Anyone not counting calories

[Incognitoburrito88]

Hi Everyone,

I’m 3 wks in and after 2 wks of holiday and just doing my best, this week I’ve counted calories and weighed every day. I can feel myself getting obsessed. I’m constantly thinking about what I’m going to eat and worrying about calories - it’s almost worse than the food noise.

I’m an experienced dieter - have previously lost weight doing weight watchers and fast800 so I know how to eat well but I hate the way dieting becomes my whole personality. Just wondering if it might be better for my mental health if I hid the scales and didn’t count cals for a couple of weeks just trusted my reduced appetite and loss of urge to emotional eat. Has anyone done this successfully?

I have been on semiglutides for a year
Am a "pro dieter" and haven't counted cals.
I know pretty well what cals are in most things

Ive lost 35kg now

Breakfast is standard chai berries Greek yoghurt bran (350-400 cals) as it helps with consistency
Apart from that I do what I want. I do try to focus on veg/fruit and protein and avoid excessively fatty stuff as it doesnt digest well.
If I do eat a slice of pizza or mac n cheese I balance it with a bowl of steamed veg mostly for my digestion tbh.

My weight loss has prob been slower but I feel way more "free" from my food obsession.

I weight daily, log it, dont think about and only look at month on month differences

I haven’t counted calories since staring MJ in September. 3 stone loss so far. I have dieted many times before, so I know roughly how much I can eat, and of course, my appetite is reduced anyway. It is one of the really liberating things about MJ. I’m sure that obsessing about whether I have enough calories left for a biscuit or glass of wine is one reason I have failed so often in the past, it’s just depressing. Why not try going with your intuition for a few weeks? If it doesn’t work, you can always go back to counting. Good luck.

I don’t count calories, apart from the occasional few days here and there, mainly to check I was eating enough. It’s been 9 months and I’ve lost just about 8 stone. I also weigh myself daily but don’t log it, I only log the weigh in on the day that I do my injection.

Hi, I’m a big fan of the Zoe podcasts on nutrition. I’ve used Tom Spector’s info on nutrition during my MJ journey - it works. I’m a slow loser (hypothyroidism). Since October I’ve lost 1 stone 1 and a half pounds. Just trust the process and it does work.
Here’s the link:
zoe.com/learn/why-calorie-counting-doesnt-work

Sorry, it’s Tim not Tom

You need to do what works for you. As a grazer, who can eat portions that are too big I need to weigh and track. I'm a person who likes structure and lists, so it suits me.

But if you find that unhelpful/unhealthy for your mental state, a different approach will be more beneficial for you

I am not tracking calories, more trying to prioritise protein and limit carbs. I'm with Voy and they don't suggest counting calories instead they have an AI meal analyser that you upload a photo of your meal and it rates how balanced it is and suggests ways to improve it. I've lost 2 stone so far since January, it's working really well for me. I've done an occasional day of calorie checking just to make sure and it always comes out to between 1200 and 1400 calories.

I’m also an experienced lifelong failed dieter. So I know calories, I know healthy foods, know what I should moderate/avoid, know all the latest about calories not being equal. And decided I would just eat sensibly and trust the process. So no counting calories for me and no diet foods either. My loss is slow, and I’ve had lots of issues with sides and sensitivity , but I can live with that.

I don’t count calories but I do keep an eye on my macros.

If you are fortunate enough that MJ gives you enough suppression to maintain a calorie deficit without counting, and if you know it’s likely to trigger obsessive behaviour, then stop. The main reason to count calories if if you aren’t losing and you need to ensure that you are in deficit. If you are losing regardless then don’t do it, but if nothing else make sure you are keeping an eye on your daily protein intake to help guard against muscle loss.

I don’t count calories or weigh anything. 21.5 kg off since Dec. I did have a good look at the kcal on various packets early on and do have a sense of about what I’m eating everyday, but I feel like counting is where madness would lie for me. I concentrate on eating really good food and enjoying it, and enjoying how much I can enjoy a small portion now, instead of always wanting more. Freeing.

This is timely. I can feel myself getting obsessed and need to step back from the apps and scales. I am following the second nature plan but have been running calorie counting alongside. It’s doing my head in if I’m honest. I think it’s time I trusted myself and picked one approach.

I'm very similar to @LivingLaVidaBabyShower. I eat what I want, but probably half the portion sizes I was eating pre MJ.
I do have the Nutracheck app and try to calorie count one day a week, just to keep an eye myself, but to be honest, I often forget.
I am generally following the Second Nature 'balanced plate' model - so, simplistically, 25% protein, 25% complex carbs, 50% veg, plus a small serving of fats at every meal. I'm also trying to make sure I eat every 4/5 hours so will have a banana or oatcake with cottage cheese mid afternoon.
That's it! I'm losing 1kg a week and am very happy with that.

I counted calories religiously on Nutracheck for the first four weeks but not after that. I still have a vague tally in my head every day but I don't need to actually count. I have lost 2 stone since January.

No calorie counting here either. I started in June 24 and have lost almost 30kg now and pretty much at my goal. I just trusted that over the long term if I had a bit more of something one day that it would balance out over the week/month when some days I had a little less.
For me it has been the fact that I could see that this would be sustainable over a long period that helped. It has freed me from the cycle of feeling deprived of something then binging on it after a couple of weeks. I never thought it would work like it has and am just so grateful that I can now eat ‘normally’.
See how it works for you and good luck!

It's been two years for me, and I was fast 800 for years before that, so I don't calories count anymore. I occasionally check, like last night we had an Indian and I had Saag Paneer which was new.

No calorie counting here, I'm 5 weeks in and have lost 10 pounds 😊 I'm probably eating half my pre MJ portion sizes

I'm not counting them in anything other than a really vague way. If I have a pre-prepared grain salad at lunch for example I'll look at what the cals are out of sheer curiosity. But for things like breakfast and dinner, no. I have a general sense of eating less and I'm nearly a stone down in just under five weeks.

I am rather fixated on protein and fibre I think, as well as worrying about calcium, being menopausal. My cheese addiction used to take care of that but that's taken a massive hit, obviously. 😂

I’m actually feeling a bit tearful reading all your replies. Thanks so much everyone. I think a big part of why my diets eventually stall is the mental exhaustion of being so obsessively ‘on it’ - the constant worry of ‘can I have a biscuit or a glass of wine?’ Is exhausting and unhealthy. I went into this thinking I wanted to drop weight fast so I can look good for the summer but actually - the timescale doesn’t matter… so what if I can’t wear my ‘slim trouser’ in July? Ok - I’m going to ditch the scales and myfitnesspal for a few weeks and just concentrate on eating healthy meals with as little UPF and as much protein as possible and see what happens. If I get to June and I’m not losing then I’ll have a rethink. You guys have really inspired and reassured me xx

I started with calorie counting at first, perhaps the first 1-2 months, to make sure I was eating enough, but I wasn't and then to get a baseline on types of foods and portions I was eating with Mounjaro.

Now on month 10 I haven't calorie counted since. But, I am a great believer in "if you don't measure it you can't manage it" so I do weigh regularly, but I can do this without being obsessive about this. If/when my weight loss stops I know what my next steps will be - start calorie tracking again for a couple of weeks to see if I have gone off on track, start measuring water intake again and if I cannot keep to a calorie deficit consider increasing Mounjaro dose.

if I hid the scales and didn’t count cals for a couple of weeks just trusted my reduced appetite and loss of urge to emotional eat

This part wouldn't work for me. I need some indicator things are working. Mounjaro is just a tool, the same way changing my diet and being aware of calories and marcros, my scales, measuring how much water I drink, trying to exercise more etc are all also tools.

I need a bigger tool box that just Mounjaro.

I never have, never will. It's a route to disordered eating. I knew what was causing me to be obese (overly large portions and evening snacking when exhausted) and I use mounjaro to help me rebuild better habits. I rarely even weigh myself!

I recognise a lot of what you are saying op and I have certainly flirted with some disordered eating in my time.

i do track but like someone else I am a picker who likes big portions. I also need to keep an eye on protein and fibre so tracking helps me eat better. I don’t daily weigh though and in fact don’t always weigh weekly. I am not weighing this week because my period is due on Monday so I will be bloaty on Saturday (weigh day). I’ll weigh when my period has finished. I will weigh at some point though as I used to be a daily weighed, got obsessive so stopped weighing at all and then was in denial re my weight gain. So have to find a balance.

good luck

Not quite what you're asking OP but I have been counting. However, I'd like to move away from that slowly as I start to think about what the longer term looks like.

I've decided that once I reach the 'fat' stage (not obese) I will stop counting 1 day a week. If that doesn't derail me that month then the next month I will not count 2 days a week. Then 3 and so on until I've taken the stabilisers totally off and am on my own.

I still intend to eat well/healthily/at a deficit on my non counting days, exactly as I would on my counting days, but hopefully this gives me a chance to ease into doing this for myself in a way I can sustain.

Me.

I weigh daily as it's working for me, but don't calorie count, just know I'm eating less. Losing a couple of pounds a week, 2 months in, on 2.5 still. But I don't think too much about treats either. While my appetite is much lower, if I want a couple of pieces of chocolate I'll have them... and it actually will be a couple. I really like light meals like fish with salad and stir fries, so that and the inability to manage large portions are probably doing the work for me tbh.

@ShiftAMountain that is a really good approach actually. I lost 5 stone before and actually kept it off for 6 years. When I was maintaining I did weigh myself occasionally, track every so often but also made sensible choices on my own (sometimes you have the salad, you don’t always need the cake).

Covid - the massive change in routine and lifestyle was what made me put the weight back on and then I lost the trust in myself. I need to rebuild that.

I don't count calories. Haven't since I lost and kept off 4 stone about 8 years ago eating high protein, low carb, high fat, no processed food. Protein kept me so full, I just naturally moved to only two meals a day effectively eating 16:8. I had another 4 stone to go but my body just plateaued and to be honest I felt well at 4, rather than 8 stones overweight so I accepted that. During the previous 40 years of calorie controlled dieting, the constant battle against hunger and cravings always led to me putting all the lost weight back on with an extra half stone each time so keto eating was a revelation to me.
I've wavered over the last couple of years whether to use Mounjaro or not, to have a go at losing the last four stone. The decider was that my binge eating was causing me significant gastric problems which I felt helpless to tackle. The irony of a body used to 16:8 eating is that I wasn't hungry till late afternoon, and sitting down to and really looking forward to one huge meal till I was stuffed wasn't making me regain much weight but it was making me ill.
3 months in on Mounjaro, no more binge eating, it's just not physically possible, I've settled to two small meals or one larger one (but about 1/3 of the size of before) and a snack following the lower carb, high protein, high fat, little processed food habits and keeping to 16:8. I've lost 26 pounds so an average of 2lbs a week with no feelings of hunger or cravings at all.
Like JosephsCoat I occasionally feel like a slice of cake or a couple of squares of chocolate and I just have it...with no desire to have more than a small amount. I am in awe of this drug that it can fix a 40 year binge eating problem overnight.