Advice very much needed

ppars23

Close to a year ago I started to try and lose it weight, did my research. Learned about caloric deficits, BMR, TDEE etc.

I was recently turned 18, 6'3" and around 350. I was tired of being the big fat guy. I decided to join MyFitnessPal and just start counting calories only. I didn't worry a lot about carbs, fat and other things. I focused a bit on proteins and sodium. Besides a 30 minute walk a few times a week, I didn't worry about exercising.

I did this for about 6 months and lost probably at most 50 or 60 pounds. Enough for my scale to not get any error message.

Then came winter break and I fell off 100%, got into my first relationship, got lazy and ballooned right back up. I stopped any form of diet for about seven months.

Recently my girlfriend and I separated, even though It was semi neutral breakup, all I want to do is get into shape and prove something to her and myself, even though my size had nothing to do with it.

When I was dieting I ate everything I used to eat just in smaller amounts, I tried to stay under 2000 calories a day, some days I was well under that and I allowed myself one cheat day but always made sure I was at or under my weekly calorie limit.

Here are my questions:

1.) How many of you had success, at least in the first few months with a calorie only diet? Even though I personally had success I'd love to hear from others who had success with it.

2.) Diet soda, I never drank diet soda when I dieted and I recently found out that's it delicious, at 0 calories it seems perfect. I did research and it seems people are split on it. Good or bad?

3.) Low calories snacks? I never found a good low calorie snack when I was dieting, options?
Thank you so much, and I hope I get some help

rwhyte12

Hi good questions.
I was put on a very different diet from a dietician. Of course, I've changed some of it but you can google Mediterranean diet and also low carb Spanish Mediterranean Diet.
To keep your liver going, it needs a chemical called Choline which is plentiful in eggs. I had thought these were a cholesterol bomb but was assured that was old news so I have about two eggs a day for breakfast. Then I have a whey protein drink. So protein and protein. If there's fruit in my fridge, I'd have some.
Whey protein in big quantities are available at Wal-Mart pretty cheap. They have strawberry, chocolate and vanilla and it tastes like a shake. Just add water or milk. I always add milk.
So then there's lunch. It can vary. Maybe I open tuna and throw it in a big to eat out of the can. Maybe I have some cut up chicken. Then, I have about four tablespoons of seeds. I bought large quanities of sunflower seeds (with salt on them), then pumpkin seeds (same) and also cranberries in raisin form and blueberry raisin form and then there are is a second kind of sunflower seeds. So I premixed these and put them into baggies of around three or four tablespoons. They are mostly seeds with a little bit of the raisins thrown in. So I eat that and it is very filling. Then I usually have one tiny box of raisins or two. Then, I have my second whey protein drink and on occasion cranberry juice. Sometimes I pack a tiny salad or a big salad and I usually add two tablespoons of olive oil salad dressing (fig).
And then dinner is no red meat but fish, chicken or turkey. The oil for cooking is always olive oil.
Then, before bed I have a smoothie with strawberries, raspberries and also whey protein. This smoothie has milk in it.
Note, there is no actual added sugar for my entire day. The focus is on crude or raw item. Notice there is very little carbohydrate but a lot of olive oil fat (2 to 4 tablespoons a day) for good fats.
When I have food out that is cooked with soya or canola or sunflower or corn oil, my stomach swells up like a balloon now. Word on the street is that dietary guidelines are changing again and that polyunsaturated like the oils listed are getting the boot in favour or olive and coconut oil. Olive oil has vitamin E in it and is good for the liver. Without making your liver happy, it is hard to lose weight, especially if you have fat around your middle.
I haven't eaten any red meat for months and my face is no longer swollen.
I have just added a kind of cheese called Edam cheese but prior to, no cheese.
In the summer, I hate 1200 calories a day and swam. I was never hungry as the seeds were always available and they are filling or something on this diet. Prior to, I ate 1200 calories but a very different diet and was gaining weight more and more. But I learned a lot of it was inflammation.
So in the end since July 1, I have lost 41 pounds. For exercise I swim and my job has loads of walking and standing around so now I have had to increase to 1500 calories now that I'm back to work and the weight just keeps coming off.
Not that I was diabetic before, but if I ate sugar, I would feel it. Now, if I happen to have a slip up eating sugar, I never feel it. Apparently, your liver as a general rule hates all artificial sweetners except for Stevia. You're better to just drink an occasional sugar beverage.
Well, that's my two cents. Look up this diet and success will follow. There's also another diet called Primal that is very similar to the Low Carb Spanish Mediterranean Diet.

rwhyte12

P.S. Look closely at how many calories you're allocating to sugar and carbohydrate, versus fat and protein.

zoeysasha37

There's no need for a low carb diet.
Weight loss comes down to cico

Karen_can_do_this

Hi! Ok so you've done it before. Congrats mate! You can definitely do it again.
My suggestion is to go out and buy yourself a food scale. Omfg best invention ever! Weigh every single thing you put in your mouth.

Listen to the bossy people in the forums. They really really do know their stuff.

It honestly is all about eating less calories than you use. It's really that easy.

Don't listen to anything of the clean eating crap. In my opinion clean eating is washing my carrots before eating them.

Um diet soft drink (soda pop) I'm not a huge fan of them but I'm sure others will be able to shed some light on the subject.

You can do this!

Psychgrrl

Something important to do is to make sure you're eating enough to sustain your body while you're losing weight. This is Scooby, http://scoobysworkshop.com/calories-burned/ Scooby has calculators to help you get an idea of your BMR (Basic Metabolic Rate) and your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure). These numbers can help you know what to eat to lose, just calories in-calories out (CICO). Generally, weight-loss begins in the kitchen, fitness begins in the gym.

While you're interested in losing without exercise, you're really young and now is the chance to develop life-long habits. Exercise is important for your health. Find something you love, regardless of how good you are at it or how you look doing it.

I am not a fan of diet soda. Or regular soda. I think there's better stuff (water) with which to hydrate. I used to occasionally have a diet soda. I work on a college campus and am responsible for residence halls, dining halls and public facilities. One day, one of the pipes leading to a soda machine developed a leak. It was the pipe with the syrup. Over time, it actually wore a hole through a half-inch steel pipe! It smelled AWFUL. Haven't had a diet drink since. If it did that to a pipe--what was it doing to me? Um, no thanks for me!

Low calorie snacks? I like string cheese, 1/2 quest bar, kind bars, jerky, mhp protein pudding, frozen berries. At work I do a bunch on mini-meals over the day. So, most of my snacks are "meal food."

Karen_can_do_this

Sorry I just realised I didn't really answer your question, I'm nowhere near a success story. But I'm a work in progress. I started this year at 82kgs this morning I'm down to 69.5kgs
I'm 5'1" and I eat 1500 calories ish a day.

Try not to get sucked in by all the fad diets (low carb, paelo, Mediterranean etc)
You aren't going on a diet. You're changing your eating habits

rwhyte12

There are lots of diets out there to look at for inspiration and ideas but in the end, it has to be a lifestyle change. Good luck.

sunandmoons

thorsmom01 wrote: »

There's no need for a low carb diet.
Weight loss comes down to cico

^^^^^This!!

OsricTheKnight

ppars23 wrote: »

1.) How many of you had success, at least in the first few months with a calorie only diet? Even though I personally had success I'd love to hear from others who had success with it.

2.) Diet soda, I never drank diet soda when I dieted and I recently found out that's it delicious, at 0 calories it seems perfect. I did research and it seems people are split on it. Good or bad?

3.) Low calories snacks? I never found a good low calorie snack when I was dieting, options?
Thank you so much, and I hope I get some help

1) Calories are all that matters. I have (previously) lost > 80 lbs with calorie restriction alone. Food content has nothing to do with it, just get a deficit and go. I like trendweight.com to make sense of the scale readings. I describe why in some detail here. You get a chart like this:



2) Diet soda - for the purposes of weight loss, nothing could be better. It's also much easier to drink in large quantities than water. By other health standards, might not be best, you'd have to research. Food science is such a mess I think it's pretty difficult to come up with an actually correct conclusion here, though it stands to reason that water has got to be healthier than diet soda (and just about anything else, including juice and milk; water is king, it's just that drinking it sucks).

3) I find snacks just add up in a bad way. I like fruit - not the lowest calorie, but more satisfying than others. Veggies are better if you eat them raw/untouched.

Osric

Orphia

ppars23 wrote: »

1.) How many of you had success, at least in the first few months with a calorie only diet? Even though I personally had success I'd love to hear from others who had success with it.

2.) Diet soda, I never drank diet soda when I dieted and I recently found out that's it delicious, at 0 calories it seems perfect. I did research and it seems people are split on it. Good or bad?

3.) Low calories snacks? I never found a good low calorie snack when I was dieting, options?
Thank you so much, and I hope I get some help

1) Calorie only diet? Not me, but I do walking for exercise, which earns me more calories to eat, and can be done by almost everyone.

2) Nothing wrong with diet soda.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1308408/why-aspartame-isnt-scary/p1
And I say that as someone who doesn't like diet soda, so I'm not pushing my own agenda.

3) My favourite snack is green olives marinated in lime juice, chili, garlic and tequila. 280 kj per 40 grams. Drool!

SLLRunner

thorsmom01 wrote: »

There's no need for a low carb diet.
Weight loss comes down to cico

This. Definitely this.

How you get there is individual. For me, it means eating all the foods I love in moderation.

wanttobefit300

[1.) How many of you had success, at least in the first few months with a calorie only diet? Even though I personally had success I'd love to hear from others who had success with it.

2.) Diet soda, I never drank diet soda when I dieted and I recently found out that's it delicious, at 0 calories it seems perfect. I did research and it seems people are split on it. Good or bad?

3.) Low calories snacks? I never found a good low calorie snack when I was dieting, options?
Thank you so much, and I hope I get some help[/quote]

1.) Yes, I can lose weight by calories only. But I feel better with at least some mild exercise. Strenuous exercise is not necessary, nor even desired in most cases.

2.) I haven't had a diet soda in years. There is research that suggests that artificial sweeteners actually make you fatter. Aspartame caused neuropathy in my feet, and Splenda sent my cholesterol (especially LDL) sky high at a very modest use, so I don't use any artificial sweeteners any more. I use moderate amounts of real sugar or stevia. Lately, I've started using old-fashioned Kool-Aid sweetened with stevia. I use 6 packets of stevia with 1 packet of Kool-Aid to make about 1 1/2 quarts of mix (to allow for ice watering it down). A packet of stevia is under 2 calories and this makes 8 8 oz servings.

3.) My snacks are mostly fruit. So are my desserts. A cup of strawberries cut up is about 50 calories, as is about 2/3 cup of fresh pineapple. Watermelon is even less. I allow myself up to 1 oz of dark chocolate a day,

It doesn't take long for your taste buds to get used to the less-sweet tastes if you don't drink diet sodas. Once you do, you will not be able to stand most sweet foods, and that will make everything easier.

Orphia

Anything is low calorie if you eat sufficiently less of it.

Everything in moderation, within your calorie limit. No need for deprivation!