Is Calorie Counting model really flawed?

[lowtek]

How do you approach that in your life?

Do you weigh all your meals? Use an app?

One of the reasons why I am not a big fan of calories counting is that I find it a bit cumbersome. I also think the focus is on the wrong thing. Calories are just one part of the equation. The quality of your food matters as much, if not more.

Wondering what is your opinion?

From a body composition perspective, it is only calories in and calories out. There is extensive documentation on this.. you can check out the little debbie snack cake experiment for this.

Food quality is important for not consuming other garbage that may potentially have harmful physical effects down the line, so by all means eat higher quality food... just don't think you can get away with eating 3,000 calories a day of "clean food" if your calorie requirement is 2200 calories per day.

It's really not hard to measure stuff. It's literally an extra 5 minutes out of your day.

 

[lowtek]

Calorie counting absolutely works. Thermodynamics is fundamental physics, and there is no escaping the laws. Calories in and calories out is ultimately the only thing that matters.

There are, however, some caveats to counting calories effectively.

You have to use a food scale and measure everything in grams. There is no universal standard for cup measuring sizes, so different sets of cups will yield different actual masses of food.

Stick to whole and single ingredient foods whenever possible. Packaging labels can and do lie. For instance, if you check out foods like the popular Kashi cereal, or the high fiber mission tortilla wraps, you'll find some F*ckery. They subtract grams of fiber from total grams of carbs, and so you'll think you're eating 60 calories when you're really eating 120. Their logic is that you don't store the fiber, but I'm skeptical. Taken to the logical extreme, does this mean I can starve to death eating maintenance calories worth of broccoli? Doubtful.

To deal with the above, count the macros. Each gram of carbs and protein have 4 calories, each gram of fat has 9 calories.

Other games include things like "no calorie cooking spray". In reality, no calorie means less than 5 calories for some arbitrarily small quantity (a 0.1 second spray for cooking spray, for instance), which can actually add up to significant numbers if not monitored. Again, taken to the logical extreme... do you mean to tell me I wont' consume any calories if I empty the entire can of cooking spray into some cup and drink it? Doubtful.

You have to be consistent with salt intake. As you diet down, hunger increases, and so we tend to add salt to increase the satiety of the food we're eating. Water draws in salt, and so you retain water, which can cause the scale to stall (or even go up!) for a couple weeks at a time. Worse yet, increasing salt intake increases thirst...

You really need to be eating more or less the same stuff for at least a couple meals a day. Because of the high degree of variability and inaccuracy in measuring devices / packaging labels, it's most efficient (though not absolutely necessary) to minimize variability elsewhere. The easiest way is to find a couple meals (breakfast / lunch) that you can consistently eat the same thing and not get super bored... or perhaps rotate out a couple-few meals.

Other nasty problems include changing the calorie out side of the equation. If you diet for too long, you can stop fidgeting or moving around as much. This changes your base metabolic rate and causes weight loss to slow down. It's important to not diet for extended periods of time (2-4 months is probably best), unless there is a risk of impending death due to morbid obesity (not your case).

The most insidious is "cheat meals". You can undo an entire week of dieting with a cheat meal... and more if you opt for the cheat day. You should never feel the need to cheat on a diet. If hunger and diet fatigue rise to unsustainable levels, then take a couple months to eat at maintenance before getting back into the diet.

Lastly, you must lift weights. Next to getting your bf % down to a reasonable level, this is one of the most important things you can do for your health.

Consume 0.7 - 1.0 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight, per day. This helps with satiety and muscle preservation. If you're a novice, you can build muscle in a calorie deficit, but only if you're consuming enough protein.

 

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[S.Y.]

Hi Fastlaners,

For the past 2-3 years I have heard and tried diets that claim that calorie counting is flawed.
I like them because you don't have to weigh the food and count calorie every time I eat.


personally, I failed to lose weight(I understand this is because of my poor diet plan and understanding, for example, keto turned into a high protein high-fat diet). My weight is stagnant for the last 3 years. I am 5 feet 5 inches and weigh 73 kg and my body fat percentage at 23%.


what do you guys advise,
is it really flawed? I would love to listen to your thoughts on it.

@Strategery @Raoul Duke

Before I reply, let me say this: I have been fit for my whole life. And that is with a family prone to being overweight. So my fitness has nothing to do with a genetic advantage.

At the end of the day, if you want to lose weight, you have to consume more calories than you ingest. In a way, counting calories make sense.

But I don't see myself weighing everything and constantly counting. So I follow couple of simple rules:
1. Stay hydrated
2. Eat mostly healthy food and in variety (and nuts in moderation)
3. Listen to my body. My body doesn't like certain healthy foods, so I barely eat them
4. Eat to satiety
5. Move regularly

That's it. That is how I have been staying fit and healthy.
No calories counting.

That's said. Being slim and lean doesn't necessarily mean you are healthy,

 

[Johnny boy]

I've been athletic my whole life. Years of baseball workouts and college sports had me in amazing shape.

I went to Thailand for 2 months with my girlfriend in December 2019 and we came back right as covid started. So I just spent 2 whole months getting fat and then I was locked down in my place with a business to run still.

I gained probably 25 pounds.

Later in the year I tried all sorts of stuff to lose weight. I calculated based on my size, age, height, activity, etc. that I should be burning 3500 calories a day (apparently). So I set my daily intake to 3000 calories a day. Nope. Nothing.

I started eating keto. Maybe I had an insulin sensitivity and needed to reset my blood sugar. Nope. Nothing.

I cut calories even more, went down to 2500 and nothing happened. I cut it down to 2000 and definitely felt like I was losing weight, but it was absolute torture. I couldn't sustain it.

Then, I started picking different foods to eat. It wasn't just "keto" or anything. It was food that would fill me up enough to go a few hours without wanting to die, but only had a couple hundred calories or so.

Those foods were

1. Hard boiled eggs
2. Chicken broth
3. Chicken breast

All I do is have the same stuff as much as I can. I have something like coffee and a slice of bacon in the morning. I pack hard boiled eggs and chicken breast for lunch every single day. And dinner is some sort of lean meat with veggies. I can now hit 2000 calories a day and not want to kill myself. I combine this with going to the gym and it's been going well.

So far, I'm down 15.

I don't do this perfectly every day. I don't give myself "cheat days" though. I know that I'll get invited out for a dinner, or I'll go hangout with a friend. Something will come up. I don't act like a douche and say "sorry, I'm on a diet" and then go have a cheat day the next day because it's on the schedule. I just stick to the diet as my "default" mode of eating, and social stuff is social stuff. If it was really so bad of a cheat weekend or something I'll skip breakfast and lunch the next day or something.

It's all about a few things.

1. Eating from a small selection of filling foods low in calories so your hunger won't kick your a$$.
2. Eating a small enough amount that your stomach stays small. When you stuff yourself your stomach expands and it's easier to eat more next time, AND you have a growling stomach that gets angry as it shrinks the next day.
3. Making this your "default" so it's automatic. Get rid of 90% of the food in your house. The only "snack" food in my house is an english muffin.

And no more beers.

A week or 2 before I left for Thailand:


Gotta get back to that.

 

[ElleMg]

Calories in calories out was the only 'diet' that worked for me. I eat whatever I want though, only paying attention to the calorie aspect.

 

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[Alxf]

Hi Fastlaners,

For the past 2-3 years I have heard and tried diets that claim that calorie counting is flawed.
I like them because you don't have to weigh the food and count calorie every time I eat.


personally, I failed to lose weight(I understand this is because of my poor diet plan and understanding, for example, keto turned into a high protein high-fat diet). My weight is stagnant for the last 3 years. I am 5 feet 5 inches and weigh 73 kg and my body fat percentage at 23%.


what do you guys advise,
is it really flawed? I would love to listen to your thoughts on it.

@Strategery @Raoul Duke

It's not "flawed" per se, it's just that it adds complexity and unnecessary friction and attention to everyday life. If you are some kind of fitness competitor and this is your main focus, then sure - count calories, optimize macros, etc, etc.

If, however, you are just a regular person who wants to be reasonably fit, then realize that for the majority of human existence, people have been lean and fit - without counting calories.. or even knowing about their existence.

It's still somewhat "controversial", but what's worked well for me is intermittent fasting (or even 'actual' fasting - up to 2 or 3 days) combined with a reasonably healthy diet and moderate exercise.

What most us in the modern world have is a physiological and psychological addiction to calories that our bodies don't actually need. What happens when you start fasting is that you realize that it's not your body that needs the (empty) calories, but it's your mouth that wants the pleasure, the relief from stress, etc.

Once you become aware of and start to weaken that association, you'll start to naturally feel that the majority of food is garbage, that you are not actually that hungry, and that you don't need to eat nearly as much you think you do, especially if you are not that active.

If you are interested/curious, I can recommend some resources on this, but if you just want to get the gist of what fasting is about and why it's good for you, look up "Cole Robinson" and be prepared for a shock and a laugh. His philosophy comes down to this obvious-once-stated truth:

"If you are fat, you don't need to eat."

 

[Raja]

There are also hormones involved that fasting helps with.

Grehlin, leptin, something like that. I didn’t study this stuff. Insulin sensitivity is also improved by fasting.

I did, some basic study.

ghrelin and leptin are hunger hormones, they just trigger hunger and make you feel hungry. They are the reason if you don't for a long time you might overeat and binge as the body tries to prevent and store the energy for an unlikely event.

insulin on other hand is responsible for fat loss or gain. It is simple if you are more sensitive to insulin the sugar(food in its one of the simplest forms) gets absorbed by the bloodstream and when all that sugar does not know where to use that energy, it converts it to fat.

Please note: this is a water-down version from my memory.

 

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[Johnny boy]

My takeaways are quite simple(yet powerful) :
1. Calorie counting model works and is one of the fundamentals so you count outsmart it.
2. eat a good amount of protein and filling food so you don't feel hungry.
3. avoid junk and empty calories.

personally, I like @Johnny boy approach. not making yourself get hungry is one of the best approaches.

one main problem being Lacto-ovo vegetarian getting enough protein will be a problem. for 75kg I need 150 gm of protein daily according to @lowtek and a google search. I don't want to depend on whey protein as my go-to for protein.
that makes 25 eggs a day(6 gm protein each) in 8 hr window. I will soon go crazy If I did that.

Is it just me who thinks the protein requirement stated on the web is overkill? (maybe some paid research by protein supplement companies, like cereal and sugar companies)

Bro just 200 calories of chicken breast has 40 grams of protein. Have 400 calories of chicken a day and throw in a couple eggs and you’re doing just fine

 

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[Raja]

Hi Fastlaners,

For the past 2-3 years I have heard and tried diets that claim that calorie counting is flawed.
I like them because you don't have to weigh the food and count calorie every time I eat.


personally, I failed to lose weight(I understand this is because of my poor diet plan and understanding, for example, keto turned into a high protein high-fat diet). My weight is stagnant for the last 3 years. I am 5 feet 5 inches and weigh 73 kg and my body fat percentage at 23%.


what do you guys advise,
is it really flawed? I would love to listen to your thoughts on it.

@Strategery @Raoul Duke

 

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[Strategery]

I’m a recent convert to calorie counting.

I’ve had success using the keto diet in the past, and have been deconstructing why I lost fat with it. I went from a portly 160 to a ridiculously lean 135 within a few months. Obviously it was effective, and I didn’t count calories.

But I understand now that hunger played a big role... I just didn’t feel like eating as many calories on keto as I did a more normal, carb-burning diet. Couple that with the fact that at the time I was training MMA 5-6 days per week, and it was nearly impossible for me to have any caloric surplus.

I got an inguinal hernia at the height of my “leanness,” and had to stop training all together for a while. I didn’t think that it mattered what happened with my diet, so I didn’t really change it... I gained nearly all the fat I’d lost back

Had I understood that a calorie is simply a unit of measurement, and that the science of energy expenditure is pretty damn accurate, I would have just weighed/tracked my food like I’m currently doing.

An excellent book to read is Bigger, Leaner, Stronger by Mike Matthews. He breaks down the basics really well.

 

[NCNY]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ0QXCTqjUs


1 plate - lots of lean protein, lots of vegetables and a small portion of starchy carbs

 

[S.Y.]

From a body composition perspective, it is only calories in and calories out. There is extensive documentation on this.. you can check out the little debbie snack cake experiment for this.

Food quality is important for not consuming other garbage that may potentially have harmful physical effects down the line, so by all means eat higher quality food... just don't think you can get away with eating 3,000 calories a day of "clean food" if your calorie requirement is 2200 calories per day.

It's really not hard to measure stuff. It's literally an extra 5 minutes out of your day.

I agree that for pure weight loss, it boils down to calories in, calories out. My whole premise is, being slim/lean doesn't mean you are healthy. Some tend to forget that.

Some people do well with measuring. I'm not one of those. I focus on eating clean food to satiety (with fruits, meat, and nuts in moderation) and have an active life.

The quantity I would have to eat to consistently exceed my calorie requirement is pretty huge. Those foods get me full pretty fast. And I also do intermittent fasting. Should have mentioned that.

 

[theSandmanAT]

Hi.
As @S.Y. wrote in an earlier post, counting calories partly makes sense because you can only lose weight if you consume more calories than you ingest.
That said, calories haven't been created equal under the Sun.

100 calories of protein (e.g. beef), 100 calories of fat (mayonnaise or lard) and 100 calories out of carbs (sugar) are different and the body processes them differently, obviously.

I have lost weight (5 to 15 kg) several times over the past decade and gained some of those kilos back over long periods of time because I enjoy having certain foods and eating in general, because I changed my training routine or for other various reasons.

I have learned some lessons and I will share some of them here:

• the most effective way (for me) to lose weight in a healthy way was combining some sort of regular sport with a diet. neither sports alone, nor diet alone
• an unballanced diet is effective on short time (I've lost 5 kilos in 10 days on a protein-only diet), but your need a ballanced diet for long-term results
• hydration is very important
• starvation doesn't help

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

Hi Fastlaners,

For the past 2-3 years I have heard and tried diets that claim that calorie counting is flawed.
I like them because you don't have to weigh the food and count calorie every time I eat.


personally, I failed to lose weight(I understand this is because of my poor diet plan and understanding, for example, keto turned into a high protein high-fat diet). My weight is stagnant for the last 3 years. I am 5 feet 5 inches and weigh 73 kg and my body fat percentage at 23%.


what do you guys advise,
is it really flawed? I would love to listen to your thoughts on it.

@Strategery @Raoul Duke

Personally I think you should get advice from someone who got in shape from out of shape, not someone who has always been in maintenance mode.*

I think Kinobody’s dieting approach works well. Know your calories, know your macros, eat the same food almost every day and use morning fasts to help you stay within your calorie limit.

It also seems that weight lifting is the key to losing fat and looking good, otherwise you become “skinny fat”

*kinobody has photos of back when he was kind of fat

 

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[S.Y.]

The most popular diets right now are keto and intermediate fasting. They're too restrictive in my opinion and they feel like a diet. With calorie counting you can eat whatever you like as long as you eat your daily calorie goal.

I don't agree with IF being too restrictive.

I have been doing 16-8 for years. If you eat right, you can for a long period of time without feeling hungry.

What most us in the modern world have is a physiological and psychological addiction to calories that our bodies don't actually need. What happens when you start fasting is that you realize that it's not your body that needs the (empty) calories, but it's your mouth that wants the pleasure, the relief from stress, etc.

Once you become aware of and start to weaken that association, you'll start to naturally feel that the majority of food is garbage, that you are not actually that hungry, and that you don't need to eat nearly as much you think you do, especially if you are not that active.

This!

Someone in the thread mentioned something about missing junk food that tastes really good when you are on a healthy diet. I say "script".

The "delicious junk" food has been engineered to be addictive and to give you a completely unnatural amount of pleasure. The amount of dopamine you get from those is way above what you can get from eating natural food.

If you break that "addiction", you will see that healthy food tastes good. Very good, actually.

You can eat healthy AND enjoy your food.
If this is not the case for you, you are addicted to junk food.

---
@Raja, what are your takeaways so far?

 

[Bruno11]

losing weight is very simple if you put in some work:


If you eat less calories then you burn =you lose weight
If you eat more calories then you burn= you gain weight

you can further help your weight loss by exercising(although it is literally not required if you don’t want to, just eat less)
But for obvious reasons exercise goes well with tracking calories and building muscle

strict macros and counting calories works,
if you want to change, download MyFitnessPal pal , scan absolutely everything and be very rigorous until you develop a sense of what foods you eat daily and how many calories they all are.

meal prep> 1 day a week prepare enough for 5-6 days of food and put it in Tupperware containers

DO NOT. Follow . “Trends” or “diets “

there is no such thing as a diet. It’s a lifestyle
You have to eat what you like and stick to it, there is a lot of healthier food choices that are nice but you can literally eat McDonald’s AS LONG AS you stay within calorie deficit.

forget carbs, fats and all the other bullshit

all you care about is calories in, calories out l.

if you want to build muscle> protein and calories

 

[Martin.G]

can you share your thoughts here when you finished reading it?

Yes, of course. But I am not reading it to do this kind of diet in particular, but to know more about ketosis. What I am trying right now is the carnivore diet, there is a post in the forum. Maybe you can't give it a chance, I lost 5 pounds (2.5 kilos) in 3 weeks, and I am thin. What surprised is that I am starting to see my abs, something I didn't know I have.

 

[VMac]

Calories do matter. It's the basic law of thermodynamics. The only thing that may be "flawed" is that calorie counting is not an exact science. But it doesn't need to be. Food labels can be estimates, your TDEE is an estimate, your maintenance calories are an estimate. However, as long as you are in a calorie deficit, you will lose fat. The value in calorie counting is that you get familiar with food composition and what your portion sizes should be. But unless you want to enter a bodybuilding competition, you don't need to count calories all that rigorously.

I used to listen to guys like Jason Fung. The fact is hormones don't matter. Insulin is not the enemy. In fact insulin is very anabolic and is needed to build muscle.
Does intermittent fasting work? Yes but not because you kept your insulin down for so long, it's because you made it harder to be in a calorie surplus (you don't have the time to overeat).
Since I would not be consistent with having to restrict what and when I eat, I personally would rather take an extra 5-10 minutes out of my day to measure and weigh my food.

 

[Supa]

Calorie counting absolutely works. Thermodynamics is fundamental physics, and there is no escaping the laws. Calories in and calories out is ultimately the only thing that matters.

There are, however, some caveats to counting calories effectively.

You have to use a food scale and measure everything in grams. There is no universal standard for cup measuring sizes, so different sets of cups will yield different actual masses of food.

Stick to whole and single ingredient foods whenever possible. Packaging labels can and do lie. For instance, if you check out foods like the popular Kashi cereal, or the high fiber mission tortilla wraps, you'll find some f*ckery. They subtract grams of fiber from total grams of carbs, and so you'll think you're eating 60 calories when you're really eating 120. Their logic is that you don't store the fiber, but I'm skeptical. Taken to the logical extreme, does this mean I can starve to death eating maintenance calories worth of broccoli? Doubtful.

To deal with the above, count the macros. Each gram of carbs and protein have 4 calories, each gram of fat has 9 calories.

Other games include things like "no calorie cooking spray". In reality, no calorie means less than 5 calories for some arbitrarily small quantity (a 0.1 second spray for cooking spray, for instance), which can actually add up to significant numbers if not monitored. Again, taken to the logical extreme... do you mean to tell me I wont' consume any calories if I empty the entire can of cooking spray into some cup and drink it? Doubtful.

You have to be consistent with salt intake. As you diet down, hunger increases, and so we tend to add salt to increase the satiety of the food we're eating. Water draws in salt, and so you retain water, which can cause the scale to stall (or even go up!) for a couple weeks at a time. Worse yet, increasing salt intake increases thirst...

You really need to be eating more or less the same stuff for at least a couple meals a day. Because of the high degree of variability and inaccuracy in measuring devices / packaging labels, it's most efficient (though not absolutely necessary) to minimize variability elsewhere. The easiest way is to find a couple meals (breakfast / lunch) that you can consistently eat the same thing and not get super bored... or perhaps rotate out a couple-few meals.

Other nasty problems include changing the calorie out side of the equation. If you diet for too long, you can stop fidgeting or moving around as much. This changes your base metabolic rate and causes weight loss to slow down. It's important to not diet for extended periods of time (2-4 months is probably best), unless there is a risk of impending death due to morbid obesity (not your case).

The most insidious is "cheat meals". You can undo an entire week of dieting with a cheat meal... and more if you opt for the cheat day. You should never feel the need to cheat on a diet. If hunger and diet fatigue rise to unsustainable levels, then take a couple months to eat at maintenance before getting back into the diet.

Lastly, you must lift weights. Next to getting your bf % down to a reasonable level, this is one of the most important things you can do for your health.

Consume 0.7 - 1.0 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight, per day. This helps with satiety and muscle preservation. If you're a novice, you can build muscle in a calorie deficit, but only if you're consuming enough protein.

That's one of the best posts I ever read on losing weight and calories in calories out.

 

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[S.Y.]

I’m a recent convert to calorie counting.

How do you approach that in your life?

Do you weigh all your meals? Use an app?

One of the reasons why I am not a big fan of calories counting is that I find it a bit cumbersome. I also think the focus is on the wrong thing. Calories are just one part of the equation. The quality of your food matters as much, if not more.

Wondering what is your opinion?

 

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[Strategery]

How do you approach that in your life?

Do you weigh all your meals? Use an app?

One of the reasons why I am not a big fan of calories counting is that I find it a bit cumbersome. I also think the focus is on the wrong thing. Calories are just one part of the equation. The quality of your food matters as much, if not more.

Wondering what is your opinion?

There’s no way around it, it is a bit cumbersome no matter how you approach it. But I also don’t plan on doing it forever, that’s just unrealistic. I’m mostly doing it so that I can improve my long-term ability to eat intuitively.

You can get a simple food scale (mine was ~$12 on Amazon) and there are a few different apps out there, my favorites being Cronometer and MyFitnessPal.

Truly, food quality is important. And some people may burn a certain type of calorie slightly more efficiently than others. But once you’ve figured out your own nuances, through consistent tracking, you won’t find anymore surprises... Calories are calories.

 

[Sethamus]

The few guys I have seen do well with calorie counting was geared towards intermittent fasting. They started with an 8 hour window and worked to a 6 hour. They ate whatever they wanted in the window as long as it wasn’t crazy unhealthy (they didn’t sit and eat a whole cake). One guy lost 15 lbs while he was working out and let his body tell him how hungry he was. Normally would eat a huge lunch and some snacks before an afternoon workout and then eat a huge dinner. It worked for him and he never craved sweets as he could eat pizza or whatever when he wanted.
The limited time window helped with not over eating.

 

[Kevin88660]

Hi Fastlaners,

For the past 2-3 years I have heard and tried diets that claim that calorie counting is flawed.
I like them because you don't have to weigh the food and count calorie every time I eat.


personally, I failed to lose weight(I understand this is because of my poor diet plan and understanding, for example, keto turned into a high protein high-fat diet). My weight is stagnant for the last 3 years. I am 5 feet 5 inches and weigh 73 kg and my body fat percentage at 23%.


what do you guys advise,
is it really flawed? I would love to listen to your thoughts on it.

@Strategery @Raoul Duke

Calories Counting is not flawed.

In fact it is a guaranteed way to work because it is backed by physics.

Most diets focusing on none calories factors are just getting way for you to better comply on a deficit. Fasting helps you to get used to hunger. Protein rich diet help you to feel full and as a result eat less.

You could still binge eat on steak only to reach a surplus and gain weight and fat. Just that it is not that easy compared to binging on fries.

If you look at Japanese who eat a rice heavy diet they are actually very lean. They just have to discipline not to binge on the carbohydrates.

But I do think they large health related reasons to eat less carbohydrate, besides weight management.

But when it comes to weight management calories in calories out is still the most important concept.

The whole weight industry dirty hype is always to tell people what they want to hear, that their failure was a result of a bad science and the new science is coming to save them.

 

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[WillHurtDontCare]

A week or 2 before I left for Thailand:

mirin'

 

[mat287]

Hi Fastlaners,

For the past 2-3 years I have heard and tried diets that claim that calorie counting is flawed.
I like them because you don't have to weigh the food and count calorie every time I eat.


personally, I failed to lose weight(I understand this is because of my poor diet plan and understanding, for example, keto turned into a high protein high-fat diet). My weight is stagnant for the last 3 years. I am 5 feet 5 inches and weigh 73 kg and my body fat percentage at 23%.


what do you guys advise,
is it really flawed? I would love to listen to your thoughts on it.

@Strategery @Raoul Duke

Im very into health and fitness. I hover around 10-12 percent body fat, can bench 350 lbs, Squat 450 lbs, and deadlift 550 lbs, can run a sub 6 minute mile and weigh 193-197 lbs generally. I am fairly
Im going to say 2 things that go against the normal fitness advice to help you.

1. You should be weighing yourself at least once a day, and when youre trying to lose weight, twice a day. I weigh myself at least once a day to maintain my current weight. I tend to overeat when i exercise a lot (and thus gain weight) and under eat when traveling or cant workout for a couple days (and thus lose wight). I dont realize the gain or loss is happening, but I definitely notice from the scale. THE SCALE NEVER LIES. And from there Ill either skip or add a meal or two the following or current day

The optimal time to weigh yourself is when you wake up after you pee (and if you shit without needing coffee, then do that too). If you ate less than 10-12 hours prior, your weight will likely be thrown off slightly. If you weigh yourself at night, you will notice that you drop 3-5 lbs every night when sleeping (and more if you drink a ton of water or alcohol before bed)

2. You should workout every day. The workouts do not need to be hours long. 30 minutes is enough to start. The point of working out every day is that after a month or two it will be ingrained into your routine and be as much of a habit as eating dinner.

Now on you not losing weight. If you dont initially care about muscle mass and solely want to drop pounds, I would go into a severe calorie deficit. Like 1000 calories a day if your sedentary and 2000 if youre extremely active. You weigh around 160 pounds, so it doesnt sound like you are morbidly obese. Im curious to know if you exercise at all currently. Do you run? Weight lift? Bike? etc.

Also, whats your daily schedule like?

 

[Parks]

Like the Law of Physics, there is a law of burning energy etc. Calorie counting is real if done right, human bodies and animal bodies do not have any secret magic tricks in them.

It is as simple as what you put in and what you put out.

 

[TheCj]

Counting calories is the "unscripted truth" all these "diets" are just ways to eat foods that will fill you up and have lower calorie counts. You know how many calories are in a full head of lettuce about 100. So of course when people switch to the keto, paleo etc.. they will see results since they are eating foods that are way less calorie dense than junk/processed/sugary foods.

Problems with these types of diets are:
- The foods aren't necessarily ones you will enjoy eating for the rest of your life. You need to learn what foods that fit a healthy lifestyle are also foods that you enjoy.
- They don't incorporate reasonable junk/treats in them which I believe is unrealistic, there is too much amazing food that isn't healthy to not at least treat yourself to in moderation.
- They don't explain that the diet needs to switch to more calorie dense foods as you get fitter, or that you need to eat more. When a person is losing weight these diets are basically filling the stomach with lower calorie food that takes up space to help a person feel full, this then allows the person's fat stores to get tapped into. When said person loses the fat that diet now doesn't have enough calories to provide the energy needed, which can lead to muscle loss, depression and other things. Basically I feel like crap/tired eating healthy might as well do what i was doing before and get that sugar, dopamine hit.

Start counting calories with what you eat now, adjust how much you eat after a few weeks of tracking. Don't even need to change what you eat and you will see results. Someone will loose weight if all they eat is junk food at the right calorie count, they will start feeling lethargic, tired and create other health problems like diabetes etc.. yet they will be a healthier weight. Hence the skinny fat people of the world. Just start looking for healthier versions for foods you currently eat. As your identity shifts to someone that makes healthy food choices so will what you choose to eat.

I'd recommend weighing yourself daily, not for weight loss but to learn how much a person's weight swings in a day. Weigh yourself before and after going to the washroom. Weight before sleep and then in the morning, after meals etc.. Tracking this I feel helps a person look for longer trends since now you can see that 1-2-5-10lb swing in weight can happen in very short amounts of time. Heck just wearing certain clothing will change a person's weight that may not even think of. I always suggest to take body measurements also, to help keep motivated when the scale isn't changing can see the inch's going.

Calorie counting is basically when a person can learn what there own body needs, it is basically doing a science experiment on yourself. Eat x amount of calories see what happens, adjust the intake amount and then see again. Do it long enough and you will learn how much you should be eating, and portion sizes etc.. to the point you can eyeball it. If you notice that you are gaining weight you know you have the tools to get your weight/fat under control.

Over 20 years, I've controlled my weight up and down and in between from 170lb up to 230lb using calorie counting as my main basis of weight control.

There are so many parallels with getting healthy to getting personal finance under control. When dig into both subjects the answers to success come down to committing to changing how a person lives there life, and the daily choices over a long period of time. Which doesn't sell as much as the latest diet, or 30 day ab plan, or the latest get rich quick scheme.

The only reason a person will say calorie counting isn't working is because they either are missing things to count like sauces and drinks, and or haven't stuck with it long enough. Even if a person is completely miscalculating how many calories things are, as long as they are consistently keeping track and consistently miscalculating with the same factor/error rate they will still be able to loose weight.

Hope it helps!

 

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[JAJT]

Their logic is that you don't store the fiber, but I'm skeptical.

Ehhh.... it's called "indigestible fiber" for a reason. It's extremely common to subtract insoluble fiber from calorie counts because it literally isn't absorbed by your body.

It passes right through, which is why it's great for folks who need to increase bowel movement frequency - that's literally where it goes.

 

[Vadim26]

I’m the opposite here - I’m trying to gain weight. Hard-gainer, ectomorph with a tall frame (6’3”).

Lost a bunch of weight after my appendectomy and set a goal to be 210 lbs by the end of this year.

3 workouts a week + 4000-4200 calories tracked daily and I’m on track to make it happen. It’s very tedious, but it works.

 

[Raja]

I think this is a good example of the common problem where people on level 1, or even level 0.1 skip to level 5 and see bad results.

Trying to fine tune something that hasn’t even been put in the same universe yet... that’s what it’s like when you get into all the details of nutrition trying to lose weight when you still don’t have a caloric deficit

Not getting you, what do you mean?

 

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