An Alternative to Dieting

[7th]

I though I would post this for discussion, just for fun, and as a way for people to talk about the different ways for healthy weight loss.

This forum seems to be very slanted towards traditional dieting where calories are counted and recorded. Counting is absolutely the most common and talked about way to acheive weight loss, so that makes sense.

I am personally losing weight with a lifestyle change. It isn't really a program, but I have adopted quite a few concepts from Jon Gabriel's book. A few of the concepts I follow:

- Ensure proper intake of all vitamins, minerals, fatty acids and other essentials
- Drink loads of water
- Balance each meal around having some carbs, some protein, and some fat
- Avoid processed foods
- Eat what I want when I want*

*This last one may sound confusing, as before I started my regimen I would have personally taken that as a licence to down a bag or two of doritos while watching football. However, since I started providing for my body nutrionally I have had virtually no cravings, not a single binge eating issue, and have actually found that I eat less and am not hungry.

Now that the outline of my method is out of the way allow me to get to my point: Why do so many people count calories and restrict themseleves so severely. I have seen 300 pound men take on 1500 calorie diets for example.

Is it because of the popularity of programs like weight watchers? Or do I simply not get it because of my all or nothing personality? I tried a calorie control diet where everything must be weighed and recorded, and as soon as I slipped up a couple of times the good ole "ah well, I blew it this week, might as well have that pizza" mentality creeps in.

I guess I just feel that too many people jump into strict diets before setting themselves up soundly nutrionally beforehand. I certainly recognize that counting and control works for many people, but those same people must admit that there are just as many people who have their diets fail/ fail their diet.

In essence weight loss is "eat less, move more", and there are many ways to accomplish that. I have had quite a bit of success thus far, 60 pounds lost in 5 months. Others have had a lot of success with their counting and tracking.

Which method works for you? Do you "diet" in the sense of calorie counting and setting a limit per day? If you do, do you make it a point to eat healthy foods, or do you just follow the calorie limits?

Or do you "eat less" "eat healthy" and "move more" without tracking everything?

 

[KaraCooks]

If you do more than surface skim, you'll see that most of the advice here revolves around life changes - including eating real food and balancing nutrients. It also revolves around the concept of "eat less / move more" in whatever form.

Why do so many people count calories and restrict themseleves so severely. I have seen 300 pound men take on 1500 calorie diets for example.

If you read in depth you'll see that most of us giving advice (giving real advice and not spamming or selling something) do NOT advocate severe calorie restriction. In fact when we see a 300 pound man eating 1500 calories, the first thing we all say is "EAT MORE!"

The thing is most people have no idea how much they really eat. They have no idea what 100 calories worth of food looks like. They have no idea what a real serving size is. For many people starting out counting calories, weighing and measuring gives them the first very REAL look at how much they're eating. Once they get a handle on that, they don't have to spend the rest of their lives measuring, weighing, and counting.

I tried a calorie control diet where everything must be weighed and recorded, and as soon as I slipped up a couple of times the good ole "ah well, I blew it this week, might as well have that pizza" mentality creeps in.

Fighting the all or nothing mentality has nothing to do with calories. People on all kinds of diets and "life changes" still play that mental game with themselves: I screwed up so I might as well give up and start over next week. Blaming that on calorie counting is just silly.

Which method works for you? Do you "diet" in the sense of calorie counting and setting a limit per day? If you do, do you make it a point to eat healthy foods, or do you just follow the calorie limits?

Or do you "eat less" "eat healthy" and "move more" without tracking everything?

Why do you treat the two as mutually exclusive? It's possible to change your life and still count calories. My plan revolves around eating real foods, in reasonable amounts, and exercising more. Within that guideline, when I feel the pounds creeping up, I am more strict in my tracking and count calories. When I'm not, I tend to be more loosely structured and more eyeball amounts rather than counting calories.

I appreciate the point you're trying to make, but I think you've taken a surface look at the posts here and used what you see to make some huge assumptions about the methods and advice that we give.

 

[7th]

I didn't mean to reflect of the advice people give here. More on the mentality that people have when they come to this forum for the first time and get started. I should have been more clear.

I agree with the advice you give people Kara. It seems to me there are a few ways of weightloss that fall under something like this

"I'm going to eat X amount of calories per day, that's that"

"I'm going to eat this amount less, but I am going to provide for myself nutrionally and keep record"

"I'm going to eat better, eat less"

"I'm just going to exercise and not change what I'm eating"

The first and the last to me are the ones people cannot stick to without fail. I think many people come to this forum with the 1st mentality, and are changed to the 2nd (hopefully) when they read the advice provided here. The third approach (mine) seems less common, but can work if you approach it correctly, while the last approach is common to the 15-25 year old male who doesn't really know what he is doing and refuses to learn ("im gonna join the gym but then still go out on friday and pound down a 2-4".)

 

[KaraCooks]

I didn't mean to reflect of the advice people give here. More on the mentality that people have when they come to this forum for the first time and get started. I should have been more clear.

Gotcha.

IN which case my thoughts are this:

The diet / weight loss industry combined with popular media is largely to blame for the mindset of "eat less, lose weight / eat a LOT less, lose a lot more weight". Everything you see online, in magazines, heck even standing in line at the grocery store, tells you that you can lose 10 lbs in a week just by drinking lemon water flavored with cayenne pepper.

I mean, for god's sake, look at the Time magazine article that has been making the rounds. A major media source publishes AS FACT an article that says exercise doesn't benefit weight loss - solely because the author doesn't understand that he can't eat McDonald's french fries after he works out and still lose weight. The author of the article talked about "turning fat to muscle" and how when he exercises he gets hungry, so he eats 800 calorie muffins .. and then says exercise is ineffective. And again .. in a MAJOR MEDIA SOURCE and not even published as an opinion piece or editorial, but as a factual news story. Journalistic integrity my ass!

But the greater source of the problem (and these are two huge soapbox issues of mine) is twofold:

1 - The medical community has less knowledge of healthy weight loss than the average joe, in my opinion. I'm not bashing doctors - I know a lot of good doctors. But how many people have come on here and said that their doctor told them to "eat less" without any further guidance? How many people have come on to this board and told them that their doctor said to eat 1200 calories (even the aforementioned 300 lb man)? I have known women who were told by their doctors to not lift weights because it would damage their ability to reproduce or cause them to produce more testosterone. Doctors who said this! My own doctor, several years ago told me that I needed to lose weight and I should eat 1200 calories a day (I weighed nearly 250 at the time). When I asked him what types of foods I should be eating, he told me (and I quote) "It doesn't matter - just stick to 1200 calories or less." A few months later he told my 6' husband that he also needed to be eating 1200 calories. It was shortly after that, that I found a new doctor. Even everything I learned about healthy weight loss, I learned MYSELF by research and study and a lot of reading - no doctor or nutritionist ever gave me reasonable, sensible advice to help me learn how to eat properly and lose weight.

Which brings me to:

2 - The state of nutritional education in the US is beyond abysmal. In fact I'd say it's downright criminal. Most young adults have no idea what a properly balanced meal looks like. They have no idea what a proper portion size is. Many of them don't know how to cook a basic meal. Many of them don't understand what a carb is or what foods are protein rich. I know people who are a few years younger than I am who have never had a home cooked meal (I'm talking from scratch as opposed to fixed from cans, boxes, and pre-prepared foods). They have no idea where to BEGIN with eating healthy and losing weight because they've been misdirected for years by ... (see above) ... the media, society, and even their own doctors.

And then you get people who don't WANT to hear the truth. They come here and get really good advice and then refuse to take it. There was someone here last month who said he was going to eat nothing but a bowl of cereal every day until he lost 70 lbs (or something like that). He posted for about 8 days - each day losing 2+ lbs. Then he just disappeared. But a lot of people read that and believed that what he was doing was ok because it was effective ... and don't CARE that what they're doing is unhealthy. They're in the middle of what one blog recently referred to as Desperation Dieting. And Desperation Dieters just don't care and won't listen. They post when they're successful, which makes everyone go "oh look - it does work", but when their diet fails, they won't come back and admit it, so no one sees the ultimate result - which is the gaining back of all the weight after the original poster crashes and burns.

It's sad ... and I could rant about it for a very long time. But I'll shut up now. It's something that most people here have heard before from me.

 

[7th]

Education isn't much better in Canada when it comes to healthy eating. We at least have the Canada food guide that kids are taught in grade school, and I think there is a few classes in grade nine health class that talks about it too. Not nearly enough.

I dont mean to rip on calorie counting at all, when it is done properly. Most people don't set proper limits, dont nutrionally look after themselves, and they dont understand that their calories should be flexible based on changing situations.

It is even harder for people to follow a lifestyle change like the one I am doing if there are no guidelines to follow (guidelines that are provided by the plan and calorie counting)

I suppose the reason that it works for me is education. I know what a healthy portion is. I know how to cook a great deal of things. I know what my body needs, and I know what it doesn't need. I learned these things through my parents and through my own research. I guess my weight loss method is the lifestyle we should all have been living in the first place, else we never would have found ourselves on these forums.

What am I doing is actually "restrictive" in that I cant gobble down loads of cookies, chips, and sweets if I want to meet my goals, but at the same time I can have the occasional handful of doritos. I suppose the only real difference between something that you do, Kara, and what I do, is that my personality makes me feel restricted if I have to measure and record, even if in the end I am eating the same amount of food that I would have while counting.

 

[KaraCooks]

I guess my weight loss method is the lifestyle we should all have been living in the first place, else we never would have found ourselves on these forums.

I would totally agree with that.

I suppose the only real difference between something that you do, Kara, and what I do, is that my personality makes me feel restricted if I have to measure and record, even if in the end I am eating the same amount of food that I would have while counting.

I think that's pretty valid. I've said before here that for me the counting of calories and the balancing of nutrients is much like a puzzle - and I enjoy the challenge of it. I love to cook and I grew up cooking a combination of Southern comfort food from my family heritage and all kinds of regional ethnic foods from travelling all over the world as a child. So I find it a challenge to create some of those foods while keeping them healthy and to me that's fun.

For other people the idea of having to count/weigh/measure for the rest of their lives is something that makes them want to quit before they begin. I do try to emphasize when I talk about calorie counting that for most people it's something you do only until you're better able to judge what you're eating. Once you've done it for a while, you don't have to be as strict about it.

 

[Camy]

For me, counting calories was a way of informing myself about foods, of getting knowledgeable about what I put into my system and to understand what I needed and when. It is not the only thing I changed and I do not count every calorie I eat a day but I know if I eat an apple, that it is roughle x amount of calories, if I eat a bar of chocolate it is roughly y amount of calories and then, informed as I am, I eat what I think I need at that point (and yes, sometimes that means the chocolate bar... ).

I do not read the labels of everything I consume (anymore), because I know more or less how much each food is worth in calories. It is not correct down to the dot, but more or less. I also know, more or less, what I burn exercising and that again helps me chose what to do.
For most of us this is a lifestyle change, just like yours, most of us have the same pillars that you stated, only that a lot of us count the calories as a means to measure input/output while you don't, 7!

For me personally, I did not really know how much each food was "worth", I would easily eat a bagel for a snack not knowing that it was 400 cals, thinking it was maybe 150. And I am not stupid, I have an MD myself so I can definitely second what Kara says, we get barely any lectures on nutrition in school and university and most doctors, unless they specialize into the field, know about as much as average Joe about calories.
So I learned what I was putting into myself, I am not one of those who has a % of fat or carbs they eat a day and I do not measure everything on kitchen scales, but again, that is just a control help that in the long term I don't think anybody does for ever.
Knowledge is power and power helps control, so the more I know about food, the better I can control what I eat, etc...
Camy