Pretty new to this and could use some help!

evt84

Good morning!

This is my very first post here so bear with me!

I'm 29 years old with a wonderful husband (high school sweetheart) and beautiful 18 month old daughter. In my early and mid 20's I never really worried too much about my weight as I was blessed with "decent" enough genes to naturally keep me in the 125-135lb weight range (I'm 5 foot 6 inches). While I never had to struggle with weight, I was just naturally "slender"...I never have had any real type of tone or definition.

I had my daughter when I was 27 years old and gained about 35 pounds, ending up at about 169lbs. I lost all of that weight within the first couple months after having her, and weighed 129--but my body was obviously "different" than pre-pregnancy!

That first year I kind of let myself go and got to around 140lbs and just felt terrible, bloated, squishy...I just wasn't happy with myself--so I did weight watchers on my own (no meetings, just tracking my "points" and cutting out junk) and I lost 10 pounds and got back down to 130.

Weight watchers burned me out and I fell off the wagon a few months ago and went back to eating what I wanted. I gained 4 pounds back and at 134lbs I again started feeling bloated, squishy....just blah!

Last week I made the commitment to begin Insanity, and start tracking all my meals and snacks on MyFitnessPal. It's been very motivating so far and I've learned a lot! BUT...I could still use some help.

I've already lost 4 pounds (since last Monday) and I'm down to 130. I believe a lot of that was water weight, etc.

My goal is to get back to 125, but I wouldn't mind 120 either

Insanity has already made me feel more toned and less squishy - and my clothes fit SO much better. I am on Week 2 Day 4.

Here's my main issue. MFP set my daily caloric intake at 1200. I burn approximately 400 calories with insanity so I am allowed approximately 1600 calories per day. After doing some research, I manually set my macros to 40/30/30.

I have a hard time reaching my caloric intake each day--I'm usually about 200-300 calories short (and I feel like I eat a substantial amount) and I come relatively close to my macros and rarely go over. I know it's only been 2 weeks but I've weighed myself in the mornings this past week and I'm just stuck at 130. I drink a ton of water during the day.

Do you recommend I change my caloric intake, or macros, or just be patient? I know the scale shouldnt matter as much as how I feel, and I'm trying to get in that frame of mind.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions, advice, motivation, and support! I'm really excited to transform my body and feel good in a bathing suit and feel like I'm in my early 20s again

evt84

any advice, anyone?

Sorry--I know my post was long. you can just skip to the last 4 "paragraphs".....I'm a little long winded!

kellehbeans

I'm glad you have already come to the understanding that inches are more important than the scales.

You should possibly eat more, finding out your BMR and eating above that to lose weight. This way, you can eat a bit more! If you're really struggling to get your calories up, try eating full fat items or items with a lot of fat - or adding more protein to your meals. A good example is adding avocado, using full fat milk instead of skimmed, using butter and not margarine, have a handful of nuts as a snack and so on.

If you are working on MFP figures, you need to be eating your exercise calories back. If you work the TDEE method (google fat2fitradio or scoobysworkshop and workout how much you should be eating to lose) and set your activity level to anything but sedentary, you do not eat back your exercise calories.

Hope this helps! :flowerforyou:

55in13

"Net" is when you take the estimate of how many calories you burned and subtract it from the estimated number of calories you burned. One line of thinking is that this rough estimate is what you should be trying to adjust by eating and/or working out to hit the number of calories for the day as your diet goal. It does work for a lot of people, but it is not the only way and the other methods are not doomed to failure.

1200 calories is the minimum amount recommended by dietitians because it is not difficult to get the proper mix of nutrients in a carefully constructed diet at that level. It has nothing to do with "net" calories. What you burn in day minus what you eat is your deficit. Your body fat can provide 31.4 calories per pound per day toward the deficit. Take your weight and your BF% to compute how much you have, multiply by 31.4 and you will get the maximum deficit your fat stores can support. After that it will come from lean body mass and you don't want that. Some will come from LBM even before that, but that can't be helped.

Some people refer to diets at or below 1200 as Very Low Calorie, VLC or VLCD. That is not correct. Dietitians use numbers in the 500-700 range as VLCD and they do sometimes recommend that for short periods for the very obese, but not without medical supervision.

evt84

I'm glad you have already come to the understanding that inches are more important than the scales.

You should possibly eat more, finding out your BMR and eating above that to lose weight. This way, you can eat a bit more! If you're really struggling to get your calories up, try eating full fat items or items with a lot of fat - or adding more protein to your meals. A good example is adding avocado, using full fat milk instead of skimmed, using butter and not margarine, have a handful of nuts as a snack and so on.

If you are working on MFP figures, you need to be eating your exercise calories back. If you work the TDEE method (google fat2fitradio or scoobysworkshop and workout how much you should be eating to lose) and set your activity level to anything but sedentary, you do not eat back your exercise calories.

Hope this helps! :flowerforyou:

Thank you for your advice!! I guess where I get confused is the whole "should I be meeting the calorie or macro levels" struggle! If I add more calories, I'm going to be adding more carbs/fat/protein and if I go over on those, I know that has an impact as well.

I also get confused when some people say "as long as you stay under your calories you'll lose" but some people say "you NEED to eat the recommended calories or you won't lose!"

I guess I need to do some more research on the MFP figures and TDEE method....!!

ohnstadk

Avocado, nuts, pb (natural has no added sugar), etc. are all great and healthy ways to add the extra calories without having to eat much more food.

That being said I am not an expert of TDEE, but want you to get the answers you desire

Best of luck

55in13

I also get confused when some people say "as long as you stay under your calories you'll lose" but some people say "you NEED to eat the recommended calories or you won't lose!"

The first statement makes perfect sense and is supported by science and studies. The second one only appears to be true in rare cases for individuals with medical reasons for it. There is a point at which eating too little is bad for you, but no validated study has found a point at which lowering calories doesn't increase the calorie deficit and increase weight loss.

evt84

I also get confused when some people say "as long as you stay under your calories you'll lose" but some people say "you NEED to eat the recommended calories or you won't lose!"

The first statement makes perfect sense and is supported by science and studies. The second one only appears to be true in rare cases for individuals with medical reasons for it. There is a point at which eating too little is bad for you, but no validated study has found a point at which lowering calories doesn't increase the calorie deficit and increase weight loss.

So if MFP is telling me 1200 calories, and I'm earning another 400 through working out....bringing me to a total of 1600...should I be eating as close to 1600 as possible, or staying under? GAH, who knew losing a few pounds would be so hard!

55in13

I also get confused when some people say "as long as you stay under your calories you'll lose" but some people say "you NEED to eat the recommended calories or you won't lose!"

The first statement makes perfect sense and is supported by science and studies. The second one only appears to be true in rare cases for individuals with medical reasons for it. There is a point at which eating too little is bad for you, but no validated study has found a point at which lowering calories doesn't increase the calorie deficit and increase weight loss.

So if MFP is telling me 1200 calories, and I'm earning another 400 through working out....bringing me to a total of 1600...should I be eating as close to 1600 as possible, or staying under? GAH, who knew losing a few pounds would be so hard!

It is hard to know. If you feel pretty good about those numbers, then sticking close will probably work. It is common to underestimate calories consumed and overestimate burn, so I advise against going over that even a little and would probably aim a little low at most. My point was and is that either answer works as long as you are somewhere between the number of calories that is too little to be healthy and the number you burn. The smaller the gap, the easier it is to stay on it but it will take longer and you have less margin for error. A lot of it comes down to trial and error. If you do this amount a while and the scale doesn't cooperate, you go lower if you have plenty of room above the minimum healthy level. I think a lof of people on this site are mistaken about what that level is and about how quickly and how much metabolism is effected. I encourage you to do a little research and make your own decision. Mostly it is about strict adherence to what you decide.

evt84

I also get confused when some people say "as long as you stay under your calories you'll lose" but some people say "you NEED to eat the recommended calories or you won't lose!"

The first statement makes perfect sense and is supported by science and studies. The second one only appears to be true in rare cases for individuals with medical reasons for it. There is a point at which eating too little is bad for you, but no validated study has found a point at which lowering calories doesn't increase the calorie deficit and increase weight loss.

So if MFP is telling me 1200 calories, and I'm earning another 400 through working out....bringing me to a total of 1600...should I be eating as close to 1600 as possible, or staying under? GAH, who knew losing a few pounds would be so hard!

It is hard to know. If you feel pretty good about those numbers, then sticking close will probably work. It is common to underestimate calories consumed and overestimate burn, so I advise against going over that even a little and would probably aim a little low at most. My point was and is that either answer works as long as you are somewhere between the number of calories that is too little to be healthy and the number you burn. The smaller the gap, the easier it is to stay on it but it will take longer and you have less margin for error. A lot of it comes down to trial and error. If you do this amount a while and the scale doesn't cooperate, you go lower if you have plenty of room above the minimum healthy level. I think a lof of people on this site are mistaken about what that level is and about how quickly and how much metabolism is effected. I encourage you to do a little research and make your own decision. Mostly it is about strict adherence to what you decide.

You have been incredibly helpful. Thank you!