Some advice needed.

gottagetitoff11

Im in need of some advice.
My current weight as of this morning us 400.2 pounds i have gotten this way on take out, loads of meat, tons of junk food especialy chips and diet pepsi.

I lost weight before eating 5 small meals lost 50 pounds got hurt and gained 80 back. For some reason i cant get going again i think it has to do with me overthinking foods that i should eat as to foods i like to eat.

An example:
I eat oatmeal, cinnamon, yogurt and berries for breakfast.
I want to have a whole wheat englush muffin, egg or egg whites, 1 bacon or sausage patty, maybe some cheese, chipotle sause and fruit on the side.

The reason i dont is i have it in my mind that i should not have eggs/meat at every meal and i read the dash diet for high blood presure and your allowed 6 ounces of meat/eggs daily do if egg for breakfast one later meal would need none.

I have many friends on here that eat eggs and or meat at every meal and lost tons of weight.

I think maybe i think if i do that i might get carried away and add more greasier foods or meat and not lose.

Im just looking for advice on well basically how to get started and please no smart replies. Im new to this and need to lose the weight so i do not get major health issues at a young age.

Thanks for any and all help and would love to add some friends who eat egg or meat every meal and have lost weight so i know it can be done.

gillie80

Hi there. the one thing i would say is to start to log everything. don't change what you're eating just yet. log what you eat and drink for a few weeks. if possible weigh as much as you can for accuracy; i've got a food scale at home which i couldn't live without. that will give you an idea how much you eat. then pump into MFP your stats, how much you'd like to lose and how much exercise you do and it'll give you a daily amount of calories. I eat what i like until i've got no calories left, then i stop. as in i dont deny myself anything. if it fits into my calories for the day, i'll have it. for my it's about CICO (calories in v calories out) and exercise. i started c210k 8 weeks ago and it's really helped.

hope that's useful. good luck. you know you can do this, youve done it before. we're all here to support each other, we're on the same journey.

mazdauk

Log everything - every chocolate someone offers you from a box, every little scrap of cheese to "tidy" the block when you've cut it crooked, or cut a bit much for the recipe, every potato left in the pan... And weigh everything too - especially cereal, pasta, rice etc. which can be hard to judge. Use a food scale - not expensive - NEVER use cup measurements. Eggs USED to be blamed for high cholesterol, it has now been found they actually have "good" cholesterol so its OK to eat them. I wouldn't pick a diet "for high blood pressure" unless a) you have high blood pressure (which I guess you do, as you've picked it) and b) your Dr advises a specific dietary regime (again, at 400+lb I would hope your Dr HAS made some suggestions). As Gillie says, start by just logging everything so you can see what you are eating, then get MFP to estimate your calories per day to lose 2lb a week MAX. Add in some exercise - gentle walking is fine to start - but maybe don't eat your exercise calories back for the first month (yes, I always eat mine, but I'm not in the same place. I didn't at first!)

You can do this, but it won't happen overnight. Set realistic goals and stay on track and you should be fine.

kommodevaran

ARE you on the dash diet? If not, and even if you were, noone can or should tell you what to eat and not to eat. If you are going to get to goal and stay there, you have to learn to make your own food decisions. You can have as much fat as you like as long as you don't exceed your calorie limit. The dash diet isn't even a weight loss diet, it's a diet aimed at lowering blood pressure, as you already know. You have to eat according to your needs, and at 400 pounds you can eat twice as much as I do of everything and still lose weight.

I don't know if this was a smart reply or not, but it's fact. I have meat/fish as a part of most dinners, and often a small amount for breakfast and/or lunch as well. I've lost 50 pounds and I am maintaining effortlessly.

WindSparrow

I am not sure that there is one simple easy answer for this issue for you. There is nothing particularly wrong with the oatmeal breakfast you mention, just as there is nothing wrong with the eggs and sausage breakfast. One thing I do note is that the two meals you mention are kind of at extremes. One has only whatever protein is in the yogurt, the other has four or five or even more ounces of protein. What if you instead of having either a little or a lot, you had a medium amount? Maybe try that whole grain English muffin with two eggs scrambled with diced onions and bell peppers plus salsa, and some fruit? You say that DASH allows for six ounces total of meat/eggs per day. That does not sound like much. In fact it is less protein than the dietician specified for someone I work with who is on a very strict 1200 calorie diet (I am a caregiver). That person gets 9 ounces of lean protein each day, plus two servings of dairy.

Some people find they need a balance of more protein and fat to feel satisfied and full and therefore eat fewer calories overall throughout the day. You may have to experiment a little to find the balance that will work for you. Try not to be discouraged if it takes some time to do that. And also bear in mind that you may have different needs in different days - for instance I end up needing more protein when I switch up the exercise that I'm doing, and also when I am getting over being sick. But if you do decide to stick with the DASH plan and have only six ounces of protein per day, you may wish to give some thought to spreading it out a bit, say two ounces at each main meal, so that you have a steady supply throughout the day.

I'm not quite sure if this really gets to the meat of the matter for you. It's ok to struggle with figuring out what works for you. Try to not expect perfection from yourself - sometimes learning what does not work is how you learn what does work.

briscogun

I eat oatmeal (honey and blueberries added) and 2 eggs every morning, along with a cup of coffee. If you want bacon, eat bacon (I think 2 slices of most brands equals like 80 calories?). I had bacon on my burger last night! Mmm...

It's not so much about what you eat, just how many calories you eat. You could lose weight eating Twinkies if you kept your calories in below your calories out (CICO). You'd feel like crap but you would lose weight.

@gillie80 and @mazdauk said it best; LOG EVERYTHING! If it goes in your mouth, you measure/weigh it first THEN you ingest it. Period. Otherwise this is all just a waste of your time. If you do not accurately log you are just fooling yourself and everyone around you.

I try to have some protein with every meal, whether that be eggs, lean meats (chicken, turkey, beef, tuna, etc), greek yogurt, whatever. Meat is not your enemy. Just account for it in your goals.

If you need additional help, maybe seek out a nutritionist? Remember, we're just a bunch of goofballs on the internet. I wouldn't make too many important decisions about my health based on what a handful of random yahoos in cyberspace type.

Good luck! Just take it one day at a time, one meal at a time, even one hour or minute at a time. Do this for you and no one else. Time to be a little selfish about yourself and your heath, and that's okay. You're worth it!

gillie80

Brian_Gunther: who are you calling an internet yahoo?!?! oh wait, me lol.

3dogsrunning

gottagetitoff11 wrote: »

Im in need of some advice.
My current weight as of this morning us 400.2 pounds i have gotten this way on take out, loads of meat, tons of junk food especialy chips and diet pepsi.

I lost weight before eating 5 small meals lost 50 pounds got hurt and gained 80 back. For some reason i cant get going again i think it has to do with me overthinking foods that i should eat as to foods i like to eat.

An example:
I eat oatmeal, cinnamon, yogurt and berries for breakfast.
I want to have a whole wheat englush muffin, egg or egg whites, 1 bacon or sausage patty, maybe some cheese, chipotle sause and fruit on the side.

The reason i dont is i have it in my mind that i should not have eggs/meat at every meal and i read the dash diet for high blood presure and your allowed 6 ounces of meat/eggs daily do if egg for breakfast one later meal would need none.

I have many friends on here that eat eggs and or meat at every meal and lost tons of weight.

I think maybe i think if i do that i might get carried away and add more greasier foods or meat and not lose.

Im just looking for advice on well basically how to get started and please no smart replies. Im new to this and need to lose the weight so i do not get major health issues at a young age.

Thanks for any and all help and would love to add some friends who eat egg or meat every meal and have lost weight so i know it can be done.

There is a whole world of difference between eating take out, tons of junk food and oatmeal and egg whites. Your description seems to be two extremes.
At 400lbs, you should be able to eat at a pretty high calorie goal and still lose weight. You don't need to go straight to very low calorie foods.

My suggestions would be to start logging all your food. Then start making changes. Cut back on you junk food, cut back on take out meals, then start adding in things like veggies, fruit, leaner cuts of meat. You don't have to do it all at once. Nor do you have to cut out all "bad" food. But if you are eating three or four portions of junk food, cut it back to one or two.

Get out of the mindset of "dieting" as in cutting calories as quickly and as low as you can and start thinking of it as eating well. Set yourself up to lose weight on a diet that you are going to transfer over to maintenance -ie one you can sustain long term.

briscogun

gillie80 wrote: »

Brian_Gunther: who are you calling an internet yahoo?!?! oh wait, me lol.

Well, if the goofball hat fits...

gillie80

haha. totally.

SueInAz

At this point, the most important thing you can do for your health is to lose some of that extra weight you're carrying. It's more important than eating a DASH diet or any other type of food. Simply losing weight will help your blood pressure so focus on that for now unless you're working on specific medical advice to follow it. Don't get caught up in the things that really don't matter which will obscure the more important goal.

Eat what you like, just stay within your calorie goal. If you do need to watch your sodium for your blood pressure, then be sure to choose low sodium items, otherwise don't worry about it. I really like the suggestion to eat what you like and simply log what you're eating for a bit. Don't even worry about calories, just log it all and see how everything shakes out if you're just eating what you like. Once the week is up, take a good look at your diary for the past week and see if you need to eat fewer calories to meet the 2 pound per week calorie goal MFP gave you. If you don't, awesome! Keep eating that way. If you do, look at the heavy hitting calorie items and see if there are some substitutions you can make to bring your calories down.

Over time, keep tweaking your diet. Make healthier choices when you can. Keep updating your weight in your MFP profile because as you lose weight you'll burn less calories daily so you'll need to eat fewer calories, too.

Oh, and Diet Pepsi? Nothing wrong with it. In fact, since it has no calories it's better than a lot of other drink choices when it comes to weight loss.