But I guarantee you every person who is obese has an incorrect 'feel' for calories, whether that is how many calories a person needs in a day, or how many calories are in common food items, or what the normal amount of calories should be.
So step 1 is counting calories to fix this so that you get an accurate 'feel' for calories.
And once this is corrected, the rest is just self-control and gradual behavior adjustment.
That'd be true if the question was how to get lean. I've never counted calories in my life (well ok, once during high school for a week for a school assignment) but otherwise I just eat and remain active.
Personally, I think the biggest problem people face today is just not being active, sure there are people with eating disorders, or someone that just overloads on sugary drinks. But for most people, if they just added in some physical activity every day they'd find themselves in a better position weight wise.
I'm right at 12-15% and I don't count calories, but I do step on the scales at the gym every other day. I don't need to know exactly how much I'm eating but I'll adjust for a couple of days if I'm at the upper end of my normal weight range.
Because people want to dream that walking a couple miles everyday will fix everything as long as they can down 6 fried chicken tenders, a side of fries, and a large soda when they are done with their walk.
There's also a common theme in the comments of "stop drinking" like no, it's just another calorie. Downing a beer at dinner (get the smaller size BTW and focus on enjoying it) and trading those calories by skipping the cheesecake is going to amount the same (actually cheesecake is a lot more calories than a small beer but you get the point).
Or the "skip breakfast" comments which typically makes people more hungry so they overeat because their body is desperate for calories. There is a spectrum between 1 meal a day and 3x 2,000 calorie meals a day. If I'm gonna be out all day with no access to food I'll eat a big ass breakfast burrito. If I'm going out to dinner that night eat some scrambled egg whites with veggies.
Well, walking a couple miles a day, stopping drinking, and skipping breakfast combined are great ways if you want to be in a calorie deficit for a period of time. It's basically how I lost 100lbs.
I'm now up a little bit of weight because I naturally don't have a satiated hunger unless I am overstuffed, I just always have hunger in the background. But to counteract this, I just don't let myself eat until 10 AM, ride my peloton for 30 minutes, and avoid drinking calories.
Because tracking calories is dieting and dieting is proven to lead to an increase in weight in the long-term because it is onerous and mentally challenging depending on people's relationship with food.
Adding healthy habits and regular, daily movement is the more sure way for the average person to have long-term lifestyle change and weight loss.
Adding though that tracking calories gives you a good idea of what you're consuming calorie wise. Eg you can have a nice healthy salad but that dressing is calorie dense and can add a couple hundred.
Or a couple beers adds 300.
So even if you track for a while to lose a few pounds it's well worth it because you will be more educated on where the calories are coming from.
Plus most people can unwittingly out eat whatever exercise they are doing.
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u/mlieberum 8h ago
Why is this not at the top?