Finding balance of calories to eat to lose weight while training (Read 1230 times)

Dude. Chill. Again, the mantra is only a reminder, not the plan itself; the plan is meticulously outlined in the lengthy writings (have you read them?). The devil is in the details, the planning and the execution. And the salad/ice cream example was not an implication against you, but rather just an example of the challenges of Pollan's approach in today's society (not against calorie counters, and I apologize if you misunderstood that). Yet for many people, calorie counting does in fact imply that all calories are equal. Do you think most healthy weighted people around the world or through history count(ed) calories? MTA: There is plenty of science that supports your assertion that a hungry/not hungry sensor can be broken, especially among folks who are or have been overweight. Again, you can eat a sensible portion and walk away still feeling hungry and that is okay. You can do this without counting calories but instead by looking at a reasonably sized plate and placing a reasonable amount of food on it. If you need to count calories every now and then to make sure that what you think is an appropriate plateful really is so, that is certainly fine. The problem comes when people replace sensibility with calorie counting. As I have said elsewhere, that kind of thinking says that a powerbar is equally healthy as a large apple. A compromise: count calories, but only count and eat those calories contained in real food (as opposed to processed foodstuff, powerbars, shakes, etc). Cook your own food. Use only a few ingredients. Try to eat seasonally. MATA: And please don't think I am calling you weak for having had trouble with this. Again, it is very difficult to execute and there are huge hurdles to doing so correctly in our society. Our bodies were made to be on the move, consuming only a few calories and covering perhaps miles every day, and then that perhaps only for 35 years or so. It takes very little to tip us into weight gain or retention, especially when we are less active and have so much food available to us. Most of us average sized folks can live well on 1200-1500 kcalories per day, but it does not feel good. More than that and all the calorie dense foods that promote storage easily derail our mindful attempts at healthy weightedness. It does not make us weak that this happens, it is just biology. Also, FWIW, running a few miles every day and sitting at a desk the rest of the day is not the same thing as being up on your feet all day covering the same distance. Lastly, the OP was not somebody who needed to lose 100-200 lbs, but rather somebody who was looking to shave off just a few pounds. If you have a morbid obesity, all these discussions change. No longer are we talking about a healthy eating style to get through life, but instead we are talking about somebody who has an illness that needs to be treated. In that case, calorie counting and possibly medications/surgery must be considered. For the morbidly obese person, the eat food mantra is inadequate. The same is true for the smoker that you identified. These is a very different cases from the average American who is trying to be active and keep their weight in check.

Wow, a revelation! Not.

Mr. Deutschman, who acknowledged the low success rates of most change regimens, said certain strategies were more likely to bring positive results. He boils his conclusions down to four steps. The first, he said, is to “start with big changes, not small ones,” a strategy likely to yield immediate, noticeable benefits that inspire more positive change. The second is to act like the kind of person you are trying to become; even if you hit the jogging trail with 30 pounds of flab, think of yourself as the jock you want to be. The third strategy is to “reframe” the situation. Recovering alcoholics, for example, have a higher chance of success if they reframe their sober life as a divorce from a tumultuous love affair with drinking, because they can then look back at their old life as a romantic adventure, rather than a sinkhole of regret. The fourth, and crucial, strategy, he said, is based on the “don’t do it alone” advice that is the bedrock of 12-step programs.

Best thing I've read in a long time:

In the end, Ms. Leavitt said, she overcame her habit (biting her nails) after visiting a hypnotherapist. “The hypnosis didn’t work, either,” she added, “but something he said did: that I would always want to bite my nails, but the key was that I would want pretty nails more. He was right. I still want to chew my nails to the nubs, but I keep admiring my hands instead.”

This says a LOT.

I agree and disagree with Trent and Ennay. I think the key is finding the balance. Calorie counting alone might make you lose weight, initially, but doesn't guarantee that you're eating healthy food. You can eat 1500 calories of M&Ms. Likewise, the Eat food, not too much, mostly plants mantra leads you toward more healthful/mindful eating, but if you don't have a good way to know how much you're eating, then eating "a reasonable portion" of even good food can be too much. Like Ennay, I struggle with my internal hunger/satiation sensor being screwy. I don't eat a lot of crap, but I do like to eat. Calorie counting helps me keep my portion sizes in check. I think the Eat food, not too much, mostly plants mantra is great, and the article is very interesting. But is it realistic for most people? I would argue not. It would take a HUGE lifestyle change to really adopt/adhere to this system. I admire those people who can do it, I really do, but I think it is much more difficult to implement than an approach of, eat good food (as natural as possible) and count the calories so I don't eat too much of it.

It would take a HUGE lifestyle change to really adopt/adhere to this system.

Maybe. Maybe not. I found that it did not. And would a lifestyle change that encourages buying correct food, cooking it yourself and eating in your kitchen or dining room as a family (i.e., what our grandparents and maybe our parents did) be all that bad?

It would be a lot easier if I had a work at home wife!

This is a good point, one that some of my friends have made to me. Pollan is asking us to go back to the time of our grandparents, and one of the features of that time was a division of labor that saw caring for the household as a sphere of responsibility, one tied up with the role of women. As the pace of life has increased and both partners have moved out of the house into the working world, great things have happened in terms of the choices that women are given. But these same changes led to the neglect of the household sphere to a certain extent (what? men weren't rushing in to fill the void?). So, Ilene's right. We should be careful not to romanticize our grandmother's era. She might have felt like a slave to food, sometimes. But on the other hand, we have opportunity to recognize that those women were also food artists, great cooks, and used that sphere to display amazing amounts of creative autonomy--even though that autonomy often wasn't recognized as valuable by the wider culture. When I see it that way, perhaps there is a space for a (multi-gendered) return to domestic responsibility, an affirmation of it, and a new appreciation for something that we took, too much, for granted. To my mind, that would bring the feminist movement full circle, not only liberating women from the domestic sphere but also recognizing that a full life requires devotion to that sphere, something that we can learn by remembering the women who were not liberated as liberators.

I also think it is unrealistic to expect that one would NEVER eat non-food. (Hello poptart man). Business luncheons, school events and social exposure ALONE makes it far more difficult. Your suggestion to only calorie count real food is I think backwards. If you want to to partial calorie counting it would make entirely more sense to calorie count ONLY the NON food items and place a limit on that. Not more than 200 calories of crap in a day would be a good start for a lot of people.