AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!! That is terrible. I'm glad I don't eat a lot of processed food. But to think someone maybe working so hard and the nutritional info is a lie!

Yes, this.

If you only count your intake some of the time... your plan will only work some of the time. The thing about dieting is that when it works, it sort of works... and when it doesn't it DOESN'T! You can undo a lot of work underestimating calories, or not counting your intake on occasion. It takes a lot of effort to *not* eat 4k calories of junkfood... but none at all to eat it.

I know everyone is advocated counting ever smidgeon of food that passes your lips, and yea, thats ideal...but it isn't always practical. Do it if you can, but don't let it discourage you if you just can't swing it.

Prepackaged food is awesome in terms of convenience, but often not so much for health. I too struggle with the 'easy meal' problem. Fruits, veggies, Go-gurt is great to freeze and take along for the day if you can get over the "I'm slurping yogurt from a plastic tube" aspect. :)

I concur with both view points, it is really really hard to count every single little nibble or taste and be totally 100% on to it all the time, but yes if you don't count everything, you cant really say it isnt working because you arent technically doing it. What you could do is count every single thing for just a week and compare your counts to the week before, see if there is a significant difference and what all those little nibbles add up to.

i was in a similar situation before. about 2 years ago, i lost about 20lbs calorie-counting and exercising every 2-3 days. then i stopped, and about a year later i tried to do it again. i was doing the exact same thing, eating the exact same foods, and it wasn't working. why??? i did it for a month with no change and i got angry. then i decided to try a no-carbs diet and i started to lose again.

so i'm pretty sure my body doesn't like carbs, and i'm pretty sure my body doesn't like my yo-yo dieting. but in any case, as others said, yeah, maybe you're counting things wrong (people used to tell me that when i was having my episode and that made me pretty freakin annoyed.......) but maybe there's something your body is processing wrong or whatnot, and so i would suggest just trying something different. change things up.

good luck.

oh and btw, someone mentioned "calorie shifting" earlier... wtf is that??