Where do I begin........literally?
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I'm starting over myself and I agree with everyone above. Frozen breakfasts are a life saver for me. Use the search function for some yummy oatmeal ideas, I haven't tried them. One of my favorite counter top appliances is a combo rice cooker/steamer/crockpot. Steaming veggies while it's cooking rice gives the rice a lovely flavor! Hard boiled eggs keep me fuller longer than scrambled. And again, baby steps! I now know I changed too much too fast. Crock pot meals can be so yummy, easy, and healthy. Sorry for any rambling, it's early and I'm rushing. Yay, a snowy commute to work
anyway, you got this! Don't get upset when you have a bad day or week, get right back too it. 0 -
There's a lot of good advice in this thread but OP I will also emphasize:
Try not to make too many big changes all at once. If you aren't currently exercising, maybe just focus on tracking your food at first. A lot of people spend a couple of weeks just tracking your normal food intake to get an idea of how many calories you are currently consuming so you have a better idea of what deficit you'll be creating, whether you are way over on sugars, etc. Others jump right in with the recommendations from MFP and that's good too.
Along with the series of small changes, you don't have to be perfect all the time. For example, some people say they can't eat a cookie because it isn't healthy. Well sure, eating nothing but cookies isn't healthy, but if you are eating a balanced diet with fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein, and healthy fats, there's nothing wrong with eating a cookie too. There are no unhealthy foods, there are unhealthy diets.
There's nothing wrong with convenience foods. There are a lot of them which have a good balance of nutrients for the calories, they are convenient, and can help with portion control. I eat those Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches and bowls pretty regularly. The bowl with egg whites, turkey sausage, potatoes and cheddar cheese is filling and tasty and has 24 g of protein. Greek yogurt and oats is good too, but don't shy away from some of those things because someone told you processed food is bad. Both yogurt and oats are processed!
Good luck! You're off to a great start!
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One thing before I start with my own tips. You have 100 lb to lose and you probably picked to lose 2 lb a week. This is possible now, but as you lose weight it will not be possible without restricting too much. As soon as the calories given to you by the app reach 1200, know that they won't go any lower and the expected weight loss will probably be inaccurate. When you reach that point, it's best to set your goal to 1.5 or 1 pound a week.
Now, I find the key to sustainability, for me at least, is not to change my diet too much but to modify the size of my portions or the way I prepare foods to help reduce their calories. If it doesn't feel like a strict diet you are more likely to stick to it.
What do you usually eat for breakfast? lunch? Dinner? Take that and play around it.
For example if you usually have an omelette and bread breakfast try using less oil for frying and less cheese for topping and slice your bread thinner. You don't even have to use whole wheat bread if you don't like it, just your usual. To make up for the ingredients you reduced, bulk up your omelette with extra veggies. This way you won't feel like you made drastic changes but your usual meals end up lighter in calories. Same for lunch and dinner. Just take your usual meals and try to either modify them or reduce the portion size, making up for the lost bulk with vegetables.
You mentioned you tend to eat frozen meals. If you like them, they satisfy you, and they are within the calories you have budgeted for a meal don't feel pressured to quit them. It's perfectly alright to have a convenience meal every now and then. I'm feeling too lazy to cook today for example, so I prepared a cup of instant noodles for lunch. While I usually prefer foods that have better nutrition there is absolutely nothing wrong with eating convenience foods every now and then. It's only 240 calories which is about half of my lunch allowance, so why not? If your favorite frozen meals tend to be high in calories, try cooking something similar but lower in calories and freeze appropriate servings yourself.
Keeping things less rigid and less complicated and my changes less drastic helps me stick to them and reduces the chances of burning out.0 -
I made a motivation board in my bedroom...so the first thing I see when I open my eyes is the reason im doing this in the first place...and its not because of the hot guy in the bed next to me who lifts weights 4 days a week without complaining and finding excuses...although he could be part of my motivation I find that my board of photos of what I want to look like quotes to inspire me and a visual tracking of pounds and inches lost forces me to stay on track because its visible....im accountable to myself and he's watching too...and so are my kids...they come in and see how mom is making out...did she lose this week, did she lift more on chest press than last week...or did she fail...and honestly that word "FAIL" is the big thing keeping me going....also you need encouragement and congrats from people...that keeps you going too...just remember it takes 4 weeks to make a change and make it stick...8 weeks for your body to actually notice and 12 weeks for anyone close to you...as my boyfriend says its not a sprint...its a damn marathon and a long one! DON'T GIVE UP!
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Alot of good advice. My biggest piece of advice is even if you have a bad day and eat way over. Log it and move on. I have done it plenty of times. You only fail if you stop trying. I personally took control of my eating for several months before doing any kind of exercise. I just started doing small things here and there. Don't avoid foods unless you don't like them or are allergic. On my journey I have eaten cake, pizza, pasta, cookies, ice cream and every other thing under the sun. You can make all of those things fit in your cals. Friend me if you want. My diary is open to friends.0
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Baby steps. Make a decision to make better choices. You don't need to be perfect. You just need to improve. Cut yourself some slack . None of us are perfect.
Don't make drastic changes. Eat less; but choose a calorie goal you can live with for awhile.
Don't eliminate foods you love. That can lead to binges love chocolate. So I allow myself a square of dark chocolate everyday. Ghiradelli squares are individually wrapped, so they work great for me.
Veggies are low calorie and high volume. I add veggies to lunch and dinner. Choose different varieties, cook them different ways, add different spices and they won't be boring.
Protein, fat and fiber are filling. I like Greek yogurt with berries, nuts, and Fiber One for breakfast.
After the food thing is in hand, make a plan to move more. If you don't have a pedometer you might want to invest in one. This may motivate you to move more. Find an activity that you enjoy. This will make you more consistent.
I agree with EVERYTHING above especially the bolded items.
Most people that fail think they are going to from sitting on their a** everyday on the couch stuffing their face with Doritos to ripped aps in 6 months. That just isn't realistic. You aren't going to undo years of bad exercise and/or eating choices immediately. Small changes you make and STICK TO will yield dividends over time.
I will suggest two relatively small changes you can make to begin with:
1) Park farther from the door..every door. When you go shopping...to work...to church..grandma's house...wherever. That will immediately add some more steps to your day. Tell yourself it's to keep other people from banging your doors if that helps.
2) Don't drink your calories. It's OK to have the have the occasional Starbucks Mocha Frappucino extra whipped cream (tasty) calorie bomb but if this is an everyday thing for you, it will make it more likely for you to be "hangry" while on a calorie deficit...simply because there are fewer calories left for actual food if you're spending 400-500 on that drink...or on soda...or sweet tea..or a sugary smoothie.
And yes, read the stickies...lots of good info in there.0 -
WinoGelato wrote: »There's a lot of good advice in this thread but OP I will also emphasize:
Along with the series of small changes, you don't have to be perfect all the time. For example, some people say they can't eat a cookie because it isn't healthy. Well sure, eating nothing but cookies isn't healthy, but if you are eating a balanced diet with fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein, and healthy fats, there's nothing wrong with eating a cookie too. There are no unhealthy foods, there are unhealthy diets.
And this too..because there will be plenty of people who will tell you things like "never eat XXX" or "ONLY eat XXX" or "don't eat (macro group here)".
IGNORE THEM.
The truth is unless your doctor has specifically told you not to consume something, you can eat whatever you choose that still fits your calorie/macro plan.0 -
Loads of great ideas!!!0
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I don't know if this will help or not, but every morning for breakfast I eat a Jimmy Dean Delights English Muffin (found in the breakfast freezer section at the store) that is made with egg white, cheese, and turkey sausage. It's convenient, 250 calories, microwaves in 2.5 minutes, and it has a good macro balance to start my day. Kind of heavy on the sodium but nothing's perfect.
I make a homemade version. Toasted english muffin, 1 egg (scrambled), 1 thin slice of ham (heated in pan for a moment after egg), half slice of american cheese. Yummy! And it's super easy. Still under 250 calories, but fresh and less expensive.0 -
Third thing: start making small changes that you'll be comfortable sticking with forever.
That's the rub. The catch 22. Your life must change. As soon as you accept that you'll be successful. I miss the days of sitting on the couch eating a half package of Oreo's and milk watching movies with the kids. I miss selecting the snacks for the weekend that we'd all munch on while watching our favorite shows for the week (usually chips and dip). I miss little chocolate doughnuts every morning with my extra sweet coffee. I want to just say screw it and go back to that as I pass by the new flavors of chips in the store each week or the new Oreo flavors or the freshly made doughnuts or cinnamon rolls in the bakery. But I choose not to go down that road ever again. I give myself holidays now, and that's it. On holidays I still log everything but I indulge as much as my stomach will take. I then feel guilty as hell and go back to my routine afterward. I just finished giving away all the leftover sweets and crap we made for Christmas this year to co-workers, friends, and family yesterday. I did it so that I would not be tempted going forward. New Year's Eve is this week, and I'll be dieting. I'll be cooking a big breakfast on New Years day, but then I'll be doing an extra long workout that day to make up for it. It's a way of life you have to adopt. But you can't just take away everything you love about food, you simply have to make smarter choices, learn to love your scale, and adjust recipes to be more healthy. You'll probably find that you like some recipes even more with substitutions, and you'll find new recipes that are better for you and taste good. You'll also discover snacks that you can eat without guilt.
The first thing I gave up was sugar. That white granulated stuff. I figured it was going to be the most difficult thing to give up, so I started with it. I now add it to nothing, and if I need extra sweetness I add Stevia or Truvia. But, I dislike the aftertaste that most sweeteners have, so I rarely use them. I simply go without. A few months of that and I realized that many things have their own sweetness, especially vegetables. Their sweetness was masked by the sugar all these years. The second thing I did was adopt a daily exercise program. For me it was walking, and now it's using a Bowflex M5 in the Winter, but I'll go back to walking in the spring most likely. I set MFP at a 2lb loss per week and added in the exercise and managed to lose 90 lbs in 10 months. That's pretty extreme, and I was not able to maintain that rate of loss forever I'm just demonstrating that it can be done. Trying to maintain that rate of loss actually put me in a ton of pain because I managed to re-injure my back and ended up with sciatica this last summer and fall (twice!) just from being stubborn and doing too much (I was walking 4 miles a day at 3.5-4mph before breakfast each morning). I also started lifting weights, and doing other general body-weight exercises. I now keep my calories adjusted to about a .5lb/week loss on MFP and do about 500 cals of exercise a day on top of that and am stuck. But that happens and you just have to ignore it and keep on going.
But back to the point. You have to change. Make a conscious decision to make the change and start small. One thing at a time. Try to take things steadily and give yourself holidays (birthdays, etc.) as days off your diet. Log everything on those days as well so that you know how much extra work you need to do to make up for it. Think of things in terms of weeks instead of days. If you binge for a day with 1000 extra calories over your goal, divide that by 7 and try to put yourself at an extra 150 calories per day for the next seven days and you've undone what you did on the holiday. It's much more simple when you think about it that way.
The next question for me is once I lose this last 10-20lbs, how do I maintain it? I'm going to be so used to dieting at a deficit it's going to be tough. But I will simply do the same thing I've always done. Adjust a little bit at a time until I find the right amount of exercise and calories to keep me at my desired weight.
Good luck! You CAN do it.
Oh and by the way: I eat ice cream, deserts, etc. all the time. I simply log them, deduct the calories, and adjust the total I eat each day accordingly. Snacks like that are ok to eat as long as you realize they are pretty much empty calories. You're going to want them, so eat them when you have the extra calories left so that you won't be so tempted to binge later.
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I really have found that if I eat breakfast I am hungry all day, if I skip it, so I can have a bigger lunch and supper, and my evening snacks (I really really like to snack) than I do much better. I am sipping my third cup of black coffee at my desk right now and it keeps me pretty happy till lunch. That being said this is certainly not true of everyone. So if you love your breakfast oatmeal is a really good choice, but I go with the steel cut oats instead because of the added fiber, they keep me full longer. it will be a matter of playing around, finding what you like and what works for you.0
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There will be days when you want to quit...Don't! You believed in Santa for 8ish years, try believing in yourself for once and you will be surprised by what you can achieve! You got this!0
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I've "had a go" at this a few times now and I'm getting much better.
First thing - don't overload yourself. Build your changes up. Don't try to exercise and change your food all at once. Food is most important and makes the most difference, focus on that alone for a month.
Secondly - plan your meals the night before. Then stick to it! Make sure you're weighing food out. Planning the night before is great because you don't have to make food decisions - if you're tired, emotional, bored etc you're less likely to eat because if it's not on the days plan, you say no! Also it gives you chance to prevent going off track - if you turned down pizza but you really wanted it, plan it into tomorrow. If you know you have to eat out, you can plan a really light breakfast/dinner to compensate or work some calories off.
Thirdly - try not to restrict yourself too much. You don't have to follow a certain diet to perfection - you can swap as change. This time around I'm going to calorie count on normal weeks, but also use intermittent fasting when my social calendar makes counting too complicated. And if I want pizza, I'll have it but it might mean a small dinner or breakfast. I won't beat myself up about following the social norm of 3 meals a day etc. Every meal and every day counts!
Lastly - find some old photos of yourself when you were slim, and look at them often. It'll remind you that you were once small and it IS possible! Take the time to motivate yourself each day - read success stories, look at nice clothes, day dream, review all the new things you're doing. This makes a big difference.
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So it sounds like the reason you've been giving up is because of a binge. I think you should focus on two main goals: 1. preventing the binge from happening 2. if it does, forgive yourself and get back to it the next day.
So a few questions to consider:
What do you think is triggering the binge? Are you restricting too much when you try and diet? Are you cutting out certain foods completely, causing you to crave them and lose control once you DO have them? Are you an emotional eater? How else do you think you can fulfill these emotions WITHOUT food?
How do you think you can prevent the binge from happening? One idea: include foods you crave into your diet, even if they're unhealthy (in moderation and within your calorie range). Eat them daily if you want. The less you restrict certain foods, the less you'll crave them and you'll be able to eat them in smaller portions.
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And another area to think about which has been a revalation for me lately - People!
Watch the people you want to be like! Shamelessly copy them if you need to. I've been closer to three smaller women in my team lately and I've been amusing myself at work by watching them and lots of other slim women and how they eat. It's so funny when you take notice. None of them count calories. Do they eat big breakfasts? Sometimes, usually eggs on toast. Do they eat the cooked lunch option? No, actually. Rarely! The only hot food I've seen the slim women eating is soup or food they've brought in themselves and microwaved. A couple of times one lady has had a healthy hot lunch like the fish option, but she has then gone and bought herself soup from the shop for dinner. Do they eat the office treats? Yes, but they take one or two every other day and that's literally it. If they over indulge they either cut back for a few days or exercise. Equally I've been watching my husband who is slim. He's always leaving food on his plate, he just has sandwiches for lunch. He doesn't eat office treats or snack. I've been listening to them when they suggest I bring a salad, join them in the gym or save parts of my lunch for snacks etc because I must be full. They're right most of the time! They're the natural experts.
Equally, avoid the behaviours of those you don't want to be like. There's a few people at work and family members who are more my size, and who I used to spend a lot of time with, and they can be quite naughty and discouraging. "This cake won't hurt", "Your diet is ridiculous", "I couldn't be bothered exercising", "Do you REALLY have to plan your food" etc etc. Now I write this out, none of my smaller friends say or do these things. I do so much better when I surround myself with positive, like minded people who support my efforts. I can't tell you how many times my slim work colleagues have coo'd over my healthy meals and praised my efforts to bring salad in for lunch or not eat the chocolates left out, it's really lovely. I've not had that genuine encouragement from my family or usual partners in eating crime before!
So I think the people around you are important. Even if it's just to tell the saboteurs to try to be sensitive to your diet, that can have a big impact on your success.
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i also just started and im finding it really hard to stay within my nutri recommendations ?
i end up going over the fat, or sugar but 23 or so?
HELP PLEASE!
Any advice would be appreciated
xx0 -
leeanneg91 wrote: »i also just started and im finding it really hard to stay within my nutri recommendations ?
i end up going over the fat, or sugar but 23 or so?
HELP PLEASE!
Any advice would be appreciated
xx
Leeanne, I have never bothered to track my sugars, just always made sure to hit my protein minimum. Try my post I linked earlier: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10257474/starting-out-restarting-basics-inside#latest
It really does work. While starting out, follow the KISS rule while you get the basics down. And in case you don't know the KISS rule, it's easy: Keep It Simple, Stu...
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blankiefinder wrote: »leeanneg91 wrote: »i also just started and im finding it really hard to stay within my nutri recommendations ?
i end up going over the fat, or sugar but 23 or so?
HELP PLEASE!
Any advice would be appreciated
xx
Leeanne, I have never bothered to track my sugars, just always made sure to hit my protein minimum. Try my post I linked earlier: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10257474/starting-out-restarting-basics-inside#latest
It really does work. While starting out, follow the KISS rule while you get the basics down. And in case you don't know the KISS rule, it's easy: Keep It Simple, Stu...
THANK YOU! im new to MFP and i got a little overwhelmed trying to meet every one...... its god dam impossible!0 -
leeanneg91 wrote: »i also just started and im finding it really hard to stay within my nutri recommendations ?
i end up going over the fat, or sugar but 23 or so?
HELP PLEASE!
Any advice would be appreciated
xx
MFP's sugar stat comes from all sugars. Unless you have medical issues, there is no need to monitor sugar. You already monitor carbs. I try to reduce added sugars, but MFP doesn't track those separately.
I treat protein and fats as minimums. These are both important nutritionally. Some people eat a high fat diet (on purpose) and still lose weight.
You can change settings to track different things. I track fiber instead of sugar.0 -
leeanneg91 wrote: »blankiefinder wrote: »leeanneg91 wrote: »i also just started and im finding it really hard to stay within my nutri recommendations ?
i end up going over the fat, or sugar but 23 or so?
HELP PLEASE!
Any advice would be appreciated
xx
Leeanne, I have never bothered to track my sugars, just always made sure to hit my protein minimum. Try my post I linked earlier: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10257474/starting-out-restarting-basics-inside#latest
It really does work. While starting out, follow the KISS rule while you get the basics down. And in case you don't know the KISS rule, it's easy: Keep It Simple, Stu...
THANK YOU! im new to MFP and i got a little overwhelmed trying to meet every one...... its god dam impossible!
The forums will probably be a bit crazy for the next month or so while a whole lot of new people join with new year's goals, so it will probably get a bit confusing, but if you read in the forums enough you will come to know who you can trust. You can do this!0
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