I really need some help with this

jmh0979

I've bounced around with this dieting thing for many years now, and my weight is really the only thing about myself that I don't like. I don't know why I can't get this to click and finally lose the weight, but I'm reaching out for some motivation and encouragement. I'm almost 36, and I have about 100lbs to lose. Anyone up for a mfp buddy??

UltimateEscape

Hi jmh0979,

I might be able to help you. I've had a similar problem. The one thing that helped me is learning how to eat and what to eat. I started concentrating more on nutrition and less on the amount of calories I ate. I've had to over come bad eating habits and find reason why it was better to eat healthy. It's taken a long time to retrain myself into eating the right foods and leave the junk foods behind. Over all my health has improved greatly.

The only way to lose weight is to lower your caloric intake and/or increase your activity or weight loss surgery. You could eat a low calorie diet of just doughnuts and lose weight but your health would suffer immensely in time.
The best way is to figure out how many calories you want to eat and break it down into what most health care professionals agree is healthy.

From the calories you eat daily divide it this way the way you divide it is up to you but stay within the guidelines below.

Carbohydrates:45% to 65%
Protein: 10% to 35%
Fat: 20% to 35%

Whatever you choose should add up to 100%

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Say your going to eat 1,600 calories with these percentages.

CARBOHYDRATES:

You take 1,600 calories X 50% = 800 calories divided by 4 grams = 200 grams
Which means you should be eating 200 grams of carbohydrates per day.

PROTIEN:

You take 1,600 calories X 20% protein = 320 calories divided by 4 grams = 80 grams
This means you should be eating 80 grams of protein per day. No less that 46 grams for a woman and 56 grams for a man. If you eat more than you need it just turns into fat.

FAT:

You take 1,600 calories X 30% fat = 480 calories divided by 9 grams = 53.33 grams of fat.
You should be eating at least 53.33 grams of fat everyday. Eat less than 10 grams of saturated fat and as close to zero of Trans Fats as you possibly can.

You can divided the percentages up as you wish within the guidelines. Remember each gram of Carbohydrate has 4 calories. Each gram of Protein has 4 calories and each gram of Fat has 9 calories.

You might want to eat more calories in the beginning and if you don't lose weight reduce the amount of calories by 200 to 500 calories until you do start losing weight.

This will get you started there's lot's to learn and I'll be glad to help.

Good Luck!

eliaus3640

I'll be your buddy:) start with little changes. Creating new habits doesn't happen overnight. Start small like trying to eat out less , less fast food or maybe less Pop for example. Friend request sent

UltimateEscape

I still have weight to lose and have gone through the school of hard knocks. Doing it the right way has increased my success rate. It's a drag beginning and failing and starting again. One other thing I wanted to share was about SUGAR.

Say a food or drink product has 12 grams of sugar in it. To find out how many teaspoons of sugar is in that food product:

You take 12 grams and divide it by 4 calories = 3 teaspoons of sugar.
So, now you know there are 3 teaspoons of sugar are in that food/drink.

Many health care professional's say human beings should eat between 5 to 30 grams of sugar a day to maintain good health and not develop food related diseases. There's sugar in a lot of foods including vegetables and fruit so be sure to count your grams.

UltimateEscape

Hi eliaus3640!

I hope you succeed and the best of luck to you!

raymax4

I have found that when I started eating more vegetables my cravings for sugar decreases and I am less hungry overall. Next I started trying to change the nasty fats for nuts, avocado and natural sources of fats. I like to cook and often pick a day to cook for the week.

tburgess242002

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kiki_anitoni

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