Calories in vs out
Replies
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RameezIqbal2015 wrote: »Hey guys . Thanks for having me in here. So I’m running into a little bit of dilemma . I’ve been tracking calories to the best of ability and long story short have been using apple watch 4 to track what I have burned for the day . There’s been plenty instances where in vs out ratio was big but for some odd reason I find myself gaining weight instead of loosing . Does eating after 6 pm really is a thing or am I doing something wrong ?? Thanks for any advise or suggestions
ok lets get serious the theory of weight loss being attributed to calories in vs calories out is only one half of the equation. yes its true you will lose weight by having a calorie deficiency but if you are still eating and making bad food choices you will eventually plateau and stay unhealthy. you need to concentrate on healthy foods that will increase metabolism which promotes weight loss. there is too much to go into for this one post but if you would like to know more please let me know i would love to help you.
If you want to help, you could start by not spreading misinformation. First of all, CICO is not a theory. Its a simple equation, and depending on which number is greater, you will gain or lose weight. Second of all, the type of food a person eats has zero to do with plateaus. There have been multiple studies that have proven that losing weight alone increases health regardless of the type of food eaten. Is it healthier to eat a varied, nutritious diet? Of course it is, but as long as there is a caloric deficit, you will lose weight. Third, the type of food you eat does not increase your metabolism, nor does it decrease it. There is so much bad information in your post that I just cringed when I read it, and just hope that nobody takes it seriously.39 -
RameezIqbal2015 wrote: »Hey guys . Thanks for having me in here. So I’m running into a little bit of dilemma . I’ve been tracking calories to the best of ability and long story short have been using apple watch 4 to track what I have burned for the day . There’s been plenty instances where in vs out ratio was big but for some odd reason I find myself gaining weight instead of loosing . Does eating after 6 pm really is a thing or am I doing something wrong ?? Thanks for any advise or suggestions
ok lets get serious the theory of weight loss being attributed to calories in vs calories out is only one half of the equation. yes its true you will lose weight by having a calorie deficiency but if you are still eating and making bad food choices you will eventually plateau and stay unhealthy. you need to concentrate on healthy foods that will increase metabolism which promotes weight loss. there is too much to go into for this one post but if you would like to know more please let me know i would love to help you.
If you want to help, you could start by not spreading misinformation. First of all, CICO is not a theory. Its a simple equation, and depending on which number is greater, you will gain or lose weight. Second of all, the type of food a person eats has zero to do with plateaus. There have been multiple studies that have proven that losing weight alone increases health regardless of the type of food eaten. Is it healthier to eat a varied, nutritious diet? Of course it is, but as long as there is a caloric deficit, you will lose weight. Third, the type of food you eat does not increase your metabolism, nor does it decrease it. There is so much bad information in your post that I just cringed when I read it, and just hope that nobody takes it seriously.
The type of food does not increase your metabolism. To add on a bit though there is a difference in the calories the body requires to process foods.
"For example, the energy used to process foods is about 5–10% of the calories the food contains for carbs, 0–5% for fat and 20–30% for protein"
From this article: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/negative-calorie-foods#fact-vs-fiction
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Hey guys - Welcome to the debate section where debating is fine. Attacking other users or baiting others with off-topic and inflammatory accusations is not debating - it's violating MFP guidelines. This thread has been cleaned up a little to remove posts that contained or quoted off-topic or attacking content.
Debate, don't attack.
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RameezIqbal2015 wrote: »Hey guys . Thanks for having me in here. So I’m running into a little bit of dilemma . I’ve been tracking calories to the best of ability and long story short have been using apple watch 4 to track what I have burned for the day . There’s been plenty instances where in vs out ratio was big but for some odd reason I find myself gaining weight instead of loosing . Does eating after 6 pm really is a thing or am I doing something wrong ?? Thanks for any advise or suggestions
ok lets get serious the theory of weight loss being attributed to calories in vs calories out is only one half of the equation. yes its true you will lose weight by having a calorie deficiency but if you are still eating and making bad food choices you will eventually plateau and stay unhealthy. you need to concentrate on healthy foods that will increase metabolism which promotes weight loss. there is too much to go into for this one post but if you would like to know more please let me know i would love to help you.
Weight loss is only "one half of the equation of health" so in that way calories in vs calories out is only one-half of the equation of health. Also your bodies weight is comprised of more than just fat, water weight has a large influence on day to day or even week to week values on the scale...and calories in vs calories out is not a big influencer of water weight.
What calories in vs calories out is is 100% of the equation for fat loss, which presumably is the goal of people who are dieting.
After all, even though what people say is they want to lose weight what they hopefully actually mean is that they want to reduce their total percent bodyfat because it is at an unhealthy level. Getting your percent bodyfat under control and into a healthy range is certainly part of being healthy but yes, of course, it isn't the only part of being healthy.
This idea that certain foods will "increase your metabolism" though is just utterly false so I'd get away from that sort of thinking. There is no way to "increase metabolism" other than in the sense of increasing your BMR by having more muscle mass which in turn requires a certain amount of activity and calories to maintain. Now, through choices in diet and exercise you can increase your muscle mass and therefore your BMR. But the reason for the increase is the added muscle, not the food you ate....and if you are aiming for a calorie deficit you aren't going to be putting on any muscle so its a moot point.5 -
My last ramble on this topic. I will never deny CI vs CO is the sole driver or weight gain or loss. People can try to deny thermodynamics, but nope. I have spent the last 2 years trying to understand what controls CI, because I think that is where we can best control things. People can out eat any level of activity usually. We humans do better on a higher energy flux. In most studies, people who are more active are better at controlling intakes. I also think there is something about the sedentary state that makes us over eat. Now here is where I get the WOO'S... I think what we eat can be just as important as how many calories we eat for control of CI. Kevin Hall's study on hyperprocessed vs minimal processed food was a good one. Higher protein intakes seem to control CI as well. Where I think flexible dieting can help is the AVE. Abstinence Violation Effect, or the I ate a cookie so my diets blown... might as well eat the whole bag. Teaching people that they can have SOME fun and not be failures is important.8
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Just as my n=1, my Apple Watch (series 4) overestimates my calories burned by about 20%. Workout calories (the active calories) are in line with other reasonable estimates-but my total calories for the day is very high.
I would not be losing if I were using my AW as a guide for how many calories I burned.
Your watch isn’t a lab-quality device that should be taken as gospel. It’s consistent-so it’s likely to be approximately the same level of accuracy every day-but It’s not necessarily giving you a correct number.2 -
Duck_Puddle wrote: »Just as my n=1, my Apple Watch (series 4) overestimates my calories burned by about 20%. Workout calories (the active calories) are in line with other reasonable estimates-but my total calories for the day is very high.
I would not be losing if I were using my AW as a guide for how many calories I burned.
Your watch isn’t a lab-quality device that should be taken as gospel. It’s consistent-so it’s likely to be approximately the same level of accuracy every day-but It’s not necessarily giving you a correct number.
Simple solution, get a Garmin, their vivofit seems to underestimate calories quite a bit.
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pamhardwick8899 wrote: »72 days. I think some of the other posters may be out of country since there are references to grams. Since we don’t have the metric system in US it is just easier to track in ounces, cups and teaspoons. Grams are listed on all of the packages but then more work to convert.
the flaw in your logic is that ounces, cups and teaspoons are measuring volume which is not the same as weight.
Example:
a cup of cooked rice can be loosely or firmly packed into a measuring cup. the weight and calories will vary. It's quite difficult to confidently know the weight of the portion from the volume, especially when the volume is not consistent from one portion to the next.
as for grams vs ounces - scales and smart phones have made all that conversion much more accessible.3 -
magnusthenerd wrote: »Duck_Puddle wrote: »Just as my n=1, my Apple Watch (series 4) overestimates my calories burned by about 20%. Workout calories (the active calories) are in line with other reasonable estimates-but my total calories for the day is very high.
I would not be losing if I were using my AW as a guide for how many calories I burned.
Your watch isn’t a lab-quality device that should be taken as gospel. It’s consistent-so it’s likely to be approximately the same level of accuracy every day-but It’s not necessarily giving you a correct number.
Simple solution, get a Garmin, their vivofit seems to underestimate calories quite a bit.
I’m using a Garmin (Fenix) for my needs here. I was only mentioning that the OP is using an Apple Watch to measure his calorie burn and my AW estimates quite high.
So In addition to logging inaccuracies affecting the CI, an overestimate of calories burn could be contributing to the problem on the CO side.
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Which US are you in. I'm in the middle of the US and we have metric on every package here.
My food scale is always on grams as well, unless my wife changes it to oz.
Metric is infinitely easier than ounces, quarts, pints, cups, gills, hogsheads, or bushels.pamhardwick8899 wrote: »72 days. I think some of the other posters may be out of country since there are references to grams. Since we don’t have the metric system in US it is just easier to track in ounces, cups and teaspoons. Grams are listed on all of the packages but then more work to convert.
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tbright1965 wrote: »Which US are you in. I'm in the middle of the US and we have metric on every package here.
My food scale is always on grams as well, unless my wife changes it to oz.
Metric is infinitely easier than ounces, quarts, pints, cups, gills, hogsheads, or bushels.pamhardwick8899 wrote: »72 days. I think some of the other posters may be out of country since there are references to grams. Since we don’t have the metric system in US it is just easier to track in ounces, cups and teaspoons. Grams are listed on all of the packages but then more work to convert.
my us also has metric on the packaging as well2 -
psychod787 wrote: »My last ramble on this topic. I will never deny CI vs CO is the sole driver or weight gain or loss. People can try to deny thermodynamics, but nope. I have spent the last 2 years trying to understand what controls CI, because I think that is where we can best control things. People can out eat any level of activity usually. We humans do better on a higher energy flux. In most studies, people who are more active are better at controlling intakes. I also think there is something about the sedentary state that makes us over eat. Now here is where I get the WOO'S... I think what we eat can be just as important as how many calories we eat for control of CI. Kevin Hall's study on hyperprocessed vs minimal processed food was a good one. Higher protein intakes seem to control CI as well. Where I think flexible dieting can help is the AVE. Abstinence Violation Effect, or the I ate a cookie so my diets blown... might as well eat the whole bag. Teaching people that they can have SOME fun and not be failures is important.
I agree with your post. You'll get no woo's from me because my n=1 experience had shown that I do way better when I'm focusing on whole foods (lots of fruit, veg, some cheese, lean meats) but also having some balance in my diet (small treats but not going overboard).
My personal their, which may be wrong but seems to be what happens for me, is that there are cycles. If I'm being more active I naturally want to eat "healthier" because my body craves it and the better I eat, the more active I want to be. The worse I eat, the less I feel like being active which leads me to eating more "junk" food.5 -
pamhardwick8899 wrote: »72 days. I think some of the other posters may be out of country since there are references to grams. Since we don’t have the metric system in US it is just easier to track in ounces, cups and teaspoons. Grams are listed on all of the packages but then more work to convert.
I live in the US and I weigh my good in grams. We run 10 K races, we drink liters of liquids, we use metric in school, in college, for engineering, for mathematics, for all sciences...all of our food packaging is in both, I prefer to use the metric system, like the rest of the world.10 -
Lol, a scale that weighs in grams and ounces is available for under $20. Really there's no excuse for trying to be more precise on intake.pamhardwick8899 wrote: »Since I don’t have a scale that weighs by grams then I have to find an American weight(measurement) in ounces/cups/tablespoons for the serving size &calories for the food I want in the MFP app or look at the measurement in the packaging.
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
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I can't think of a scale in recent memory that wouldn't have the option to change from oz to grams. And if it couldn't I would be really concerned about the granularity of that scale given that an oz is 28.35g and that in order to be approximately accurate to 1/16 of an oz a scale would have to be accurate to AT LEAST 2g.2
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Maybe she has an old style balance scale where you put the cast iron or brass weights on one end and the ingredients in the brass pan on the other end!
I still have the weights (and maybe even the scale itself) in the loft! Just never saw the point of sourcing a set of weights in grams so entered the 20th century at some point in the late 80’s! 😂4 -
I actually had this problem too and after spending hours on the web, researching possible issues, I realized that what I’ve been doing is eating too little. I used to eat like 2 bigger meals a day and didn’t snack, but my calories were around 900 a day. My habits were like this over years and years, and this is bad because if you’re not getting enough food, your body starts to go into starvation mode and will hold onto everything it can and consume less calories to work throughout the day. Kind of like your body is hibernating for the winter. Which means all those calories you think you’re burning, you’re actually not because your metabolism is lower than it should be. To get out of this mode, you’ve got to eat at least 1200 calories a day and spread it out so that every few hours or so you’re having 100-200 calories of food. So that your body never feels hungry.
So if you think this might be your problem, because so many people think eating less is better when trying to get healthy and lose weight, then don’t do it. Also foods high protein will make you feel more full than carbs, so if you’re having problems feeling satisfied on 1200ish calories a day, try finding foods higher in protein.0 -
And now I just realized that this post was super old and people only resurrected it for the grams in the US conversation. Lol. Oh well, my thoughts are there for others as well!2
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also starvation mode isn't a think
increase in hormones due to lack of food and body downregulating burn in periods of prolonged caloric reduction - but not starvation mode5 -
natalyax777 wrote: »I actually had this problem too and after spending hours on the web, researching possible issues, I realized that what I’ve been doing is eating too little. I used to eat like 2 bigger meals a day and didn’t snack, but my calories were around 900 a day. My habits were like this over years and years, and this is bad because if you’re not getting enough food, your body starts to go into starvation mode and will hold onto everything it can and consume less calories to work throughout the day. Kind of like your body is hibernating for the winter. Which means all those calories you think you’re burning, you’re actually not because your metabolism is lower than it should be. To get out of this mode, you’ve got to eat at least 1200 calories a day and spread it out so that every few hours or so you’re having 100-200 calories of food. So that your body never feels hungry.
So if you think this might be your problem, because so many people think eating less is better when trying to get healthy and lose weight, then don’t do it. Also foods high protein will make you feel more full than carbs, so if you’re having problems feeling satisfied on 1200ish calories a day, try finding foods higher in protein.
While the end effects may be true (body starts consuming less calories, never feels hungry) - the reasons for it are not as you stated.
Starvation Mode, aka Adaptive Thermogenesis, won't prevent a calorie deficit from causing fat loss, IF you keep eating less and less, eventually you'll start losing again.
Obviously the body will get stressed from that and several side effects regarding it's health will be impacted.
All body does initially is slow down your activity level. Of course you'll burn less calories then - so estimates or prior experience about TDEE will be invalid when that happens. Deficit won't be as great is result.
Like used to burn 2000, eat 1000 - now burn 1750, eat 1000.
If you keep it up some higher level functions can be slowed down, muscle repair, hair/nail/skin growth.
Some related to poor nutrition, some just related to body conserving calories for most important functions.
Yes if you really force yourself to undereat too great for too long base metabolism can be effected a tad.
To confuse the scale further during this time - body is probably stressed enough now to increase cortisol and water weight slowly starts coming on. Upwards of 20 lbs has been seen.
How many weeks of fat loss could that mask making you think nothing is happening?
The remedy may require more than 1200 though, and every few hours not always needed - that makes many people feel more hungry, not less.6 -
natalyax777 wrote: »I actually had this problem too and after spending hours on the web, researching possible issues, I realized that what I’ve been doing is eating too little. I used to eat like 2 bigger meals a day and didn’t snack, but my calories were around 900 a day. My habits were like this over years and years, and this is bad because if you’re not getting enough food, your body starts to go into starvation mode and will hold onto everything it can and consume less calories to work throughout the day. Kind of like your body is hibernating for the winter. Which means all those calories you think you’re burning, you’re actually not because your metabolism is lower than it should be. To get out of this mode, you’ve got to eat at least 1200 calories a day and spread it out so that every few hours or so you’re having 100-200 calories of food. So that your body never feels hungry.
So if you think this might be your problem, because so many people think eating less is better when trying to get healthy and lose weight, then don’t do it. Also foods high protein will make you feel more full than carbs, so if you’re having problems feeling satisfied on 1200ish calories a day, try finding foods higher in protein.
To not be in a calorie deficit from eating around 900 calories a day, you'd need to be like under 5 ft tall, hibernatingly sedentary, and still having an incredible amount of adaptive thermogensis going on. If you weren't losing on what you thought was around 900, chances are good you were off in some measurement, or were at the level for only a week or two that with water fluctuations masking actual loses.6 -
Be weary of any calculation for calories burned on any device.
My fitbit tells me I burn about 3200 a day. I eat 1800 a day, I lose 1lb or so per week. That's with tracking everything that goes in my mouth and weighing everything. If my Fitbit were right I'd be losing 2+lbs per week.
Using Katch-Mcardle I should lose 1lb per week eating 2000. That's a lot closer.1 -
deannalfisher wrote: »also starvation mode isn't a think
increase in hormones due to lack of food and body downregulating burn in periods of prolonged caloric reduction - but not starvation mode
Tell me more on this cuz I'm curious,I have a friend who's ALWAYS sick,she's addicted to opioids and hardly eats but she's overweight,I always wonder how she never loses anything is it the drugs? Lack of activity? Slower metabolism? I always think of "starvation mode" (even though I know it's not real) when I look at her🤔1 -
deannalfisher wrote: »also starvation mode isn't a think
increase in hormones due to lack of food and body downregulating burn in periods of prolonged caloric reduction - but not starvation mode
Tell me more on this cuz I'm curious,I have a friend who's ALWAYS sick,she's addicted to opioids and hardly eats but she's overweight,I always wonder how she never loses anything is it the drugs? Lack of activity? Slower metabolism? I always think of "starvation mode" (even though I know it's not real) when I look at her🤔
Sluggish activity level, effect of the drugs . . . 100% sure she's not a secret eater, besides?6 -
deannalfisher wrote: »also starvation mode isn't a think
increase in hormones due to lack of food and body downregulating burn in periods of prolonged caloric reduction - but not starvation mode
Tell me more on this cuz I'm curious,I have a friend who's ALWAYS sick,she's addicted to opioids and hardly eats but she's overweight,I always wonder how she never loses anything is it the drugs? Lack of activity? Slower metabolism? I always think of "starvation mode" (even though I know it's not real) when I look at her🤔
Sluggish activity level, effect of the drugs . . . 100% sure she's not a secret eater, besides?
That was what I was thinking. It's not uncommon for someone struggling with substance abuse to 1. Not remember everything they consumed and 2. Have wild swings in appetite so they might eat nothing all day and then eat everything in the fridge at 2am.
Also if there's alcohol or other higher cal drinks involved in the equation that could be several hundred calories that don't really stand out because they're not eaten.10 -
I'm going to guess secret binge eating. NO ONE knew about my sweets, chocolate biscuits and chocolate I had hidden around the house, and I've never admitted to my family about it either.6
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Could be all of the above, I know she says she barely eats cuz her stomach is always hurting but who knows what goes on at her home late at night, was just curious thanks for the replies2
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deannalfisher wrote: »also starvation mode isn't a think
increase in hormones due to lack of food and body downregulating burn in periods of prolonged caloric reduction - but not starvation mode
Tell me more on this cuz I'm curious,I have a friend who's ALWAYS sick,she's addicted to opioids and hardly eats but she's overweight,I always wonder how she never loses anything is it the drugs? Lack of activity? Slower metabolism? I always think of "starvation mode" (even though I know it's not real) when I look at her🤔
Does she drink things that have calories (including alcohol)?2 -
Could be all of the above, I know she says she barely eats cuz her stomach is always hurting but who knows what goes on at her home late at night, was just curious thanks for the replies
Someone's stomach can hurt for a lot of reasons other than not eating. Have you urged her to see a doctor?1 -
pamhardwick8899 wrote: »Great input from other posters on the need to weigh food. Also keeping measuring cups and measuring spoons handy is a must. For Example: 1 tbs peanut butter is 94 calories, 1 tbs Olive Oil is 119 calories and 1 tbs mayonaise is 94 calories. And 1 cup of spaghetti is 210 calories. Without measuring it would be easy to eat more calories than your diet would allow.
Except for the oil - those examples are all great reasons why measuring is NOT a must - but weighing is.
Especially the peanut butter and spaghetti.
Calories is per gram - not cups or spoons volumes.
There are 15 grams in a Tbsp. Most nutrition labels accomodate both grams and cups or whatever. If a person is going by the nutrition label then the measure of a serving doesn't really matter does it? It is whatever measure is stated on the label...am I missing something?
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