[BSousa]

Hi Jim

One of the main problems people have with counting calories is accurately being able to do so. While I don't think counting calories is for everyone, if you do try again, try to weight everything you eat. Don't forget the teaspoon of olive oil in the salad and those kinds of small things that add up. Research has shown that comparing food logs of people that say they have a slow metabolism and that they count calories, when subjected to something I think is called, reverse isotope water (or similar), shows that they are not accounting for a lot of the things they eat.

Also, a month isn't a long time to notice changes even on the scale. It isn't uncommon to not drop weight due to water retention during a few weeks (depending where you start) when starting a diet.

[fbe]

Also, "intense exercise" can cause you to gain muscle mass, which is denser than fat. So, if you have never worked out before and try to loose weight by working out a lot, you can actually gain more weight from muscle mass than what you loose from fat (and, so, your scale will move up even if you are loosing fat).

[jimmaswell]

I mostly only ate things with the calories printed on a label somewhere most days. Stayed around 1500 to leave a lot of margin for error. Could've been muscle and water, yeah. It was actually half a college semester, where I had an exhausting Spinning class I picked as a credit requirement filler, along with badminton.

Apparently my BMI is 'obese' but I don't feel or look 'obese', by whatever value of obese seems to be my intuition gained over time, oddly. Maybe overweight is so common that it looks normal.

[BSousa]

Not to pick, but usually calorie counting only really works if you are precise with it (this includes accounting for every beer or the milk you add to your coffee everyday). Another thing to consider, if you are on the obese side of the BMI scale, unless you are 5'2", 1500 kcal is too little specially if you are doing spinning + badminton.

BMI is not really accurate on the individual level. Most athletes will score on the 'overweight' range for example while athletes that play in weight division sports will be in the 'underweight' category a lot of the time (I was for example, but I doubt anyone would consider me underweight at the time).

[pixl97]

Calorie counting only works if someone else is counting for you. There have been multiple subjective finding, and full blown scientific studies that the vast majority of individuals cannot accuratly count calories. People will do things like put two tablespoons of something in their food and count it, but will not count the tablespoon they put in their mouth, they may not even fully realize they ate the tablespoon of food they did. When under recording dieters consistently underreported there caloric intake, mostly because of habitual dietary habits they are unaware of.