healthy eating vs calorie counting

[massappeal]

man im tired of counting calories.what would happen to my body if i dont count calories, just keep eating healthy foods.does anyone do this?if so how are your results?

[john917v]

After a while, you get to know how many cals. foods have, and for what serving size. Then, you can look @ them, and get a pretty good idea. It's just the ratio of protein to carbs to fats that seems pretty difficult to eyeball. Have you tried Fitday.com? Many here have, and we pretty much all love it!

[widdoes2504]

Fitday is a great site and easy to use. Give it a shot.

[Sleazy]

The fact is usually healthy eating and calorie counting go hand in hand.

The best thing you can do is learn what type of foods you like, which are healthy, and do the calorie and macronutrient lookup on them. That way when your putting together your meals you can easily look at your plate and say "there is probably 400-500 calories in this meal". When you switch to healthier foods you are also usually able to eat more food because most of them aren't as calorie dense compared to junkier foods.

Even if you are eating healthy you will still need to know what calorie range you want to consume a day to meet your goals, whether its weight loss or gaining muscle. You don't have to get crazy with counting every little thing but having a general idea will always help you meet your goals. After a while it just becomes second nature.

[hrdgain81]

I agree with what has been posted, but I'd like to caution you a bit here. i wouldnt do the "eating healthy, but not counting cals/macros" thing. what ends up happening to me is if I am eating clean, I feel like I'm doing what I'm suppose to, but the fact is your not taking in enough cals, simply because the foods arent as calorie dense.

If you cutting, you end up not losing fat because your body goes into starvation mode, then you say to hell with the diet, because its not "working".

If your bulking, you end up not gaining mass like you should, and you say to hell with it and eat crappy because the diet is not "working".

its always a good idea to keep track of what you eat and when.

[HSfootball16]

dude, ive used fitday for 1 week, and ive already learned what not to eat. lost 3 pounds in that week to.

[john917v]

I agree. Sleazy's post is like what I have learned to do, but I still use fitday-and love it, it's free!!! I especially use it, whenever introducing a new food, or if it's been a while. Before I used it, I was not eating enough, and I didn't even know it. The first time I used it, I was shocked to see I was about 700-1K cals. under!!! Since then, I have upped my diet!!