Is there a downside to my dieting approach?

[mrspeedybob]

My logic is that if I am to lose weight the mass of material entering my body must be less than the mass of material exiting my body. Never mind Calories.

My procedure is this, before each meal I weigh myself. If I weigh less than my immediate goal then I eat, if not then I don't. After each meal I subtract 0.1 lb from my immediate goal.

The way it's been going so far, from a practical standpoint, is that I've been eating 2 meals a day. I drink a lot of water to keep my stomach full so I don't feel the hunger so much. I'm more conscientious about the nutritional value of the food I do eat, since I'm aware that I'm not eating as much and I don't want to be malnurished. And I often spend a lot of time on my treadmill before supper loosing H₂0 as sweat and carbon as CO₂ so that the scale will tell me I can eat supper. So far I've lost 4 pounds.

My question is, why do people count Calories? What I'm doing seems to be working pretty well, but there must be a downside or everyone would be doing it. Mass in < mass out seems more obvious to me then Calories in < Calories burned so I'm sure it's not an original idea. Why was it previously discarded in favor of Calorie accounting?

 

[Evo]

My logic is that if I am to lose weight the mass of material entering my body must be less than the mass of material exiting my body. Never mind Calories.

My procedure is this, before each meal I weigh myself. If I weigh less than my immediate goal then I eat, if not then I don't. After each meal I subtract 0.1 lb from my immediate goal.

The way it's been going so far, from a practical standpoint, is that I've been eating 2 meals a day. I drink a lot of water to keep my stomach full so I don't feel the hunger so much. I'm more conscientious about the nutritional value of the food I do eat, since I'm aware that I'm not eating as much and I don't want to be malnurished. And I often spend a lot of time on my treadmill before supper loosing H₂0 as sweat and carbon as CO₂ so that the scale will tell me I can eat supper. So far I've lost 4 pounds.

My question is, why do people count Calories? What I'm doing seems to be working pretty well, but there must be a downside or everyone would be doing it. Mass in < mass out seems more obvious to me then Calories in < Calories burned so I'm sure it's not an original idea. Why was it previously discarded in favor of Calorie accounting?

Assuming you're serious, your 'diet" is based on nonsense, sorry. There is so much wrong with what you posted that it would take a lot of explaining, which you can easily look up for yourself. The weighing yourself before each meal is useless to gauge actual calories (energy)burned, just the amount of water you retain can vary widely during the day, from day to day, etc...

First you need to understand what food calories are. Here's a pretty simple explanation. A simple google search will turn up more technical explanations.

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/obesity/wecan/healthy-weight-basics/balance.htm

Obviously a pint of ice cream is going to have more calories than a pint of carrot puree. Mass/volume doesn't matter, it's the amount of calories.

 

[Pythagorean]

Well, for one, you want to make sure you're getting sufficient calories in the first place. You could eat sawdust with your method and never realize (via the numbers) that malnutrition is taking place.

 

[Evo]

Well, for one, you want to make sure you're getting sufficient calories in the first place. You could eat sawdust with your method and never realize (via the numbers) that malnutrition is taking place.

Dang, you summed it up so nicely.