The Fat Loss TroubleshootThis is your place to troubleshoot your fat loss problems from nutrition to training. This section is led by Leigh Peele, author of "The Fat Loss Troubleshoot," the ultimate fat loss manual. If your results have slowed or stalled this is the place to come for advice for all your fat loss needs.
Counting EVERYTHING or Why I won't be eating yogurt almonds anytime soon
Ok, just have to vent a little. So yesterday, I ate a light-ish lunch (first mistake) and then headed off to the grocery store (second mistake), where, among other things, I bought a small amount of yogurt-covered almonds as a treat for my 5yo daughter. By the time we got home, of course I was STARVING. Then I had to put everything away and get a snack for my daughter, which included a few of the almonds. So, I ended up eating a couple myself. I've been stalled on the scale for a couple of weeks, so I've been trying to tighten up on the extra BLTs (bites, licks and tastes), but I was super-hungry and stuff happens. Anyway, the next line of defense is weighing and counting everything I do eat, so I threw two of the almonds on my food scale and headed to the computer to see what the damage was. OMG!!! Those little suckers are about 30 calories a piece!! The good news - I have officially lost my appetite for yogurt covered almonds. The bad news - had to eliminate my nightly 60 calories square of chocolate to compensate. The moral of the story -- it's REALLY depressingly easy to BLT yourself out of a deficit.
weighing and recording everything, although appearing completely OCD. does make you think twice about those little things. You might even find that you wont have something just cause you don't want to record the bad stuff.
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If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten
So many foods are high in calories and we don't realize it until we do the research. I have a hard time eating only one ounce of nuts for a serving. Sometimes I won't even buy them because I feel a binge coming on. Like you, I won't buy them covered with yogurt or chocolate either.
It's totally pathetic and weak, but I tell my kids that the snacks are theirs, so I won't be eating them. If they are "ours" then they know I'll just buy more when we run out of cookies (for instance). If they are theirs, they spread them out and make them last. My eating them would take away from them, so I don't do it.
The bad news - had to eliminate my nightly 60 calories square of chocolate to compensate.
Why is this bad? Dieting is about choices - if I have this now I can't have that later. People who fail at diets never learn this. You're one step ahead of the masses.
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"A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have."
Why is this bad? Dieting is about choices - if I have this now I can't have that later. People who fail at diets never learn this. You're one step ahead of the masses.
Point taken and thanks for the vote of confidence. Of course it's good for my fat loss goals that I counted and compensated. It's only "bad" in the sense that I really look forward to my tea and chocolate at the end of a day spent chasing around the two rugrats, so I was kind of bummed to forgo it because of eating the almonds. (I still had the tea -- ginger peach decaf -- it's delish and calorie-free) But had I known in advance, I would have made a different choice. Live and learn, eh?
oh those BLT's. Mine haev gotten out of hand again. Gotta tighten them up again now, as I dont want to feel like I am constantly dieting. That is the worse part about them. You always feel like youre on a diet,but you end up sabotaging yourself without even enjoying food, since you are just sneaking them in. Better to avoid, weigh and measure, and be done with dieting.
I keep all my son's treats in a box on a high shelf in his room. Each night he can pick one thing for a snack. If it's in the box I don't touch it-although I must confess once there were oreos and I did steal those while he was sleeping. So now, I encourage him to eat fig newtons and fruit snack because I don't like them and makes a snack invasion less likely.
you do realize the error in measurement anyways right? Even measuring and weighing food you can be off by over a hundred calories. My question is where do you draw the line between ED behaviors and living life (even dieting) with some normalcy.
I don't see why one would have to be so neurotic over 60 calories really? In the grand scheme of things what is the big deal?
Of course you're correct, if you can eat the extra calories and still get the results you want, no problem. But for me, right now, I'm not getting the fat loss I want, so I'm trying to be as accurate as possible with recording my intake and trying to hit a specific calorie goal. On that particular day, because of the other meals I ate, I couldn't have the extra 60 calories and still meet my goal. Another day, it might have been a different story. But in any event, I guess my point was how easy it would have been to eat say even 4-6 of those thing, something you'd think would be a small taste that wouldn't make a difference if I didn't count it, but really would put me at 120-180 calories less of a deficit.
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you do realize the error in measurement anyways right? Even measuring and weighing food you can be off by over a hundred calories. My question is where do you draw the line between ED behaviors and living life (even dieting) with some normalcy.
Of course there's error, but weighing and measuring minimizes the error over time because you end up comparing each relatively equally flawed day against results. For me, this ends up being a lot less disordered than not measuring, thinking that I have a 500 calorie daily deficit, (when really it's more like a 500 calorie weekly deficit) for example, and then getting frustrated when I don't get the results I would expect. That scenario just sets me up for a binge.
On the other hand, if I'm measuring and I feel confident that I'm as accurate as I possibly can be, and I'm not getting results, then I can make an informed decision about what to do next. So right now, the scale's been stalled for two weeks. I'm giving myself a week of strict weighing and measuring to see if I can get any scale movement. If not, I'm either going to cut calories a little more or take a diet break. And I'm leaning more toward a break because I've been in a deficit since March (abt 15 wks) and I think I'll be very cranky if I start eating any less.
you do realize the error in measurement anyways right? Even measuring and weighing food you can be off by over a hundred calories. My question is where do you draw the line between ED behaviors and living life (even dieting) with some normalcy.
I think the main benefit of measuring is know what serving sizes look like. The nutrition label can say 1 serving= 85g. But what does 85g look like? What does 4 oz. of chicken look like? This was an eye opener for me when looking at serving sizes and thinking that I usually take much more when just loading up the plate.
Also, and this is just personal experience, when dieting I think you should measure all the time. Knowing what you are taking in and getting feedback from the bathroom scale lets you adjust your diet accordingly. When going to maintenance you can back off measuring and eyeball your portions just using the bathroom scale as feedback.
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"A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have."
I don't see why one would have to be so neurotic over 60 calories really? In the grand scheme of things what is the big deal?
My goal is to be at a place where I don't have to track, at least not so diligently.
I'm tracking as closely as I can to help compensate for the times I can't. I used to not track veggies (as you don't in WW) but I easily eat over 200 calories a day in veggies.
By tracking obsessively for breakfast, lunch, snack, and an alcoholic beverage yesterday, I was able to guesstimate on the bbq chicken, slaw, and french fries I ate from a local bbq joint last night. There is no way to accurately know what I ate. Yet because I tracked fairly accurately for the last 6 days, a couple hundred calories off won't derail me. Yet a couple hundred calories a day will totally mess up my diet plan.
My goal is to be at a place where I don't have to track, at least not so diligently.
I'm tracking as closely as I can to help compensate for the times I can't. I used to not track veggies (as you don't in WW) but I easily eat over 200 calories a day in veggies.
By tracking obsessively for breakfast, lunch, snack, and an alcoholic beverage yesterday, I was able to guesstimate on the bbq chicken, slaw, and french fries I ate from a local bbq joint last night. There is no way to accurately know what I ate. Yet because I tracked fairly accurately for the last 6 days, a couple hundred calories off won't derail me. Yet a couple hundred calories a day will totally mess up my diet plan.
Yup, nuts are buggers... LOADS of kcal in them, while they're only soooo small.. I try to avoid them because of that.
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Vegetarian, consumer of large quantities of Quark cheese
Working my way from 76.4 to 58 kg (168 - 127.6 lbs)
Lifting a bit, schedule varies. Barbell weight: 22kg/48.4#
Counting EVERYTHING or Why I won't be eating yogurt almonds anytime soon
. Of course it's good for my fat loss goals that I counted and compensated. It's only "bad" in the sense that I really look forward to my tea and chocolate at the end of a day spent chasing around the two rugrats, so I was kind of bummed to forgo it because of eating the almonds. (I still had the tea -- ginger peach decaf -- it's delish and calorie-free) But had I known in advance, I would have made a different choice. Live and learn, eh?
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