NO MORE CALORIE COUNTING
Replies
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sweetangelkitten wrote: »spinnerdell wrote: »Eating wholesome food when I was hungry led to a 70 pound weight gain over the years. Counting calories allowed me to lose that weight and maintain the loss. Wishing you a better outcome with your eating plan.
Why does this lead so many people to weight gain? We weren't counting calories a couple hundred years ago or even a hundred years ago... Seems unnatural to be measuring and counting, we should eat when we are hungry >,<
If you really think about it, people ate food when it was available. Eating when hungry is not exactly "natural" because first humans didn't have enough food abundance at all times to have to make that choice. If we're going to go with what's natural, that would be eating food whenever you see it or storing it for the purpose of eating it when there is no food available.
The circumstances are different right now, so we have to use our heads and deploy strategies to combat our natural tendencies. Food is always available and we're way less active than we used to be. If the romanticized idea of eating when hungry and limiting your food choices is the strategy that works for you, go for it! It wouldn't work for me because many of my food preferences are high calorie "healthy" foods.10 -
sweetangelkitten wrote: »Nony_Mouse wrote: »sweetangelkitten wrote: »That is why I said to use whatever means you plan to use. Some people go by how their clothes fit. If they get snug or you find yourself buying bigger sizes you might reconsider your plan. My point is to keep an eye on things. I still don't know how I managed to keep buying bigger clothes without stopping to think I was doing something wrong. Don't be me... please.
If I buy larger clothes then I am working to try to accept that and see where my natural body is
If it leads you to being overweight, then what it means is that you're ingesting more calories than your body needs. Nothing to do with your 'natural' body. We're actually (unfortunately) extremely well disposed to gain weight easily, because we evolved in times that fluctuated between food plenty, and food shortage. Our bodies had to take advantage of the times of plenty to balance out the times of shortage, or we'd be extinct.
Is your goal weight loss, OP? The statement above suggests not, in which case I'm somewhat perplexed as to what your goal is? If it's just to eat wholesome foods and let what happens happen, I'm not sure why you need a website for that. Maybe a HAES (healthy at every size) community?
Hello and my goal is to grow into my natural size and accept myself I found this forum by googling "health forum" . I want to grow into the body I was designed to have and not worry about calories or my size
I think that's a good choice to make if you believe it will make your life and mental health better. I made that choice when I was 300+ lbs, but I wasn't fooling myself into thinking that's what my natural body was supposed to be like. I made the choice of staying obese fully aware of what that may cause. When my blood tests became concerning, I understood what that meant and what I needed to do if I wanted to fix that. I lost weight and I fixed my scary stats.
If you want to take your mind off food and just let your body settle where it wants to settle with your current habits, I fully support you in that endeavor, but please keep this post in mind if it settles somewhere unfavorable like underweight or severely overweight. You may need to make a choice then, to accept the health risks and the possibility of a shorter lifespan or to change something.5 -
sweetangelkitten wrote: »spinnerdell wrote: »Eating wholesome food when I was hungry led to a 70 pound weight gain over the years. Counting calories allowed me to lose that weight and maintain the loss. Wishing you a better outcome with your eating plan.
Why does this lead so many people to weight gain? We weren't counting calories a couple hundred years ago or even a hundred years ago... Seems unnatural to be measuring and counting, we should eat when we are hungry >,<
I didn't count calories 40 years ago. I was a lot more active then.6 -
sweetangelkitten wrote: »Best of luck in finding what works best for you.
unfortunately for me, eating "healthy" without calorie counting is why i was obese most of my life. even after loosing 100lbs twice. I'm a victim of my own portion creep. even in maintenance this time around i should do check ins with the scale and diary every few weeks even if i don't do so daily.sweetangelkitten wrote: »spinnerdell wrote: »Eating wholesome food when I was hungry led to a 70 pound weight gain over the years. Counting calories allowed me to lose that weight and maintain the loss. Wishing you a better outcome with your eating plan.
Why does this lead so many people to weight gain? We weren't counting calories a couple hundred years ago or even a hundred years ago... Seems unnatural to be measuring and counting, we should eat when we are hungry >,<
a couple of hundred years ago our access to food and what foods as well as our actiivty level was VASTLY different. you can't really compare the two.
Easy, don't eat the processed food
That's not how it works. I got to 300 lbs and more than 90% of my meals were home prepared and home processed from basic ingredients. We even make our own tomato sauce and sometimes yogurt. I eat more store-bought foods now because the calories are convenient (still eat predominantly home prepared foods), and I'm no longer morbidly obese because I don't eat nearly as many nuts and olive oil as I used to. It's not about processed food, it's about food security. Most people don't have a food availability problem so they tend to overeat.24 -
Hi there! I applaud your idea to not count calories. Back in times in which people did not know the nutritional content of food, there was no calorie counting, as you write. People had to develop and cultivate a knowledge of their bodies which most of us, I believe, have lost. When one is in harmony with her body (the emotinal and mental bodies align with the physical body), then I do believe that we can intrinsically know what is right for our consumption.
However, even the issue of hunger becomes boggy when considering the contemporary way of moving through the world in a first world country. So many of us are practiced as associating other emotions with hunger, that unearthing "actual" hunger is going to take quite a journey of discovery. Hunger has become much more conflated than it was before grocery stores and easily accessible foods, for example.
I do think that the ideal life would be to NOT count calories and to eat when hungry. But each of these aspects require a very long process of excavation. Imagine being able to listen to and TRUST the body? I mean, right? That's so important...but also very challenging. So, I would keep your goal in sight but also be practical about how you can achieve it. In order to understand the path toward this, many things in the mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical body need to be resolved.
Jenn2 -
Calorie counting is a commitment, especially for the first bit of time. It does get easier, and feels like less of a chore. But it can get super frustrating when things aren't going as planned. I think intuitive eating can be necessary and good for mental health at certain points but only if you are really in tune with your body and not using it as an excuse to throw caution to the wind and eat way out of control, like bingeing. Then it can have the exact opposite affect of what it's good for. I think it's totally healthy to take breaks here and there and relax and give your body what you think it needs. I do it sometimes, and I just have to talk myself through it and accept that the scale could go up during those times.
Best of luck and I hope you find the balance you are looking for !2 -
sweetangelkitten wrote: »Yep, that's right! I'm done counting calories and tracking everything I eat! I'm eating wholesome foods and eating when I am hungry. Doing what feels natural! Anyone else here with me on this?
@sweetangelkitten while counting calories is more of current fad it was not seen as a long term tool needed by the founder of MFP. He said he counted at first just to learn how calories worked.
Before Google found MFP for me with info how to use the $15 type of breath analyzers to monitor if I was in a state of nutritional ketosis or not I had already decided at the age of 63 long term counting of calories was of not interest to me. I lost 50 pounds the first year and have maintained that loss for going on 4 years without tracking calories. MFP has let me become aware of the types of calories in different food but that only required about 30 days to learn.
I now know I over ate due due to cravings that lead to binging. Now that has been addressed my my Way Of Eating continue to counting for weight management is not the training wheels I need to gain better health. My fuel gauge was stuck on EMPTY even when my tank was over full but Keto repaired my fuel gauge years ago and took away the regular need to count calories for better weight/health management.
Until one learns about and can fix their carvings that lead to being overweight or poor health counting should not be discouraged as a tool even if it is unnatural historically speaking.
25 -
sweetangelkitten wrote: »Best of luck in finding what works best for you.
unfortunately for me, eating "healthy" without calorie counting is why i was obese most of my life. even after loosing 100lbs twice. I'm a victim of my own portion creep. even in maintenance this time around i should do check ins with the scale and diary every few weeks even if i don't do so daily.sweetangelkitten wrote: »spinnerdell wrote: »Eating wholesome food when I was hungry led to a 70 pound weight gain over the years. Counting calories allowed me to lose that weight and maintain the loss. Wishing you a better outcome with your eating plan.
Why does this lead so many people to weight gain? We weren't counting calories a couple hundred years ago or even a hundred years ago... Seems unnatural to be measuring and counting, we should eat when we are hungry >,<
a couple of hundred years ago our access to food and what foods as well as our actiivty level was VASTLY different. you can't really compare the two.
Easy, don't eat the processed food
Not easy. What’s your definition of processed food? That’s such a vague and general term - virtually everything we eat is “processed” in some way.
Eating processed food doesn’t cause weight gain, eating too many calories does. There have been countless examples in this thread alone of people who became overweight eating a Whole Foods diet, because they ate too many calories. There are also countless examples of people who have eaten a diet of all things in moderation, including Whole Foods, processed foods and convenience foods as part of an overall balanced and nutrient dense diet yet have done so at a calorie appropriate level and thus have achieved weight loss goals.20 -
sweetangelkitten wrote: »Best of luck in finding what works best for you.
unfortunately for me, eating "healthy" without calorie counting is why i was obese most of my life. even after loosing 100lbs twice. I'm a victim of my own portion creep. even in maintenance this time around i should do check ins with the scale and diary every few weeks even if i don't do so daily.sweetangelkitten wrote: »spinnerdell wrote: »Eating wholesome food when I was hungry led to a 70 pound weight gain over the years. Counting calories allowed me to lose that weight and maintain the loss. Wishing you a better outcome with your eating plan.
Why does this lead so many people to weight gain? We weren't counting calories a couple hundred years ago or even a hundred years ago... Seems unnatural to be measuring and counting, we should eat when we are hungry >,<
a couple of hundred years ago our access to food and what foods as well as our actiivty level was VASTLY different. you can't really compare the two.
Easy, don't eat the processed food
I wish you would get over the whole processed food (or fast food) is evil thing. That's NOT what makes people gain weight. It's the amount of calories being ingested when you're not burning the amount of calories to support that.27 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »sweetangelkitten wrote: »spinnerdell wrote: »Eating wholesome food when I was hungry led to a 70 pound weight gain over the years. Counting calories allowed me to lose that weight and maintain the loss. Wishing you a better outcome with your eating plan.
Why does this lead so many people to weight gain? We weren't counting calories a couple hundred years ago or even a hundred years ago... Seems unnatural to be measuring and counting, we should eat when we are hungry >,<
If you really think about it, people ate food when it was available. Eating when hungry is not exactly "natural" because first humans didn't have enough food abundance at all times to have to make that choice. If we're going to go with what's natural, that would be eating food whenever you see it or storing it for the purpose of eating it when there is no food available.
The circumstances are different right now, so we have to use our heads and deploy strategies to combat our natural tendencies. Food is always available and we're way less active than we used to be. If the romanticized idea of eating when hungry and limiting your food choices is the strategy that works for you, go for it! It wouldn't work for me because many of my food preferences are high calorie "healthy" foods.
Exactly. When I realized that I wasn't "broken," it was a revelation for me. When left to my own devices, I eat in a way that would have helped ensure my survival in an environment where access to food was uneven or unreliable. It's only a problem because I (fortunately) have never actually been in that environment.
As I'm descended from people who probably survived because they ate this way, it's not surprising that I have the strong impulse to do it too.9 -
GaleHawkins wrote: »sweetangelkitten wrote: »Yep, that's right! I'm done counting calories and tracking everything I eat! I'm eating wholesome foods and eating when I am hungry. Doing what feels natural! Anyone else here with me on this?
@sweetangelkitten while counting calories is more of current fad it was not seen as a long term tool needed by the founder of MFP. He said he counted at first just to learn how calories worked.
Before Google found MFP for me with info how to use the $15 type of breath analyzers to monitor if I was in a state of nutritional ketosis or not I had already decided at the age of 63 long term counting of calories was of not interest to me. I lost 50 pounds the first year and have maintained that loss for going on 4 years without tracking calories. MFP has let me become aware of the types of calories in different food but that only required about 30 days to learn.
I now know I over ate due due to cravings that lead to binging. Now that has been addressed my my Way Of Eating continue to counting for weight management is not the training wheels I need to gain better health. My fuel gauge was stuck on EMPTY even when my tank was over full but Keto repaired my fuel gauge years ago and took away the regular need to count calories for better weight/health management.
Until one learns about and can fix their carvings that lead to being overweight or poor health counting should not be discouraged as a tool even if it is unnatural historically speaking.
Calorie counting is no more a fad than bulletproof coffee, coconut oil "bombs," or restricted "feeding windows." Less, I'd say. Quite the opposite.18 -
sweetangelkitten wrote: »Best of luck in finding what works best for you.
unfortunately for me, eating "healthy" without calorie counting is why i was obese most of my life. even after loosing 100lbs twice. I'm a victim of my own portion creep. even in maintenance this time around i should do check ins with the scale and diary every few weeks even if i don't do so daily.sweetangelkitten wrote: »spinnerdell wrote: »Eating wholesome food when I was hungry led to a 70 pound weight gain over the years. Counting calories allowed me to lose that weight and maintain the loss. Wishing you a better outcome with your eating plan.
Why does this lead so many people to weight gain? We weren't counting calories a couple hundred years ago or even a hundred years ago... Seems unnatural to be measuring and counting, we should eat when we are hungry >,<
a couple of hundred years ago our access to food and what foods as well as our actiivty level was VASTLY different. you can't really compare the two.
Easy, don't eat the processed food
You mean cooked/dried/smoked/pickled/fermented/jellied? Because we've been processing food ever since someone got the idea of putting a piece of raw meat (or an apple, for all we know) into the fire and noticing how much better it tasted that way.20 -
ladyzherra wrote: »Hi there! I applaud your idea to not count calories. Back in times in which people did not know the nutritional content of food, there was no calorie counting, as you write. People had to develop and cultivate a knowledge of their bodies which most of us, I believe, have lost. When one is in harmony with her body (the emotinal and mental bodies align with the physical body), then I do believe that we can intrinsically know what is right for our consumption.
However, even the issue of hunger becomes boggy when considering the contemporary way of moving through the world in a first world country. So many of us are practiced as associating other emotions with hunger, that unearthing "actual" hunger is going to take quite a journey of discovery. Hunger has become much more conflated than it was before grocery stores and easily accessible foods, for example.
I do think that the ideal life would be to NOT count calories and to eat when hungry. But each of these aspects require a very long process of excavation. Imagine being able to listen to and TRUST the body? I mean, right? That's so important...but also very challenging. So, I would keep your goal in sight but also be practical about how you can achieve it. In order to understand the path toward this, many things in the mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical body need to be resolved.
Jenn
I really don't know if the reality of the average human throughout history has been that they developed and cultivated a "knowledge of their bodies." The reality for a lot of people is that they ate what was available to them in the quantities that they could afford. They weren't non-obese due to some folk knowledge we've failed to cultivate. They were non-obese because they worked hard and food has historically been a limited quantity for many.13 -
estherdragonbat wrote: »sweetangelkitten wrote: »Best of luck in finding what works best for you.
unfortunately for me, eating "healthy" without calorie counting is why i was obese most of my life. even after loosing 100lbs twice. I'm a victim of my own portion creep. even in maintenance this time around i should do check ins with the scale and diary every few weeks even if i don't do so daily.sweetangelkitten wrote: »spinnerdell wrote: »Eating wholesome food when I was hungry led to a 70 pound weight gain over the years. Counting calories allowed me to lose that weight and maintain the loss. Wishing you a better outcome with your eating plan.
Why does this lead so many people to weight gain? We weren't counting calories a couple hundred years ago or even a hundred years ago... Seems unnatural to be measuring and counting, we should eat when we are hungry >,<
a couple of hundred years ago our access to food and what foods as well as our actiivty level was VASTLY different. you can't really compare the two.
Easy, don't eat the processed food
You mean cooked/dried/smoked/pickled/fermented/jellied? Because we've been processing food ever since someone got the idea of putting a piece of raw meat (or an apple, for all we know) into the fire and noticing how much better it tasted that way.
Now I'm imagining roasting a slice of apple on a coat hanger/stick over a camp fire.1 -
WinoGelato wrote: »sweetangelkitten wrote: »Best of luck in finding what works best for you.
unfortunately for me, eating "healthy" without calorie counting is why i was obese most of my life. even after loosing 100lbs twice. I'm a victim of my own portion creep. even in maintenance this time around i should do check ins with the scale and diary every few weeks even if i don't do so daily.sweetangelkitten wrote: »spinnerdell wrote: »Eating wholesome food when I was hungry led to a 70 pound weight gain over the years. Counting calories allowed me to lose that weight and maintain the loss. Wishing you a better outcome with your eating plan.
Why does this lead so many people to weight gain? We weren't counting calories a couple hundred years ago or even a hundred years ago... Seems unnatural to be measuring and counting, we should eat when we are hungry >,<
a couple of hundred years ago our access to food and what foods as well as our actiivty level was VASTLY different. you can't really compare the two.
Easy, don't eat the processed food
Not easy. What’s your definition of processed food? That’s such a vague and general term - virtually everything we eat is “processed” in some way.
Eating processed food doesn’t cause weight gain, eating too many calories does. There have been countless examples in this thread alone of people who became overweight eating a Whole Foods diet, because they ate too many calories. There are also countless examples of people who have eaten a diet of all things in moderation, including Whole Foods, processed foods and convenience foods as part of an overall balanced and nutrient dense diet yet have done so at a calorie appropriate level and thus have achieved weight loss goals.
This is fairly much what my definition of processed food is...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4441809/
Food processing is defined as any procedure that alters food from its natural state, such as freezing, drying, milling, canning, mixing, or adding salt, sugar, fat, or additives (1, 2). Thus, the US government’s definition of “processed food”—any food other than a raw agricultural commodity—includes a diverse array of foods ranging from frozen vegetables, dried fruit, and canned beans to whole-wheat bread, breakfast cereals, prepared meals, candy, and soda (1, 2). Because of this heterogeneity, classification systems were developed to subdivide processed foods into refined categories based on the complexity of processing, the physical and chemical changes in food as a result of processing, and the purpose of processing; foods are classified into levels along a spectrum, ranging from minimally processed to highly processed (3–6). Here, we define highly processed foods as multi-ingredient industrially formulated mixtures (7).
It wasn't until I joined MFP that I even had a clue that people struggled with defining "processed". I never encountered this debate in the real world. Are there degrees of processing...of course there are. I eat some processed food but over time I am eating less and less of the "highly" processed foods. Not eating some foods that are considered processed will not work for me in my life. When I need tomato products I will always turn to "processed". I do however try to buy those that have no salt added and/or with as few of ingredients as possible.
Anyway...the above definition of "processed" has always been my thinking...just in not so technical of terms.2
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