Is there ever a point where the fucking calorie counting and weighing out foods end...

Is there ever a point where the fucking calorie counting and weighing out foods end? Where you can just lift and stay in relatively good shape without being a slave to your diet?

How the fuck do some of you guys do it? I'm so sick of bouncing back and forth between being fat and being lean. I was 12% body fat last year now I'm almost 25% trying to count my calories and macros while working going to uni full time. Hold me brehs. I don't think I'm gonna make it.

>counting macros
Kek

Once you get to your genetic potential (or close to it), you'll only be eating at very slight caloric surpluses (if any), and that generally doesn't need any calorie counting.

It's once you get common sense and realize you don't need to count calories

You probably won't make it if this is hard for you. Eating a good diet is literally the easiest part.

You want to know the trick? It's hidden in Veeky Forumss first ever meme.

Cardio is the answer. By burning an extra few hundred calories a day you get to relax a bit on the diet, live like a normie and still progress in the gym.

Want to blow 2000 calories drinking and eating wings on the weekend? You can, because you swam 4 mile this week.

Want to take a QT out to dinner? You can, because you hiked that mountain last weekend.

>Once you get to your genetic potential (or close to it)
I would wager that less than 1/10,000 natty fitizens hit their genetic limit.

So how do you know if you're eating over or under your maintainence. Obviously if you're not consistently eating at a deficit you won't lose weight you'll just plateau.

How do I hit my genetic limit without gear? I've been lifting consistently for about 3 years now.

Once you learn to make correct choices and not shovel pizza and cheeseburgers and processed food in your maw at every conceivable opportunity.

>how do you know if you're eating over or under your maintainence

You lose weight, you are eating in a deficit, you gain weight you are in a surplus.

True

I'm 6', 185 lb, I was 150 lbs a year ago. I bulked to 185 over a nine month period and now I'm just going to recomp until I hit 1/2/3/4 for reps.

I don't count calories, I just estimate and make sure I get a few snacks in. Some days I eat a little more and gain a quarter of a pound, other days I eat less and lose a quarter pound. Comes out even over a long period if I stay consistent, which is all that matters.

Don't take counting calories too seriously. Like, y'know, do it, have an idea of how much you ought to eat and of what, but don't do it right down to single digits, just aim for a rough ball park. When you read the nutritional information of this or that food product, it too isn't accurate to a single digit, it's just a useful approximation within a reasonable estimate.
Keep in mind the numbers and just in general be conscientious of your diet, this isn't rocket science.

I just eat what I know will get me a caloric surplus and a surplus in general. Since I started lifting its been like this

>stalling
>add a meal a day
>make gains
>stalling
>add extra food during X or Y meal
> make gains

I eat on average 3 pizzas and a burger a week and I look great (for normie standards). My cousin does the same.

t. Recovering anorexic

Pic related. It's my cousin

>Hiking
>Cardio
Only in America

Forgot pic, on phone

You've never hiked
Going for a stroll isn't hiking

This. As a recovering skelly the diet meme is so fucking amazing.

>>why are my lifts stalling?
>>oh right I just need to eat more
>>eat more
>>lifts stop stalling
>>tfw you eat PIZZA and make GREAT GAINS

I stay around maintenance by acting as if I'd be cutting year round. I avoid sweets except on occasion and with moderation. I don't eat out too often, and it is my only meal that day when I do. I do cardio a few times a week. I more or less eat the good old chicken and rice type diet most days but goof off from time to time. Ottermode year round. I wouldn't mind truly bulking eventually, but as a recovering fatty I'm pretty scared that I'd never stop bulking.

The biochemistry of your body isn't likely to change any time soon, no. But nor do you necessarily have to precisely count macros. Get good at estimating them and you'll barely have to think about it.

holy fuck you're so dumb.

This guy gets it.

well i just tweaked my diet a bit from what i was doing before lifting, now i make sure to eat 3 meals a day and a couple scoops of my gainer with some milk at every meal and a banana mixed with my shake.

i think counting calories is kind of a joke right now, maybe not when im cutting cause it will be easy to count them but to bulk up i just gotta eat more, why would i count them lol

If you've been counting calories for long you should have a pretty good idea of what the right amount of food looks like and what foods to eat without having to do any calculating. Just best guess, you might have to eat a little extra if you find yourself stalling occasionally, you might have to eat a little less if you think you're gaining fat.

The moment you realise that classes of food have close to the same calorie ammount. Oats = rice, cake = cookies etc. Rough assumptions will usually be enough.

Concerning the amount of food, only occasionally will you want to go over or under TDEE, so that's usually a breeze too.

Literally this. I do daily cardio so I'm not some chicken and broccoli wierdoe the Normie's are repulsed by.

I run 6 times per week, around 100 km per week and I can eat like a pig

Cardio is great

When you've been at it for a while, you know how many calories are in everything just by looking.

Plus, like someone else already said, every food in the same class generally has the same caloric values (eg: pasta = rice = oats = bread), so you can just know one to know all of them.

Also, after you've been a "slave" to your diet, it just becomes how you eat. Even without counting anything, going over your limit will feel 'wrong', just like how you will know it's too little if you go under.

How do you not know without counting every single ingredient how much your average food/portion/snack has?
Like how do you get to 12%, which presumebly takes at least a couple of months and then just... forget how you used to eat.
Also how do you not say HEY WAIT A SECOND at 15% and at 18% and at 21%??

>Where you can just lift and stay in relatively good shape without being a slave to your diet?
Yeah, stop being autistic and eat like a normal human being. That's the point.

Once you start eating better you just tend to eat better and reach a point where you eat roughly at maintenance mode as long as you gym properly

>mfw cant eat pizza or greasy foods anymore

Once you do it for a while it becomes second nature, you turn down sugary things by instinct, you look for healthier options and high protein options and once you get used to tracking calories for a cut, you stop eating so much in general. I don't track much anymore. I eat what I want but what I want is significantly different than what I wanted when I was a teenager.

it never stops.
just accept that your hunger regulation is fucked and you never know if you already hit your calories unless you count them.

Goal body

You guys have been very helpful. It's just about getting that self control back long enough to make it a habit again.

When I started my new job I got out of the habit of meal prepping and let myself go. I would try to get back into the habit but it would make me binge on food even more. It didn't help that my boss always bought food for everyone but it was always pizza, donuts, and mexican food.

Based cardio bro
I do the same.

As long as your diet isn't full of crap you shouldn't have to count calories. Ever.

It also helps if you do IF. That's one or two days a week where you're consuming zero calories making it easier on the days where you do eat.

Australian here: Hiking is one of the more intense forms of cardio.