***** All things Fitness *****

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by loochy

I was never able to be lean until I decided to count EVERYTHING. once I did that, I got a real feel for portion size, estimating what is actually in a meal, and, most importantly, knowing my base calories for a day. If you want to get reasonably lean and keep muscle, you're going to have to count and track because it's damn near impossible to stay in a slight deficit otherwise. You'll end up overeating and not leaning out, or you'll undereat and drop too much muscle. You want a slight deficit (300-500 calories) per day.

Yeah, the first and most obvious thing I noticed the first time I counted calories was just how much extra stuff I put on food... BBQ sauce, salad dressing, cheese (so much cheese).

As far as maintaining, you definitely get used to what a serving size actually looks like, and then if you meal prep on top of that, it's easy to portion things out for a week. If I needed/wanted to drop weight though, I'd definitely track (and with apps these days, of course once you get a base of foods/meals logged, it only takes 30 seconds most meals anyway).