On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 05:21:37 GMT, (Paul) wrote:

In article ,
Annabel Smyth wrote:

You wrote at 22:33:53 on Thu, 12 Aug 2004:

I didn't feel like reading all that. Was that person arguing that
Calorie counting is impossible or so difficult as to be impractical and
thus possible only in principle? Can someone give me the executive
summary on that because I can't believe anyone would seriously argue
that.

The latter, I think. The point is that to count the precise amount of
calories needed for your personal metabolism, you need to eat foods
whose calorific value can be determined very precisely. While this is
easy if you eat bought food, out of a packet, it is far less easy if you
cook for yourself - you can estimate, certainly, but at best it will
only be an estimate.
--

If you use a scale and don't cheat you can be very accurate in counting
calories for home-prepared foods. Further, if you do the above in
conjunction with a nutrition analysis website or software or even a logbook
you can tweak your intake ratios very easily. I use Fitday and find it
extremely helpful in tailoring my diets to whatever stage of training I'm
in, i.e., cutting, bulking, etc.

People who say that calorie counting doesn't work aren't doing it right or
are cheating or both. Outside of crap fad diet books no one says that it's
easy. It takes discipline and commitment for the long haul.

And as an aside I'll add that every calorie requirement estimator I've
ever seen has been way off. I'd start by knocking 500 off whatever number
they give you and even at that it's a safe bet that it'll still be too
high.

Paul

Annabel - "Mrs Redboots"
90/89/70kg


I've lost 121 lbs. by counting calories. Did I count perfectly all
the time? No, of course not. Did I do it well enough? Apparently.
It's possible to be quite accurate with home-prepared foods by
weighing ingredients. But it is some work, so I tended to do this the
first few times I made a particular dish, and then assume future
incarnations were the same. (I don't mean things with set recipes
that should be exactly repeatable, but things like meatloaf or pot
roast.) Packaged foods with nutrition labeling are, of course, a
no-brainer. For restaurant meals, or meals in friends' homes, I just
guessed. I also created database entries for dishes I order often
(like an awesome seared tuna salad at a favorite restaurant) so I can
just enter that dish each time I have it. (I use a rather
sophisticated Excel spreadsheet -- DH and I are computer geeks -- but
I'm sure one can do everything that's needed with Fitday.)

I've never paid any attention to calorie requirement estimators. I
think there's too much individual variation for them to be useful for
everyone, anyway. I just picked a starting calorie goal per day and
then adjusted based on whether it was giving me the desired results.
I'm still doing it that way now that I've been in maintenance for a
few months. (And am still working on getting it right -- have lost a
bit more than I'd planned.)

Chris
262/141/ (145-150)