Discussion Board

Hello Jeff! Quick question: I looked up Barbara's spoonfuls on CRON-O-meter and it listed it has having less calories than the box says that it has. Who do you trust in this situation? Do you trust the manufacturer? Or CRON-O-meter? Not that 20-30 calories is all that significant in my diet, nor am I really even counting calories all the time, but it's a curiosity situation and I like to make sure I'm not fooling myself. Thank you!

(Now granted, I recognize Barbara's spoonfuls are definitely regular plan not MWL and it's healthier to eat whole grains etc)

Food labels are changing all the time, so if you watch them closely, you will see situations and discrepancies like this fairly often.

The CRON-O-Meter is usually updated once or twice a year when the USDA updates it DB, where as Food Labels may be updated more often.

Even if they were both the same, the FDA allows for a lee-way (which if I remember is about 20% up or down).

This is why calorie counting is not recommended.

In Health
Jeff

Fair enough! Nice to see the nutritional values though on there.

Thank you!

This is a bit confusing to me. I've read about the supposed benefits of calorie restriction. How can you practice calorie restriction if you don't count calories?

By following the recommended principles & guidelines of calorie density.

And, as I have said before..,

"aim for a BMI of 18.5 - 22, focus on low calorie dense, high nutrient dense foods, be moderately active (30-45 minutes/day), and enjoy life."

In Health
Jeff

In other words, keep it simple?

I like simple.

Correct!

Sure, you can obsess over it and try and count every calorie by weighing and measuring every bite and morsel of food but what we really need to do is learn the principles and guidelines, how to apply them and then to keep it simple.

It's like when someone has financial trouble. They go to a CPA and he asks them to try and track every penny the spend for the next 4-6 weeks or 1-3 months. Then, they review and look evaluate and make changes as needed. For many, it is an eye-opening experience.

However, they really do not have to keep on tracking every penny going forward as the experiment has taught them where the problems where and they have learned how to fix them.

Now, they may want to occasionally do a detailed analysis but as long as they learned the basic principles, they will be fine

In Health
Jeff

That's pretty much what I've been doing.

I bought an inexpensive kitchen scale so I could plug more accurate numbers into CRON-o-meter just to get an idea of where I was at. I've never paid any attention to calories or quantities or nutrients before, so this is an interesting learning experience.

But, it's not something I'm doing every day and I certainly don't intend to get hung up on it.

Excellent!

To me, that is the perfect use of these tools. They are tools to help us along the way to get to where we are going but not to become slaves to them.

In Health
Jeff

Rick, my thinking is in line with yours. As Jeff said, it's a tool. I have chosen to use a program to track daily intake, weight, etc. It has become part of my daily route, but by no means do I get hung up on the numbers. It's part of the overall learning process I am still undergoing since changing to this way of eating. I am sure there will come a time I stop tracking.