Calories...or...No?

[st5p8]

hey everyone....

i dont count calories..i find it is too much work, and i dont have a constant internet connection to always log onto one of those calorie counting websites etc. also, i just find it kind of inaccurate when you look up how many calories something has because there are just too many variables [brand, measure/weight is off or not accurate etc.]

so i am wondering who counts calories and who doesnt and if counting calories really affects your progress.

i am consisous with nutrition when i eat, trying to make sure the macros of each meal is correct with my goals and that portions are in check...i try to listen to my body in terms of if it has had enough to eat and use my brain in regards to eating right and not living by a big numbers game.

am i going about this wrong? should i be counting calories?
i have been eating a proper diet and lifting for just over one month and am starting to see some results show up slowly. my goal is planned to take another 2 months, then maintenance, so basically, i have no idea how many calories i consume but just want to know other peoples opinions on how they go about their diet.

i think im just a bit insecure about having gone from 4 thirty minute cardio sessions per week to about 1 or 2 per week...


what do you have to say?

[vanillabn]

Well, I see nothing wrong with either way of doing things. I counted calories for almost a year, and it worked for me. I customized ALL my foods, so they were quite accurate (although I realize it will never be 100% perfect) and I enjoyed planning all my food out and having a huge variety of things in my diet while still reaching my macros. Also, for me I struggled with eating ENOUGH, so counting was a way of making sure that I was having enough food (before I tracked food, I'd often reach only 1100 or 1200 a day).

THAT SAID, I am now currently following the Scivation Cut Diet, where we do not count calories, and I'm enjoying that as well. It was a weird adjustment, but it's freeing to not have to worry about counting and tracking things to such a great extent.

I would suggest keeping an eye on your progress. If you're reaching your goals at a pace you're happy with, there's no need to count every morsel of food you're eating (and hardly something you're going to keep up forever). On the other hand, if you plateau or reach a point where your progress is slow, maybe log for a while just as a "check" to make sure you're ingesting what you really think you are.

Sorry for the long-winded explanation!! Good luck :D Whatever works for you!

[freebirdmac]

A lot of people can easily do fine without tracking. If your method is working for you then no need to change it. Others need the tracking or we'd eat too little (me!), eat too much, be terribly out of whack on macros, or be pulling hair out because changes to the diet don't bring the expected results.

[st5p8]

thanks for the responses.

i feel like i am always eating..i feel like i eat a lot because i eat about 7-8 times a day [including pre and post workout]. i work out in the morning so i have to have a special pre and post eats because i cant use lunch as a pre work out or any other meal. i get up, gobble and am at the gym 30-45 minutes later, then post workout is the same and then every 2.5 to 3 hours i am eating until bed time.

[sparky141978]

I felt like I was always eating and then really tracked to find out I was way under. It would not hurt to track once a week to at least get an idea.

[Amanda76]

If you're seeing the results you want to see, no need to count. If you're not, diet is one of the first places I'd pay attention to for a while.

Disregard the rest of this if you don't think you'll ever be interested in tracking...LOL

If you ever get to a point that you feel you need to track calories and macros, if you eat pretty much the same stuff all the time, you don't need to put it into fitday EVERY DAY. I normally come up with 1 day's worth of meals to be repeated pretty much all week and then go grocery shopping and cook ahead for the week. I only visit fitday once that week to accomplish that.

If I get bored with my food or run out (I can never plan how much my daughter is going to eat of what I've prepared...LOL), I just switch what I need to in a day I entered that is similar so I only need to switch, say, from chicken to salmon and maybe my veggie choice for lunch and dinner (those would be the things that change the most often in my diet). You can't look at my fitday account and tell exactly I've been eating every day because I will go in on Thursday and make changes to a meal plan I created for the week on Sunday to save time. To me, it doesn't really matter exactly what I ate last week. All that matters is that I'm hovering around the macros I want to hit.

Also, sites like fitday do allow you to enter custom foods so you are able to enter exactly the brands you use.

[Tiffany_P]

I do basically the same thing as Amanda. I prepare meals for the week and plan it out in my Excel spreadsheet. My daily plan (or rather two since I alternate between workout and non-workout days) gets printed and posted on my fridge. It's basically just there for easy reference so that I know what to grab when I head out the door. Then, at night, if I don't feel like having what's on the schedule, I know how many calories I'm supposed to have and I can make substitutions.

There was a time when I tracked every single thing I ate and I was very diligent about every aspect of the program. That worked extremely well, but it also made me obsessive.

[mcchuck]

thanks for the responses.

i feel like i am always eating..i feel like i eat a lot because i eat about 7-8 times a day [including pre and post workout]. i work out in the morning so i have to have a special pre and post eats because i cant use lunch as a pre work out or any other meal. i get up, gobble and am at the gym 30-45 minutes later, then post workout is the same and then every 2.5 to 3 hours i am eating until bed time.


would you mind listing a typical days food intake for you??? It is for totally selfish reasons b/c our schedules are the same and I still struggle to get my macros right. I wish I had trouble with NOT getting enough calories....I track my calories and I'm always around 2100!! I want to stop tracking cals and could do so if I got my macros right....i think.

[bachovas]

I counted calories for a good two years when I first started. It's a good start IF you are new to the game of eating clean and all that. But after a while, you can pretty much eyeball stuff and get within a decent range.

I probably relapse once or twice a year and it's a struggle...because it's unnecessary stress, you become obsessive and it controls your life in a very bad way...socially especially.

I have been there...and I find it very counterproductive, people that have been eating the same stuff for more than a year and still obsess about counting calories need to come out of that shell and realize that sooner or later they will have to stop and neither their progress (if they are making any) nor their diet will be affected.

[st5p8]

i find that the calorie counting sites are hard to use, because most of the food i eat isnt from a package or a brand, i get brown rice from bulk bins at the grocery store, so i dont know what brand it is, all the food i eat basically is fresh food and has no brand.

the food i eat varies each day just slightly, but i just finished packing the three meals i will eat while i am at work tomorrow. tomorrow's day will look like this:

pre-workout: 6:30am 1 scoop NO xplode, 1 scoop ON chocolate PP, either 1 ww pita or ww toast or half cup oats, 1 scoop BCAA powder.

7:10am - 8am workout [legs and triceps]

post workout: 8:15am: 1 scoop ON chocolate PP with 5 grams glutamatrix, 5 grams creatine in 6 ounces milk. sometimes it is whole grain cereal with PP and FF milk or yogurt, whatever, it is PP and some sort of simple carb for spiking the insulin and fastest possible absorption of the protein.

9am breakfast: egg beaters and one whole egg with sandwich meat ham on ww toast [sometimes rye]. or cup of oats with walnuts or whole grain cereal.

12pm: 1 cup brown rice, 5 ounces chicken breast, baby carrots, a few nuts

2:30-3pm: half sweet potato, 5 ounces steak, half corn on the cob, fish oil pill and 2 CLA

5:30-6pm: half cup cottage cheese, broccoli, maybe a banana, some nuts

8pm: 5 ounces of some meat, a bunch of some sort of veg and brown rice or ww pasta or sweet potatoes

pre bed: either half a cup of lowfat cottage cheese with a tablespoon of PB or some crushed walnuts or ground flax seeds, or 1 scoop of muscle milk PP mixed with water and glutamatrix.

so that is a pretty typical day, i mean things vary like what type of veggies i eat or type of meat etc, but the pre-workout and pre bed is usually the same [either one or the other that i have listed]

if i added up those calories im sure it would be a lot! but i dont want to add them up.

[bachovas]

You are cracking 2000 calories. But numbers are not important.

If it's working for you then great, and if it's not adjust it by increasing or decreasing your 'energy' nutrients such as carbs and fats.

[LORIELEW]

Hi,
When I was first trying to just get fit I didnt count calories, I did count protein, aiming for 100 gms per day, and I never ate a food that had more fat grams than protein grams in it. I ate 6 small meals a day, and did low sugar, low fat, and i was very slim and fit that way.

In order to actually get ripped for a show, I found it ncessary to count calories, which turns out t0 be easier than you think, especially as a bodybuilder tends to eat the same foods over and over, haha! By now I know how many calories are in most foods without even looking.

so, both ways work if you are careful, consistant, and depending on your goals!

Sincerely,
Lori