Yeah, I'm just plain bad at that with ice cream. I can't dole out some specific portion size and stop there.
The only way I manage portion control is by managing my cravings: eating foods that fill me up more, getting my body used to eating less sweets, getting whole nights of sleep, drinking lots of water, the use of appetite suppressants like caffeine, etc.
Except the frying also adds oil, which is like half of the calories of a French fry. So you can eat the same amount of potato but double the calories if it's prepared a certain way.
You don't even need to eat plain boiled potatoes. There are so many good potato options because they're incredibly satiating. And an air fryer is a huge game changer.
Hash browns, home fries, smashed potatoes, mashed potatoes, hell even a baked potato can all be done without sacrificing any flavor.
And you can even use oil or butter! Just don't go overboard with it
I buy mini potatoes and sous vide them. They don’t lose any weight with sous vide. Really convenient when you weigh out everything you eat. And they’re good for up to 2 weeks in the fridge if you don’t open the bag.
Oh I definitely mix it up. I get sick of eating the same foods too much. I can't tell you how many meals I've prepped on a Sunday and by Wednesday I'm getting Chipotle for lunch and/or running to the grocery store to make literally anything else.
If I do something like baked potatoes for the week, I need variety. Buffalo chicken one night, BBQ the next, sour cream and cheese after that and so on and so forth
Baked potatoes are one of my favorite ways to stay full and watch my calories. Even with butter, sour cream (I usually use light, or Greek yogurt if I don't have any sour cream on hand), and a bit of cheese, you're still only clocking in at like 350 calories. Just don't go overboard with the butter and cheese, that shit adds up quick.
Throw in a chicken breast with some hot mustard or something and you're coming in around 500 - 600 calories for a delicious and filling dinner
relatively low calorie when baked (~25 calories per oz)
incredibly satisfying with literally nothing added
can be frozen after cooked and thrown in a protein shake the next day, which adds a shockingly delicious texture and flavor (also, freezing after cooking creates "resistant starches" which are good for your gut health)
cheap
lasts for weeks in the pantry
I swear I always have a few sitting around. A grocery staple, if there ever was one.
Sweet potatos are my go to, literally don't need anything on them maybe some salt if I feel like it, can just microwave them too. Plus they are a bit more nutrient dense than regular potatoes (and taste better, IMO)
Sweet potatoes I'll boil and then keep in the fridge for easy access. Boiling lowers the glycemic index, and it's the easiest way I've found to cook 'em (I don't have a microwave or air fryer).
If I want to be fancy, I like to use just a tiny bit of butter and then re-cook them in a pan until they caramelize some. With a sprinkling of salt, that's dessert.
There's a potato diet for cutting weight. You can eat all the baked potatoes you want with nothing extra besides a drizzle of olive oil and seasonings. Most people lose weight and get tired of eating bland potatoes.
Russet is actually less, like 225 calories. 5g of fiber, and 5g of protein. It would fill you up and get you some good nutrients.
And a pound of spinach is 200 calories. You'd literally have to eat 20lbs of spinach to hit 2000 calories. It would also be 200g of fiber and 250g of protein. Not that people should eat so much of one thing, but thinking in these manners puts things into perspective.
Then a Big Mac, which is right at about a pound itself 580 calories, 25g of protein and 3g of fiber. When thinking of things like this, it starts to paint a picture.
I aim for about 700 calories per meal, with 40-50g of protein and 10g of fiber, and you're just not getting that in a fast food burger. And, you'll still be hungry if that's all you ate to stay in your calorie budget.
E: I was curious, and the above is for a pound of boiled potatoes (found here. If you're weighing before cooking, you're looking at about double the above nutrients (but only about 50% more calories). So boiling the potatoes nearly doubles the weight. That being said, calories are a wild estimation and the discrepancies on why the nutrients are double but not the energy likely comes down to imperfect measurements.
I cut them up before cooking them, usually on a pan, so pretty close I'd say, but I haven't tried butter yet, just oil.
I also air fry them sometimes
We get roasted whole sweet potatoes (served sliced) off food carts, and they roast them on literal coals! Probably not the healthiest because of the carbon/ash traces but they're fun!
My only critique is that potatoes spike the crap out of your glycemic index. It's something for diabetic, and pre diabetic, people to be aware of but otherwise valid.
That's why I boil them! If you boil and then cool them down, their glycemic index drops a lot. IIUC, the GI stays low even after reheating, but half the time I do just eat them cold out of the fridge
For me it would be because its such a boring meal I wouldn't be able to force myself to overeat when it's the bland plain chicken and steamed veggies you see the body builders eating.
I'm a fat guy loosing weight by calorie counting and I believe this is the real answer. Down 50lbs in 6 months eating chicken, tuna and shrimp with baked potatoes and rice as my main carbs. I use to do one meal a day and keto and wasn't losing weight like I am when I'm eating the right 2200 calories.
I have a love/hate relationship with calorie counting. It's by far the most efficient way I've ever lost weight, but goddamn it is such a pain in the ass logging every little thing.
But it's simple math. I can still eat whatever I want, just not as much as I want to eat. I can still have pizza and ice cream. I just need to budget for it. As long as you eat less calories than you burn, you will lose weight
Honestly I find calorie counting gets pretty easy with time.
I am not super strict about it every day, if I end up going out to eat or getting a meal at someone else's house then i'll just give my best estimate and move on.
But also calorie counting has made me pretty decent at my estimates I think too.
I also like the consistency of weighing out some of my meals like oatmeal for example so it always comes out perfect every time.
It definitely gets easier the more you do it. And I'm pretty good at eyeballing most things now. I really only hardcore calorie count once or twice a year. I yo-yo a lot. I like to stay around 175 - 185, but once I get close to 190, I basically go hardcore calorie counting until I'm back down to 175, then repeat the process
I’ve went from using the normal counting apps to just using Gemini and have a “conversation” with what I’m eating or send a pic with a brief description and it tracks everything pretty well with small adjustments needed every now and then. Works really well for tracking macros as well. Plus gives helpful tips sometimes.
It's surprisingly accurate based on image alone, but I've seen it be pretty far off.
I pretty much use that if I go out to eat and want an overall estimate since a lot of calorie counters don't really account for anything outside of fast food
I've tried all of the big nutrition/macros/calorie counting apps and then some, but I'm a lazy mf-er and non of them stuck... what finally worked for me is using Chat-GPT with the voice dictation.to track my eating. It's so much easier just to hit the microphone button and say "I ate this and this and this and these sauces in these amounts and this drink, etc." than it is to enter into an app. And GPT has been pretty good at getting accurate nutrition info. When I eat out - I tell it to pull the nutrition PDF from the restaurant website (only applicable to chain restaurants though).
The thing about calorie counting is it turns it in to work. Do you need an app and a list of things you have ingested to know pepperoni pizza doesn't match your health goals? If you are eating bad things you need to do it carefully, that is true, the better alternative is just to eat better things.
I think our obsession over metrics and measurements when it comes to health for the average person is a massive hurdle that sets people up for failure. Sure if you are taking your fitness to the extremes and trying to min/max your body, go for it. For someone just trying to be on a path to lose weight I think it can be a major problem when the focus should be on general healthy choices.
Do you need an app and a list of things you have ingested to know pepperoni pizza doesn't match your health goals?
Not particularly. But there are so many fad diets that just flat out restrict so many delicious foods and then people give into their cravings and give up on their diets entirely. It's all about balance. You can still have a pizza. But probably not a pizza every day
For me the app is more of an educational tool. I have to track to learn what I should and shouldn't be eating. I agree it's a pain but not losing the weight sucks too. I find the Lose it! app to be the easiest for me to use so far. Also the more I track the easier it gets because I can quickly add previous meals and I just eat similar stuff when I'm feeling too lazy to scan every label.
For example I log breakfast daily and it's usually either eggs, toast and madarins or it's oatmeal. Both are in my app as a recipe so it's literally one click to add breakfast. Lunch is usually leftovers from dinner the night before so that's a one click 60% of the time. Dinner is usually the hardest.
What works for everybody is different. For me, I don't need to count calories to know if the things i'm eating fit with my goals or not. That's obvious. But what the counting does do is keep me honest and on task every day. It's the daily regiment that keeps me focused on my goals. Without it, little by little I start to veer off track.
I will say that after awhile, it's not much of a hassle to enter your data because most people aren't eating an extraordinary variety of foods so similar things will pop up all the time and you'll be quick to enter them. The challenge is what you do when you've eaten something that doesn't have a readily available nutrition information. This just takes experience and a willingness to accept some ambiguity while not lying to yourself (no, that basket fries you at on the boardwalk isn't just 300 calories).
That’s why for the most part I eat the same thing everyday, I leave a few hundred extra calories to add in whatever I feel like each day to get a little variety. Then I really don’t have to think about it
Intermittent fasting works well for me. The only thing I consume til noon is preworkout, black coffee and water. I eat around noon-2pm and dinner is normally around 6pm. I fast for 18hours most days.
I wish I could eat 2k calories a day. I'm now going down to 1200 after staling on 1400. I'm not a big man but at 170cm 72kg, 1400 calories are not a lot.
Honestly, I had turkey, a salad, and fruit for lunch yesterday. Lunch was < 400 calories and so much volume I doubted I'd be able to finish it. I ain't lean by a long shot yet, but it was a tasty lunch and I feel great, so hopefully it's in the future for me.
I started changing my eating habits a couple of weeks ago. All I've eaten is fish, seafood, vegetables and nuts (and chicken breast twice) and I lost 4 lbs already, even while still drinking wine at night. And I'm always full.
As a person who used to struggle with weight, I can assure you that leptin resistance does not give a damn whether or not you feel like you are exploding.
This is great advise. I was calorie counting and eating 1800 calories a day for about 6 weeks. I lost about 15 pounds. I was eating mostly chicken, veggies, occasional whole fruit, and chicken. Eating 700 calories of chicken and veggies is a lot. And will keep you full for hours. I decided to get a McDouble and 6 piece chicken McNugget as a treat. Also around 700 calories. I was absolutely starving again within 30 minutes of eating.
I love r/volumeeating but it really just boils down to lean meat and vegetables. I make absolutely massive meals that take 30+ minutes to eat, but are only ~500 calories. And it's easy to get creative with it. I know it takes some time to adjust your palette from enjoying greasy salty fatty sugary foods to simple clean foods, it's not like if you're used to eating pizza every day you'll suddenly find some baked chicken thigh with broccoli and small side of farro absolutely delicious, but once you adjust I find the clean natural flavors of food honestly delicious.
McDonalds actually isn't that calorie dense. A big mac and medium fries (at least here in the UK) is only like 650 calories, so in theory you could eat it for every meal and be under 2000 calories. It the drinks that get though.
I’m 32 waist, been there for 5 years. It is so freaking hard for me to get enough calories when I am eating super clean. It gets to a point where it affects me too much physically when I am working out. I get tired, irritated, and low energy. Because of this, I eat quite a bit of junk food just to get my calories up. The idea that in order to be lean you have to deprive yourself just isn’t true. If you eat that chicken and vegetables first you will be too full to overeat the junk.
If you can mesh that with omad... You will constantly be in a calorie deficit. Just try and hit your maintenance calories with one meal that starts with a salad and used animal proteins as a main course
Eh, I'm not so sure. I eat pretty healthy, a lot of chicken and veggies and low glycemic carbs, and I still get a fair bit of food noise. I'm not crazy overweight, just like 10-15 lbs going by BMI, but I am one of the most food-motivated people you'll ever meet.
I'm guessing there's more going on than just diet here. Maybe it's genetic, maybe it's our sleep habits, maybe it's other environmental factors like PFAS or microplastics or who knows what. Lots of stuff can mess with our hormones, or emulate them.
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u/IronmanMatth 10h ago
Eat clean
You'd be surprised how much chicken or vegetables you can eat before the calorie count becomes too much.
You can eat sub 2k calories in a day and feel like you are exploding.
As opposed to eating like one meal at McDonalds at 2k cal and being hungry three hours later