Tips for staying on track with calories??

RockettheRunner

Hi everyone!
So....I've tried MULTIPLE diets, fads, etc...and none of them seem to ever work; even if they do, they never last for more than a week or so. Yes, it's sad.
I realize now that the entire "diet" track isn't for me. What I REALLY need to do is just cut down on calories.
Are there any tips you guys can give me for staying on track with my calories?? Here are my stats:
20 years old. 5'7. 156 pounds. Goal weight: 140 pounds.
I used a weight calculator to see the daily cal to get in shape in three months (or 140, I should say), and it recommends 1430 cal a day.

Any ideas?? Thanks again!!

crystalmorrison378

Use a smaller plate! It tricks ur mind into thinking u have a full plate of food when u actually have about half of what u would normally eat. I have a young child and I use his plates instead of a regular dinner plate.

ChasingChocolate

get a food scale and use it religiously! plan your meals and snacks out ahead of time as often as possible. the less guesswork there is the better off you'll be.

Hungry_Shopgirl

1) Weigh everything (solids, on a digital food scale; measure liquids accurately in cups or ml)
2) Log everything

That's pretty much it, especially at the beginning when you're just starting to come out of the "fad diet/eating half my bodyweight in food in one sitting" vicious cycle.

That said, after a couple months of doing that (to the tee! logging absolutely every bite and sip!) I found I started to get a much better idea of what good portions looked like and what my body actually needed.

I recently moved overseas for good and logging everything is just not realistic when you don't know what half of the ingredients are, so I log occasionally. But I've continued to lose weight (22 lb in the last 3 months, yay!) 'cause I got used to just eating smaller portions than before. I actually found that, having learned what a calorie deficit looks like from logging, not logging helps me cue into my body better. I used to pre-log my food and eat exactly what I had logged. Now I find I'm actually eating less than that because I'm paying attention to whether I'm full or not.

That being said, if I was not losing weight consistently, I would find a way to go back to logging everything.

So anyways, weigh and log. But if it gets tedious and difficult think: "I'm re-training my brain. I might not have to do this forever!"

JeromeBarry1

Just about all of us have tried a lot of different 'diets' with varying degrees of success. I suppose most of us were skeptical of success with this current effort. My profile says that 'this is the next effort'. What I have found with mfp is a wonderful tool with wonderful power at helping me learn how to do this, remember how and why to do this, measure progress, encourage comrades, receive encouragement, deal with setbacks. I've lost more than 40 lb since January. It's been rather easy to learn what not to eat, what to eat, how much to eat, and how easy it is. I enjoy this.