The funniest example I've seen of this recently is the whipped butter that my parents buy. It has a blurb on the front that says "50% less fat than regular butter per serving", which is true - because even though the serving sizes are the same (1 tablespoon) the whipped butter is fucking half air.
See also the "light" version of bottled apple juice, on inspection of the ingredients it's because they just fucking add water to it and still charge the same price.
Agreed. But we should still acknowledge that losing fat is difficult for multiple reasons. Sure, ultimately it's basic physics. If you operate on a caloric deficit over a longer period of time you will lose weight. That is true for everybody. But on a personal level it can be quite a challenge to lose fat and not gain it again. There are often life-long habits to overcome, sometimes (mental) health issues to deal with. You must find the time and energy and money to change your eating habits to something healthy. A simple drastic reduction of your caloric intake is unsustainable and unhealthy, you need to come up with a good plan. You need to find time to work out, because that's also healthy and muscle mass is vital to losing fat. And I sad fat, not weight, because if you gain muscles you will also gain weight, as muscles are heavier than fat. But that's healthy weight. Anyway, I'm rambling.
I'm not saying this to discourage anyone, living healthier will benefit you in so many ways. But I feel it's worth acknowledging that there's usually more to it than just counting calories.
I know this might not sound positive but people with eating disorders should try to speak to a therapist about it because eating disorders can end up being horrible for your health
Although it is true what you say and I do agree, I also read between your lines that maybe you don't know how difficult and (life)long that process is.
An eating disorder is a disease/issue that honestly isn't solvable, you carry that weak point for the rest of your life and will have to battle it. Which with eating is extra difficult, since you have to eat. You can't stay sober from food.
(But maybe I misunderstood your words (being written text without further context). )
This is why I'm not against drugs like Ozempic for those who need it.
I used a new medication to make me not want opiates. Used it for about two years until I had enough healthy habits in place to actually not want opiates. Been clean for 6 years and off the medication for over a year without issue.
Never would have gotten clean without it so it makes sense to me how people end up obese.
It's not about being easy, it's about being able to measure. I've been completely unable to regulate my food intake for a long time until I took it real seriously (therapeutic fasting. It's a thing, it's very extreme, if you can avoid it do it) and kind of reset my eating habits. Now that I'm slowly increasing my caloric intake to what someone on the weight I aim to be should consume (2m calories a day, healthy for someone with 90kg), having the pero 100g indication is extremely helpful for me since I can estimate how much stuff is taxing my daily budget, and I'm discovering some incredible cheat foods (stuff I really enjoy eating that fills me and has low calories).
What I mean to say is that having the per 100g information is very valuable for anyone that cares to control their caloric intake. Sure, you don't have it in restaurants and stuff but with enough experience you tend to learn to estimate dishes so you can compensate beforehand or afterwards to not exceed your budget.
Its all about caloric intake, some people have it real hard to keep it under control due to eating disorders or family customs, but it really is just that.
It should be interpreted: "if there's any way that you can avoid using this technique/ therapy, then you should absolutely go out of your way to avoid having to use this torture regemin therapy."
Sure! As always, food being filling depends a lot on the person same with tastyness. Anyway, one dish I really like is guacamole, it's usually eaten with bread, and that bad. Recently I've taken a liking to eatich raw spinach with some oil (a cheap refillable spray will let you throw just what you need, usually 60kcal are enough to dress it well) and about 125g guacamole which is somewhat around 250kcal from the brand I buy. The guacamole and oil give a lot of flavour to the spinach, which has a strong texture and takes awhile to eat everything. It's less than 400kcal in total, and quite healthy.
Instead of buying fruit juices, which even natural ones have quite a lot of sugar and thus calories, I've taken a liking to drinking vegetable soups, which basically cost the same in the store and have a fraction of the caloric cost while having quite a lot of vatamins. Again, I personally enjoy it a lot.
Besides that it's all about eating stuff I would not usually eat. Lentils, chickpeas and other legumes are pretty good in nutrients and fill you a lot.
Everything considered, it's more about not eating an exaggerated amount of food, and the fasting really helped me reset my habits. Before I wouldn't have considered eating fruit instead some bag fries, but now that it's been a while that I haven't eaten fries, I'm slowly getting used to eating healthy stuff since going from zero to vegetables+fruits is incredible.
To summarize, lightly dressed spinach & guacamole salad and vegetable soups are my "cheat foods". Food I really enjoy that fills me up with a low caloric intake.
Edit: forgot about the pear cherry tomatoes, it's a variety of cherry tomatoes that has more "meat" and is sweeter, but still has fuckall calories so buying a bunch instead of potatoes and eating them all is totally fine.
They do, just not in the units you're familiar with. They do calories per serving, and very commonly servings per package (in cases where people may be likely to eat the entire thing.) When listing serving sizes, where appropriate the serving sizes is described (how many pieces) and a weight in grams is listed.
Here's an example (haven't gotten around to posting images - sorry for the link.)
I don't mean this directed at you since you seem to be very helpful. This is more directed at the zero empathy crowd who likes to repeat this equation.
I always hear "calories in - calories out = deficit". But it overlooks that "calories out" is a big mystery box. You can kind of estimate it sometimes. But it's different for every person, and different every day. And it's over estimated for people who work out, leading to a lot of frustration.
I like that you actually have follow ups with things that can help. It's important to have those conversations instead of just pretending it's simple.
I just ignore any calories from working out, none of the devices that claim to offer this are accurate, if I'm really starving after a hard workout or long walk I'll indulge a bit and simply note it down as usual, but otherwise I stick to my calorie planning based on metabolic calorie loss only and ignore the additional ones.
I've been reading so much about how simple it is to lose weight, it's all about caloric deficit. I've also been in Hashimoto's and hypothyroidism communities long enough to know that's not always true. It's probably true for healthy individuals, but with Hashi's and hypothyroidism, metabolism doesn't work as well, so you can be in caloric deficit and work out, yet still unable to shed the extra weight.
Strictly speaking that's not really possible. Like, physically. The body's ATP production has to come from somewhere, and that's either stuff you ingest or stuff already in your body. Low metabolism just means even fewer calories going in for a deficit.
Water retention is also "weight gain" but only sort of. It's certainly a medical issue but most people specifically mean body fat when talking about weight.
You now gave me the idea to maybe give these calorie counters a shot. In my appstore it shows up as "Lose It!", I asume thats the one? Also question, how privacy safe are these?
Not OP but I did. It was crazy good deal, like £1.50 a month when I signed it. It helped me lose 10kgs. I don’t use it anymore but I use the lessons it’s taught me about portion size etc. I’ve lost more weight since, without exercise and I take prednisolone. Well worth the money for me.