@sunvalleylaw and @ediblehedge, great to hear Carbon resonates with you too. Their support staff are very helpful, or you can PM me and I’d be happy to help. I don’t make any money from it, I just really like their product. Layne Norton, the guy behind Carbon has a PhD in nutritional science. You might like this podcast with him and Peter Attia, a physician who focuses on longevity and improving the quality of life. It’s chock full of tips. #163 - Layne Norton, Ph.D.: Building muscle, losing fat, and the importance of resistance training - Peter Attia
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This morning I realised I left out an important lesson from adopting this way of eating. I no longer feel guilty about the foods I eat. With this approach, there are no bad foods. Everything is just food. What changes is how much of it I eat and when. And in those cases where I go overboard, I know exactly how to make up for it over the next few days. Want some ice cream (270 cal)? Go for it! Want two scoops (540 cal) and chocolate sauce (200 cal)? Can, but better think about it, because it could mean some sacrifice in the following days.
Where this approach is different is with the macros. If I eat that ice cream & topping, it will use up a big chunk my carb budget for the day. If it blows my budget, I know ahead of time that it will and I know that I’ll need to make up for it in the following days. (No different than buying a new bike on impulse! 
)
I still need to use up my protein and fat budget. If I take a lot of carbs early in the day, I know that I’ll be primarily eating protein and fat later in the day. That’s where my go-to foods mentioned earlier come in. At dinner that night, I’ll be eating protein and veggies and skipping the carbs. But if I didn’t use up my carb budget, they’ll be on my plate too.
That’s as hard as it gets. It’s been so freeing to get out from under all the psyco/social pressure to eat right. No more guilt. If I want to indulge, I can, because I know exactly how to adjust for it. Each week I do a check-in to rebalance my goals for the following week. It’s all so … rational.
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Thanks again @RitzMan for the recommendation. Have finally found time to listen to the podcast along with the follow up episode 205 and they both contained heaps of useful information and made lots of notes.
I’m now just over 2 weeks into using Carbon and it’s far more reliable and user friendly than I found with MFP which was incredible slow most of the time.
I set my goal as weight gain from 70kg to 73kg at 0.2kg per week and pegged my maintenance calories at 2,850 based on experience with MFP. Carbon told me to eat 3,045 and I managed to lose 0.5kg over 2 weeks. Close of to a rounding error, but certainly not gaining.
After 2 weeks the algorithm upped this to 3,500 which might help explain why I could never gain weight. The weekly adaptive nature of the targets is so much more useful than the MFP approach. Eating 3,500 calories a day on the other hand feels like a full time job. Likely I’ll get used to it just in time for it to be reduced 
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A whole plant based (WPB) diet made me go from 68/70kg to 61/62kg in a couple of months (started 4 years ago) and after reaching 61/62 it has been easy to keep the weight steady except when I get of the diet for more than one or two meals a week. That usualy happens on vacations where doing more frequent meals including animal products takes me up 3 or 4 kg in just a couple of weeks, but returning to the WPB diet after vacations in a week or two the weight goes back to 61/62kg again. And no I dont feel any power lost by going on a WPB diet.
In fact I feel better than ever. Never got sick in the last 4 years not even Covid got in (before I was usualy sick often due to allergies) and dont feel so much the need to eat again just 1 hour and a half after a meal like before. WPB diet is not the same as Vegan. No junk food or processed food. Its not only keeping meat away. More micronutrients from whole plant based foods and less animal protein prevent diseases and makes my digestive system work better than before.
Its just my statemnet. For me (my wife and son) it has worked very well controlling wheight and improving health.
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Oh to have that problem…
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Hehe, I always have that problem. I can never find any sympathy when I try to explain how many calories I need to eat when I’m doing lots of long rides 
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I had an In-Body body comp analysis done today and thanks to Carbon and this flexible eating approach, my body fat is 20.1%, the lowest it has been in 20 years, by a factor of 3-5%. I’m appreciating how easy it is to dial up and down my macro nutrients to control hunger, to meet workout needs and to meet my weekly weight loss target. Carb cycling is so easy now. Perhaps I could have gotten here using MFP or something similar, but this is the approach that worked for me. For the first time in my life, I truly feel in control of my eating and weight. So empowering! This is the perfect mental boost as I prepare to storm the castle next month.
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Coming from this part of Asia where food is in abundance and not to mention at any hour of day (or night), it’s a real mental game to play with oneself.
As for me personally, I do my level best to control my intake of rice (although it’s a staple here, and in most parts of Asia for that matter) especially during dinner. I read from the above and have to agree, protein is part of the equation and so are fruits and vegetables.
It’s sort of like a mantra for me to have at least one vegetable on the plate, if it’s possible, all vegetarian would even be better
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Welcome to the forum…bot. 
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Deleted and suspended @CPT_A - thanks for the notification.
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I have a couple of friends who are vegetarian, but I’d never eat them.
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Here to serve.
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I don’t mean you should eat them vegetarians hahahaha
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Hehe. I knew that, Sir. I just forgot to put the winky face 
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Now, given a choice between eating only vegetables, or eating only vegetarians
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Vegetables! Kids these days hardly eat vegetables.
Popeye was my biggest encouragement to eating vegetables. Haha
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