Calorie Counters Keep it Simple in July
 

It's all about calories in and calories out. We just try to have a deficit each day. We're learning to tweak our food healthier and make our deficits sturdier through exercise. And everyone is welcome!

Hi SUSAN -- I've been wondering where you have been! I asked on the other thread, but nobody had answered it. SO glad to see you back!!!;)

New month to CC!
 

New month! :D Let's see how far we can all progress in JULY and report how many pounds we have lost by August 1st! :carrot: GOOD LUCK to all my fellow Calorie Counters! :hug:

Deficit of 240 yesterday. Ate okay, did not work out at all so hence the low number. Lower body still sore from my first BFL-style lower body workout. Will definitely work out today, and maybe tomorrow as well. Haven't decided if I'll try to do weights or wait until Monday to start again. Take care ladies, happy Canada Day and all that!

Michelle--Well thanks for the "wake up" call--DUH-"furgot" it's JULY!!!LOL!!! You'll have to excuse my failure to keep track of this thread. Just seem to be a little slower these days. I have GOT to exercise today. It makes me feel so yucky if I don't. Hopefully I can burn some calories. Going to try to keep track on my Fitday again. Supposed to go out on our motorcycle today but it's going to rain AGAIN off and on today! GAAAHHHH!!! So for now I'm stuck in the house-no excuse not to exercise. Better hurry-company's coming from CT today. Take care. Keepin' the faith...Dawn

Dawn--Don't feel bad; I've done this before also.;) I'm sorry you're still getting rain; hopefully it will subside very soon!:^:

Can I join in? I'm counting calories and right now, keeping them under 1600. My goal is under 1200 but I'm working on a bingeing problem I have and I'm finding that if I keep it around 1600 or so, I do really well. I've lost 7 so far with a long ways to go yet.
Idrial

Hi everyone. I'm new to 3fc but I've been counting calories since October.

My July is off to a frustrating start. My partner and I went out for brunch with friends today. We'd been planning it for a couple of days and the restaurant sounded really good, so I was looking forward to it. I looked at the menu online in advance and decided what I would have. They had a low fat omelet but it wasn't that interesting to me, so I decided I would have a different choice and would just eat half of it. The omelets came with potatoes and a muffin--I ordered fruit instead of potatoes and skipped the muffin. That all went fine, but the omelet ended up being very disappointing. :( It was okay but not worth the calories I had to set aside for it. I should have just gotten the low fat omelet--I could have eaten the whole thing and would have known exactly how many calories I was eating, instead of just having to estimate. I guess it was good that I managed to stay within my calorie plan, but I hate wasting perfectly good calories on a so-so meal! Oh well, it was a good lesson I suppose.

Oh, and to top it off, when I skipped the muffin my partner told me I should have ordered it anyway so that he could take it home and eat it! Which I suppose a better person would do but...well, surely someone else here understands why if I couldn't have my muffin I didn't want him to have it either. :p

The rest of the day went better. We saw the movie "The Devil Wears Prada" which was excellent. Meryl Streep was awesome. Also, I made a great dinner for myself - pasta tossed with veggies and two turkey meatballs. I hardly ever have pasta anymore, so I guess that makes up for the omelet.

- Barbara

P.S. - Welcome Idrial!

Evening everyone. I'm having a perimenopausal night I think. I'm not in the least bit sleepy and I slept very poorly last night. I think my old bode is messed up from vacationing.
For three days now I've been saying "I'll do better tomorrow" .... I'll say it again ;)

Miles great deficit! Keep up the good work!

Idrial welcome to the group. I also aim for 1600 calories a day. It's an atainable number!

Barbara welcome to the group. Don't you hate when you waste your calories on a bad meal! Especially since you planned everything out first!

I had a deficit of 865 today. I did 40 minutes of cardio and 20 minutes weights. Both my gyms are closed tomorrow so maybe I'll do a video.

How do you guys count your deficits? I'm a tad confused on that one! THANKS!

Morning Val! If you ate 1200 calories yesterday but used 2000, you have a deficit of 800.

Not Val... but, how do you know how many you've used? Thanks so much!

Morning ..well I had a good week and i lost 8 of the 10 pounds that I gained from vacation the week before so I'm happy...deficit yesterday was 572....this weeks goal is to drink 64 oz water daily, do at leasst 20 sit ups daily and to post on here daily....I've been busy this week and missed posting alot

It's been raining for the last 3 days and we have 80% today so I don't know how the fireworks are going to go today....hope everyone else has a great 4th

Jamie, hello! Figuring out your usage can be a long and painful process. he luckiest people in the dieting world are the ones who actually tally the calories they eat while they are biggest. I wish I had! But I didn't so I had to figure it out.
I used fitday and was very conservative. I left my activity level very low and was cautious how much exercise I thought I did. After a while, I reassessed and fiddled with fitday. If I had an average deficit of 500 cals a day and lost one pound ... I knew I was counting about right (or right enough that fitday was a valuable tool).
Did that make sense?
There's a couple of ways to guesstimate, just to get started. If you'd like more tips or have more questions ... we'd love to help. Calorie counters are great share-ers :)

Okay, been a busy but nice 4-day weekend. Have been logging on Fitday just not posting on here. I'll catch up:
Saturday: 223 (no exercise)
Sunday: 98 (little DDR, little weight lifting)
Monday: 490 (little walking)
Tuesday: 44 :lol: (good weight routine, bad on the dinner)
Been up to a lot of wedding planning, as well as started new classes yesterday. Hopefully the rushing/running around campus again will help me to get in some walking. Not going to count that towards my weekly goal of 30 minutes or more 5 days a week, just hoping it will add to what I am already trying to do. Am pretty sure I am up in the weights department, just not sure at what. My weight has fluctuated about 5 lbs up and down over the weekend so will have to give it a few more days and check again to see. Could be the sodium, I'll admit, but now that I've made it through the long weekend at least that's something. Take care ladies, hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

Ok, I have been off plan for a few days....I will be back on track today. We had a great July 4th, lots of fun but now back to business.

Phyllis

So yesterday was much better. About an 800 cal deficity. Today I've had more calories than I'd like but I've been up since 5:20 and I worked for the first time in a couple of weeks. I'm hungry, cranky and tired. I think I'll do a few things (the boys are making supper) and have a quick lie down before DH comes home.

Betheigh and Valerie,
Yes! I only get 1300 calories a day and every one is precious! I hate it when I eat something that ends up being a disappointment. If I'm home, I can just toss it and eat something else, but at a restaurant you can't really send your entre back without making a big fuss (and the omelet wasn't that bad, it just wasn't as good as it sounded). :p

Life's too short to eat food I don't like!

- Barbara

I never thought to keep track of calories burned vs calories eaten.

Today I had a 2000 calorie deficit? Is that possible? Half an hour at Curves, a brisk one-hour walk and ate about 800 calories?

(I usually eat more than this, don't worry.)

Does deficit mean how many calories you burning in a day verses the calories you take in? Is that what you ladies are doing. I keep track of the calories I eat and calories I burn daily. I was wondering if i was on the same page as you ladies. Thanks

Back from the weekend
 

Hi all,
Just back from visiting the DGD in Atlanta - what a 15 mo peach.
But I ate more than peaches am suffering the results.
Back to journaling my menus/calories.

I still prefer to just keep track of the calories I eat and not fiddle w/fitday. By now I pretty much know what the calories are in everything, and I'm a big label reader.

Pebbles -:carrot: great going

Hi Barbara, Idral, Celery, others popping up that are new to moi.

Firefly- Hellow there! The way I do my calories is BURNED vs. EATEN... the only thing is that I underestimate the amount I burn (some people say that fitday is not very accurate).... For instance, on my profile it says I do seated work all day when in reality I do moderate movements and I am out and about all the time.... The calories eaten I think fitday is extremely accurate as far as food is concerned....

Hope this helps!

I use calorie king software and the book . I use a heartrate monitor when I work out go for any little walks. so I can keep track of my calories burned. On my Calorie king software it subtracts burned form my intake so I can see the difference and see how many I have burned out of the ones I have enten.

I was just asking to see if i understood what you all were doing.

I need time to play with the fitday its wierd learning a new site and figuring it out, but it seems worth it i see alot of you gal's are on it, question where do i start when it comes to fitday i mean do i just dive in and log everything i eat and drink ... is that the best place to start??

Susan - nice deficit, sounds like you are getting back into the swing of things!

BlueToBlue - I know exactly what you mean, and yes at a restaurant those "off-plan" items look tasty on the menu and yet never quite turn out as good.

Celery - How are you estimating calories burnt through exercise? 2000 seems to make sense though if you ate so few calories, it is all a guessing game anyways and figuring out my true "maintenance" or "baseline" calories was midly depressing to me as it is always lower than you want it to be.

Firefly - (calories burnt by just living) + (calories burnt through exericse) - calories eaten = deficit. Tricky thing is finding how many calories your maintenance value is.

Lisi - welcome back! mmpeaches!

707Goddess - yes I think that's a good place to start. I think logging what I eat (besides the tallying of calories and all that) is the most important part of what I do as it keeps me really conscious about what I'm eating.

Deficit of 301 yesterday. Ate a little more than I should have, but got in a decent amount of activity (for me anyways). If I could burn calories on stress alone I'm sure I would have lost 5 lbs this week! Well, I guess it keeps me fidgety and that is a good thing. Went shopping yesterday, we were dangerously low on lots of foods, and I survived: I went shopping hungry (bad no-no) but didn't pick anything out that was bad, or a sugary-dessert item. Forgot to get my couscous though, but I guess that can wait until the next trip. Take care ladies!

I have figured that out before . I need to get my book out. My cals burnt for living. SOOOO you want to have a high deficit number in the end I take it.

Firefly - (calories burnt by just living) + (calories burnt through exericse) - calories eaten = deficit. Tricky thing is finding how many calories your maintenance value is.

Figuring out the calories you use is very tricky! But stick with us, we'll help you. First of all, try not to over estimate the calories you use all day just being you ... I think in fitday they call it lifestyle ... Their basal is fine ... activities needs some thinkin' ... but their life-style guesstimates are downright dangerous! There are very few women who use 3000 cals per day.

good info thank you im still trying to get this down pat.......LOL

I used a formula from Jullian from the biggst losers book. I am about 2858 I think I am not to far off. Does that seem too high I would even go a few calories under to be safe. Hs anyone else use that formula at all. I should go to my fitday account to see how far off this is. I am not sure if I know where to go figure it out.

Ok I was looking and would this be right.

Calories I am maybe so far buring by living 2858 (might be high working on that)

+ calories Ihave burned already today which is 330 = 3188 - Food I have eten 598 = 2590 is that my deficit. I am just seeing if I am doing the ath right.

So I never bother figuring out how many calories I use or what my deficit is for the day. When I do cardio, I have a goal to get to a certain amount of calories burned, but that is just to make sure I am doing the same level of workout every time, since I know from reading other postings here at 3fc that the machines are never accurate. For the most part, I limit my calorie intake to 1300 per day, no matter what kind of exercise I do. If I have a day where I do extra exercise (in addition to my scheduled workout), then I might add 100 calories.

When I started this program, I took an online survey (offered through my gym's website) that told me how many calories I could eat. It wasn't terribly scientific, I think it was just based on my starting weight. Anyway, it suggested 1200 calories, which I did for a while, but then I decided that with the exercise I am doing, I could bump it up to 1300. I'm totally superstitious, so normally I would NEVER do anything in an interval of 13--which tells you how desperate I was and still am for those extra 100 calories. :p

Until I got down to these last ten pounds, I lost 1 to 2 pounds per week at this level, so it seemed right. And I've read that you shouldn't eat less than 1200 per day, so even though it's taking forever to lose these last ten (and I'm beginning to wonder if it's even realistic), I don't think I want to reduce my calorie intake further.

- Barbara

I was trying to figure out some way to say that it doesn't really matter how you count calories or minutes or steps or whatever ... when I realised that Firefly has already lost 50 lbs!!! How did you do that? You probably have something you can teach the rest of us!

I'll think about that other and get back to you.

Yes i do alot of reading up on thepost and some biiks websites. I like to figure out all the different methods everyone uses. I am a mixture of many I like to think. I zig zag calories thru the week. I like to stay around 10,000 or so for the week. But I am not have to have every number dead on. I have lower calories some times not by not eating foods just the rightones I guess. Its hard for me to east boxed foods like helpers or any thing premade. So I fill up on vegs and fruits and meats. I love my heart rate monitor it helps me know my calories burned when working out. Like it was said the machines are not that accurate. Thanks for all the help and info on this topic. Every bit helps me learn more to make sure I can keep this weight off when I hit my goal.

OK, I've been thinking about the many variables of calorie counting and how can confusing we humans can make something so simple.

Weight loss is simply about eating less and moving more.

You can do that by counting WW points, eating off a smaller plate, measuring foods, eliminating some commonly supposed fattening foods, sugary foods etc. or counting calories.

And we all know exactly how much we move and know also how to move more in many ways.

Calorie counting can be tiddly. A calorie is the smallest unit for measuring foods and energy and therefore is more minutely fiddly of any of the above. But it is perfect for those of us who love that. I love counting, figuring, planning, filling out the forms .... And that is also why I like to figure my calorie usage. I love the figuring, planning and scheming involved in that too.
And the comparison of the two ... intake and output ... I find it fascinating! I love love love fitday.com.

But it is this very fiddliness that makes it drive some would-be dieters to drink! Milk shakes, full calorie beer ....

All that figuring may not be for you. You can indeed lose weight very well by simply sticking to a diet of 1200, 1500, 1800 or however many calories per day. There are lots of guidelines for those on the internet. In fact there was a pretty good outline of a 1500 calorie diet with a piece of fitness equipment I bought.

A while ago, I came to the realisation that in order for me to get slim and stay slim, I had to learn to eat less and move more on a regular basis. This lead me to the study of calorie deficits and what I would have to learn to do to keep my intake less than my output consistantly ... until I lost what I wanted and needed to figure out how to keep them about even. So I started tracking my calorie deficits.

There were a few other folks here doing about the same thing so I started a thread called Calorie Counters Keep It Simple. However, what I thought was simple seems to be causing distress, discord, confusion and discouragement. I'm so sorry that this is happening and that I started it and continue to fuel it.

Calorie counting does work! I sincerely apologise to anyone who finds this thread distressing or discombobulating. Calorie counting need not be.

I encourage anyone who thinks they want to count calories to stick around in this forum. Ask questions, read all you can. We'll help you count calories as easily as it should be. Even if we have to pm or make a thread especially for you, we'll get it figured out.

SusanB,
I didn't find your comments distressing or confusing at all! Even though I haven't tried to do it, I can see why people might find it helpful to count deficits and to know how many calories they burn each day. If nothing else, it gives you a tool to evaluate how well you've done each day (sort of like how I use the calorie monitors on the gym machines). And as someone who weighs myself twice a day and considers that restraint, I can certainly understand why you like the minuteness and fiddliness of it. I also secretly enjoy filling out forms. If I'd found this forum when I was starting six months ago, maybe I would be figuring my deficits by now.

Everyone's posts on this forum are helpful to me, even if I end up doing my own thing after reading them. I didn't mean to create discord with my post, I just thought people might be interested to know that I had at least had some success without doing that. But I didn't mean to discourage anyone.

And I agree that calorie counting does work!

- Barbara

Discord was probably a poor word choice, Barbara. I just get upset when folks say they are so confused. Calorie counting does work and I want it to work for everyone! If at the beginning I had tried to follow all the calculations and permutations that I tell folks to do ... I would have quit but quick!

I could read back but I don't remember you posting anything discordant. Is that a real word?

Susan great post! I totally agree calorie counting is the way to go. For new counters it can seem hard at first but once you get use to it it's easy although somewhat time consuming.

I am planning on counting calories for the rest of my life. This is a lifestyle not just a diet for me!

I had a good deficit of 1354. I always seem to do better on the day before my weigh in :) I did 45 minutes of cardio and 20 minutes of weights.

I agree calorie counting is a pretty basic thing cals in cals out. Just the time you need to take for yourself is what we all have to do.

Susan, I am with you on loving the figuring/planning aspect. And I think getting all my food in order in such a way has helped me to organize other aspects of my life (work, budget) in the same way and that has been wonderful.

Deficit of 1,059 for me yesterday. I didn't really eat much. I got very depressed (tiny disagreement with fiancee) and instead of binging on the brownies he is supposed to eat on the oven I just didn't eat anything. By the time we had sorted it out I was in bed and exhausted. However, I'm sure one day of very little food (I got in my weights too) won't hurt me. Just going to try to eat healthy and in my range today.

Love all the chatter on the calories. I didn't figure mine out until I went off plan for a couple weeks and realized I had maintained at a higher calorie level than my usual range, so I guessed that to be about my maintenance level and it appears pretty close, though I don't lose when I should with it, the lbs come off slower even though the math is right, they just hang on for a few weeks extra sometimes.

SusanB,
Yes, discordant is a word! I looked it up and I'm glad you don't think I was being discordant. I guess I was just being overly cautious.

Even though I don't really track the calories I burn, I do keep an exercise log so I can look back and see how much I've exercised. And I always feel a little burst of accomplishment every time I write down the exercises I did for the day.

And I certainly spend enough time figuring out the calories in everything I eat to make up for the time I don't spend on figuring out the calories I burn. I cook a fair amount and refigure the calories for every new recipe I make (usually one to two per week), even if nutritional info is provided with the recipe. I have a whole little system I've created to do this.

I only wish my organization here would extend to other areas of my life. Sadly, the rest of my life is still a disorganized mess.

- Barbara