Am I doing it right?
Options
fitoverfortymom
Posts: 3,452 Member
First post ever, but not *too*new to MFP. Never really used it 'right' until now, or at least I think.
So far, I have...
... a digital food scale and have been weighing my food
...read this article to get my MFP calories set: http://fit101.org/the-step-by-step-guide-to-losing-weight-with-myfitnesspal/
...been toying with different food variations (not overly eliminating food groups...more on that in a minute) to "balance my checkbook" of calories each day
I feel like this is working for me, more than I thought it would. I guess I really bought into the hype about how hard counting calories is, so I've never really considered losing weight that way. In fact, other than a few spotty South Beach Diet attempts before vacations in the last 10 years, really I just have not dieted at all because I'm pretty lazy.
BTW, I'm 5'6" and 246 as of my last weigh in (was 256 two weeks ago, so obviously this is working so far)
What do I need? Insight on calories and macros. And cooking.
Calories. Based on my diary, am I eating enough? MFP put me at around 1280 calories for 2lbs for week loss. I'd like to stay at that 2lb target at least until I get closer to the 200lb mark and feel like I can exercise more At first I was having a hard time eating all the calories and staying within my macros because of fear/carb avoidance. The last few days I have planned some specific carbs into meals and that does seem to be getting me to the calories I need with balanced macros. Bonus: I'm carefully plotting a baked potato for lunch tomorrow and I had two HUGE tacos for dinner last night and was so danged happy about it.
Macros. I'm just using the default MFP gave me. I tend to be fat/protein heavy. I am trying to balance this out, so any advice there would be helpful. Getting over carb fear is key, yes?
Soups and Stews. I really love to cook in my crock pot. especially in the fall and winter. How do I measure/weigh something like a soup or stew when all the ingredients are blended together? For example 1 can pinto beans, 1 can chili beans, 2 cans stewed tomatoes, 2lbs ground beef, 2 red peppers...How do I figure out how to weigh that when it's all mixed together?
A note about my diary--I was following some kind of eating plan my sister has been using that was in a book from 1978. It just wasn't enough food, but obviously shed the 10lbs "water weight" which was a fun way to start off. After about 4 days, I had to do SOMETHING because I was starving and unhappy. When I finally started really reading what MFP had to offer, I started having more balanced meals.
I have to be able to eat a LOT of food. Quantity is a big deal to me. I love to eat and feeling full is important to me. I'm also actively dealing with the food feelings because I tend to ignore life's problems and just eat a lot of fast food and drink lots of lots of soda.
Other things about me... I really try to avoid salad as a meal because it just doesn't work for me and makes me unhappy. I don't like Greek Yogurt yet, but adding some PB and agave helped a bit, so I'm going to toy with a few brands of GY for a bit to see if I can find something truly palatable. If not, I'm not going to force myself to eat it because blech.
For now, fast food, candy, and soda are off the table because it's just too soon to not trust I can keep it between the lines with those things. I could eat drive thru food all day long (and have), so it's just not an option for me right now.
This is way more than I thought I would be sharing in my first post and sorry it rambles.
So far, I have...
... a digital food scale and have been weighing my food
...read this article to get my MFP calories set: http://fit101.org/the-step-by-step-guide-to-losing-weight-with-myfitnesspal/
...been toying with different food variations (not overly eliminating food groups...more on that in a minute) to "balance my checkbook" of calories each day
I feel like this is working for me, more than I thought it would. I guess I really bought into the hype about how hard counting calories is, so I've never really considered losing weight that way. In fact, other than a few spotty South Beach Diet attempts before vacations in the last 10 years, really I just have not dieted at all because I'm pretty lazy.
BTW, I'm 5'6" and 246 as of my last weigh in (was 256 two weeks ago, so obviously this is working so far)
What do I need? Insight on calories and macros. And cooking.
Calories. Based on my diary, am I eating enough? MFP put me at around 1280 calories for 2lbs for week loss. I'd like to stay at that 2lb target at least until I get closer to the 200lb mark and feel like I can exercise more At first I was having a hard time eating all the calories and staying within my macros because of fear/carb avoidance. The last few days I have planned some specific carbs into meals and that does seem to be getting me to the calories I need with balanced macros. Bonus: I'm carefully plotting a baked potato for lunch tomorrow and I had two HUGE tacos for dinner last night and was so danged happy about it.
Macros. I'm just using the default MFP gave me. I tend to be fat/protein heavy. I am trying to balance this out, so any advice there would be helpful. Getting over carb fear is key, yes?
Soups and Stews. I really love to cook in my crock pot. especially in the fall and winter. How do I measure/weigh something like a soup or stew when all the ingredients are blended together? For example 1 can pinto beans, 1 can chili beans, 2 cans stewed tomatoes, 2lbs ground beef, 2 red peppers...How do I figure out how to weigh that when it's all mixed together?
A note about my diary--I was following some kind of eating plan my sister has been using that was in a book from 1978. It just wasn't enough food, but obviously shed the 10lbs "water weight" which was a fun way to start off. After about 4 days, I had to do SOMETHING because I was starving and unhappy. When I finally started really reading what MFP had to offer, I started having more balanced meals.
I have to be able to eat a LOT of food. Quantity is a big deal to me. I love to eat and feeling full is important to me. I'm also actively dealing with the food feelings because I tend to ignore life's problems and just eat a lot of fast food and drink lots of lots of soda.
Other things about me... I really try to avoid salad as a meal because it just doesn't work for me and makes me unhappy. I don't like Greek Yogurt yet, but adding some PB and agave helped a bit, so I'm going to toy with a few brands of GY for a bit to see if I can find something truly palatable. If not, I'm not going to force myself to eat it because blech.
For now, fast food, candy, and soda are off the table because it's just too soon to not trust I can keep it between the lines with those things. I could eat drive thru food all day long (and have), so it's just not an option for me right now.
This is way more than I thought I would be sharing in my first post and sorry it rambles.
2
Replies
-
fitoverfortymom wrote: »
Soups and Stews. I really love to cook in my crock pot. especially in the fall and winter. How do I measure/weigh something like a soup or stew when all the ingredients are blended together? For example 1 can pinto beans, 1 can chili beans, 2 cans stewed tomatoes, 2lbs ground beef, 2 red peppers...How do I figure out how to weigh that when it's all mixed together?
Are you using the recipe builder? Log it all in the recipe builder. Then at the end you can weigh your final product to determine your servings (so at the beginning just do it as one serving and then change it after). You can either go the easy route and call each gram a serving so if you have 250 grams of soup you have 250 servings. Then if you eat 100 grams you ate 100 servings. OR you can determine a servings size - like 100 grams so your 250 grams of soup would be 2.5 servings. I like the gram a serving because it is easier and you don't have to do the math for partial/over servings.1 -
Ready2Rock206 wrote: »fitoverfortymom wrote: »
Soups and Stews. I really love to cook in my crock pot. especially in the fall and winter. How do I measure/weigh something like a soup or stew when all the ingredients are blended together? For example 1 can pinto beans, 1 can chili beans, 2 cans stewed tomatoes, 2lbs ground beef, 2 red peppers...How do I figure out how to weigh that when it's all mixed together?
Are you using the recipe builder? Log it all in the recipe builder. Then at the end you can weigh your final product to determine your servings (so at the beginning just do it as one serving and then change it after). You can either go the easy route and call each gram a serving so if you have 250 grams of soup you have 250 servings. Then if you eat 100 grams you ate 100 servings. OR you can determine a servings size - like 100 grams so your 250 grams of soup would be 2.5 servings. I like the gram a serving because it is easier and you don't have to do the math for partial/over servings.
I am also a gram-a-serving fan because math.
I knew about the recipe-import, but not creator. I will go a hunting. That will make life SO much easier.0 -
With macros, try to use the daily gram targets differently depending on which one it is:
Protein: minimum
Carb - maximum (and you are correct, carbs are not evil if you don't have specific medical conditions)
Fat - maximum
Sugar - maximum
Sodium - maximum
1280 per day is ambitiously low. If you find yourself satisfied at that level, then go ahead & keep it up. If you struggle, maybe set your target to only losing 1-1.5# per week and eat the extra 100 or so calories a day. And don't stress too much if you are slightly under or over your targets in any given day. After a couple of weeks, go to the REPORTS section & take a look at your trend over the past 7/30/90 days to see how you are doing overall, & make adjustments if you see you are consistently missing something one way or the other. Good luck!0 -
Your calories seem low. If you're doing OK on 1280 that's fine, but if you start finding yourself overly hungry, it might be time to change to 1 lb a week to up your calories some.
Default macros are fine. I personally just try to hit my protein. Usually, when I do that, the other two fall in place pretty closely.
Plain Greek yogurt - I eat it pretty much every morning, mixed with Quest Salted Caramel protein powder and frozen berries (thawed). So yummy!
AND - Congrats on your success so far!!!0 -
I avoided potatoes for months because I didn't want to have a whole Russet-sized potato in a meal. Lately I've been using non-Russet potatoes from a fingerling assortment that I found at Wal-Mart. I've also seen fingerling assortment bags of potatoes at Whole Foods. Now I use 2 or 3 of these little fellas to get my 50g portion and, bonus, get all the micronutrients in the skin as well.0
-
With macros, try to use the daily gram targets differently depending on which one it is:
Protein: minimum
Carb - maximum (and you are correct, carbs are not evil if you don't have specific medical conditions)
Fat - maximum
Sugar - maximum
Sodium - maximum
1280 per day is ambitiously low. If you find yourself satisfied at that level, then go ahead & keep it up. If you struggle, maybe set your target to only losing 1-1.5# per week and eat the extra 100 or so calories a day. And don't stress too much if you are slightly under or over your targets in any given day. After a couple of weeks, go to the REPORTS section & take a look at your trend over the past 7/30/90 days to see how you are doing overall, & make adjustments if you see you are consistently missing something one way or the other. Good luck!
I get really wound up in the perfectionism so I forget that while I'm in a healthy deficit +/- is all about progress, not perfection. (That's really, really hard for me, BTW).
1280 is SUPER not satisfying. I'm gradually increasing over into the 1300s to see what feels right? Is it against the rules to manually change my calories for the day if I decide I need/want more? I need rules and boundaries...0 -
quiksylver296 wrote: »Your calories seem low. If you're doing OK on 1280 that's fine, but if you start finding yourself overly hungry, it might be time to change to 1 lb a week to up your calories some.
Default macros are fine. I personally just try to hit my protein. Usually, when I do that, the other two fall in place pretty closely.
Plain Greek yogurt - I eat it pretty much every morning, mixed with Quest Salted Caramel protein powder and frozen berries (thawed). So yummy!
AND - Congrats on your success so far!!!
So it's better to adjust the lbs per week than manually change calorie amounts? Math is so hard..
And THANK YOU. I am so jealous of your muscles. Getting super strong arms is something really motivating me right now.0 -
JeromeBarry1 wrote: »I avoided potatoes for months because I didn't want to have a whole Russet-sized potato in a meal. Lately I've been using non-Russet potatoes from a fingerling assortment that I found at Wal-Mart. I've also seen fingerling assortment bags of potatoes at Whole Foods. Now I use 2 or 3 of these little fellas to get my 50g portion and, bonus, get all the micronutrients in the skin as well.
My potato strategy is 1/2 a Russet weighed/cut down the amt of calories that fit and then stuffing it with broccoli and pepper jack laughing cow cheese. One of my favorite things is to put food inside of other food, and thankfully I like almost all vegetables, raw or cooked.
I do like the fingerlings (especially as a dinner option when I'm cooking for hubby and myself).
I love potatoes in general and as long as I'm not deep frying bags of hash browns, I feel good about keeping them as a regular.0 -
Yes, I would tweak your target weight loss and let MFP's algorithms do the math for you before manually tweaking the calories. I would also give it at least a month to see if the new numbers feel sustainable for you. The reason I think the 1280 is so unsatisfying: I am 5'4", currently at 177.0 (lost 29# since January) with a goal to lose 1# per week. I am mostly sedentary at my job, although I try to get some sort of physical activity in most days. My target calories for the day, without exercise, is 1340. I will occasionally end the day with 1280, but most days I am over 1300 because otherwise I am hungry. Since you are at a higher weight and height than I am, I can only imagine that you would feel more satisfied with a higher daily calorie target, but one that still keeps you in the deficit.
I also think that if you are a perfectionist, you might be setting yourself up what feels like failure if the daily # is too low to be sustainable. If the perfectionist in you means you will beat yourself up if you end the day at 1300 instead of 1280, why not give yourself a little wiggle room?
PS: Also remember that MFP doesn't automatically reduce your daily target. After you've lost some weight, it's a good idea to go back into your settings every so often & recalculate. At one point my weight loss plateaued for 2-3 weeks before I realized I was at the same targets at 188# that I'd been at when I started at #208.0.0 -
I also think that if you are a perfectionist, you might be setting yourself up what feels like failure if the daily # is too low to be sustainable. If the perfectionist in you means you will beat yourself up if you end the day at 1300 instead of 1280, why not give yourself a little wiggle room?
Mostly I just want to see "green" in my overall calorie number at the end of the day to feel like I "did it right." I think adjusting the lbs per week is probably the best idea. My TEE number was 2280, which I feel like gives me a LOT of room to maintain a solid deficit and see some good losses.
Thank you kindly for the insight.0 -
The only thing I see wrong here are the statements that salad and not feeling extremely full make you "unhappy". If you are truly feeling legitimate sadness over what does or does not go into your mouth, you may have bigger problems than just wanting to lose some weight.
Keep in mind that food has no bearing on your happiness. None, ever. You will have just as much fun at a party without some of those cookies over there, as the cookies will not increase your core happiness. Same with choosing to eat a salad as a meal, that cannot detract from your life's satisfaction. (Of course if you simply don't LIKE salad, don't force it.) But the breakthrough that my joy does not hinge upon my food intake was a huge eye-opener for me. I hope it helps you, too.2 -
fitoverfortymom wrote: »
I also think that if you are a perfectionist, you might be setting yourself up what feels like failure if the daily # is too low to be sustainable. If the perfectionist in you means you will beat yourself up if you end the day at 1300 instead of 1280, why not give yourself a little wiggle room?
Mostly I just want to see "green" in my overall calorie number at the end of the day to feel like I "did it right." I think adjusting the lbs per week is probably the best idea. My TEE number was 2280, which I feel like gives me a LOT of room to maintain a solid deficit and see some good losses.
Thank you kindly for the insight.
Keep in mind that calorie counting contains an uncertain level of estimation. There's no way to be absolutely certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the food you are eating contains exactly X amount of calories and that the exercise you did burned Y amount of calories. Food manufacturers round and estimate the calories on their labels. Food grown in one place might have more sugar, and thus more calories, than grown in another place. Heart rate monitors really only give an estimation. At the end of the day, if you're within 50 calories, either way, of your goal, you should consider it good. It isn't better to be under than over, you just want to be close every day.
You'll need to keep adjusting the calorie goal as you lose weight. I think it's already been mentioned but as you lose weight the calories you burn each day to simply live and move your mass around decreases. You'll reach a point, and it looks like soon, where 2 pounds per week simply isn't attainable any more. And then 1.5 pounds per week isn't, either. And so on. By the time you hit a healthy weight you're lucky to be able to lose .5 pound per week and sometimes water retention will disguise that and the scale will go up that week then back down the next.
My point is, if you get too wrapped up in the numbers and hitting things perfectly you're going to make things a lot harder on yourself than they need to be and there are enough things that make it difficult about this process without adding unrealistic expectations to them.1 -
AllOutof_Bubblegum wrote: »The only thing I see wrong here are the statements that salad and not feeling extremely full make you "unhappy". If you are truly feeling legitimate sadness over what does or does not go into your mouth, you may have bigger problems than just wanting to lose some weight.
Keep in mind that food has no bearing on your happiness. None, ever. You will have just as much fun at a party without some of those cookies over there, as the cookies will not increase your core happiness. Same with choosing to eat a salad as a meal, that cannot detract from your life's satisfaction. (Of course if you simply don't LIKE salad, don't force it.) But the breakthrough that my joy does not hinge upon my food intake was a huge eye-opener for me. I hope it helps you, too.
Thus, why I also said working food-and-feelings issues. I didn't get to be 250 lbs by not eating some feelings along the way. And by salad making me unhappy, it's really more that it is not a satisfying thing for me to eat. I do not like salad, and when I feel I have to eat salad to lose weight, THAT makes me unhappy. I am very aware that food has no bearing on happiness, but food does feel good to eat.2 -
My point is, if you get too wrapped up in the numbers and hitting things perfectly you're going to make things a lot harder on yourself than they need to be and there are enough things that make it difficult about this process without adding unrealistic expectations to them.
This is what I will have to spend 90% of my time working on.
1
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 391.5K Introduce Yourself
- 43.5K Getting Started
- 259.7K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.6K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 391 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.7K Motivation and Support
- 7.8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.2K MyFitnessPal Information
- 22 News and Announcements
- 923 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.3K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions