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Oddly, this does not end up true for dieting, as I've found out. I dieted, lost a lot of weight with a prescription pill and then more on Weight Watchers. I t

Oddly, this does not end up true for dieting, as I've found out. I dieted, lost a lot of weight with a prescription pill and then more on Weight Watchers. I thought I knew what I was doing, and could "count calories" without actually tracking them. What I found was that I might know certain things that I eat often, but anything even a little new ended up being badly estimated. If I want to continue losing weight, I need to track. And my estimates went both ways, too. I discovered this one day when I was crazy hungry, and it turned out I'd massively under-eaten that day (or the day before? I forget), which can be as bad for dieting as over-eating thanks to the lowered metabolism and then compensatory over-eating that eventually happens.

marcosdumay 10y ago
Counting calories is much harder than counting money. Also you have to count them while you are hungry - never a good time. At the end of every month, you have a precise measure of your expenses estimation error. Just take a look, if it's too far from the expected, look for the reason and recalibrate your counting. But there's just no way you can do this with calories.
rsync 10y ago
"Oddly, this does not end up true for dieting, as I've found out." I don't think yours is a proper analogy for the parents ... In your case, the analog to income expansion would be exercise and "banked exercise" in the form of muscle added that has a baseline caloric upkeep just to keep it around. I have no idea if that analogy works ... it's more complicated than his simple income behaviors ... this is just to say that your analogy is probably not a great one.
CaptSpify 10y ago
Interesting, because I've had the opposite experience. I learned how to count calories, and now I never need to look up anything specific, I can just make an educated guess. I never did pills or WW, so I wonder if that's related.
- sliverstorm 10y ago
  Some people just have a harder time with it, it seems. Some people routinely overestimate, or underestimate- or in my case, fail to think about it until 10PM at night, at which point I stop realize I'm 2,500 calories behind for the day.
somberi 10y ago
A gentle remark - I accumulate calories when I am irresponsible. I stop accumulating them when I am disciplined. Converse is true with money.
- krolley 10y ago
  This sounds like the same thing, phrased differently. According to the grandparent, categorising something new into the 'responsible' and 'irresponsible' buckets is hard and not something that generally gets better with experience.

marcosdumay 10y ago

Counting calories is much harder than counting money. Also you have to count them while you are hungry - never a good time. At the end of every month, you have a precise measure of your expenses estimation error. Just take a look, if it's too far from the expected, look for the reason and recalibrate your counting. But there's just no way you can do this with calories.

rsync 10y ago

"Oddly, this does not end up true for dieting, as I've found out." I don't think yours is a proper analogy for the parents ... In your case, the analog to income expansion would be exercise and "banked exercise" in the form of muscle added that has a baseline caloric upkeep just to keep it around. I have no idea if that analogy works ... it's more complicated than his simple income behaviors ... this is just to say that your analogy is probably not a great one.

CaptSpify 10y ago

Interesting, because I've had the opposite experience. I learned how to count calories, and now I never need to look up anything specific, I can just make an educated guess. I never did pills or WW, so I wonder if that's related.

sliverstorm 10y ago
Some people just have a harder time with it, it seems. Some people routinely overestimate, or underestimate- or in my case, fail to think about it until 10PM at night, at which point I stop realize I'm 2,500 calories behind for the day.

somberi 10y ago

A gentle remark - I accumulate calories when I am irresponsible. I stop accumulating them when I am disciplined. Converse is true with money.

krolley 10y ago
This sounds like the same thing, phrased differently. According to the grandparent, categorising something new into the 'responsible' and 'irresponsible' buckets is hard and not something that generally gets better with experience.