>>49022279>>49025099>I MUST excercise to lose weight.I still strongly encourage you to exercise, but this statement isn't accurate by itself. Diet is always WAY more effective at losing weight than exercise. "Abs are made in the kitchen," as they say. You are ALWAYS burning calories just by existing. It takes a lot more time and effort to burn 500 calories than it does to avoid eating the 500 calories in the first place. Burning 500 cal takes A LONG FUCKING TIME, and most people already have very little time to spare.
When attempting weight loss, it's commonly recommended to eat 500 calories less than your TDEE per day, which will add up to -3500 calories per week, which is (very roughly) the number of calories in a pound of bodyfat. This gives us a good benchmark for all further calculations and adjusting for inaccuracies. If we're not meeting the goal of -1 lbs per week, then there's something off and you need to adjust. You aren't breaking the laws of thermodynamics. Either you're eating more than you think you are, or are not burning as much as you think you are. This is likely to happen, because there are phantom calories everywhere, which I'll go into in a sec.
That being said, you glossed over some related details in your post, which are very important, and assumptions about them might be leading to your problem losing weight. No matter what you do, and how exact you are, you will find that your results do not line up with the numbers. It is practically impossible to accurately count calories, which is why we need to take various precautionary measures to compensate, and ensure that we still reach our goals. This is NOT an excuse to not count calories, since you still need that number to start your adjustments from. Some examples:
>In the US, calories are rounded to the nearest 5>Nutritional information panels generally fib and say it's less calories than it really is. Try adding up the macronutrients on various foot items to see if the calories match what they should. A lot of them won't even do that. Fat = 9 cals, Protein = 4 cals, Carbs = 4 cals.>Because of the above, zero calorie sweeteners are actually 4 calories per gram, NOT zero. 20 grams of Splenda/Sweet N Low/Stevia is 80 calories. This is because they're padded with maltodextrin in order to get a similar sweetness per cup as sugar. But the serving size is 1g. 1g of carbs is 4 calories, which is then rounded down to 0 on the label.>Calories on restaurant menus ALWAYS underestimate like crazy. IIRC, the average reality was like 20% more calories or something.Everything is a lie or convenient half truth.
>I started counting my calories HOW are you counting your calories? Are you using a fitness tracker device and/or app like myfitnesspal? Are you reading nutritional labels? Nutritional labels are better than apps, but not perfect. Are you measuring things by grams with a scale? Still, imperfect.
>I lose about 60-80 cal from walking to work/walking homeAgain, how was this measured? Similar to food apps, fitness apps tend to overestimate calories burned from activities. But again, you can compensate for them.
So if you can't trust the numbers from anything, how do you compensate for them? You do so by your own results, over the course of weeks. Get a home scale. It doesn't matter how shitty. We are flying by relative numbers, not exact numbers. Weigh yourself every morning, after you've peed, but before you've eaten. Don't care about the day to day numbers. Average them week by week. If you haven't lost 1 pound per week, it means you need to eat a little less, or exercise a little more. This way, you know what calorie deficit YOUR body is getting results from, no matter what the numbers supposedly say. Again, you can't break the laws of thermodynamics. Calories in, calories out. It's just energy passing through your system.
>I'm eating a normal amount of calories for a human being, around 1500-1700 a day, so I'm not overeating or anything.That's close to what the average guy needs, and actually a little on the low end. But is that the correct amount for YOU? There's significant variance from person to person, based on height and various genetic factors. If you haven't used a calculator to estimate your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure), you need to do so, but remember that it is an ESTIMATE of what your actual TDEE will be. Then, do whatever you need to get that -500 per day. When you use a diet calculator and it gives you a BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) that's what it is.The number of calories you're burning just by existing.
This post is a mess, but I'm posting it early before the thread dies. Read the /fit/ sticky. Good luck, bro!
