How to Count Calories Successfully

In the video I say "if you've been plateaued for 2 weeks then decrease by 500" and I think in hindsight I'd like to revise up to a month.  I have seen 2 weeks of seeming plateaus only to blast right through it in the 3rd week with people hitting the daily calorie goal and no meaningful change to the diet.

1. You'll learn the practical  'how' of  how to count calories effectively

2. How to decide how much to eat. How to decide what to eat, the best time to enter your calories, what tools you need to use in addition to the app for counting calories, how to stop punishing yourself for failing, how to use your failure to teach yourself, how to understand the difference between a rut and a lesson, 

2. The goal is to get you consistently entering in your calories and hitting your calorie goal every day.

3. Why calorie counting works. You have to know how much you're eating now in order to effectively plan how many calories you should eat

4. Why 500 calorie per day deficit is the goal. To lose 1 pound per week you have to eat 500 calories less than what you're eating now every day. 1 pound of loss per week should be your goal for reasons i'll explain in the program

5.  You should love what you're eating and you should not feel like you're starving while you're doing this. The point is to treat yourself well and take care of yourself while attaining your goals.   You can do both. And you do not have to fundamentally change what you're eating either.

6. We will not be talking going to the gym. We will not be talking about a special diet. The only thing you need to do is enter your calories and hit your goal for the day. Hit Your Calorie Goal! If you don't hit your goal,  you should still enter your calories fully."

"1. With your new MFP account you should make it your top priority to enter all of your food and drinks into the app

2. You should get a food scale to weigh items in the kitchen to help with accuracy. Eyeballing is not enough here. Being able to eat the same amount by weight / volume is important

3. The more you enter your food into MFP the easier it is to enter the food because you can repeat meals

4. Do not enter a calorie goal that removes 1000 calories from your daily diet.  At this point we're trying to find a baseline of how much you're already eating

5. 3500 calories is a pound of weight. Strike a balance between how much your body needs and your need to lose weight quickly"

"1. Eat what you eat now!!

It is important that you eat things you like.

2. The Perfect day module explors this in a bit more depth, but briefly you have things you have to do (drink water, eat fruits + vegetables , BMS) with your diet every day. The Perfect day is learning how to negotiate with yourself about how all the things you love to eat fit within those parameters.

3. A lot of people use weight loss motivation to starve themselves, then they get disapointed when they can't use ""willpower"" to push through the hunger, but they don't realize that doing this is setting themselves up for failure

4. To decide what to eat you have to choose things you like, that fit into your calorie goals.You have to eat some veggies and some meats (proteins), but other than that you can choose what you LIKE to eat. Weigh it and make it fit into your calorie goals. Have 1 hamburger instead of 3. If that doesn't work try 2 instead of 3.

Food is more difficult to deal with than quitting smoking. You have to eat. Can't quit that cold turkey.

I show you how to find the sweet spot between feeling like you're starving and a weekly 3500kcal deficit.

"1. Base Metabolic Rate or BMR is the number of calories your body needs in a day

2. If you eat under that number of calories your body will think that you're starving and you will not be able to use ""Willpower"" to stop you from eating.

3. if you focus on building the habit of entering your food accurately then you can be quite satisfied by what fits into your daily calorie allowance, while you lose weight and don't starve."

"-A pound a week is a huge accomplishment.

- only worry about today and 1) entering your food and 2) hitting your calorie target

- it works when you're feeling 'good' or when you're feeling like it's not working. Trust the system.

- 500 calories is a negotiation.

- Treat yourself like you're someone worth doing this for. You are. And, You CAN do it! :)

- Be forgiving to yourself. "

The main crux of the finding things you like to eat and plan to eat that at breakfast, then lunch and then dinner is to eat the same thing or the same TYPE of thing every day. If you like it, lean into it. I used to eat different kinds of soup for lunch but the core of the lunch never changed. It was always soup of some kind, toast, cream cheese a pop and a pudding.  I would have a protein shake at 1pm but I was trying to bulk a bit.

@ 4 min when I say "if you like breakfast and have it every day, do that for lunch." I mean find a food or groupings of foods that you love and have that every day for lunch. I don't mean have what you eat for breakfast for lunch. Lol. Just making sure we're all clear.

Dinner is a little bit more tricky, but you can still find multiple dinners you like and are willing to repeat on a weekly basis and build your grocery list around that. Make sure it's hitting your calorie goal.

"What is Hungry Time? Hungry time is your planned time to be a bit hungry. The earlier in the morning the better, but i always planned it for mid morning to maximize my willpower. It is a mistake to schedule your hungry time after 8pm. Do not do that.

1. You should not be complaining (tp yourself) about being starving all the time. You're trying to create your perfect day. If you want to lose weight though, you're going to need to be in a deficit. That means 500 calories less than what you usually eat to achieve a 3500 calorie deficit per week. (that's 1lb per week)

2. Willpower is only renewed by sleeping. If you plan your ""hungry time"" to be post 8pm you will ignore that plan in favor of chocolate or chips. I promise.

3. Planning and knowing what you're going to do are more than 90% of the way"

"1. A lot of people get very emotionally wrapped up in calorie counting because of their bad relationship with food (for whatever reason). This manifests in people being resistent to counting calories because they think it will be another vector to be made fun of for. Or to self shame ""you didn't hit your target, you're so x y z.."" etc

2. if you find yourself doing this, remind yourself that you need the information to sort out the issue.

3. Difference between failure and a rut. Failiure is trying something and then not succeeding and then trying something else that's slightly different hoping for a different restult (success maybe!). Rut is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Fail in a productive way.

4. Collecting this data will tell you a lot about your diet. You're goinig to use this information to negotiate with yourself and to develop your perfect day of eating."

"1. People are really hard on themselves

2. And set themselves up for failure (without realizing it)

3. but they'll take care of their kids or their pet. Fiercely.

4. simplify what you're doing. focus on hitting your daily calorie number

You are worth looking after as fiercely. 

Question: If your child was hungry and asked for food: you'd give your child food right?

Treat yourself like you would your child or favourite pet. You'd give them a small snack if it's not a meal time. That doesn't mean have a big mac. But hunger is your body telling you to do something. Listen to it, don't browbeat it. Take care of it and negotiate with yourself. It is possible.

What if you're not entering the right amount on the calories in the app?

Come up wth a schedule / time of day to always update your food. I did it after lunch and before bedtime snack."

"1. There is a voice in your head telling you that the amount of food on your plate isn't enough. You should get a second or third burger or slice of pizza

2. Talk to that voice. Don't run from it. Tell it that you will indeed get more. After you finish this first plate.

3. After you're finished your first plate, reassess how you're feeling and decide for yourself. In this way you take power away from that voice.

4. Sometimes i talk to the voice and make fun of it

5. say you've already had some of the treats in the staff room and they were GREAT."

"1. Week 1 - Get your baseline by tracking all calories you eat, when you're ready to start losing only remove 500 calories per day, 3500 per week. This is 1lb lost.

2. Find foods for every meal that you're excited about and that hit your calorie goals for that meal

3. Structure your hungry time to work with your willpower stores

4. Trust the system. Even if it looks like you're not actively losing keep entering your calories

5. Weigh all your food every time you eat it, but only weigh yourself once a week. You will drive yourself crazy otherwise.

6. Be patient with yourself and forgiving. Firm but fair. Monday is your perfect day model. Try to replicate tuesday and wedneday and as many days of the week you can. Start over Monday no matter how well you did the previous week.

7. Find Foods you love to eat that fit into your daily calorie goals. They do exist.

8. Hit your daily calorie goal every day if you can. Make sure you love what you eat"