Weight-Loss How effective are food diaries and counting calories?

[Snezy]

I'm not being snobby about it. Sorry that I am educated.

Well there's an oxymoron if I've ever seen one.

As for your first post... the OP asked if calorie counting worked. Instead of saying that it could, if done properly, you seemed to imply that the OP was stupid. It is obvious that just counting calories won't make you lose weight, but the proper knowledge of counting calories can. You could have said, "yes, it has worked for me! There is a lot of nutrition knowledge that goes with it, as well as commitment." Your post just made no sense.

I didn't feel as if he was implying the OP was stupid. Merely letting him know that counting calories will not lose the weight for him, which is an important point.

 

[imaninjadangit]

Should he also be told that putting gas in his car won't actually drive his car, either?

How is it an oxymoron to say that just because I'm educated, I'm not snobby? That makes no sense. The two don't go hand in hand. Furthermore, you don't need to chime in. I was defending myself to another poster, not to you.

I am here to bond with people who have a common goal, not to bicker. The whole reason I even posted was to say that his original post was misleading. The OP wanted to know if calorie counting worked. Yes, it does...but you have to be committed and educate yourself on the proper way to calorie count.

The OP got his answers, so I really don't see any more need to take this further. If you still have a problem with me, feel free to send me a private message. This forum is not here for this high school drama. I think we all had the same idea, but it was lost along the way. My original post wasn't meant to be snide. I am just a sarcastic person.

 

[GoofyNewfie]

I wouldn't look at the fat, I'd look at the calories. It's the calories that will cause you to gain or lose weight. (Fat has more calories in it than the other macronutrients- carbs and protein- but it's not what you should be looking at) And I can heartily recommend the Be Good to Yourself/ Light Choices/ etc ranges, I use them a lot.

I'm looking at the Sainsbury's website, and the "Doritos Sour Cream & Chive Dip" (the fat is right, not sure if that's the one you're talking about) is 244 calories/ 100g, whereas the Be Good to Yourself plain sour cream is 101 calories/ 100g. So the latter is less than half as fattening. You need to be quite careful with things like that, as a serve may be less than you think it is (the more calories per 100g something has, the more careful you need to be). For sauces, less is always better.

To work out how many calories are in what you cook, you need to know the calories of each ingredient and how much of it you use. I do this sort of thing all the time for my calorie counting- the more accurate you want to be (I want to be quite accurate) the more fiddly it is (I weigh all my food- for recipes I weigh the ingredients, write it down, run it through my calorie calculator, then divide by number of serves). Even with my system, which is about as (pardon the expression) anal-retentive as you're going to get, it's not hard, it's just fiddly.

There are also recipes online (such as on BBC Good Food's website) which give you calorie estimates- I don't always find them to be accurate, but they're a good start.

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One thing I find people forget to remember is that to pursue good health we don't need to necessarily count how many calories we intake. Yes, you can count a daily allotted amount of food energy (/count calories) but what leads someone to believe they've found the magical number his/her body requires. On a daily basis your metabolism is changing and different times call for different amount of food energy.

It's not just the fact that people count food energy/calories that worries me it's the fact that people and ignorant to the fact that there is also quality of calories. I don't mean to be picking at you here, Amy 1985, but you mentioned fat calories. You are correct in the fact that fat, as a macro-nutrient is more calorie dense than the other macro-nutrients (protein and carbs) but that can't create a universal law that fat calories are bad. The fat calories you'd eat in a piece of salmon are essential fatty acids (EFAs). These EFAs are calorie dense but the overall health benefits put them in a different category compared to fat in a deep-fried french fry.

The same goes for carbs, too. The glycemic index allows us to see the quality of calories in our energy source food(s).

If you're eating higher calories but it great foods that have quality calories then you won't have to worry about the excess being stored away.

 

[Jericho]

Hello Goofy,
Would love for you to post something in the Newcomer forum about who you are and why you are here so you can be a part of the community.

I do disagree about your last statement..it's a little misleading. You do want you calorie intake to be useful calories but just because you eat higher qualities of useful calories doesn't mean that you don't have to worry about excess being stored. It's still caloris in vs calories out.


To the OP, I'm sure you see there are different opinions..A food diary is great to get you started in looking at what you are eating in an honest light. If you find it is helping you stay on course, then keep at it. Same at calorie counting. It's a tool and how you use it is the key. Use it to help you gain knowledge on labels and portion sizes. You don't have to do it every day of your life, because soon enough the knowledge becomes habit and second nature.