"I tried counting calories once..." Back on the old site I told a TL;DR about my family of hambeasts and that while we were poor and couldn't afford "healthy" food or exercise equipment, I went from 140-150lbs at 5'4" to 120lbs just by eating smaller portions and running in place in front of Netflix. Not much of a weight loss, but suffering from depression and a horrific family life, it made me feel amazing. Plus it's great for those who argue that they can't afford a gym membership or health food. Now because of this, every time a fat co-worker or family member hears about this, they immediately ask how I lost so much weight and if I could give them any advice. I usually give the basic "While my family made unhealthy or high calorie food, I simply watched my portions and counted calories."  This has given me a great many responses but one in particular has my head spinning because two people have used the same excuse since. I used to work at JCPenney, (Which is an experience on its own if you're unfortunate enough to work at one without a plus sized section like I did. The amount of REEing that was directed at me because of it was outstanding.) and I had a co-worker that was easily 300 pounds.  Her excuse for the weight is she gained it all after she was bedridden from fucking up her back while she was pregnant. So it's not her fault guys, okay? She and I primarily worked truck together (Where you unload the goods) so we were joined at the hip for much of my time there. I bet you can guess one of the topics she brought up the most. That's right, you guessed it, "how can I lose weight despite all my excuses?" Now, I really do mean that. She classifies herself as a picky eater. She can't eat most fruits and veggies, she really does not like how they taste... Her favorite dinner to make (Because she can stomach it) consists of a casserole made of either broccoli or cauliflower and then 90% cheese and... I'm not sure what else to be honest. I saw her bring leftovers to work one day and it just looked like a bowl of cheese with some veggies mixed in. One of her first excuses she made was that she needs to drink a constant supply of soda. She hates the taste of coffee and energy drinks are out because she was addicted to them at one point, so she quit for health reasons. Therefore the only alternative is to down shit tons of soda every morning. Anyway one day we ended up going to lunch together at subway. The topic of how fat she was came up again and her immense struggle to lose weight. I suggested she use the myfitnesspal app, I told her how easy it was to use and how I used it to count my calories when I lost weight.  "But counting calories doesn't work for me." wat. "Well, when I was counting calories, I would eat food and hit my calorie limit and then I would get hungry again and eat more food and go way over and it just wasn't working for me." "But..." "I just get too hungry."  All I did was look between my 6 inch chicken sub and her twelve inch meatball sub with extra cheese and it took all I had to not slam my head into the table. I put in my two weeks notice pretty quickly after. Whats even worse is she isn't the only one to use this excuse. An aunt of mine was telling me about how she tried the paleo diet and how she was going to try the atkins diet next. She then proceeded to complain about all the food she couldn't eat. I told her she didn't need to cut anything out of her diet if she just watched her portions and counted her calories. "I don't lose weight by counting calories, I never have. The only time I've ever lost weight was when I was on a low-carb diet. Trust me, I've tried it."  k. TL;DR Several people have told me they tried counting calories, but that they can't lose weight that way so they need another method.