90 minute Q&A - All fitness and weight loss related please

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Replies

  • karabasik
    karabasik Posts: 62 Member
    Bump
  • syedsaad
    syedsaad Posts: 156 Member
    bump for later
  • I may be late but I started reading through everyone's posts and I have to admit, I started over two ago and I have yo-yo'd a bit and I know it's my eating habits. I started at 150-something over two years ago and I am now at 135. I am 4'11'' and I, unfortunately, have 33% body fat. I began going to the gym four times a week since the beginning of April and/or doing P90x workouts at home when I am unable to get to the gym. I have tried counting my calories but when you look at my overall graph (weekly, monthly, whatever) I tend to be erratic.

    My question is this, I would like to get to a healthy BMI, but considering I'm a latin girl who would like to put on muscle I don't think that would be the best way to set my goal. I was thinking it would be better through body fat percentage, right? Also, is there ANYWHERE i can find example menus of simple things to make to stay under 1200 a day so I can follow a better diet? I hate the idea of "dieting" but I really need to tweak my caloric intake. Simply staying under 1200 before helped me lose the weight I needed to get to 135 but I wasn't following a diet - just keeping my mouth shut when I didn't want to go over. Now I have a harder time saying no when I get hungry. (Hence the reason I turned to focusing on the gym). I just need some guidance. I really want to focus on lifelong health rather than just "getting skinny."
  • stroutman81
    stroutman81 Posts: 2,474 Member
    I may be late but I started reading through everyone's posts and I have to admit, I started over two ago and I have yo-yo'd a bit and I know it's my eating habits. I started at 150-something over two years ago and I am now at 135. I am 4'11'' and I, unfortunately, have 33% body fat. I began going to the gym four times a week since the beginning of April and/or doing P90x workouts at home when I am unable to get to the gym. I have tried counting my calories but when you look at my overall graph (weekly, monthly, whatever) I tend to be erratic.

    My question is this, I would like to get to a healthy BMI, but considering I'm a latin girl who would like to put on muscle I don't think that would be the best way to set my goal. I was thinking it would be better through body fat percentage, right? Also, is there ANYWHERE i can find example menus of simple things to make to stay under 1200 a day so I can follow a better diet? I hate the idea of "dieting" but I really need to tweak my caloric intake. Simply staying under 1200 before helped me lose the weight I needed to get to 135 but I wasn't following a diet - just keeping my mouth shut when I didn't want to go over. Now I have a harder time saying no when I get hungry. (Hence the reason I turned to focusing on the gym). I just need some guidance. I really want to focus on lifelong health rather than just "getting skinny."

    It sounds to me as if you have an issue of excluding the middle. Put differently, you tend to focus on the extremes of the spectrum rather than the middle. The problem is, the middle tends to be where people find their sweet spots. By that I mean, they find methods of eating and exercising that jive with their lives. They find sustainability and if they're persistent enough, they learn to love a lifestyle that garners health and a good body.

    Extremes work in the sense that they'll get the ball rolling initially. They'll lead to weight loss and such. Often times though, after some time has passed, they either leave you stranded in the middle of nowhere feeling desperate and directionless or they leave you rebounding back to where you were before... or worse.

    I'm not knocking the approach you've taken to get here... not at all. I commend you actually. You've lost some weight and you're working towards figuring stuff out. Just realize that you're in the midst of a process of experimentation. It's really the only way to go about it if you're truly going to custom tailor an approach to YOU.

    Why do I say you exclude the middle.

    1. You yo-yo diet, which is a telltale sign.

    2. It's either eating really low calories or it's exercising by the sound of it... not more subtle combinations of both.

    The latter one is where you need to focus. If your goal is more fat loss, which sounds like is the right focus, stick with something like 1300 calories. Don't deprive yourself. Don't think of it as a diet. In fact, if you want to be as loose as possible while still doing likely enough to generate positive physique changes... eat 130 grams of protein, 3-4 servings of fibrous veggies, and a piece or two of fruit per day. Maybe throw in some healthy fats like fish oils, nuts, avocados or whatever. Let that stand as your baseline target each day. Beyond that, do you. Eat whatever the heck you want. Is that a perfect approach? Nope. Perfectionism is the root of failure though.

    Forget about BMR and don't sweat your body fat percentage. Dial in your diet as I suggested and focus on being consistent. If, after a few weeks things aren't heading in the right direction, you adjust. Maybe knock your calories down by 10% or so. Maybe you add in some conditioning work.

    I'd keep resistance training in the mix for sure, as that's one of the only arrows we have in our quivers for helping preserve muscle while losing weight. Do you need 4 days per week? Absolutely not. A handful of full body sessions per week would cut it... maybe just two.

    Welcome to the middle.
  • Will_Thrust_For_Candy
    Will_Thrust_For_Candy Posts: 6,109 Member
    I may be late but I started reading through everyone's posts and I have to admit, I started over two ago and I have yo-yo'd a bit and I know it's my eating habits. I started at 150-something over two years ago and I am now at 135. I am 4'11'' and I, unfortunately, have 33% body fat. I began going to the gym four times a week since the beginning of April and/or doing P90x workouts at home when I am unable to get to the gym. I have tried counting my calories but when you look at my overall graph (weekly, monthly, whatever) I tend to be erratic.

    My question is this, I would like to get to a healthy BMI, but considering I'm a latin girl who would like to put on muscle I don't think that would be the best way to set my goal. I was thinking it would be better through body fat percentage, right? Also, is there ANYWHERE i can find example menus of simple things to make to stay under 1200 a day so I can follow a better diet? I hate the idea of "dieting" but I really need to tweak my caloric intake. Simply staying under 1200 before helped me lose the weight I needed to get to 135 but I wasn't following a diet - just keeping my mouth shut when I didn't want to go over. Now I have a harder time saying no when I get hungry. (Hence the reason I turned to focusing on the gym). I just need some guidance. I really want to focus on lifelong health rather than just "getting skinny."

    It sounds to me as if you have an issue of excluding the middle. Put differently, you tend to focus on the extremes of the spectrum rather than the middle. The problem is, the middle tends to be where people find their sweet spots. By that I mean, they find methods of eating and exercising that jive with their lives. They find sustainability and if they're persistent enough, they learn to love a lifestyle that garners health and a good body.

    Extremes work in the sense that they'll get the ball rolling initially. They'll lead to weight loss and such. Often times though, after some time has passed, they either leave you stranded in the middle of nowhere feeling desperate and directionless or they leave you rebounding back to where you were before... or worse.

    I'm not knocking the approach you've taken to get here... not at all. I commend you actually. You've lost some weight and you're working towards figuring stuff out. Just realize that you're in the midst of a process of experimentation. It's really the only way to go about it if you're truly going to custom tailor an approach to YOU.

    Why do I say you exclude the middle.

    1. You yo-yo diet, which is a telltale sign.

    2. It's either eating really low calories or it's exercising by the sound of it... not more subtle combinations of both.

    The latter one is where you need to focus. If your goal is more fat loss, which sounds like is the right focus, stick with something like 1300 calories. Don't deprive yourself. Don't think of it as a diet. In fact, if you want to be as loose as possible while still doing likely enough to generate positive physique changes... eat 130 grams of protein, 3-4 servings of fibrous veggies, and a piece or two of fruit per day. Maybe throw in some healthy fats like fish oils, nuts, avocados or whatever. Let that stand as your baseline target each day. Beyond that, do you. Eat whatever the heck you want. Is that a perfect approach? Nope. Perfectionism is the root of failure though.

    Forget about BMR and don't sweat your body fat percentage. Dial in your diet as I suggested and focus on being consistent. If, after a few weeks things aren't heading in the right direction, you adjust. Maybe knock your calories down by 10% or so. Maybe you add in some conditioning work.

    I'd keep resistance training in the mix for sure, as that's one of the only arrows we have in our quivers for helping preserve muscle while losing weight. Do you need 4 days per week? Absolutely not. A handful of full body sessions per week would cut it... maybe just two.

    Welcome to the middle.

    Quite possibly the best thing I have ever read on this site. Thank you!
  • T0FatToB3S1ck
    T0FatToB3S1ck Posts: 192 Member
    Saving for later.
  • becajb
    becajb Posts: 50
    Is there any way to tone bat wing arms after weight loss besides surgery?

    thanks for this question, i want the answer too :happy:
  • bspikes86
    bspikes86 Posts: 61 Member
    i know it's way past the deadline, but maybe when you get some free time.... i heard that if you eat too much protein your body stores it as fat. is this true? i have 150 more pounds to lose. how much protein should i be shooting for? i usually try to get in 100g per day. is that too much? thank you
  • scopetrek
    scopetrek Posts: 16 Member
    I'm just starting out. My goal is to loose fat and get more muscular. I'm a bit confused on food labels. When reading and weight food labels, are those serving sizes considered cooked or dry measurements?

    For e.g oatmeal serving size is 1 cup, so I usually measure a dry cup and cook that in water with no additives. But you know oatmeal soaks up the water and appears to be more that a cup after cooking. I think I'm eating more calories that I expect.
  • DrDrea411
    DrDrea411 Posts: 10
    Bump!
  • lin7604
    lin7604 Posts: 2,951 Member
    just in case you get extra time to answer more here goes one from me:

    I hit my weight goal and still need to lose body fat. I am 5.2 ft and 116-117 lbs i am around 23% body fat and my goal was to be around 20-21 % max. I have been told that if i want to get to that i will need to be around 105-110 lbs. is that true?. can i not get to that body fat % being around 115 lbs? I am currently doing clx ( chalean extreme) and i am starting t25 on monday.
  • sam308lbs
    sam308lbs Posts: 1,936 Member
    I may be late but I started reading through everyone's posts and I have to admit, I started over two ago and I have yo-yo'd a bit and I know it's my eating habits. I started at 150-something over two years ago and I am now at 135. I am 4'11'' and I, unfortunately, have 33% body fat. I began going to the gym four times a week since the beginning of April and/or doing P90x workouts at home when I am unable to get to the gym. I have tried counting my calories but when you look at my overall graph (weekly, monthly, whatever) I tend to be erratic.

    My question is this, I would like to get to a healthy BMI, but considering I'm a latin girl who would like to put on muscle I don't think that would be the best way to set my goal. I was thinking it would be better through body fat percentage, right? Also, is there ANYWHERE i can find example menus of simple things to make to stay under 1200 a day so I can follow a better diet? I hate the idea of "dieting" but I really need to tweak my caloric intake. Simply staying under 1200 before helped me lose the weight I needed to get to 135 but I wasn't following a diet - just keeping my mouth shut when I didn't want to go over. Now I have a harder time saying no when I get hungry. (Hence the reason I turned to focusing on the gym). I just need some guidance. I really want to focus on lifelong health rather than just "getting skinny."

    It sounds to me as if you have an issue of excluding the middle. Put differently, you tend to focus on the extremes of the spectrum rather than the middle. The problem is, the middle tends to be where people find their sweet spots. By that I mean, they find methods of eating and exercising that jive with their lives. They find sustainability and if they're persistent enough, they learn to love a lifestyle that garners health and a good body.

    Extremes work in the sense that they'll get the ball rolling initially. They'll lead to weight loss and such. Often times though, after some time has passed, they either leave you stranded in the middle of nowhere feeling desperate and directionless or they leave you rebounding back to where you were before... or worse.

    I'm not knocking the approach you've taken to get here... not at all. I commend you actually. You've lost some weight and you're working towards figuring stuff out. Just realize that you're in the midst of a process of experimentation. It's really the only way to go about it if you're truly going to custom tailor an approach to YOU.

    Why do I say you exclude the middle.

    1. You yo-yo diet, which is a telltale sign.

    2. It's either eating really low calories or it's exercising by the sound of it... not more subtle combinations of both.

    The latter one is where you need to focus. If your goal is more fat loss, which sounds like is the right focus, stick with something like 1300 calories. Don't deprive yourself. Don't think of it as a diet. In fact, if you want to be as loose as possible while still doing likely enough to generate positive physique changes... eat 130 grams of protein, 3-4 servings of fibrous veggies, and a piece or two of fruit per day. Maybe throw in some healthy fats like fish oils, nuts, avocados or whatever. Let that stand as your baseline target each day. Beyond that, do you. Eat whatever the heck you want. Is that a perfect approach? Nope. Perfectionism is the root of failure though.

    Forget about BMR and don't sweat your body fat percentage. Dial in your diet as I suggested and focus on being consistent. If, after a few weeks things aren't heading in the right direction, you adjust. Maybe knock your calories down by 10% or so. Maybe you add in some conditioning work.

    I'd keep resistance training in the mix for sure, as that's one of the only arrows we have in our quivers for helping preserve muscle while losing weight. Do you need 4 days per week? Absolutely not. A handful of full body sessions per week would cut it... maybe just two.

    Welcome to the middle.

    Quite possibly the best thing I have ever read on this site. Thank you!

    Pure Gold
  • danibu98
    danibu98 Posts: 281 Member
    tagging for truth, links, future reading and ideas. Thank you!
  • towens00
    towens00 Posts: 1,033 Member
    Bump
  • cajuntank
    cajuntank Posts: 924 Member
    Bumping.
  • otalip
    otalip Posts: 15 Member
    My weight is now 155.4. I was given 1200 calories, i workout at least 6 days a week .....all spin classes and some walking, I am averaging 425 calories burned a day between 45-60 minute workouts. My sodium has been calculated at over my limit by 1,000mg , which I am now being very conscious of.
    So I eat 1200 calories I workout around 6:45 come home and eat the calories I just burned so I'm at around 1600 calories a day. My scale which is a full body scale says I should be eating around 2100 calories to maintain so minus 500 I'm about right....but still not losing anything over 1/2 a lbs. I'm Frustrated !!!
  • otalip
    otalip Posts: 15 Member
    I just joined a week ago i planned to loose 2lbs and have been eating all my calories including my exercise calories and only lost .8lbs is there someone who can look at my food diary and help me figure it out...what am i doing wrong . I did notice my sodium is high. but I am drinking alot of water and excising every single day

    1. What is your current weight?

    2. What daily calorie intake are you shooting for?

    3. How active are you in and out of the gym?

    4. Would you say your sodium is abnormally high right now? It's not really sodium per se that leads to big water weight gains... rather it's when sodium intake goes above what you customarily consume.

    5. Most importantly. It's been a week. You can't label something as working or not working in that amount of time. Weight loss isn't as MFP suggests where you can pick a calorie intake and reliably lose a given amount of weight each week. Not even close. It might take someone years to reach their goal weight and physique. Now think about how powerful a single week is in isolation...

    Not very.
  • otalip
    otalip Posts: 15 Member
    I just joined a week ago i planned to loose 2lbs and have been eating all my calories including my exercise calories and only lost .8lbs is there someone who can look at my food diary and help me figure it out...what am i doing wrong . I did notice my sodium is high. but I am drinking alot of water and excising every single day

    1. What is your current weight?

    2. What daily calorie intake are you shooting for?

    3. How active are you in and out of the gym?

    4. Would you say your sodium is abnormally high right now? It's not really sodium per se that leads to big water weight gains... rather it's when sodium intake goes above what you customarily consume.

    5. Most importantly. It's been a week. You can't label something as working or not working in that amount of time. Weight loss isn't as MFP suggests where you can pick a calorie intake and reliably lose a given amount of weight each week. Not even close. It might take someone years to reach their goal weight and physique. Now think about how powerful a single week is in isolation...

    Not very.
    [/quote


    My weight is now 155.4. I was given 1200 calories, i workout at least 6 days a week .....all spin classes and some walking, I am averaging 425 calories burned a day between 45-60 minute workouts. My sodium has been calculated at over my limit by 1,000mg , which I am now being very conscious of.
    So I eat 1200 calories I workout around 6:45 come home and eat the calories I just burned so I'm at around 1600 calories a day. My scale which is a full body scale says I should be eating around 2100 calories to maintain so minus 500 I'm about right....but still not losing anything over 1/2 a lbs. I'm Frustrated !!!
  • judykat7
    judykat7 Posts: 576 Member
    Bump for later learning-thank you.
  • sweettoothfairy
    sweettoothfairy Posts: 212 Member
    Tagging to read the links later....
  • __Di__
    __Di__ Posts: 1,658 Member
    Hi Stroutman! What would be your advice regarding people who are very near their goal (way 5lbs to 10lbs away), is it advisable to cut their calories further in order to reach that goal or to stay the same daily calorie allowance?

    Great thread btw, really enjoying reading it :flowerforyou:
  • Qskim
    Qskim Posts: 1,145 Member
    Bump
  • Swats915
    Swats915 Posts: 27 Member
    Bump
  • stroutman81
    stroutman81 Posts: 2,474 Member
    I may be late but I started reading through everyone's posts and I have to admit, I started over two ago and I have yo-yo'd a bit and I know it's my eating habits. I started at 150-something over two years ago and I am now at 135. I am 4'11'' and I, unfortunately, have 33% body fat. I began going to the gym four times a week since the beginning of April and/or doing P90x workouts at home when I am unable to get to the gym. I have tried counting my calories but when you look at my overall graph (weekly, monthly, whatever) I tend to be erratic.

    My question is this, I would like to get to a healthy BMI, but considering I'm a latin girl who would like to put on muscle I don't think that would be the best way to set my goal. I was thinking it would be better through body fat percentage, right? Also, is there ANYWHERE i can find example menus of simple things to make to stay under 1200 a day so I can follow a better diet? I hate the idea of "dieting" but I really need to tweak my caloric intake. Simply staying under 1200 before helped me lose the weight I needed to get to 135 but I wasn't following a diet - just keeping my mouth shut when I didn't want to go over. Now I have a harder time saying no when I get hungry. (Hence the reason I turned to focusing on the gym). I just need some guidance. I really want to focus on lifelong health rather than just "getting skinny."

    It sounds to me as if you have an issue of excluding the middle. Put differently, you tend to focus on the extremes of the spectrum rather than the middle. The problem is, the middle tends to be where people find their sweet spots. By that I mean, they find methods of eating and exercising that jive with their lives. They find sustainability and if they're persistent enough, they learn to love a lifestyle that garners health and a good body.

    Extremes work in the sense that they'll get the ball rolling initially. They'll lead to weight loss and such. Often times though, after some time has passed, they either leave you stranded in the middle of nowhere feeling desperate and directionless or they leave you rebounding back to where you were before... or worse.

    I'm not knocking the approach you've taken to get here... not at all. I commend you actually. You've lost some weight and you're working towards figuring stuff out. Just realize that you're in the midst of a process of experimentation. It's really the only way to go about it if you're truly going to custom tailor an approach to YOU.

    Why do I say you exclude the middle.

    1. You yo-yo diet, which is a telltale sign.

    2. It's either eating really low calories or it's exercising by the sound of it... not more subtle combinations of both.

    The latter one is where you need to focus. If your goal is more fat loss, which sounds like is the right focus, stick with something like 1300 calories. Don't deprive yourself. Don't think of it as a diet. In fact, if you want to be as loose as possible while still doing likely enough to generate positive physique changes... eat 130 grams of protein, 3-4 servings of fibrous veggies, and a piece or two of fruit per day. Maybe throw in some healthy fats like fish oils, nuts, avocados or whatever. Let that stand as your baseline target each day. Beyond that, do you. Eat whatever the heck you want. Is that a perfect approach? Nope. Perfectionism is the root of failure though.

    Forget about BMR and don't sweat your body fat percentage. Dial in your diet as I suggested and focus on being consistent. If, after a few weeks things aren't heading in the right direction, you adjust. Maybe knock your calories down by 10% or so. Maybe you add in some conditioning work.

    I'd keep resistance training in the mix for sure, as that's one of the only arrows we have in our quivers for helping preserve muscle while losing weight. Do you need 4 days per week? Absolutely not. A handful of full body sessions per week would cut it... maybe just two.

    Welcome to the middle.

    Quite possibly the best thing I have ever read on this site. Thank you!

    That's because, as far as I can tell, the conversations on this forum (speaking very generally obviously) have deteriorated to levels where it's all about being right opposed to actually feeling out the people asking for help and offering contextually relevant advice. Everyone seems to think they have The Answers, as if there were such a thing. And those knowers-of-all feel the need to preach because they've lost 10 lbs and they happened upon a pubmed abstract that confirms their bias... never minding the remainder of the available body of research on the topic they're clamoring about or the real life application of it all... all while never actually coaching someone in their life.

    I don't point that at anyone in particular and I don't mean to be a blowhard. It's just frustrating that it's nearly impossible to have intelligent conversations anymore because everyone lets their ego get in the way.

    And I hate using words like everyone, this entire forum, and such... there are some amazingly bright and awesome people around here. But the forums have been painful as of late, which is why I generally choose to start my own threads.

    /rant
  • splashblob
    splashblob Posts: 249 Member
    I am trying to maintain my weight now but because I live in Asia and their food are mostly high in sodium. If I go over sodium everyday, will my body adjust to the sodium level or the weight is going to pile up more and more.
  • stroutman81
    stroutman81 Posts: 2,474 Member
    i know it's way past the deadline, but maybe when you get some free time.... i heard that if you eat too much protein your body stores it as fat. is this true? i have 150 more pounds to lose. how much protein should i be shooting for? i usually try to get in 100g per day. is that too much? thank you

    Here's a must read for you:

    http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/nutrition/excess-protein-and-fat-storage-qa.html

    To sum it up though, you're worrying about something that's not worth worrying about in your situation. You could stand to eat even more protein... maybe something in the tune of 1 gram per pound of goal body weight. Why do that? Well it would help with satiety for starters. It would give you a small bump in energy expenditure seeing as how protein as the highest thermic effect out of the nutrients. It would help aid in muscle maintenance as you continue to lose.

    Plus, remember, we're only working with protein, carbs, and fats here. Your weight is high, relatively speaking (my respect to you for working towards getting this under control by the way!) If your weight's high, that also means your energy requirements are high, relatively speaking. The bigger the body, the higher the energy need given the fact that there's more tissue to support and it's more energy expensive to move around.

    So we have this relatively decent size calorie intake/window. If we keep protein low, what do we fill said calories with? Of course some fat... fat's healthy and we need some of it in our diets. But not THAT much. Carbs? I'm the last person to bash carbs but here's the deal. In obese populations, lowish carbs tends to be optimal, generally speaking. Insulin resistance tends to go hand in hand with obesity. So with carbs, too, we can't go buck wild with them. So that leaves protein... which is why I'm a big fan of building a diet around them. Set that at someplace around 1 - 1.5 grams per pound of goal body weight, eat some fresh fruits and veggies, eat some healthy fats, and let these things stand as your nutritional baseline.

    Follow me?
  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
    I may be late but I started reading through everyone's posts and I have to admit, I started over two ago and I have yo-yo'd a bit and I know it's my eating habits. I started at 150-something over two years ago and I am now at 135. I am 4'11'' and I, unfortunately, have 33% body fat. I began going to the gym four times a week since the beginning of April and/or doing P90x workouts at home when I am unable to get to the gym. I have tried counting my calories but when you look at my overall graph (weekly, monthly, whatever) I tend to be erratic.

    My question is this, I would like to get to a healthy BMI, but considering I'm a latin girl who would like to put on muscle I don't think that would be the best way to set my goal. I was thinking it would be better through body fat percentage, right? Also, is there ANYWHERE i can find example menus of simple things to make to stay under 1200 a day so I can follow a better diet? I hate the idea of "dieting" but I really need to tweak my caloric intake. Simply staying under 1200 before helped me lose the weight I needed to get to 135 but I wasn't following a diet - just keeping my mouth shut when I didn't want to go over. Now I have a harder time saying no when I get hungry. (Hence the reason I turned to focusing on the gym). I just need some guidance. I really want to focus on lifelong health rather than just "getting skinny."

    It sounds to me as if you have an issue of excluding the middle. Put differently, you tend to focus on the extremes of the spectrum rather than the middle. The problem is, the middle tends to be where people find their sweet spots. By that I mean, they find methods of eating and exercising that jive with their lives. They find sustainability and if they're persistent enough, they learn to love a lifestyle that garners health and a good body.

    Extremes work in the sense that they'll get the ball rolling initially. They'll lead to weight loss and such. Often times though, after some time has passed, they either leave you stranded in the middle of nowhere feeling desperate and directionless or they leave you rebounding back to where you were before... or worse.

    I'm not knocking the approach you've taken to get here... not at all. I commend you actually. You've lost some weight and you're working towards figuring stuff out. Just realize that you're in the midst of a process of experimentation. It's really the only way to go about it if you're truly going to custom tailor an approach to YOU.

    Why do I say you exclude the middle.

    1. You yo-yo diet, which is a telltale sign.

    2. It's either eating really low calories or it's exercising by the sound of it... not more subtle combinations of both.

    The latter one is where you need to focus. If your goal is more fat loss, which sounds like is the right focus, stick with something like 1300 calories. Don't deprive yourself. Don't think of it as a diet. In fact, if you want to be as loose as possible while still doing likely enough to generate positive physique changes... eat 130 grams of protein, 3-4 servings of fibrous veggies, and a piece or two of fruit per day. Maybe throw in some healthy fats like fish oils, nuts, avocados or whatever. Let that stand as your baseline target each day. Beyond that, do you. Eat whatever the heck you want. Is that a perfect approach? Nope. Perfectionism is the root of failure though.

    Forget about BMR and don't sweat your body fat percentage. Dial in your diet as I suggested and focus on being consistent. If, after a few weeks things aren't heading in the right direction, you adjust. Maybe knock your calories down by 10% or so. Maybe you add in some conditioning work.

    I'd keep resistance training in the mix for sure, as that's one of the only arrows we have in our quivers for helping preserve muscle while losing weight. Do you need 4 days per week? Absolutely not. A handful of full body sessions per week would cut it... maybe just two.

    Welcome to the middle.

    Quite possibly the best thing I have ever read on this site. Thank you!

    That's because, as far as I can tell, the conversations on this forum (speaking very generally obviously) have deteriorated to levels where it's all about being right opposed to actually feeling out the people asking for help and offering contextually relevant advice. Everyone seems to think they have The Answers, as if there were such a thing. And those knowers-of-all feel the need to preach because they've lost 10 lbs and they happened upon a pubmed abstract that confirms their bias... never minding the remainder of the available body of research on the topic they're clamoring about or the real life application of it all... all while never actually coaching someone in their life.

    I don't point that at anyone in particular and I don't mean to be a blowhard. It's just frustrating that it's nearly impossible to have intelligent conversations anymore because everyone lets their ego get in the way.

    And I hate using words like everyone, this entire forum, and such... there are some amazingly bright and awesome people around here. But the forums have been painful as of late, which is why I generally choose to start my own threads.

    /rant

    I tend to agree with this. I think most people are trying to be helpful, but don't realize how little they actually know. Regurgitating the same old answers (eat more, lift heavy, weigh your foods) doesn't mean you actually know anything.

    And for the record, there's been more than one occasion where I've been one of those people, so I'm pointing the finger at myself as much as I am anyone else.
  • stroutman81
    stroutman81 Posts: 2,474 Member
    I'm just starting out. My goal is to loose fat and get more muscular. I'm a bit confused on food labels. When reading and weight food labels, are those serving sizes considered cooked or dry measurements?

    For e.g oatmeal serving size is 1 cup, so I usually measure a dry cup and cook that in water with no additives. But you know oatmeal soaks up the water and appears to be more that a cup after cooking. I think I'm eating more calories that I expect.

    Check this article out from my boy JC Deen:

    http://www.jcdfitness.com/2011/09/counting-calories-a-no-bs-guide/

    As for oats in particular, as I don't think JC talks about that in his article, stick with dry.
  • stroutman81
    stroutman81 Posts: 2,474 Member
    just in case you get extra time to answer more here goes one from me:

    I hit my weight goal and still need to lose body fat. I am 5.2 ft and 116-117 lbs i am around 23% body fat and my goal was to be around 20-21 % max. I have been told that if i want to get to that i will need to be around 105-110 lbs. is that true?. can i not get to that body fat % being around 115 lbs? I am currently doing clx ( chalean extreme) and i am starting t25 on monday.

    Here is the formula for calculating goal weight is: Current Lean Body Mass / (1-Goal Body Fat percentage as a decimal)

    Your current lean body mass is approximately 90 lbs calculated by multiplying your weight by your percentage of nonfat tissues, that being .77.

    So going back to the formula...

    90 / (1 - .21) = 114 lbs

    This is all theoretical, mind you. All it's saying is that in order to be 21% body fat, you'd have to drop another 3 lbs while preserving all of your existing muscle, which could be a stretch depending.

    All of this begs a question in my mind though... what's so significant to you about being 20-21% body fat? Honestly, none of my clients track bf%. We simply go by feel and reflection/pictures. We're not doing this to be a certain number... we're doing this to look and feel great. Once my clients truly realize this and adopt it, there's an immediate release of anxiety. They're no longer focusing on their proximity to rather nebulous numbers and they're focusing on what actually matters to them... that being building a better body.

    You could very well get down to 114 lbs and preserve all the muscle you currently have and think, "Wow, I'm really not that content... I want more improvement." Which is why the numbers are really rather worthless in this context. And by the way, if you wanted more, you'd have to do a cycle of surplus eating and focus on adding some muscle, right? We're only working with those two tissues - fat and muscle - when it comes to altering our physique. Well, unless you found a way to extend your bones or change the insertion points of your muscles, lol.

    And we can only lose so much fat until we start looking sickly thin, frail, or worse... unhealthy. So for many folks it's about embarking on this process of fluctuating goals. At times they're working on losing fat and preserving muscle. At other times they're focusing on building muscle while minimizing fat gains. It's a touch concept for some people - especially women - to wrap their heads around. But it's the nature of the beast for many.

    Hopefully this helps.
  • stroutman81
    stroutman81 Posts: 2,474 Member
    My weight is now 155.4. I was given 1200 calories, i workout at least 6 days a week .....all spin classes and some walking, I am averaging 425 calories burned a day between 45-60 minute workouts. My sodium has been calculated at over my limit by 1,000mg , which I am now being very conscious of.
    So I eat 1200 calories I workout around 6:45 come home and eat the calories I just burned so I'm at around 1600 calories a day. My scale which is a full body scale says I should be eating around 2100 calories to maintain so minus 500 I'm about right....but still not losing anything over 1/2 a lbs. I'm Frustrated !!!

    I don't follow. You're losing 1/2 a pound at your weigh-ins, is that what you're saying? If that's what you're saying, what's the problem with that?