-Diablo's Journal, 29 Nov 23

Omg 😱 what? Is that crap true!!!? 

Right?!?! ...and I'm willing to bet that the margin of error rarely falls in our favor.  

https://www.verywellfit.com/the-number-not-to-trust-on-the-nutrition-label-3495626 

It appears so, Ocean girl. Time to overestimate packaged goods by 20%. It seems you can only trust things when you make it yourself. 

Omg😱😱😱😱so it’s even FDA Approved. I just read up on it . Wow , unbelievable . Thank you for this ,that just gave me a rude awakening. 

I feel this so hard. 

They are in the business to sell more so makes sense. I don’t buy much prepackaged items to stay away from all the additives but I do like Protein shakes so wonder how accurate they are. 🤷‍♀️ 

I'm with you, RPL. I do love a dollop of peanut butter every now & again too, though. My particular brand is labeled 190 cals for 2 tbs. Imagine how easy that is to mis-measure to begin with & then throw a +20% error on there. 🫣😬 

I have been suspicious of food labels for some time. I'm especially suspicious of the protein content of most supplements... 

I couldn’t care less because I’ve lost all my weight using labels and weighing and measuring my own food most times. If you stress out over this too much, it’ll just cause a weight gain. Ha ha. Carry-on folks and use common sense. 

I find FS macros and calorie count very inaccurate. I use it loosely... 

I would like to add that I'm not aware of better methods of tracking food intake other than the ones Wifey listed... 

Spot on 😆 

And people coming in lower on calorie counts, the margin of error is either stripped away or amplified.  

people's estimates* 

Apparently, it works okay for me. Although most of my food is fresh and unprocessed, I still have to rely on someone to tell me how many calories are in a 200 gram apple. Numbers are just markers. If you think you're eating 1800 calories a day, but you're not losing weight, cut back on how much you eat or increase your activities. If what you thought was 1800 calories is actually 2000 calories, it's still the same amount of food, it just has a different number attached to it. Is it enough food to keep you from going hungry? Can you eat that amount and still lose weight?  

Yep, It sucks.  

If you're running a steep deficit or surplus this won't matter much but for those who want a slight one to avoid too much fat gain or strength/muscle loss it can be. After trial and error, like others have said, you should be able to adjust it to keep progress coming but you may need to eat the same things all the time. This is why competitive bodybuilders will often have a very boring diet. The larger you are, the higher the margins of error as well. A large lifter who needs 4k calories to gain(500 calorie surplus), may be getting 4800(1300 daily surplus!)which will lead to a lot of unnecessary fat gain. Someone who only is eating 1500 to lose may be getting 1800, and that will still likely produce results. 

But yes, most of us on here don't need to worry about this too much. Many of us, despite this fact, make great progress. 

those are the freebie calories I mean if you don't log them I don't think they count 🤔