I am having No Success at all. Very frustrated & disappointed

dani741

I have been using FP with no success. It's so frustrating & disheartening. I work full-time, need to make quick choices & not always time to pre-pare however I read this happens & people have great success. Is it really this impossible? I need to lose 20 lbs. I want to wear s Sun Dress this Summer. I'm jut lost...

hopeandtheabsurd

It's hard to guess what might be going on without more information. Do you have MFP set to lose 1 pound per week? Are you weighing your foods? How are you handling exercise calories?

jemhh

I don't know what you're asking. Are you asking if a busy person can lose weight?

20likenow

Most of us work full time and find time to prepare healthy meals. Quick options can be cheese, almonds, yogurt...

kristen6350

You have to make time. We are ALL busy, but to succeed there has to be a effort made in changing habits.

Ninkyou

I am often on the go and have to resort to fast food and such. The difference is choosing items that fit into your calorie goal rather than going for things like value meals or large sizes. For example, if I go to McDonald's I get a mcdouble and a fruit & yogurt parfait. Comes out to like 580 calories and I'm satisfied. If I had chosen say a Big Mac meal I would have been at around 1000 calories or more. It's about choices and following your calorie goal while working within your schedule and/or limitations.

elisa123gal

I'm busy now too.. What I'm doing is buying smart ones ..all at or under 300 calories.. I pack that for lunch and take salad and raw vegetables…and an apple. y ou can do that. that way you can easily track and don't have to prepare meals. It isn' t ideal..but it gets you in the game. You have to take control.

puddintot

I found that with just watching calories I want losing as much. Once I started moving, first upped my steps, next exercise bike, and now exercise videos (not all at once lol) I stated losing much quicker.

UG77

Action expresses priority.

Instead of coming home from work and playing computer games I now come home and wash my gym clothes, do the dishes and prep my food. Instead of staying up late watching television I go to bed so that I can get up at 4am to hit the gym before work.

It's up to you to decide how important losing 20lbs is to you.

MeganDominique

Honestly, set two hours aside on a sunday and kick some meal prep butt. I very recently completed my uni degree, but I was a full time student in 6 classes working fulltime and juggling life but still managed to say bye to 20 lbs. In college, I packed on all my weight, I gained close to 50LBS! all because I was "to busy, to tired , whatever" and didn't move/ made poor decisions.
Some ideas for the on the go person:
breakfast- overnight oats ( you can make a weeks worth), egg frittata/scrambled egg cupcakes with toppings of your choice (freeze/dethaw in micro), pre made breaky sandwiches like McDonalds but way less calories, prepare and freeze
lunch- cook a ton of chicken sunday for the whole week. you can even do it in a crockpot, slice and dice veggies for snacks same with fruit. make mason jar salads or make a carb and eat it with your chicken
greek yougurt and nuts are always a must snack
dinner the same.

you can do this and will succeed. try fitness blender on youtube for fast at home workouts

blues4miles

I'm pretty bad at prepping. Still eat fast food a LOT (though less than I used to). It's about logging your food and sticking to the calories MFP gives you. I can overeat on fast food and I can overeat on 'clean' eating too. It's about calories in < calories out.

MeganDominique

blues4miles wrote: »

I'm pretty bad at prepping. Still eat fast food a LOT (though less than I used to). It's about logging your food and sticking to the calories MFP gives you. I can overeat on fast food and I can overeat on 'clean' eating too. It's about calories in < calories out.

this, calories theoretically are created equally. whether or not those calories are the right type for you is debatable.

fabulousmo

i work full time and the work doesn't stop when i get home, either. i am 44 years old, 5 foot 5 inches, and weigh 156 because i partied it up this winter in Canada and even though i average 3 days a week at the gym for basically light cardio and weight circuit, i gained everything i lost last year with the help of MFP - the holidays plus crap weather for dog walking (oh yes, the dog got fat, too), plus wine. wine and beer and cider.

so, i'm back. i've set myself the goal of 145 lbs with a 2 lb loss per week. this is aggressive. it brings my intake down to 1200 a day. I CANNOT LOSE WEIGHT UNLESS I AM HELD ACCOUNTABLE BY SOMEONE OR SOME THING. in my case, that "some thing" is MFP. do i want to eat discount valentines day candy and wash it down with a big glass of Cabernet Sauvignon? yes. do i want to type that into my MFP food diary? no. so i just don't go there.

here's what i have eaten today, so far (it's dinner time here - yes, i eat early, because i get up at 5 am everyday - so i want my last meal to be early in relation to that):

breakfast: 1/2 cup egg white omlette, 2 tsp olive oil in pan, crumble 2 tbsp of light feta and toss on 2 tbsp of salsa. eat with one slice of home made rye bread. couple cups of coffee with splash of unsweetened almond milk
snack: 1 small apple
lunch: 1 can of chunk light tuna, splash of lemon juice, salt, pepper, and one small avocado. 1/2 cucumber
walked off 164 calories on my one hour lunch break
snack: 1 pillars turkey pepperoni and 1 slice low fat provolone
dinner: 1 cup bean thread noodles with 1 cup of assorted stir fried things (mostly veg - about 1 ounce chicken breast), 2 tbsp stir fry sauce

throughout the day: water and green tea

i still have over 400 of that 1200 calories left to snack away on before i go to bed at 9 pm

MFP sets the goals for me, allows me to track toward goals, and holds me accountable. this time, i'm not going to go "ok, i've lost 10 pounds - i can just wing it. i know what's in a serving of whatever. i don't have to track my calories". WRONG. my metabolism is waning, because i'm in my 40s and going through perimenopause - oh, and i have hashimoto's thyroiditis, too - but i don't blame my thyroid for anything, because i take medication for it. i have to use this tool to monitor what goes in my gob, otherwise one day i wake up and my pants don't fit.

so like all these other busy people are saying: set a goal, try hard to stay within the confines of the target calorie range, worry about it if you are not losing weight after religiously sticking with the calorie counts for the day. if you are not losing weight when you are eating the amount of calories recommended by the program, there is something wrong and maybe you should talk to someone about it.

and no fast food! pack your lunch the night before if you have to. no excuses!

kimny72

UG77 wrote: »

Action expresses priority.

Instead of coming home from work and playing computer games I now come home and wash my gym clothes, do the dishes and prep my food. Instead of staying up late watching television I go to bed so that I can get up at 4am to hit the gym before work.

It's up to you to decide how important losing 20lbs is to you.

This. No one has enough time for everything. Whether it's conscious or subconscious, we make time for the things that are important to us.

I eat fast food a few times a week, I eat at my parents a couple times a week (so no food scale), I work full time (45 hrs a week), I'm taking a night class, I'm addicted to reading with a stack of books I still have to read. I workout for 30-45 minutes 4 or 5 times a week. I spend @ an hour Sunday night prepping food for the week. How do I do this? I schedule all the things that are important to me ahead of time. I log everything I eat, every day for accountability. I find the prepping and then pre-logging my breakfasts, lunches, and snacks really helped me. I got a Fitbit to constantly remind me to get up and move. I decided at this point in my life there were no more excuses, and I did it.

MFP only works if you make it work! Best of luck :drinker:

seska422

elisa123gal wrote: »

I'm busy now too.. What I'm doing is buying smart ones ..all at or under 300 calories.. I pack that for lunch and take salad and raw vegetables…and an apple. y ou can do that. that way you can easily track and don't have to prepare meals. It isn' t ideal..but it gets you in the game. You have to take control.

This.

Fill your freezer with frozen meals (I prefer Lean Cuisine) and bags of frozen veggies. If you don't want to prepare things yourself, buy things that other people or companies have prepared for you. That gets you convenience and portion control.

fabulousmo

I would like to apologize to the OP and everyone regards my previous post, which sounds super preachy. Please know that I did not intend to sound that way. Also, I was wrong when I said "no fast food"! You can find good choices now. I still equate fast food with 1,000 calorie fried garbage, but you can find many better options these days, as you know!

SuperheroSadie

I work 40 hour weeks (12:30-9pm M-F), which leaves 2 meals I have to find at work, while most people only need to find one. I work on a college campus so there's their cafeteria filled with pizza/fries/chicken fingers, and literally like 20 starbucks 'cafes' on the campus as well. You know how I do it? Pre-made foods. Do I have the time or energy (or fridge space) to meal prep? Hell no. Can I manage to bring in 5 soup cans for a week of lunches and 5 pre-made freezer meals for a week of dinners on Monday morning? Hell yes. Pair that with one Nature Valley protein bar in between the two in case I get the hungries (and maybe a black coffee or americano) and I'm easily under 1200 calories a day.

Bring everything you'll need and make it fit. Adjust as you see necessary. But I gotta say... Progresso makes great 'lite' (200 calories or less per can!) soups.