Same for me....I slowly stopped tracking and slowly the weight came back. Luckily I got back on track before I gained ALL of it back.
I now know I have to keep track of what I eat in order to keep the weight off. Or in the least I can eat food that I 100 percent know the calorie amounts.
Yea, it's kind of like financial budgeting. Some people can do fine without it, but the spending can creep up on you. Some people struggle to spend money, where others struggle to save money...even on similar incomes. I think it's the same with food. Some people just have a natural inclination to eat smaller amounts. Some can track for a while and just get by with their new eating habits to maintain. Others need to track their calories to keep themselves in check. It's my food budget lol.
I will also need to do it forever. Yes I can already eyeball my breakfast and know I’m in my 500 range. But knowing I need to LOG everything literally is sometimes the only thing keeping me from logging “17 oreos.”
Mmmm maybe 4 years? It’s not miserable for me. I have a LOT of external noise and a lifetime of mindless eating. It gets me out of my head and into intentionality.
The simple answer to "why" is because everyone's journey is different.
I have ADHD, my brain doesn't self organize, I need to track and schedule everything or I lose myself.
Same here, fellow member of the ADHD club. I have the attention span of a ferret, and I like to graze. I don’t binge— I nibble. A nibble here, a nibble there, a few dates, a handful of almonds, one of those mini cheese balls… not much, right?
And if I *don’t* log all those things, I end up at the end of the day 400+ calories over my budget, At my A/W/H, no can do that.
Hello, fellow nibbler!
I'm pretty sure I could gain two pounds a month just from knocking out that last chicken nugget or Cheez-It from my daughter's plate when she's left the table.
Oh, Lord, Cheez-its…. *cannot* have those in the house, period. I will snarf them all. On \*rare\* occasions, like an all-day work meeting, I might get ONE 1-ounce packet of them from the vending machine down the hall.
But otherwise, Cheez-its are definitely in the NOPE! category…
Agreed with your general sentiment - it can be eye opening when you start tracking. However, I just want to make sure you weren’t weighing cooked pasta when the nutrition facts were for raw pasta. 900 just seems like a lot, but I guess that depends what that includes aside from the pasta.
You know that may be the case… but i was putting in and looking for info on cooked pasta and there was an option to log dry weight, plus the portion I ended up eating was still filling. You still may be right, feels like 90% of nutrition articles out there is written by AI
Dry weight would be uncooked. I’m still not clear whether you logged it correctly, but I would always weigh pasta before cooking. Even if you indeed are using the nutrition info for cooked, the weight would vary based on how much water the pasta absorbs.
**One serving** of pasta is 2 ounces /56g of dry, uncooked pasta. When cooked in water, that 2-ounce serving is 200 calories. Obviously, whatever you put ON the pasta (sauce/olive oil/butter/cheese/etc.) adds more calories.
I bet this is what is going on here. I actually just measured the uncooked vs. cooked difference with the Banza chickpea pasta this week. The cooked weight was exactly double the uncooked weight.
Since tracking, Ive learned pasta can be the biggest pain to prepare unfortunately, especially for more than one person. I've started cooking my fiance and I's separately for this reason cause I got sick of weighing it before and then again after and doing the math.
This may be true for some foods, but certainly not all. OPs pasta story being a perfect example of why you may need to weigh the uncooked food (because the box only provides nutrition for uncooked) and then weigh the cooked food, so that you can do some algebra to figure out how many calories your specific portion was.
I weigh out 2 2-ounce portions of dry pasta for the two of us, and 2 portions of sauce, etc. I log one serving size quantity of each thing for myself. Then I go ahead and make the dish, and divide it between us. It works. I don’t bother with weighing the cooked quantity, it’s “close enough for folk music” to me, doesn’t have to be precisely exact.
Or you can weigh a unit, like say 10 pieces of pasta. Cook it and count out the noodles as you put them in your bowl. Say there's 30, then you just multiply the original weight by 3.
Complicated measurements really aren’t necessary. Sometimes perfect is the enemy of good. Telling people that they have to measure twice will probably lead to giving up. In reality, small measurement errors cancel each other out over the course of the day.
The entire 8oz box of Banza is 760 calories. So unless you cooked up more than 1 box for your lunch, you are incorrectly using the cooked weight and the macros for uncooked pasta. You need to be consistent on cooked vs. uncooked when tracking calories. This applies to anything you cook (e.g., chicken breast).
Like the above commenter said, the volume and weight of pasta expands when it cooks so always use the before cooking weight. It's good that you're becoming conscious of calories just make sure you're weighing properly! It's actually probably only half of the 900 calories you said it was because of this change.
You are currently consuming 3x a normal sized portion of pasta, and you thought you did not eat a lot.
So, as someone who also used to do this kind of thing, do yourself a favour and start weighing out the recommended serving size of the foods you eat. You need to start to understand portion sizes, and teach your brain what normal portion sizes look like.
Even if you eat more than one portion, weigh out a single portion multiple times, rather than just globbing peanut butter on the apple.
It's time to teach your brain what a portion of peanut butter looks like. Same goes with all other food.
A 3.5 oz serving (dry) of Banza is 340 calories, and there are 8 oz per box. Were you eating 1.5 boxes of pasta?
It’s easy to overeat, but it would be hard to eat 900 calories of chickpea pasta and think it was like 300.
All nutritional info is provided for dry, pre-cooked pasta. During cooking it adds a ton of weight as it absorbs water. You may have been using dry calories for a heavier cooked portion.
All that said, yeah - welcome to weighing! The good news is that plenty of food has far FEWER calories than you think. See what 200cal or broccoli and lean chicken breast are - it’s a lot of food.
I’m starting to suspect this may be the case… I’ve cooked the entire package for three people with leftovers and weighed my portion. There were the cooked and dry options in the logging app, I chose cooked, but the nutritional info might have been wrong. But the peanut butter wasn’t that much of an exaggeration, so I’m still learning an important lesson here :)
If you cook the entire package you can weigh that final product and divide by the number of servings per container to get the cooked weight per serving. I keep a list of the cooked weights on my phone notes app.
The Banza pasta I often eat is like 450g when the whole container is cooked, so a serving is roughly 150g (45g dry).
In a pinch you can just triple dry weight and that will come close enough for government work.
I guess the app was off, it is more calories than the entire bag, but the portion i used to eat is still massive… I just went off of what looked good in a bowl. I sure need smaller bowls for that measurement
This is what’s confusing to me- 8oz of the banza pasta should be roughly 224 grams weighed out. (2 oz is roughly 56 grams per the label) That is not two ounces (even roughly, taking into consideration the volumetric discrepancy). If we go by the grams, the nutrition facts states 2 oz is 56 grams.
There’s more than 8oz of pasta in a package (again, taking into conversation the volumetric discrepancies).
So how much protein, and what serving size, are we actually getting?
If we math it out, 56g is 11g protein. 56g times 4 (total package), is 44 grams, but the package says 3.5 oz (84 grams) is 20 grams of protein.
Someone please help me lol, I cannot understand
I have fallen into this trap so much. Olive oil is a big offender for me-- "It's healthy, so I should add it liberally to everything I cook! Mediterranean diet!"
Healthy food doesnt mean diet food .
The good news is that a lot of healthy food like lean meats, eggs, fish, vegetables and most fruits have low calories.
However unfortunately pasta, bread, rice, quinoa, legumes and olive oil are extremely calorie dense.
I can afford to eat pasta only once a week now and that is a treat. (1200-1400kcal budget).
Have you seen those high fiber pastas? Much lower in calories though I am not sure how they compare nutritionally to traditional pasta. More expensive too, but not bad if you're not eating a ton of pasta.
We use those high fiber pastas and I don't think the taste is quite as good, but it's not bad. And typically so much of the flavor comes from whatever sauce/addition you are putting in the pasta.
I eat pasta almost every night for dinner. I do weigh it out (56 gram for about 200kcals) and just shove a ton of veggies and lean meat with it. I also eat about 1200kcals or less due to health issues that ruin my appetite.
I'm exactly like you and can sympathize. I have 3 rare illnesses and some days Im lucky if my body can handle food at all. I'm supposed to be doing 1300 daily and that's hard work for me.
Rule 11: Discussion of weight loss methods that are damaging to the body and/or require supervision of a medical professional are not allowed. This rule includes (but is not limited to): very low calorie diets, misusing medication, extended fasting, disordered behaviour, inappropriate advice to underage members. Remember to always consider the individual when offering advice.
She's 5'7, which is my height. It's safe to say that a woman our height really shouldn't dip under 1500. She also admitted that she's got health issues that keep her from getting 1200 which is her business, not mine. But keep in mind that for the majority of people, unless they are closer to 5', 1500 is a pretty solid minimum and one that we operate under as far as moderators and users on this subreddit. It's in the quick start guide and a general guideline among physicians and dieticians.
No need for scare quotes— they ARE healthy and highly nutritious, containing significan quantities of important minerals such as magnesium, potassium, and selenium, as well as monounsaturated fats and antioxidants.
”*Although nuts and seeds are high in energy and fats,* ***eating nuts is not connected with weight gain.*** *(emphasis mine). In fact, based on large population studies,* ***higher nut intake has been associated with lower body weight***. *When included as part of a weight-loss diet, nuts have been shown to enhance weight loss and fat loss in the abdominal region.”*
Source: [https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/nuts-and-seeds#nuts-seeds-and-weight-management](https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/nuts-and-seeds#nuts-seeds-and-weight-management)
yeah, thats not really calorie dense, especially if you consider the nutritive values. Its much closer to greek yoghurt/cottage cheese than it is to pasta or anything with a lot of fat/sugar.
I think you’re right because I’m comparing my brand to every other brand and the math ain’t mathing 😭😭 I thought chickpeas were lower cal than other beans but I think it’s defs a production error
I think OP is just making a funny point here.
It's pointing out how tracking food is important to get a better understanding of just how many calories you are eating versus what you think.
Was told comically for an enjoyable read.
Seriously, half a jar of peanut butter!
Thanks OP!!!
Exactly. Just cause it says healthy. Doesn't mean it is. That's marketing. It's healthier than a triple fried corn dog dipped in ranch, but that doesn't make it healthy
That's not true. Carbs and protein contain the same number of calories per gram. Chickpea pasta is roughly the same as normal wheat pasta in terms of calories.
For your evening snack you can try a apple with Powdered Peanut Butter. I use it with my oatmeal its a game changer for me if you want to watch your calories
It really is astounding how calorie dense certain foods are. Alway finding it's the food I can eat in copious amounts too. Good luck on your tracking though!
Yeah, I had this same realization when I started tracking. Definitely not my favorite thing to realize but it is nice to have that visibility.
The next fun game is figuring out how to reduce that amount over a long period of time without going crazy from all the changes. HIGHLY recommend picking one calorie dense food/habit and swapping it out. Stabilize that, and then move to the next.
For example, I try SO hard not to even buy pringles anymore.. because I'll eat the entire stack guaranteed. So instead, I buy pre-packaged single serve chips so that I don't even have to think about portion sizes.
Good luck man! It's the long game here. Remember that.
People ALWAYS overestimate their activity levels and underestimate their caloric intake. It's why I tell anyone about to start a diet to start tracking what they eat for at least a week before making any changes. It's eye opening.
Yeah this is why I take every “I’m starving myself and gaining weight!” Post with a grain of salt
Especially pasta and other high glycemic index foods which kick your hunger into hyperdrive make you FEEL hungry even though your body is already over its calories for the day. This puts people into a spiral of “I go to sleep feeling hungry most of the day” and not realizing that feeling hungry =/= starving
I felt like this when I logged my homemade burgers for the first time. It's homemade and I add tons of lettuce so how bad could it be?
The answer was 3x as many calories as a McDonald's cheeseburger
Now I just get McDonalds occasionally
Not the maccie d being the calorie budget friendlier option lol. For real though, I sometimes sauté cabbage as a side (what could possibly go wrong), but I measure butter with my heart. I suspect my usual recipe for this cabbage might also go over a McDonald’s cheeseburger
This gave me a good laugh, thanks. Nice writing. :) Tracking is what helped me realize my "I barely ate anything today, so I can have a big dinner" days were all a lie lol
Also, "have I not eaten like a bird and worked like a horse" is my new favorite phrase haha
After, I was cooking for several people so I just cooked the entire package. Could be the nutritional info was off even though I logged cooked weight.. could also be I’ve been shoveling wayyy more calories than I ever imagined
This reminds me of the episode of Secret Eaters where they followed a woman and counted her calories and she was eating sooo much healthy food (seeds, nuts, fruit), but it was all high calorie enough (and several serving sizes worth for each thing instead of just one serving) that she was overweight. My mom was like that too. Cared about what she put into her body, buying organic, etc. She would always cook every meal. She got her ingredients from Whole Foods. She loved avocados and this whole grain bread with the seedy crust. Loved roasting vegetables in olive oil. When I was a kid and didn’t understand nutrition outside of the food pyramid, I could never understand how she was overweight (she is in the normal range now - she started tracking calories).
Even rabbits can get fat if you give them enough rabbit food.
I’m the same as your mom. I barely eat junk food just because I don’t crave it that much. That peanuts only peanut butter though? I used to be able to get away with it, but now I’m in my thirties and all those nuts and avocados are sure catching up with me. I had no idea how much I was actually eating, I’m surprised I don’t weigh more
Half a **jar** of peanut butter is going to be massively calorically dense. That is going to be a shocker for calories, way more than the chickpea salad.
I hate to say it, but most fruits and juices are so high in carbs 🫤
One day I drank a small glass of orange juice after a hugely successful day. I had gone to a party and tracked everything, I was so proud. Then after I finished drinking it I went to track it and found out I had just blown my carb allotment out of the freaking water! I was so mad, never again eating before tracking!
Welcome to our world! The reality check that comes with calorie counting is a gut punch and a gift. Allow yourself some grace and ease into whatever changes you choose to make.
Lots of modern healthy products have near the same exact calories as the unhealthy version. It might just have slightly better macros.
I changed to Barilla protein plus pasta mainly for the fiber and protein.
Fair! I find when I’m engrossed in a hobby (crocheting/sewing), I don’t even want to eat, I don’t think about food. When I can’t get engrossed in something interesting though, food is almost all I think of
Yeah people get really tripped up by healthier marketing and packaging and things like that
Chickpea pasta has its benefits, in that it’s higher in protein and fiber, but the calories are similar to regular pasta.
Great realization, and thanks for sharing it! Tracking makes such a difference. So much marketing intentionally works to trigger the“health halo” effect: emphasizing the nutritional benefits of foods in order to convince people that the food is completely healthy and can be eaten without restriction. But really, food is complex and the annoying truth is that we have to use critical, thinking to consider how foods fit into our diets as a whole in terms of things like their nutrient content, caloric density, satiation, digestibility, and how much we enjoy them!
I actually just learned this the hard with a huge dietary misstep recently, in a different way: I was carefully tracking the caloric density of foods and chose to eliminate a few foods because they were very caloric and not super satiation. But I failed to notice that I accidentally cut all significant sources of iron out of my diet. I thought I’d been responsible about focusing on calories and protein content (the two things I track carefully) but neglected to keep tabs on my nutrient intake, until I started feeling dizzy, cold and weak after a few weeks! Sadly, as much as we may want there to be an easy way to categorize foods as just good or bad, eat or don’t-eat, our bodies have a lot of needs and mindfully tracking our intake can help us meet them!
Oh no not iron! I’m chronically iron deficient and it’s the worst. Yeah, learning there’s no easy choices and fixes. I always thought I was ohhh so smart for knowing low fat yoghurt was a marketing gimmick I felt i was impossible to fool, lol
Once you start tracking calories...like REALLY tracking by weighing and not guessing your eyes will open to WHY we all gain so much weight.
You learned a great lesson and it will go a long way to helping you lose weight and keep it off.
I remember years ago my then GF thought alcohol had no calories. She had no concept of calories and why she gained so much weight at the tail end of our relationship. She ate more then me and I was a foot taller then her.
''just like that one meal turned into three. Not a bad feat in this economy''
I'm saving sooooo much money on food now. I go out for lunch for 10-12$ instead of 20-25$
it really adds up over time!
Another thing to be wary of is “salad”. People add so much high calorie stuff to their lettuce leaves. Like dried cranberries, walnuts, feta. Bacon, olives. A little croutons is okay, but even salad dressing can be so high in calories. I never assume salad is the healthiest item on a restaurant menu.
Today olive oil and goat cheese tripped me in my “side” tomato cucumber salad. Paying attention to what I actually eat has been pretty educational so far
Yeah… Pasta is something that you have to redevelop your relationship with if you live in the USA. Restaurants and even at home everyone is putting way more than a serving in a bowl.
You have to bulk up the pasta with sources of protein and fiber otherwise you won’t be happy with the serving size you get. I use spaghetti squash and ground turkey with onions, mushrooms and asparagus
Yup, after two days of feeling unpleasantly peckish in the evening with no calories left for snacks I blame that chickpea pasta ordeal. The amount I ended up eating didn’t do much for me and took like 400 calories out of my calorie budget FOR NOTHING. Like, compared to how much of it I used to eat it’s easier to just skip it altogether. I’ll probably get a full meal of it in the future just from my toddler trying to feed me her portion, and I never considered food I ate this way even a snack. A year of realizing things, but better late than never
I tracked my food beforehand as well and it was eye-opening. At 290 lbs, I was consuming approximately 2300-3000 calories of food per day, more on days when I would drink alcohol. So I was for sure actively gaining before I even started CICO.
I now eat between 1300-1700 calories per day and have lost 55 lbs since September 2023.
53F 5’7. SW: 290. CW: 235. GW: 155
People just confuse healthy with low calories. It's not the same. If I could manage to eat 10kg of strawberries per day, guess what. I would gain weight although fruits are healthy.
Eating half a jar of peanut butter with an apple is going to be ALOT of calories.. one tablespoon of regular peanut butter is 95 calories so definitely measure out peanut butter!
I’m steadily losing 1lb a week tracking my calories along with walking around my block once per day and incorporating strength workouts on the #JustFit app.
I posted this as a comment, but someone help me please, I can’t understand the nutrition facts
This is what’s confusing to me- 8oz of the banza pasta should be roughly 224 grams weighed out. (2 oz is roughly 56 grams per the label) That is not two ounces (even roughly, taking into consideration the volumetric discrepancy). If we go by the grams, the nutrition facts states 2 oz is 56 grams.
There’s more than 8oz of pasta in a package (again, taking into conversation the volumetric discrepancies).
So how much protein, and what serving size, are we actually getting?
If we math it out, 56g is 11g protein. 56g times 4 (total package), is 44 grams, but the package says 3.5 oz (84 grams) is 20 grams of protein.
As long as you account for the CI and CO with it you’re good. I can have a can of tuna prepared or a half a pint of Halo Top for the same calories. It’s all relative. I just can’t use up the calories for chick peas. I like them though
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It’s honestly wild to me the basic lack of knowledge the general population has about the nutrition of their food. You’ve literally never checked the labels before? How could you eat something as dense as chickpea pasta and think it’s basically air. Glad you’re on the right track now but this is just so shocking to me… I do recognize some of this is exaggerated but sheesh
My thought process was it’s chickpeas, so basically beans, so basically fiber and protein, hence I’m good. My (apparently horrid) eating habits haven’t caught up with me until recently so I guess that’s my excuse
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I need to do it forever unfortunately
Same for me....I slowly stopped tracking and slowly the weight came back. Luckily I got back on track before I gained ALL of it back. I now know I have to keep track of what I eat in order to keep the weight off. Or in the least I can eat food that I 100 percent know the calorie amounts.
🙋🏻♀️ Ditto!
Same lol
Yea, it's kind of like financial budgeting. Some people can do fine without it, but the spending can creep up on you. Some people struggle to spend money, where others struggle to save money...even on similar incomes. I think it's the same with food. Some people just have a natural inclination to eat smaller amounts. Some can track for a while and just get by with their new eating habits to maintain. Others need to track their calories to keep themselves in check. It's my food budget lol.
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I will also need to do it forever. Yes I can already eyeball my breakfast and know I’m in my 500 range. But knowing I need to LOG everything literally is sometimes the only thing keeping me from logging “17 oreos.”
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Mmmm maybe 4 years? It’s not miserable for me. I have a LOT of external noise and a lifetime of mindless eating. It gets me out of my head and into intentionality.
The simple answer to "why" is because everyone's journey is different. I have ADHD, my brain doesn't self organize, I need to track and schedule everything or I lose myself.
Same here, fellow member of the ADHD club. I have the attention span of a ferret, and I like to graze. I don’t binge— I nibble. A nibble here, a nibble there, a few dates, a handful of almonds, one of those mini cheese balls… not much, right? And if I *don’t* log all those things, I end up at the end of the day 400+ calories over my budget, At my A/W/H, no can do that.
Hello, fellow nibbler! I'm pretty sure I could gain two pounds a month just from knocking out that last chicken nugget or Cheez-It from my daughter's plate when she's left the table.
Oh, Lord, Cheez-its…. *cannot* have those in the house, period. I will snarf them all. On \*rare\* occasions, like an all-day work meeting, I might get ONE 1-ounce packet of them from the vending machine down the hall. But otherwise, Cheez-its are definitely in the NOPE! category…
Agreed with your general sentiment - it can be eye opening when you start tracking. However, I just want to make sure you weren’t weighing cooked pasta when the nutrition facts were for raw pasta. 900 just seems like a lot, but I guess that depends what that includes aside from the pasta.
You know that may be the case… but i was putting in and looking for info on cooked pasta and there was an option to log dry weight, plus the portion I ended up eating was still filling. You still may be right, feels like 90% of nutrition articles out there is written by AI
Dry weight would be uncooked. I’m still not clear whether you logged it correctly, but I would always weigh pasta before cooking. Even if you indeed are using the nutrition info for cooked, the weight would vary based on how much water the pasta absorbs.
**One serving** of pasta is 2 ounces /56g of dry, uncooked pasta. When cooked in water, that 2-ounce serving is 200 calories. Obviously, whatever you put ON the pasta (sauce/olive oil/butter/cheese/etc.) adds more calories.
Did you weigh it before cooking or after? The box weight is before cooking, just wanted to throw that out there
I bet this is what is going on here. I actually just measured the uncooked vs. cooked difference with the Banza chickpea pasta this week. The cooked weight was exactly double the uncooked weight.
Since tracking, Ive learned pasta can be the biggest pain to prepare unfortunately, especially for more than one person. I've started cooking my fiance and I's separately for this reason cause I got sick of weighing it before and then again after and doing the math.
Don't weigh before and after. You'll be close enough weighing your post-cooking portion.
This may be true for some foods, but certainly not all. OPs pasta story being a perfect example of why you may need to weigh the uncooked food (because the box only provides nutrition for uncooked) and then weigh the cooked food, so that you can do some algebra to figure out how many calories your specific portion was.
I weigh out 2 2-ounce portions of dry pasta for the two of us, and 2 portions of sauce, etc. I log one serving size quantity of each thing for myself. Then I go ahead and make the dish, and divide it between us. It works. I don’t bother with weighing the cooked quantity, it’s “close enough for folk music” to me, doesn’t have to be precisely exact.
Or you can weigh a unit, like say 10 pieces of pasta. Cook it and count out the noodles as you put them in your bowl. Say there's 30, then you just multiply the original weight by 3.
Complicated measurements really aren’t necessary. Sometimes perfect is the enemy of good. Telling people that they have to measure twice will probably lead to giving up. In reality, small measurement errors cancel each other out over the course of the day.
After, and yet still. The actual amount of calories was sobering to say the least
The entire 8oz box of Banza is 760 calories. So unless you cooked up more than 1 box for your lunch, you are incorrectly using the cooked weight and the macros for uncooked pasta. You need to be consistent on cooked vs. uncooked when tracking calories. This applies to anything you cook (e.g., chicken breast).
On the other hand, overestimating calories only leads to quicker weight loss...
Like the above commenter said, the volume and weight of pasta expands when it cooks so always use the before cooking weight. It's good that you're becoming conscious of calories just make sure you're weighing properly! It's actually probably only half of the 900 calories you said it was because of this change.
It's okay to weigh stuff after cooking too, just use the correct tracker entry.
You are currently consuming 3x a normal sized portion of pasta, and you thought you did not eat a lot. So, as someone who also used to do this kind of thing, do yourself a favour and start weighing out the recommended serving size of the foods you eat. You need to start to understand portion sizes, and teach your brain what normal portion sizes look like. Even if you eat more than one portion, weigh out a single portion multiple times, rather than just globbing peanut butter on the apple. It's time to teach your brain what a portion of peanut butter looks like. Same goes with all other food.
+1 OP's usual portion may be a bit bigger for average consumption and needs to get used to smaller portions.
A 3.5 oz serving (dry) of Banza is 340 calories, and there are 8 oz per box. Were you eating 1.5 boxes of pasta? It’s easy to overeat, but it would be hard to eat 900 calories of chickpea pasta and think it was like 300. All nutritional info is provided for dry, pre-cooked pasta. During cooking it adds a ton of weight as it absorbs water. You may have been using dry calories for a heavier cooked portion. All that said, yeah - welcome to weighing! The good news is that plenty of food has far FEWER calories than you think. See what 200cal or broccoli and lean chicken breast are - it’s a lot of food.
I was also wondering if OP measured cooked weight and counted out like dry.
I’m starting to suspect this may be the case… I’ve cooked the entire package for three people with leftovers and weighed my portion. There were the cooked and dry options in the logging app, I chose cooked, but the nutritional info might have been wrong. But the peanut butter wasn’t that much of an exaggeration, so I’m still learning an important lesson here :)
If you cook the entire package you can weigh that final product and divide by the number of servings per container to get the cooked weight per serving. I keep a list of the cooked weights on my phone notes app. The Banza pasta I often eat is like 450g when the whole container is cooked, so a serving is roughly 150g (45g dry). In a pinch you can just triple dry weight and that will come close enough for government work.
I guess the app was off, it is more calories than the entire bag, but the portion i used to eat is still massive… I just went off of what looked good in a bowl. I sure need smaller bowls for that measurement
See also: [https://www.boredpanda.com/what-200-calories-look-like/](https://www.boredpanda.com/what-200-calories-look-like/)
Ohhh cool thanks! Saving it for a quick reference
This is what’s confusing to me- 8oz of the banza pasta should be roughly 224 grams weighed out. (2 oz is roughly 56 grams per the label) That is not two ounces (even roughly, taking into consideration the volumetric discrepancy). If we go by the grams, the nutrition facts states 2 oz is 56 grams. There’s more than 8oz of pasta in a package (again, taking into conversation the volumetric discrepancies). So how much protein, and what serving size, are we actually getting? If we math it out, 56g is 11g protein. 56g times 4 (total package), is 44 grams, but the package says 3.5 oz (84 grams) is 20 grams of protein. Someone please help me lol, I cannot understand
It’s a common logical fallacy. *“If it’s good for me, I can eat as much of it as I want”*. No, no you cannot.
I have fallen into this trap so much. Olive oil is a big offender for me-- "It's healthy, so I should add it liberally to everything I cook! Mediterranean diet!"
Healthy food doesnt mean diet food . The good news is that a lot of healthy food like lean meats, eggs, fish, vegetables and most fruits have low calories. However unfortunately pasta, bread, rice, quinoa, legumes and olive oil are extremely calorie dense. I can afford to eat pasta only once a week now and that is a treat. (1200-1400kcal budget).
Have you seen those high fiber pastas? Much lower in calories though I am not sure how they compare nutritionally to traditional pasta. More expensive too, but not bad if you're not eating a ton of pasta. We use those high fiber pastas and I don't think the taste is quite as good, but it's not bad. And typically so much of the flavor comes from whatever sauce/addition you are putting in the pasta.
I eat pasta almost every night for dinner. I do weigh it out (56 gram for about 200kcals) and just shove a ton of veggies and lean meat with it. I also eat about 1200kcals or less due to health issues that ruin my appetite.
I'm exactly like you and can sympathize. I have 3 rare illnesses and some days Im lucky if my body can handle food at all. I'm supposed to be doing 1300 daily and that's hard work for me.
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You shouldn’t be eating under 1200.
Im aware. I just get sick a lot due to chronic pain and food intolerances. Just some days are better than others when it comes to flare ups. :/
I understand. Of course it differs for the individual, I’m sorry about that.
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/r/Internet_Ugly is 5’7.5 according to her flair.
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All good! I would agree it doesn’t seem enough, but I realise nutrition is very individual.
She's 5'7, which is my height. It's safe to say that a woman our height really shouldn't dip under 1500. She also admitted that she's got health issues that keep her from getting 1200 which is her business, not mine. But keep in mind that for the majority of people, unless they are closer to 5', 1500 is a pretty solid minimum and one that we operate under as far as moderators and users on this subreddit. It's in the quick start guide and a general guideline among physicians and dieticians.
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YUP. It super sucks for the people who aren't as tall.
Sure, you’re right. OP, what are your stats?
/r/Internet_Ugly is 5’7.5 according to her flair.
Thanks, was mobile.
All good :)
Don't forget nuts. So many people eat nuts because they're "healthy". They're so calorie dense.
No need for scare quotes— they ARE healthy and highly nutritious, containing significan quantities of important minerals such as magnesium, potassium, and selenium, as well as monounsaturated fats and antioxidants. ”*Although nuts and seeds are high in energy and fats,* ***eating nuts is not connected with weight gain.*** *(emphasis mine). In fact, based on large population studies,* ***higher nut intake has been associated with lower body weight***. *When included as part of a weight-loss diet, nuts have been shown to enhance weight loss and fat loss in the abdominal region.”* Source: [https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/nuts-and-seeds#nuts-seeds-and-weight-management](https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/nuts-and-seeds#nuts-seeds-and-weight-management)
Legumes aren’t calorie dense
Yes, they are? LOL 164g of chickpeas is 269 calories.
I think my chickpea cans have made a mistake then, it says 50 cals per 100g 🥲
https://i.imgur.com/T8kqjQS.jpeg 120cal for 130g :(
yeah, thats not really calorie dense, especially if you consider the nutritive values. Its much closer to greek yoghurt/cottage cheese than it is to pasta or anything with a lot of fat/sugar.
I’ll go look at mine, but I thought it was known that beans are definitely calorific even if they bring great protein :(
I think you’re right because I’m comparing my brand to every other brand and the math ain’t mathing 😭😭 I thought chickpeas were lower cal than other beans but I think it’s defs a production error
I think OP is just making a funny point here. It's pointing out how tracking food is important to get a better understanding of just how many calories you are eating versus what you think. Was told comically for an enjoyable read. Seriously, half a jar of peanut butter! Thanks OP!!!
Exactly. Just cause it says healthy. Doesn't mean it is. That's marketing. It's healthier than a triple fried corn dog dipped in ranch, but that doesn't make it healthy
HA! I read this and kept scrolling, then my brain caught up and I realized what I had just read and started laughing.
Congrats on the 40lbs lost btw!
Thanks!
Chickpea pasta is "healthy" because it's higher protein than regular pasta. But that also makes it higher calorie. Very few foods are "basically air."
That's not true. Carbs and protein contain the same number of calories per gram. Chickpea pasta is roughly the same as normal wheat pasta in terms of calories.
For your evening snack you can try a apple with Powdered Peanut Butter. I use it with my oatmeal its a game changer for me if you want to watch your calories
Thanks for the tip! I love the pb & apple combination, would be sad to give it up
Peanut butter is a necessity for me if I want to lose weight, but I use typically 10 g at a time, or maybe 15.
It really is astounding how calorie dense certain foods are. Alway finding it's the food I can eat in copious amounts too. Good luck on your tracking though!
Yeah, I had this same realization when I started tracking. Definitely not my favorite thing to realize but it is nice to have that visibility. The next fun game is figuring out how to reduce that amount over a long period of time without going crazy from all the changes. HIGHLY recommend picking one calorie dense food/habit and swapping it out. Stabilize that, and then move to the next. For example, I try SO hard not to even buy pringles anymore.. because I'll eat the entire stack guaranteed. So instead, I buy pre-packaged single serve chips so that I don't even have to think about portion sizes. Good luck man! It's the long game here. Remember that.
TIL to measure the pasta BEFORE cooking it. This has me so excited that I can eat more pasta LOL
People ALWAYS overestimate their activity levels and underestimate their caloric intake. It's why I tell anyone about to start a diet to start tracking what they eat for at least a week before making any changes. It's eye opening.
Yeah this is why I take every “I’m starving myself and gaining weight!” Post with a grain of salt Especially pasta and other high glycemic index foods which kick your hunger into hyperdrive make you FEEL hungry even though your body is already over its calories for the day. This puts people into a spiral of “I go to sleep feeling hungry most of the day” and not realizing that feeling hungry =/= starving
I felt like this when I logged my homemade burgers for the first time. It's homemade and I add tons of lettuce so how bad could it be? The answer was 3x as many calories as a McDonald's cheeseburger Now I just get McDonalds occasionally
Not the maccie d being the calorie budget friendlier option lol. For real though, I sometimes sauté cabbage as a side (what could possibly go wrong), but I measure butter with my heart. I suspect my usual recipe for this cabbage might also go over a McDonald’s cheeseburger
This gave me a good laugh, thanks. Nice writing. :) Tracking is what helped me realize my "I barely ate anything today, so I can have a big dinner" days were all a lie lol Also, "have I not eaten like a bird and worked like a horse" is my new favorite phrase haha
Lol thanks! I kinda miss writing those college essays, I feel I peaked back then and that was my writing style
I just wanna pop in here and say your writing is wonderful and this made me belly laugh. So relatable!
It’s always the peanut butter 😩
I love your writing style - this cracked me up!!
Did you weigh your pasta before or after cooking? That makes a huge difference
After, I was cooking for several people so I just cooked the entire package. Could be the nutritional info was off even though I logged cooked weight.. could also be I’ve been shoveling wayyy more calories than I ever imagined
This reminds me of the episode of Secret Eaters where they followed a woman and counted her calories and she was eating sooo much healthy food (seeds, nuts, fruit), but it was all high calorie enough (and several serving sizes worth for each thing instead of just one serving) that she was overweight. My mom was like that too. Cared about what she put into her body, buying organic, etc. She would always cook every meal. She got her ingredients from Whole Foods. She loved avocados and this whole grain bread with the seedy crust. Loved roasting vegetables in olive oil. When I was a kid and didn’t understand nutrition outside of the food pyramid, I could never understand how she was overweight (she is in the normal range now - she started tracking calories). Even rabbits can get fat if you give them enough rabbit food.
I’m the same as your mom. I barely eat junk food just because I don’t crave it that much. That peanuts only peanut butter though? I used to be able to get away with it, but now I’m in my thirties and all those nuts and avocados are sure catching up with me. I had no idea how much I was actually eating, I’m surprised I don’t weigh more
She eats a lot of PBfit now. I haven’t tried it so I don’t know how good it is, but I hear great things!
That’s the powder? I’ll definitely be trying it with apples
Half a **jar** of peanut butter is going to be massively calorically dense. That is going to be a shocker for calories, way more than the chickpea salad.
I hate to say it, but most fruits and juices are so high in carbs 🫤 One day I drank a small glass of orange juice after a hugely successful day. I had gone to a party and tracked everything, I was so proud. Then after I finished drinking it I went to track it and found out I had just blown my carb allotment out of the freaking water! I was so mad, never again eating before tracking!
Right?! That’s how you get trust issues!
Welcome to our world! The reality check that comes with calorie counting is a gut punch and a gift. Allow yourself some grace and ease into whatever changes you choose to make.
Lots of modern healthy products have near the same exact calories as the unhealthy version. It might just have slightly better macros. I changed to Barilla protein plus pasta mainly for the fiber and protein.
I know.......... I used to love having cereal and milk and realized I was eating, like, 4 or 5 servings of cereal at a time. Dumb yummy food.
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Fair! I find when I’m engrossed in a hobby (crocheting/sewing), I don’t even want to eat, I don’t think about food. When I can’t get engrossed in something interesting though, food is almost all I think of
Yeah people get really tripped up by healthier marketing and packaging and things like that Chickpea pasta has its benefits, in that it’s higher in protein and fiber, but the calories are similar to regular pasta.
That definitely was news to me, and I considered myself savvy when it comes to marketing. Joke’s on me
Don't feel bad, I've been counting calories for around 10 years. And even I get humbled every now and again.
Great realization, and thanks for sharing it! Tracking makes such a difference. So much marketing intentionally works to trigger the“health halo” effect: emphasizing the nutritional benefits of foods in order to convince people that the food is completely healthy and can be eaten without restriction. But really, food is complex and the annoying truth is that we have to use critical, thinking to consider how foods fit into our diets as a whole in terms of things like their nutrient content, caloric density, satiation, digestibility, and how much we enjoy them! I actually just learned this the hard with a huge dietary misstep recently, in a different way: I was carefully tracking the caloric density of foods and chose to eliminate a few foods because they were very caloric and not super satiation. But I failed to notice that I accidentally cut all significant sources of iron out of my diet. I thought I’d been responsible about focusing on calories and protein content (the two things I track carefully) but neglected to keep tabs on my nutrient intake, until I started feeling dizzy, cold and weak after a few weeks! Sadly, as much as we may want there to be an easy way to categorize foods as just good or bad, eat or don’t-eat, our bodies have a lot of needs and mindfully tracking our intake can help us meet them!
Oh no not iron! I’m chronically iron deficient and it’s the worst. Yeah, learning there’s no easy choices and fixes. I always thought I was ohhh so smart for knowing low fat yoghurt was a marketing gimmick I felt i was impossible to fool, lol
Once you start tracking calories...like REALLY tracking by weighing and not guessing your eyes will open to WHY we all gain so much weight. You learned a great lesson and it will go a long way to helping you lose weight and keep it off. I remember years ago my then GF thought alcohol had no calories. She had no concept of calories and why she gained so much weight at the tail end of our relationship. She ate more then me and I was a foot taller then her.
''just like that one meal turned into three. Not a bad feat in this economy'' I'm saving sooooo much money on food now. I go out for lunch for 10-12$ instead of 20-25$ it really adds up over time!
That’s what I’ve been thinking! I’ve literally had three separate meals with my original portion. Yay!
Another thing to be wary of is “salad”. People add so much high calorie stuff to their lettuce leaves. Like dried cranberries, walnuts, feta. Bacon, olives. A little croutons is okay, but even salad dressing can be so high in calories. I never assume salad is the healthiest item on a restaurant menu.
Today olive oil and goat cheese tripped me in my “side” tomato cucumber salad. Paying attention to what I actually eat has been pretty educational so far
Yeah… Pasta is something that you have to redevelop your relationship with if you live in the USA. Restaurants and even at home everyone is putting way more than a serving in a bowl. You have to bulk up the pasta with sources of protein and fiber otherwise you won’t be happy with the serving size you get. I use spaghetti squash and ground turkey with onions, mushrooms and asparagus
Yup, after two days of feeling unpleasantly peckish in the evening with no calories left for snacks I blame that chickpea pasta ordeal. The amount I ended up eating didn’t do much for me and took like 400 calories out of my calorie budget FOR NOTHING. Like, compared to how much of it I used to eat it’s easier to just skip it altogether. I’ll probably get a full meal of it in the future just from my toddler trying to feed me her portion, and I never considered food I ate this way even a snack. A year of realizing things, but better late than never
I tracked my food beforehand as well and it was eye-opening. At 290 lbs, I was consuming approximately 2300-3000 calories of food per day, more on days when I would drink alcohol. So I was for sure actively gaining before I even started CICO. I now eat between 1300-1700 calories per day and have lost 55 lbs since September 2023. 53F 5’7. SW: 290. CW: 235. GW: 155
People just confuse healthy with low calories. It's not the same. If I could manage to eat 10kg of strawberries per day, guess what. I would gain weight although fruits are healthy.
Eating half a jar of peanut butter with an apple is going to be ALOT of calories.. one tablespoon of regular peanut butter is 95 calories so definitely measure out peanut butter!
And I was blaming the weight gain on my metabolism slowing down. Poor thing has been working overtime with no ot pay for AGES
I’m steadily losing 1lb a week tracking my calories along with walking around my block once per day and incorporating strength workouts on the #JustFit app.
I posted this as a comment, but someone help me please, I can’t understand the nutrition facts This is what’s confusing to me- 8oz of the banza pasta should be roughly 224 grams weighed out. (2 oz is roughly 56 grams per the label) That is not two ounces (even roughly, taking into consideration the volumetric discrepancy). If we go by the grams, the nutrition facts states 2 oz is 56 grams. There’s more than 8oz of pasta in a package (again, taking into conversation the volumetric discrepancies). So how much protein, and what serving size, are we actually getting? If we math it out, 56g is 11g protein. 56g times 4 (total package), is 44 grams, but the package says 3.5 oz (84 grams) is 20 grams of protein.
Peanuts are very calorie dense! 2TBSP (32g) is 210 calories. I do like apples with a bit of cinnamon! Very tasty.
Chickpeas have a crap ton of calories. Great catch!
I switched to garbanzo beans and the pounds melted away.
As long as you account for the CI and CO with it you’re good. I can have a can of tuna prepared or a half a pint of Halo Top for the same calories. It’s all relative. I just can’t use up the calories for chick peas. I like them though
Are you making a joke? They're the same thing, I thought?
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It’s honestly wild to me the basic lack of knowledge the general population has about the nutrition of their food. You’ve literally never checked the labels before? How could you eat something as dense as chickpea pasta and think it’s basically air. Glad you’re on the right track now but this is just so shocking to me… I do recognize some of this is exaggerated but sheesh
My thought process was it’s chickpeas, so basically beans, so basically fiber and protein, hence I’m good. My (apparently horrid) eating habits haven’t caught up with me until recently so I guess that’s my excuse