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Linda0818
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28-08-2017, 03:40 PM
11

Re: I just can't do it without counting calories

Originally Posted by Meg ->
Linda oddly since I made a lifstyle change in June for health reasons I have no desire to stray from my new path even at weekends.

A health scare is the best diet ever
I can imagine! I often think hmmm, maybe I'd be better off keeping this extra bit of weight on me.
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Linda0818
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28-08-2017, 03:45 PM
12

Re: I just can't do it without counting calories

Originally Posted by Realist ->
Counting calories is plain silly imo.

I mean if you are going to analyse to that level then you need to know ALL the info, not just the calorific value of your food.

For example, how many calories is your body burning ?

How many is it burning overnight?
How many in the morning, noon and night?

If you don't know that info then how can you determine how many calories you should be eating? Are you really just going to take some arbitrary "total calorie" figure dreamt up by someone that they are trying to apply to all women?

It's a nonsense

Just resolve to eat good healthy food.

Knowing/learning good from bad is the key.
Yeah, it's silly, but it's the only thing that's ever worked for me. I DO NOT have self control unless I hold myself accountable and the only way for me to do that is to log everything I eat. When I stop, the weight comes right back on. Whatever the reason, it worked. When I stop paying attention to what my intake is, I get fat again.

However, I stopped because I got tired of doing it and have no intention of going back to it because I'm sick of logging everything. And after many years of weighing, measuring and logging everything I ate, I know full well what portion sizes I need and how much food I need per day. It's just I don't have any self-discipline.
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Linda0818
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28-08-2017, 04:17 PM
13

Re: I just can't do it without counting calories

No, I take that back, that's not the only thing that's ever worked for me... starvation did the trick as well when I was in my 20's. I got so skinny I had people asking me if I was sick. I barely ate anything unless it was salad or vegetables or anything that was low in calories, if I ate at all. I got to the point where if I tried to eat a normal meal, it made me feel sick.

That's one thing I'm glad I bounced back from because that's not healthy in the slightest.
Realist
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28-08-2017, 08:33 PM
14

Re: I just can't do it without counting calories

Originally Posted by Linda0818 ->
I DO NOT have self control unless I hold myself accountable and the only way for me to do that is to log everything I eat.
There's a fundamental issue in all this then.

One doesn't need self control to want to live healthy and be healthy. So I conclude that you haven't yet really separated the eating issues away from "food= weight" to "bad food = bad health".

Weight is NOT a consideration here. Forget about weight totally. No 1 objective is to understand you are a human being and that your body needs certain fuel. Separate that which is YOU from that which is your body. Your body will consume all good fuel no matter what you think of it. Whether YOU think in your head that you like a food or not, your body likes it regardless and will process it.

Just determine to be a healthy person because health brings happiness, vibrancy and good energy levels.

Don't eat bad foods. When you see bad foods don't think, "that will make me fat", think "that will make me ill", "it will damage or obstruct my body's functions".

Eat simple. Meat, fish, proper fresh veg and fruit.

Everything else will come good if you resolve to be a healthy person.
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Linda0818
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28-08-2017, 10:05 PM
15

Re: I just can't do it without counting calories

Originally Posted by Realist ->
There's a fundamental issue in all this then.

One doesn't need self control to want to live healthy and be healthy. So I conclude that you haven't yet really separated the eating issues away from "food= weight" to "bad food = bad health".

Weight is NOT a consideration here. Forget about weight totally. No 1 objective is to understand you are a human being and that your body needs certain fuel. Separate that which is YOU from that which is your body. Your body will consume all good fuel no matter what you think of it. Whether YOU think in your head that you like a food or not, your body likes it regardless and will process it.

Just determine to be a healthy person because health brings happiness, vibrancy and good energy levels.

Don't eat bad foods. When you see bad foods don't think, "that will make me fat", think "that will make me ill", "it will damage or obstruct my body's functions".

Eat simple. Meat, fish, proper fresh veg and fruit.

Everything else will come good if you resolve to be a healthy person.
Actually, I completely believe that quality is better than quantity. Because you're right, bad foods aren't a good thing. I try my best to stay away from them.

But there's too much of a good thing as well. Which brings me back to the weight issue. Even healthy food has calories.

So you're right about that as well. Everything is a numbers game to me. I love eating healthful foods, but I can't get "weight" and "calories" out of my head.

I watch the show Supersize vs Superskinny. And there was a duo on there that totally broke all food laws at both ends of the spectrum. Jeanette, the superskinny, ate nothing but refined carbs and junk. Rosemarie, the supersizer, ate only healthful foods. No processed junk, no crisps and sweets; she ate only lean meats and fish, fruits and vegetables and fine meals of good quality. Her problem was she ate too much of it. Jeanette, on the other hand, only weighed, I think, about 6 and 1/2 or 7 stone and her diet was nothing but greasy foods, processed foods, anything from packet or fast food on the go, sausage rolls, candy, that sort of thing. Her problem was she ate too little of it.

You would think it would be the obese woman who ate the junk and the thin woman who ate the good stuff, when actually it was the complete opposite.

Which leads me right back to my problem - I eat good foods, for the most part, but I simply eat too much.

My diet isn't perfect. I eat pizza sometimes on the weekends (even though it's always a veggie pizza with very little cheese) and I don't like whole grain breads or pastas. But I love vegetables, I love fish, I love lean chicken, etc. In fact right now I'm cooking some quinoa because for lunch tomorrow I'm having baked quinoa-stuffed zucchini (corgette).

That's how I prefer to eat. I'd rather have that than a big fat juicy burger.
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Linda0818
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28-08-2017, 10:16 PM
16

Re: I just can't do it without counting calories

Oh! And one of my favorite places in summer is a farmer's market. I'm like a kid in a candy store at those places. At a buffet-style restaurant, I pass up the dessert bar to head for the salad.

Might sound untrue and crazy, but I'm for real.
Julie1962
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29-08-2017, 11:43 AM
17

Re: I just can't do it without counting calories

Linda I think different ways suit different people you and I need the calorie counting, some like my husband don't maddeningly he just has to say diet and it starts to fall off him, could be grounds for an acquittal for murder I think

But it's not silly IMO it's just a different way to get to the same gaol. Certainly most calorie counting apps do take into account calories expended, one I use you add your exercise and it allows you more calories or less.

As long as it works IMO doesn't really matter how you do it.
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29-08-2017, 12:23 PM
18

Re: I just can't do it without counting calories

Originally Posted by Linda0818 ->
but I can't get "weight" and "calories" out of my head.
Well that's a life decision you have to make I'm afraid. Whilever you are focussed on weight as an issue then you'll never progress imho.

A bit like being a person who is suceptible to repeated colds and viruses putting all the focus on which particular flu capsules or throat lozenges work the best. Looking at the symptoms and pandering to those symptoms doesn't fix or improve the underlying problem which in this case would be a damaged/poor immune system.

Obesity/weight is a symptom not a condition. It is the by product of being unwell, being unhealthy, not having good bodily functions.

Calorie counting and associated apps are imho a pile of crap.

A man on average in takes 2000 cals per day and a sedentary person burns about 1650 cals per day. I've been a sedentary person for the past 20 years. I sat in an office all day in front of a computer, I sat in the sofa at home, then slept in my bed, rinse, repeat.

Yet I am constant in my weight. According to calorie counting I should be constantly piling the weight on because of more calories going in than being burned.

It's hogwash.

What matters is WHAT YOU EAT not how much you eat.

When the body's various functions are working in top health, the body will always balance itself. It discards what it doesn't need quietly and naturally.

This goes astray the moment you put unhealthy foods and drinks into your mouth. Not becuase those foods are themselves evil and awful but because of what they do to your body's natural functions.

Thus if you keep piling sugars into your mouth your brain and your digestion is greatly affected and that has ripple effects elsewhere and results in you storing available food energy as fat.

There are other considerations. Younger girls and women who are on any of the various forms of contraceptive (pills, norplant etc), are essentially screwed (no pun intended). The estrogens and other crap in them greatly mess with the body functions and pretty much no matter what you eat, you'll be piling the weight on. No diet will be able to stop it.

The pathway that forks in front of you is not thin on on side and fat on the other, it's not over weight vs under weight.

The pathway is healthy or sick, end of.

Everyone must come to terms with that in their own time and way. You have to realise what it is to be human and then choose to be healthy, choose to OBJECTIVELY give your body the kind of fuel it needs to do its thing. Once you do, you get all the good by products which include natural and permanent weight loss, high energy levels, clarity of mind and strong immune system.

And stay away from silly TV programmes imo. ALl the various diet programmes and weight loss programmes are just bogus made up fare for entertainment. The Biggest Loser being one of the worst imo.

Good luck to you. I hope you choose health.
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Linda0818
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29-08-2017, 12:35 PM
19

Re: I just can't do it without counting calories

Originally Posted by Julie1962 ->
Linda I think different ways suit different people you and I need the calorie counting, some like my husband don't maddeningly he just has to say diet and it starts to fall off him, could be grounds for an acquittal for murder I think
I agree!

Originally Posted by Julie1962 ->
But it's not silly IMO it's just a different way to get to the same gaol. Certainly most calorie counting apps do take into account calories expended, one I use you add your exercise and it allows you more calories or less.
Yes, the one I used did the same thing. Another thing I liked about logging food was to also see the types and amounts of nutrients I was getting in each meal. It logged everything, from protein, different fats and carbs to vitamins and minerals. Besides the food itself, it was nice to see exactly what was going into my body and I loved seeing the numbers on my mono fats going up, especially when I'd eat nuts, oily fish and avocado.

So while it was mostly about calorie intake, there was a little more to it than that. Realist is right and always has great ideas, though. Just focus on the foods I eat, doing my best to eat clean and whole and the rest should take care of itself. It sounds so perfectly simple and like the perfect formula. I only wish it were really that easy. What works for one person may not work for another.

Originally Posted by Julie1962 ->
As long as it works IMO doesn't really matter how you do it.
I agree. But I still can't bring myself to go back to calorie counting. It just became so time-consuming. Not to mention tedious. For many years I actually loved it and looked it forward to logging what I was eating, entering new items into my custom foods, etc. I have a whole database of my own customized foods built up. And it's hard to walk away from that because of all the work I put into it. But I just can't do it anymore. I'm older now, I don't have the energy I used to (or the ambition) and I can't bring myself to dedicate as much time as I used to doing all of that.

In a way I'll miss it, in a way I'll be glad to be rid of it. Letting go of that took a big weight off my shoulders. Unfortunately, it's adding weight everywhere else. And that's just something I'll have to learn to deal with.
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29-08-2017, 12:41 PM
20

Re: I just can't do it without counting calories

Yes I completely get that Linda, I'm not sure anyone that hasn't been on that journey can understand entirely and realist has his moments but obviously hasn't looked closely into the apps and calorie counting as it's not just focuses on calories in at all these days.
 
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