wildweasel
Explorer
I've been told the same thing by many people, my family included: that carbohydrates are the culprit behind weight gain, while fat and protein are not. And oddly enough, the ones telling me this were themselves overweight.Grogu said:
wildweasel said:
Grogu said:
N Sharp said:
We tend to think we burn far more calories than we actually do.
And we often think we eat fewer calories than we really do.
Thanks for sharing this — it's a really useful resource!
I'm in complete agreement — the calories we take in get undercounted far too often, and I'd put my agreement at 1,000%. Serving sizes have drifted so far from any sensible baseline, packaging claims can steer you wrong, and tracking every calorie is something most folks simply won't do.
For myself, I log intake on 5 days out of the week and keep calories in check, though I treat the result as a ballpark rather than a precise measurement. In my view it's "close enough for government work".
On the output side, I've never subtracted exercise burn from what I eat, apart from using an overall estimated TDEE based on how active I am. That figure has come down alongside my weight loss, and so has my intake.
Back when I began tirz, counting calories wasn't part of my routine, since I figured people at a "normal" weight don't bother with it. The trouble was my TDEE sat so high (3,400) that simply eating less did the job.
Most people at a 'normal' weight, in my view, never bother tracking what they eat — they simply rely on intuition.
For me, learning to count calories turned out to be incredibly effective, and modern tools like cronometer plus a food scale have made the process almost effortless.
Speaking from my own experience: during periods when i skipped calorie counting, my body fat hovered around 15% at best. Several years back, before i began aggressively trying to "eat healthy," i even climbed past 20%+, yet no matter what i did i could never drop below roughly 15% bf.
These days i do count calories, and once i started it shocked me how simple it became to steer my body composition in whatever direction i wanted...
When i began counting cals i weighed 165lbs and carried this stubborn belly fat (~15% bf at the time) that refused to budge even after quite literally over a year of effort... roughly 8 weeks later i had dropped to 155lbs ~10% bf with no stubborn belly fat left, and from that point i've put on about 20 pounds of lean muscle while adding zero body fat.
counting calories is powerful
Cronometer is my go-to. Before that, I spent roughly 4 or 5 months on Nourish's app since I had a nutritionist through my health plan at no cost, and that proprietary app let me snap photos of what I ate. Those pictures led to some genuinely amusing exchanges. Thanks to the nutritionist, I came around to the idea that carbs aren't universally harmful.
Absolutely, tracking calories works.
Experience taught me it's all false. What makes you fat is calories, not carbs in particular. A diet needs enough protein and enough fat, and any remaining calories are best taken in as carbohydrates.