Losing fat without calorie counting?

[SealReborn]

Hello.

I weight 266 lbs at 6.3 ft, out of which 40% is body fat.

I was couting calories before, in fact I was obsessed with it and had a lean body. But that was in highschool, and 1st year of uni.

I work 9-5 now, have a kid, have many responsibilities and just a thought about counting cals drives me nuts already.

Let's say I eat 3 meals a day, and 2 snacks. With snacks being e.g. 1 fruit (an apple, a banana, some nuts etc)

So my daily intake would look something like this:

1st meal
5 eggs
oats
some cottage cheese

2nd meal
half a chicken breast.
salad (no additives just cucumber, tomatoes, onion, spinach etc a little bit of olive oil)
rice or buckwheat

3rd half a chicken breast or fish (tuna , salmon)
salad or some red beans with olive oil

2 snacks in between (a fruit, some cottage cheese with blueberries, nuts etc (maybe occasional protein bar with sweeteners)


Will I lose weight If I keep eating like this and throw in some exercise? Can I use salt? (I also quit sugar for good at the moment, it is a 5th day of my diet and haven't even had a fruit)

I was clinically depressed thus medication and unhealthy habits made me gain 100lbs.

Do you think this strategy might work for me ?

[Tommy W.]

Try it for a month. If you lose weight it worked if you don’t it didn’t

[AdamWW]

Because you're only sharing food names or vague descriptions of amounts consumed ('some red beans'...'some cottage cheese'), even approxiating a calorie amount is impossible. This could be 2000 calories... or it could be 10,000 calories... we don't know.

If we don't even know a rough ballpark, we cannot help at all, really.

Im also confused about your comment on just starting your diet and it having no sugar.... and yet this diet includes fruit.. so... what's going on there?

You don't need to avoid fruit, or any specific food.

Yes, you can lose fat without tracking anything, of course... but whether THIS diet will do that, we have no idea.

[SealReborn]

Because you're only sharing food names or vague descriptions of amounts consumed ('some red beans'...'some cottage cheese'), even approxiating a calorie amount is impossible. This could be 2000 calories... or it could be 10,000 calories... we don't know.

If we don't even know a rough ballpark, we cannot help at all, really.

Im also confused about your comment on just starting your diet and it having no sugar.... and yet this diet includes fruit.. so... what's going on there?

You don't need to avoid fruit, or any specific food.

Yes, you can lose fat without tracking anything, of course... but whether THIS diet will do that, we have no idea.

Sorry, should've pointed that out.

Half a chicken breast on average , uncooked is around 200 grams.
Some oats - I meant like 60 grams. Mainly what you can hold in your palm. I don't know if that helps. Just want to know if anybody tried to do it like that and had any positive feedback.

Regarding sugar. I'm on my first week of my diet now. And so far I haven't eaten anything sweet, fruits included. I had a really bad sugar detox, headaches, hard cravings etc.

I was just thinking if I should add a fruit or two during the day.

[air2fakie]

Not everyone counts calories and weighs food. If you have a minor level of discipline and awareness, you can look in the mirror and make decisions like “eat less, eat more, eat about the same” without ever counting cals, measuring/weighing food or checking your weight on a scale.

But that’s a big if, esp if you already are overweight.

[AdamWW]

Sorry, should've pointed that out.

Half a chicken breast on average , uncooked is around 200 grams.
Some oats - I meant like 60 grams. Mainly what you can hold in your palm. I don't know if that helps. Just want to know if anybody tried to do it like that and had any positive feedback.

Regarding sugar. I'm on my first week of my diet now. And so far I haven't eaten anything sweet, fruits included. I had a really bad sugar detox, headaches, hard cravings etc.

I was just thinking if I should add a fruit or two during the day.

You don't need to 'detox' from fruit... it's not the same as table sugar, at all.

But i'll restate what I said before: of course you can lose fat without tracking, but it will require you adjusting based on your weight/mirror progress because nobody here knows how many calories you need.

[EliKoehn]

I'm currently losing weight with approximate counting. I am trying to count, but neither going so far as to buy a scale nor worrying too much when there's not a label or I have to eyeball a portion. Beyond the wiggle room of ~5 pounds, if your weight is not decreasing, you're simply not in a deficit. At 266 it should be easy to lose at a good pace without being too exacting.

[faithbrah]

I'm currently losing weight with approximate counting. I am trying to count, but neither going so far as to buy a scale nor worrying too much when there's not a label or I have to eyeball a portion. Beyond the wiggle room of ~5 pounds, if your weight is not decreasing, you're simply not in a deficit. At 266 it should be easy to lose at a good pace without being too exacting.

reps on spread... i was actually going to make a thread about this, asking if anyone else counted calories without a scale

[EiFit91]

Try it for a month. If you lose weight it worked if you don’t it didn’t

This. My money is on no though, given the number of people who fail to track properly even when they are counting.

Just use a scale OP. It works. Why work with a blindfold? Eventually you will be able to relax how strict you are with the tracking.

[SuffolkPunch]

Appetite is a powerful force. Unless you mostly eat very low calorie dense foods it probably won't work. Meat, eggs, fibrous vegetables only.

Either count calories or eat a restrictive diet. It takes effort to defy your body's tendency to homeostasis, that's just a fact of life.

[desslok]

Not everyone counts calories and weighs food. If you have a minor level of discipline and awareness, you can look in the mirror and make decisions like “eat less, eat more, eat about the same” without ever counting cals, measuring/weighing food or checking your weight on a scale.

But that’s a big if, esp if you already are overweight.

This is what I do. Especially after you realize it’s all a big facade. Calories don’t even really exist, and packages can be 20% off. So people that “track everything to a T”(or think they do), can still be 20% off. Its more about consistency, and readjusting as needed. Once you are at lower bodyfat levels then it’s super easy to eyeball.

[Tommy W.]

If you choose to not count and your weight has been reasonably stable then you already are conscious of your diet as it most likely follows a pattern.

Just break the pattern somewhat and cut back on problem foods and drinks. Alcohol, ultra processed carbs mostly and concentrate on smaller portions at meals.

If you’re conscious of these things it can work however it’s kind of a haphazard way to do it and it only works for awhile as you need to continue dropping calories as you lose weight and you’ll have no benchmark

[mdonnelly80]

Try it for a month. If you lose weight it worked if you don’t it didn’t

Yup. If you're in a deficit, you'll lose weight. In the beginning of my big cut, I didn't count calories much; I just changed my diet and got back in the gym. When I stalled, then I started being more fastidious about counting calories, cycling deficits and weighing food. I had lost some lean mass during the initial part of the cut which dropped my TDEE so I needed to track things more carefully.

On another note, keeping track of your deficit is the best way to avoid losing muscle mass. I dropped weight quickly in the beginning because I was probably in a steep deficit but too much of that was muscle mass.