Have I been daft counting calories?

I can only speak from experience. I lost 4.5 stones in 9 or 10 months but in addition to counting carbs I also counted calories and kept to under 1200. I found this more useful once all the weight had gone, because I had to increase the calories to avoid more weight loss, so with counting them I was able to do this without guessing and going overboard. Once my weight had stablised over a period I was able to stop counting.

Mufflana said:

However, in the last three weeks I have lost just 0.2 lb...not ungrateful but would like to see more progress.

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Hi Mufflana,
The realy important thing that most people loose sight of when trying to loose weight is that you not putting on weight! That's a huge thing.
As for calories people love to throw around the laws of Theromdynamics to prove there side of the argument for or against. And a "calorie is not just a calorie".

Think of it like this you in a job where you get payed £5,000 a month so you can afford that holiday and a new sofa and a new wide screen TV. Because you know there will be another £5,000 next month so you can keep up a comfortable live style, even get a new car you know the £5,000 is going to keep coming and its easy to pay off over the next couple of years.

Suddenly your hours are cut at work and you on £1,000 a month instead. You still have to keep up the car payments and you have the holiday all booked but no spending money. But that's ok you have savings in the bank you can use,(FAT) So for the first couple of months you carry on as normal until the savings go down too fast and you start tightening your belt.

Your metabolism acts like this. You adapt to living of £1,000 a month.
When you exercise you are dipping into your savings (Fat).

This is where the calories in calories out thing becomes nonsense,
I'm eating far less than I used to and exercising 5 times more( not hard I was doing nothing before) the weight should be flying off. I't isn't! I haven't put any weight back on and that's hugely important. (I'm still loosing weight my belt tells me so)

I think of it as a sculptor chipping away at a block of marble it takes time but as long as you keep doing what your doing its impossible for the marble to grow back.

Hey Mufflana, you are doing amazing things here with a 22 lb loss with having the other conditions and very anemic??!! Give yourself a good ole pat on the back Perhaps if you feel you are stalling a bit, you might want to consider intermittent fasting - lots about it here on the Forum - it might just "startle" your body enough to get things going again....I find it easy to go from about 7 p.m. - noonish, as I am sleeping part of that time. Only two meals/day then - helps with the use of calories too if counting - so give it a whirl.

Now I do have meds to take in the morning and I have to have "food" so I have a big mug of coffee with 18% cream and that tides me over til noon. Some will have bullet coffee - adding coconut oil or butter to their coffee.... Right now I am doing 5 days of 800 calories and 2 days of low carb and going ok. So count calories all you want Blessings/L

lindijanice said:

Right now I am doing 5 days of 800 calories and 2 days of keto and going ok. So count calories all you want

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Hi Lindi,
But this falls into the "a calorie is not just a calorie" side of the argument. Half a bounty is 275 calories.
According to some webpage I just pulled up 2 cheese triangles is 75 calories and 1 stick of celery 4" long is 1 calorie. So 75 sticks of celery is the equivalent of 2 cheese triangles.

Cheese is a dairy fat a source of energy, essential in Keto or LCHF diet which implies its better for you, on those diets, your body burns it off faster than the 75 sticks of celery. (not to put down celery its very low carb and an excellent source fibre and antioxidants and vitamins and minerals such as potassium, folate and B6) Tastes horrible thought.

So the same amount of calories doing two different jobs.

It sounds like you following the 5:2 diet which is LCHF Mediterranean diet , and sorry if I'm wrong your doing Keto on the 2 fasting days? Keto is not about calories.
The only benefit I can see in counting calories is its a good indication of the quantity not quality of food you are eating.

I went down 4 sizes in as many months never counted a calorie once in all that time, still don't.
To my way of thinking

• IF a strict diet will make you loose weight quickly
• THEN a less strict version, of the same diet, will make you loose weight too

Sure it will take a couple of months longer but I'm in it for the long haul.

Hey There Is No Spoon, thanks for your thoughts.....what I am doing is 5 days of Mosley's blood sugar diet - 800 cals each day, and then for 2 days I am low carbing as I have been doing for some time now....I just don't want people made to feel bad if they need to count calories.....sometimes some of the posts are almost condemning if one is not straight keto, counting calories seems like a sin.....some people need to count calories as that gives them a greater sense of being in control, or maybe it is a comfort measure that harkens to the old days.....whatever it is, I want people to do as they wish and not feel shamed or "daft" if they do something different than the mainstream.....

I'm happy with what I am doing as I now have my blood sugars where they should be - it has taken 17 years to get to this point, and now I want to think about dropping this last 20-25 pounds, so I have chosen the route that I am currently on - just started last week - and it suits me just fine. And, I am counting calories to stay at the 800 cals as I am not using all of Mosley's rescipes

I cannot imagine eating all that celery - all that fiber would knock my IBS into outerspace and not in a good way
Cheers/L

I edited my other post to read "low carb" not keto, so thanks for pointing out my error

lindijanice said:

"low carb" not keto, so thanks for pointing out my error

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I read that book too, its where I got the idea for exercise as a great way to control blood sugar levels.
Also the 5:2 diet seemed drastic to me I went with the same idea just not the 800: 600 ration he suggested. The book has evidence to prove that a crash diet works best as people cant stick to a longer drawn out diet. I figured for me it would work the opposite not trying to loose weight I'm after a life style change. Loosing weight is a nice side effect.

To be honest I had lost a lot of weight before picking up the book so I can't say if it works or not, but like you I didn't like some of the recipe ideas so I figured keeping the concept close to heart I could do it better. (not arrogant in the slightest)

That's why I thought you might of picked it up wrong, with Keto mixed in, but at the same time, like me, you may have just adapted and expanded on the ides in the book. Its not up to me to say what works for you or anyone else.

The "a calorie is not just a calorie" argument makes sense to me its like asking if a Kg of gold is the same as a Kg of feathers because there the same weight (calories).

lindijanice said:

"daft" if they do something different than the mainstream.....

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People love to quote Einstein " the definition of insanity it repeating the same action again and again expecting a different result"
He also said "If you want to start having results that you have never had before. You need to start doing things that you have never done before."
The first quote if about futility were as the second is optimism.
But people only ever use the first quote.