw" "vegan" means calorie free?
My co worker sure did and I'm not sure she wanted to hear it.
Most people don't even know what a calorie is1 -
KiwiLifter wrote: »Calories count, so count your calories.
This need to be on a t-shirt or bumper sticker.5 -
Drives me crazy trying to explain to my coworkers that I'm not "cheating" or "eating bad" because I've opted for bread instead of rice or oats.
"eating bread today? but you usually eat so healthy!"8 -
People in general are uneducated about how to diet... they all need to become MFP members
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LivingtheLeanDream wrote: »People in general are uneducated about how to diet... they all need to become MFP members
Not all mfp members are educated either. I still see people insisting that carbs are bad
17 -
yup. what I see is that a lot of the packaged or prepared foods touting healthy ingredients end up full of high calorie ingredients to meet the taste expectations of many people - coconut products, avocado, nuts and seeds - crunch and fat, and of course, sugar in some form. Sure, maybe a more nutritious substitute, but you can't eat anymore of it than what you're swapping it in for. Certain candy bars being lower cal than some granola bars...most people have no clue. Salad with olives, cheese, creamy dressing. I wish everyone would learn every food choice requires portion control....so you might as well eat what you like.4
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