sprince

Fortunately, I'll never have to worry about it. But on the outside looking in, driving to McDonald's three times a day, counting calories in every meal, sleep deprivation, being a slave to burning x calories for the rest of your life, etc. It just doesn't sound like a lot of fun to me.

Machka 

To each his own.

Personally, I'm a data person. I've been keeping track of every kilometre I've cycled since April 29, 1990. Keeping track of calories is not any different. I find it interesting.

Bolo Grubb

I am also a data person but find tracking calories much harder. Mostly because to be accurate you have to measure the food. Some things are easy like 1 or 2 eggs, but others a bit more work (is that 1/2 a cup of peas, or 3/4 cups? how many ounces is that chicken leg? etc)

Machka 

I have a kitchen scale and measure things in grams. In the beginning, I weighed everything, but don't do it quite as often now ... partly because I've got a pretty good idea about serving sizes etc., and also because I'm maintaining rather than losing. If I really felt like dropping a bit more, I'd start weighing everything again.

Bolo Grubb

Ya I really should get a kitchen scale, it would help a lot. I should also eat out less

Machka 

They're not expensive. We picked up a nice one at Woolworths (one of our main grocery stores, completely unrelated to North American Woolworths) for ... I don't remember exactly how much, but I'm thinking less than $20.

And using it was very eye-opening for me!!

Seattle Forrest

Oboile, Machka, and Carbonfiberboy are voices of reason here.

sprince

Lol. Absolutely insane. I'd just assume give up eating and mainline some kind of nutritional replacement.

Machka 

Why?

That seems like a very odd comment to make.

sprince

Nothing odd about it. I have better things to do with my time than weigh food. Now if I was getting paid (a whole lot more than I make now) for athletic performance, then sure it would make perfect sense, part of the job.

Machka 

Oh well ... I enjoy doing it.

sprince

Sorry, that's a perfectly valid reason. I've heard of stranger hobbies. But in the context of weight loss, isn't that like emptying a lake with a teaspoon? I mean people don't generally go on a diet to lose exactly 37.5 grams of body weight.

Carbonfiberboy 

Really? I'm having a great time weighing 8 lbs. more than in 1962. I'm riding frigging RAMROD day after tomorrow. And I didn't have to drive to McD's, count calories, get sleep deprived, or try to burn x calories. CI<CO is really pretty simple. OTOH if I had students to count my calories for me, that would be cool but I don't think it would change anything for me. I'd rather eat my wife's cooking than McD's.

Machka 

Weight loss is slow. The fastest 'they' recommend is 1 kg/week. Divided over 7 days, that's roughly 140 grams per day.

But the goal of weighing food is to find out how many calories it contains. Once you know how much something weighs, then you can look up the calorie count using a site like this:
SELF Nutrition Data | Food Facts, Information & Calorie Calculator

For example, 100 grams of broccoli is 34 calories. 100 grams of cheddar cheese is 403 calories. 100 grams of a Krispy Kreme cake doughnut: Old Fashioned Sour Cream is 418 calories.

Another example, this is what 100 calories of different kinds of nuts looks like:
100 Calories of Nuts: A Visual Guide ? Snack Tips from The Kitchn | The Kitchn


So if 100 grams of cheddar cheese is a regular part of your diet, and you want to lose a bit of weight, you might considering dropping that to 50 grams and saving yourself about 200 calories per day. Using the 3500 calories = 1 lb formula, you'd lose 1 lb every 17.5 days. In a year, you could lose about 21 lbs.

CI<CO doesn't have to be about drastic changes ... it's more about awareness and making choices that you can live with. And patience.


~~~~~~~~~~

Incidentally, I can't remember the last time we went to McDonalds ... just not fond of their food. I'm thinking maybe 2012?

Bolo Grubb

This right here is the whole reason I am thinking about getting a food scale. So I can be more aware of the amount of calories in the food I eat so I can make better choices.

jsk

yep, I find it really useful, and in conjunction with an app like MyFitnessPal it's pretty quick and painless. Especially if you have goto foods/meals that you eat on a regular basis, it's hardly any trouble at all. It's not some complex, tedious task like some make it out to be (yet another of the many strawman arguments in this thread)

RandomEncounter

In addition to a food scale, look for an app that supports bar codes for data entry. Grab product, scan code, put on scale, enter number into phone. Easy-peasy.

Machka 

The MyFitnessPal app has a barcode scanner which is great!! It's actually a lot of fun to use.

kzin

It is well established in addiction treatment that moderation is very ineffective and 'cold turkey' abstinence is more effective.

This implies that for anyone whose weight issues are related to addiction, calorie moderation is unlikely to be effective.
A categorical decision to never eat 'junk food' or 'carbs' or 'meat' is more likely to lead to positive results.

GoWolfpack

For people who aren't data junkies it simplifies decision making.


"Should I eat that? It has carbs in it, so no I should not."


You can't reason or debate with yourself, or commit to cutting 200 calories from dinner so you can eat half of a Reese's Cup after lunch.




I've been thinking about this thread often since I read it, and I've been wondering how the hardcore calorie-counters figure their calories burned. Is there really some electronic whizz bang that can accurately measure how much energy you've used, or do you just figure that if you're losing weight you must be burning more calories than you're eating?

gregf83 

For cycling a powermeter provides the most accurate indication of calories burned while riding. Without a powermeter it can be more challenging to get a reasonable estimate but most people are able to find a method (HR, Cals/mi etc) that works for them. It doesn't have to be perfectly accurate.

Machka 

That's part of it.

Of course, height and weight give a reasonable estimate of BMR to start with, and then we estimate a little bit on the low side when it comes to exercise.

So I go with 100 cal for every 5 km for cycling and 200 cal/hour for walking ... or slightly less.

I use MyFitnessPal, and will use their exercise estimates for other exercise, but for example, when I log riding my bicycle on the trainer, I select the "light workout" option, and when I row, again, I select the "light workout" option ... even if I'm putting in a good effort and it's probably a "moderate workout".

And then the recommendation is to eat about half your exercise calories back. Try that for a month and see how things go ... adjust as necessary or desired.

When I started, I ate about half my exercise calories back and lost the weight I wanted to lose. Now my focus has changed. I'm maintaining and training for long distance rides, so I'm eating roughly 99% of the calories I burn. Since I am actually maintaining my weight and have done for months now, I have to assume, I've got it right.


And I'll just add that I weigh myself every day. Again, I like the data. I like watching the little fluctuations up and down depending on my salt intake (salt makes me retain water and I might weigh half a kilogram more the morning after a salty dinner), depending on the exercise I do (lots of exercise, like cycling a metric century or something, also makes me retain water and I might weigh a little bit more the morning after), depending on my TOM, and so on. And if I do retain water, a couple days later I make tracks to the toilet all day, and the next day my weight is back down to what it was.

That's how I do it, and this in combination with moderation in my diet has worked well for me.

jsk

I don't log calories for things like lifting weights (doesn't really burn much), or yard work, or taking a walk. I only log calories from cycling (which is the vast majority of my physical activity). I have a power meter so I'm pretty confident in the accuracy.

Definitely be wary of generic calorie estimates available in some apps and websites, they tend to be pretty far off IMHO. MyFitnessPal's database has what I consider ridiculously high estimates, easily double my actual calories for cycling not to mention the numbers they put to things like house work.

The key to making CICO work for weight loss is to be pessimistic on both the food and the exercise calories. Once you're maintaining, accuracy becomes less of an issue unless you're consistently optimistic and weight starts to creep back up.

GoWolfpack

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not on the verge of starting to count calories. I love peanut butter and heavy cream in my coffee. Plus I'm terminally lazy.


I have a Garmin Vivosmart HR that purports to tell me how many calories I've burned based on my activity level. I don't trust it. It sounds like calories burned are assumed to be greater than calories consumed if weight loss occurs, with some support from estimates and power meters.

Seattle Forrest

Enjoy the ride! You couldn't ask for nicer weather.