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Comment by latentcall | Hacker News Reader

This is all true for me except counting calories. I don’t usually eat things with a barcode. I’m also not good at eyeballing 1/4 cup of pecans, for example. In Noom, it requires specific measurements. So if I eat at the hospital cafeteria and get a salad that the staff makes, I don’t feel comfortable logging it because I guarantee the measurements are off.

Now this is different if I have two bananas for breakfast and an apple. That is easy to track and input.

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I think the approach here is to overestimate your calories a bit if you're not sure. Practice makes perfect when it comes to eyeballing quantities.

This

Counting calories even when you don’t have a scale and/or barcodes gets much easier over time as long as you do a few things. One, actually bring a scale when you’re eating out for a bit. It’s a pain, but can help calibrate how much you’re actually eating. This works best with meals that have individual components. Two, use an app that has a good database of food (I use MacroFactor, but I have no clue how good Noom is). There’s plenty of entries for various salad types, and the majority of the calories in a salad tend to be the dressing and any meat anyways. With those two things, even eating out you’ll be a lot more accurate. As long as most of your meals aren’t falling into the estimation category, it also likely won’t have a huge impact on your weight loss goals either.

For me it worked to just estimate and tend to miss high... so if you're not sure how much of something there is, just guess and keep increasing until you're like "well it's definitely not THAT much"... and if I wasn't losing weight I adjusted my estimates up assuming I hadn't hit the mark.

Agreed it isn't simple, but I'm just saying tracking is effective. Tracking is in fact the single most effective way of ensuring a deficit. But yes it isnt easy and you can absolutely be successful in achieving a deficit without tracking. A food scale and weighing and understanding portion sizes for a couple weeks can be a lifetime level learning that you can apply though even if you don't stick to it - as most won't.

Much like you can save money without strict budgeting. I'm saying tracking is objectively "true" contrary to your statement. That doesn't make it easy though. Some find the other suggestions difficult. It is important to find what works for you.

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