just going to get straight into it, kinda sleepy. run-on sentences here we go. probably the final raffle as well.

one common mistake is underestimating how much you are eating. sounds obvious though, right? well, sort of. this one is a lot more insidious (meaning sort of subtle or sneaky) than you think. ok so how then, just tell me already  fine, well, you can be visibly consuming what seems like very little food but it can actually pack quite a few calories. on the other hand, you could also look like you're eating a large amount but be consuming very little. ok, so how does that even work? well it relies on the fact that different foods have different calories per gram.

the easiest way to explain this is with an example. let's look at a peanut m&m. peanut m&m's are very slightly bigger than normal m&m's but they are still pretty small and not an entirely uncommon snack. just one of those has 10 calories. Upon doing a bit more math, these particular m&m's come out to about 5 calories/gram. An apple on the other hand, comes out to about 50 calories/100 grams meaning it's literally .5 calories/gram. What does this mean then? Well for one, it means you can eat a whole lot more apple and still get the same calories as eating a few of these m&m's. what does it also unfortunately mean though? it means that eating a relatively smaller amount of a higher calorie/gram food can really sneak up on you. and that's the insidious part. it doesn't really seem like much (and in terms of food volume, or how much space the food takes up, it isn't) but over the course of a day or a week, those calories certainly add up. of course, this isn't to say you should avoid any particular food but only to note that you should be careful. 

what i have just discussed is partially (i'd have to actually be there to explain fully because no case is exactly the same) why people can seem to be eating very small physical volumes of food but the calories per gram of those foods are more important because at the end of the day, the calories you consume and how high or low they are in relation to your maintenance number are what drive your weight loss or weight gain.

as a result of this explanation, we can see some other common mistakes: eating too little calories when trying to gain weight (self-explanatory) or eating too many calories (because muscle can only be gained at a fixed rate, to a point; overfeeding past this point doesn't contribute to further muscle growth - law of nature thing, i didn't make this rule - can also cause stretchmarks). two other things are eating too many calories when trying to lose weight (self-explanatory) and eating too little calories when trying to lose weight. now this last one is pretty spicy and tends to lean towards the law of nature thing as well. the truth is, trying to lose weight quickly is very, very possible, but losing fat (! - note the distinction) can only really be done properly at a particular rate/speed. the maximum recommended weight loss per week to achieve maximal fat loss is normally 1.5 lbs/week. any more than that and most people will end up drawing a bit on muscle and also potentially ending up with baggy skin and actually funnily enough also stretchmarks (i have a LOT of marks from both lol)

(continued again in entered message)