Encouragement

OhMyKac

For the last 7 months, I have been disabled and have had to use a walker to walk. I am in physical therapy to get back to walking normally, but I am having trouble maintaining my normal weight. I'm no where near as active as I used to be and I am slowly gaining weight. Any tips or encouragement is seriously appreciated!!!!

futuremanda

Set MFP to sedentary with a goal of maintenance for now. Stopping the slow gain will be step one!

Read up on accurate logging:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1296011/calorie-counting-101/p1
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10012907/logging-accuracy-consistency-and-youre-probably-eating-more-than-you-think/p1

I highly recommend the food scale! You can get a decent one pretty cheap (<$20 if need be). It's so quick and easy and low stress once you get used to it!

Aim to eat around your maintenance. You can go a little under some days, a little over others -- you can use the reports tab, and Net Calories, to see if it's balancing out well over time. Log any exercise you can do -- but if it's pretty low, I'd either not log it or not eat any of the calories back.

Also, if you're not used to weighing, note that most people have a weight range, NOT a static weight. So if you see your weight changing up and down by a few pounds, just consider that water weight.

I'd recommend maintenance and working on your logging skills and consistency. Once you can walk more, maybe consider setting it to 0.5 lb a week loss and getting moving. But you can also lose if you'd like to even without exercise -- you just may feel hungrier, because your calories will probably be pretty low, with no option to just exercise to get some more. (However, I've done it, and so have many others, so do not be afraid to try and see how it goes if it's something you'd like to do!)