Based on what I know from reading these boards for the past year is how we are ideally suppose to be careful not to eat too few calories as we will send our bodies the wrong messages...go into starvation mode...yadda yadda yadda. While I consider myself VERY openminded, I found myself having only ate a nice salad and was concerned because I wasn't eating enough calories. This seems ridiculous, someone please enlighten me.

When I was a teenager I dropped a considerable amount of weight one summer because I was doing work study 5 days a week (a job) and walked to Wendy's and ordered a salad off the menu with water. I was not even attempting to lose weight! I ordered a salad everyday to be more healthy. Had I known what I "know" now I was probably only eating 1000 calories a day at most and was sending my body into starvation mode forever to be fat. I think measuring your food (while it may work for some) isn't practical or "normal". I don't think we need to obsess about eating this way. I say eat when you're hungry but make it a healthy choice.

Am I completely mad or do I make some sense? I welcome all opinions. I can't be the only one frustrated.

Thanks

Your post hits home w/ me. I know how you feel. I always think, when I want to loose weight, that I need to start counting my cals....but after all the yo-yoing, I can't bring myself to do it anymore. It just doesn't seem right, or as you said "normal"

Hmm. It's completely different for me... Calorie counting seems absolutely normal for me; after several months of doing it has become part of my daily life.

Besides, I can't stand the feeling of being in the dark about how much I'm actually taking in.

~Rina

You haven't been reading my posts.

Do a search for posts by me with the words starvation and response in them and you'll realize this isn't really the fact.

We just had some pretty intense conversations about this in another thread.

Your posts are extremely informative Steve, but with all do respect you have over 11,000 posts.

I'm going to have to image the biggest problem with starvation mode is the loss of lean muscle. The advantage of still eating a good amount of calories while still being in deficit is burning as much fat, with saving as much lean muscle as possible.

I think measuring will become important when you get more and more leaner. You might see it later down the line in your weight loss journey. I didn't measure shit when I was trying to lose weight at 280 lbs. Once I started to hit plateaus and stopped losing weight, I felt the pinch to measure. It happened around 200 lbs.
Being very lean is not normal from an evolutionary standpoint, so you have to do "abnormal" things like measuring everything that you eat.
Same goes for starvation. If you carry alot of fat, then the repercussions are relatively small when compared to someone who is lean. An obese person could get away with 1000 calories a day for a long time.

That made a lot of sense. Thanks.

I think counting calories is dependant upon what else you are doing to loose weight & live healthy.

For instance. If you were not partaking in regular exersize and were only 12 lb over weight than calorie counting could be beneficial.
If you were 200lb overweight and including healthy eating and taking part in regular exersize then I don't think there is any reason to calorie count. As your body requires a lot more calories to run and you are also exersizing.

No problem. To be honest, its not as bad as you might think. Most of us tend to eat the same things day in and day out. If you measure for even a short while, you kinda get a feel for how much your desired portion looks and feels like. Funny thing......me and my brother use to own a restaurant. We would buy these huge boxes of chicken breast and steak, then butcher and portion them out into 6 oz packets. Our hands and eyes got so use to the portion that we would always hit the 6 oz mark on the food scale on the first try.

I think measuring and counting calories can help you in the beginning. At first I really had no clue how many calories are in stuff but with time I began training myself. Now I pretty much do what you say. I eat when I'm hungry and eat what I need without measuring.

I don't really count my cals anymore, I did in the begining because I needed to make sure I got enough, but since I eat just about the same stuff all the time, it is not necessary anymore. However, for me, there was something to the starvation mode. In Dec. I got really sick and didn't eat much, I lost 15lbs in 2 weeks, yay for me, or so I though. When I decided to start to lose weight (on a diet) it wasn't coming off. I was at 185 forever (I was originally 200), that is bcause my body thought I was starving myself from the initial 15 lb weight loss. Then it slowly went down to 179 and stayed there. Then I was told to up my cals some, and then it dropped off quickly again.

I suppose everyone is different, but I do think there is something to the Starvation mode thing.

With all due respect.....



If you search for posts made by me with the words "starvation" and "response" in them there won't be anywhere near 11k posts.

By the way, here is the thread I was talking about....

http://weight-loss.fitness.com/topic...don-t-get.html

I know I discussed it in this thread too recently:

http://weight-loss.fitness.com/advan...n-mode-12.html