Please help me....In desperate need of expert advice
Replies
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Actually, multiple studies have shown that additional exercise and/or activity flush the lactic acid, etc. out of the muscles at much faster and efficiently than "rest".jessiferrrb wrote: »i think that a lot of muscle soreness is not uncommon with new exercise and may continue longer than necessary if you don't get adequate rest. this is something i'm guilty of as well. i'm afraid that rest will slow my momentum and it does more harm than good to over train, even if it's just walking. also, DOMS and water retention are linked and can mask fat loss.
DOMS is not an indicator of how hard you exercised and it definitely does not mean than you should not be exercising the same muscles, unless recovery is otherwise incomplete.
Usually 48 hours is more than enough time to exercise the same muscle groups again in the majority of the population.
what do you mean by otherwise incomplete? i am like the DOMS queen, so i'm interested in learning more about this.0 -
Send me a note or something so I remember to reply tomorrow.jessiferrrb wrote: »what do you mean by otherwise incomplete? i am like the DOMS queen, so i'm interested in learning more about this.
I have to run to the gym and I coach this evening.
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honeybunny406 wrote: »Get on-line and find a site that tells you how many calories you need to be ingesting for your age, height, weight, in order to lose weight. There are many out there. The other culprit might be your salt intake. Keep track of that. Try and keep it at 2000mg (you may want to check with your physician in regards to the exact amount) or less, each day. If you use salt to cook/bake with, it may be that your body is retaining fluids. I find with myself that if I don't eat the right combinations of food that I don't lose weight. I also found that when I decreased the salt to that mentioned above, I started to see results. If you have been doing this for some time your body may need a shake up, be it the food or the workouts. Our bodies like status quo, they don't like the weight loss thing. Sometimes it is just tweeking a small thing before our bodies start their weight loss again. Keep up the good work. You've got this.
As MFP does this, I'm confused.
When I weigh my food on a digital food scale, eat the calories MFP gives me, eat some (but not all) of my exercise calories, I lose as expected over the course of a month.2 -
sunshine12870 wrote: »jennypapage wrote: »I took a look at your diary again. It seems you are weighing your food but choosing inaccurate entries. First thing i saw from today's food .You logged a medium banana 127 grams. I assume you weighed it. You logged it as 97 calories . According to the usda data a 127 gram banana is actually 113 calories. That was one item from today. I don't know about the rest, but it is really a matter of inaccurate logging as far as i can tell. The only other thing that could be affecting your weight loss would be hypothyroidism which has been left untreated. You can ask your doc. for the blood tests and exclude that.But you just have to put in the work to see results. Weigh everything you eat, fresh or prepackaged. Make sure the entry you find is accurate. If not, find one that is, or fix the wrong entry. When you cook, use the recipe builder.
As the previous poster said, tdee and bmr calculators are based on averages.It is going to be accurate for most of the people, but not for all.
Those calculators don't work for me. I have pcos, hypothyroidism and on top of that i'm very short. I did not follow the calculators' suggestions because i would not have lost weight if i did. It's a bit of trial and error. If medically everything's alright, then your food diary is where you must start.
OMG.....REALLY!!!!
So yet again I think I'm getting on top of things and still it isn't right.
I took that calorie total from MFP data Base!....(which yeah has all different calories totals), so how on earth do you actually 100% know what one is right???, how does anyone know for sure what one is actually right, even Google gives a different calorie total.
The packaging here in the UK gives a different total as well.
It's getting beyond a joke now. Back to going round in circles again.
It ain't going to make much difference to me today as I'm struggling to get up to my calories.
But...If anyone knows where to get the 100% correct calories totals for all different foods here in the "UK" can you let me know please.
I tell you what has been the biggest shock over last few days now that I'm putting in grams instead of slice etc......on most foods I've actually been under not over! and when I went back in my diary and worked out totals for certain days I wasn't even reaching 1100 never mind going over 1200.
I dare say there will be things I will come across that I was under estimating by not putting exact grams, but haven't found them as yet.
Now it's about finding out correct calorie totals of foods
I think the USDA database would be fine for getting the calories for whole foods. Use the info off the packages for packaged foods. Beware of user-created entries.
I get the syntax for whole foods from the USDA website and then plug that in to MFP to make it easier to find the system entry rather than an error-prone user-created entry.1 -
Whenever i add whole foods into my diary i follow the entry with USDA- "Banana raw usda", "Broccoli raw usda" "chicken breast raw usda" etc etc It doesnt matter that it's a US based entry, I'm in Australia.
If i ever want to double check something, I go here: https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search
The above site has the values (calories, macros) of just about every fresh food in existence.0 -
she already does exercise without eating back the calories, and her calorie intake is quite low for someone her size, even if there is a few logging discrepancies. This is one of the few cases where I'm starting to think thyroid really is to blame.
Something similar happened when I tried to get my mom on myfitnesspal... her BMR should be 1300 (using the most conservative and accurate TDEE calculator I know of) but she wouldn't let me set her calories for anything over 1200. So she eats at 1200 calories for a couple weeks... and gained 5 pounds. Then I had her go back to her normal diet and just track those calories and turns out she eats 900 calories or less on most days. Decades of under eating, no exercise, sedentary lifestyle, and thyroid issues I guess has made her metabolism extremely slow. But she is overweight because the few times she goes out to eat or eats more than her pitiful 900 calories it all goes straight to her thighs! These cases are rare but I've seen it first hand. Not sure how to fix it...
I feel like here there may be something similar going on in this case for the OP to not be losing on so few calories.
Maybe she needs to get her health in check and not worry about losing weight right now? It is hard to resolve defficiencies when in a caloric deficit. Maybe just focus on nutritious healthy foods, eating intuitively to fullness and not worrying about numbers yet, do exercise, take supplements, and get on any necessary medications to fix the various health issues. Get lots of sleep, reduce stress, walk, do yoga... that type of thing?? Just an idea.1 -
Christine_72 wrote: »Whenever i add whole foods into my diary i follow the entry with USDA- "Banana raw usda", "Broccoli raw usda" "chicken breast raw usda" etc etc It doesnt matter that it's a US based entry, I'm in Australia.
If i ever want to double check something, I go here: https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search
The above site has the values (calories, macros) of just about every fresh food in existence.
that.for things i can't find (like homemade cheese) ,i just pick one of the higher calorie entries that are similar to what i'm eating.0 -
courtneyfabulous wrote: »Then I had her go back to her normal diet and just track those calories and turns out she eats 900 calories or less on most days. Decades of under eating, no exercise, sedentary lifestyle, and thyroid issues I guess has made her metabolism extremely slow. But she is overweight because the few times she goes out to eat or eats more than her pitiful 900 calories it all goes straight to her thighs! These cases are rare but I've seen it first hand. Not sure how to fix it...
First rule out medical conditions.
Then evaluate whether to try from the current level or to attempt reverse dieting.
Whether that succeeds and whether the budget for doing so exists... that I don't have experience with.
@heybales might have some useful input.1 -
Are you sleeping 7-8 hours a night? I have only been at this for six weeks, but have some great results and I have noticed the better I sleep, the more I lose. I am also 5'4" and was set a goal of MFP of 1200. It is working for me. I eat very little packaged food, many days my one slice of multigrain bread and my yogurt are the only ready made products. Otherwise I am eating fruit, vegetables and a little chicken, fish and cheese. I love to cook and eat and am managing to find lots of recipes that are both tasty and fit within my calorie goal. MFP's recipe calculator is one of my best tools. By balancing my meals and having snacks like hummus and carrots, I find I am not hungry. If you are weighing and exercising a lot, perhaps you might think at looking at what you are eating and try to change some of the foods around to find what works for you.1
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That's a tough one, because with sedentary aspect.
Usually the reverse dieting works because the person becomes more active compared to under extreme deficit. They burn more, and feel energetic enough to burn enough that they can create a deficit again.
But if they are unable to, or undesired, the extra food doesn't really help beyond perhaps feeling like you got more energy, but nothing to use it on.
Then again years like that probably means the LBM is way lower than average now, including muscle mass, and just eating more won't magically change that. Again takes a desire to really workout to change that around, way more than daily activity.
There have been a few studies like this one I've seen, specifically long enough to discern what has changed, and it's ability to change back.
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/heybales/view/reduced-metabolism-tdee-beyond-expected-from-weight-loss-616251
The difference here is their activity levels went back up to pre-diet levels as they started eating more.
Then the metabolism increased back up.
Sounds like this is almost more a case for the studies trying to show longevity increases by undereating by decent amount and slowing the body down. But those are usually people already at healthy weight advocating it.
Attempting to get to healthy weight in that state by losing - yikes.
The thyroid issue does throw in a wrench, as it very much takes away that desire to move as much, feeling tired all the time. More food can help with that somewhat - but really gotta have the desire to get active.6 -
have your checked your measurements also? Are they going up. sometimes a gain doesn't necessarily mean a bad thing, in fact it could be muscle which is heavier than fat. Have a measure, keep your chin up. I'm on 1200 calories and its enough, rather limiting but definitely not starving. Just have to be creative with meals and food choices. As someone else mentioned your BMR - that is your basal metabolic rate - basically your maintenance amount of calories to keep you at your current rate. You need to be in a slight deficit of that and then burn cals so 1200 a weightloss amount to aim for but not live on forever. also, as your weight makes big drops then you need to adjust your cals accordingly. You can consume a high fat, high protein meal and still lose weight as long as there are little to no carbs. Good luck, and hang in there, things will start movign in the right direction soon
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paialopala wrote: »have your checked your measurements also? Are they going up. sometimes a gain doesn't necessarily mean a bad thing, in fact it could be muscle which is heavier than fat. Have a measure, keep your chin up. I'm on 1200 calories and its enough, rather limiting but definitely not starving. Just have to be creative with meals and food choices. As someone else mentioned your BMR - that is your basal metabolic rate - basically your maintenance amount of calories to keep you at your current rate. You need to be in a slight deficit of that and then burn cals so 1200 a weightloss amount to aim for but not live on forever. also, as your weight makes big drops then you need to adjust your cals accordingly. You can consume a high fat, high protein meal and still lose weight as long as there are little to no carbs. Good luck, and hang in there, things will start movign in the right direction soon
Several wrongs here in understanding.
BMR is NOT basically your maintenance calories - unless sleeping deeply all day long.
You should NOT have to eat less than that to lose weight.
Of course it's an estimate unless you have an overnight test done on you in the wee hours of the morning.
Muscle is not heavier than fat, 1 lb is a lb.
It does take up less space for equal weight, perhaps you meant that.
But it does NOT gain easily, like I've been doing a little more and think I'm up 2 lbs of muscle in a week. Huh - not a chance. Woman and no resistance training - no muscle gain.
Many reasons for water weight gain though, even starting exercise.
You can also consume a high protein high carb meal and still lose weight - your recommendation of no carbs is personal preference as it has no bearing on strictly ability to lose weight. Maybe you getting hungry compared to eating more protein - but that's personal too for adherence. You adhere to high carb but same calories - you'd still lose weight.
If you are at 1200 eating level in total - where precisely do you think the calories are going to adjust to as weight drops. Or will big amounts of exercise absolutely be required to maintain eating at that level - pity the vacation or sick week with less exercise.
Eating minimum amount possible to lose weight is a disaster for maintenance if you ever reach goal weight - eating max possible to still lose weight will work out better.10 -
Hi there, I am 5 feet 4 inches and 44 years old. I can sympathize with you. I am not getting b12 shots but have to take iron 2 times a day. I would exercise and thought I had a handle on what I was eating but did not. I went to the doctor, everything checked out ok but was diagnosed with anemia. The best advice I can share with you, burn more calories. What ever you have your calorie intake set at, always have a calorie deficit so you can began to have weight loss. I promise it works.0
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sunshine12870 wrote: »I'm a woman who is always happy to help and give support but very rarely ask for help myself, we are all busy people with busy days and sometimes it can be a struggle just to keep ourselves going never mind picking someone like me up , but......
I'm struggling to keep my chin up today and to keep going. The saying hitting my head off a brick wall and going round in circles and getting nowhere fast springs to mind.
I've gave 100% for some time now (more than I ever have in the past) and worked bloody hard at this .
I took over my kids paper rounds, which is very long and very hard, I also walk every single day no matter what the weather, I do it even tho I'm in a great deal of constant pain, and I even done it when I was in agony with toothache (proud of myself for that).
My calories I've kept a close watch on and are good, apart from the very occasional day, and I do mean very occasional.
Yet......
My weight isn't dropping....it's actually going up
I'm quite busy myself too. I like to squeeze 25-70 minutes of exercise at least 5 days a week ( I just started this recently) I have 15 units (5 classes) and work on call so my stress levels could get off the charts if I don't keep my health on check. On top of that I have a toddler. I have been working out 6 days a week since late December. I gained 15 lbs last year because I drove around in a patrol car for 7 months and then worked full time about an hour away from home until mid December. I knew I needed to fit in exercise that got my heartrate up. I do intervals at my own pace, generally can burn 250 in 25 minutes . I started slow and now I can do much more. The key is not to get too comfortable but don't over do it. My diet is much cleaner, I stopped eating a lot of processes stuff. I eat a variety of fruit and veggies and lean meats like chicken, tuna and salmon. I watch my carbs a little more critically, but I'm not doing a low carb diet. Breads are usually what makes me retain lots of water. I measure my pastas, it's easy to overeat pasta. I'm petite so I like to measure in 1/4th cup for my hubby who is almost 6 feet I use 1/2 of a cup. (If we can afford the callories we eat more lol) I'm not a certified nutritionist or anything but I'm somewhat knowledgeable on diet. Refined sugars are the worst for you. anywho, I've lost about 6lbs since the last week of December slow and steady is good.
I'm 23
5ft
174lbs (generally large build, but quite overweight due to years of horrid fast food eating and drinking sugary energy drinks)
Caloric intake 1200-1400 on average
Calories burned 250-450 on average
I'm generally healthy on the inside for being fat.
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jessiferrrb wrote: »
Actually, multiple studies have shown that additional exercise and/or activity flush the lactic acid, etc. out of the muscles at much faster and efficiently than "rest".jessiferrrb wrote: »i think that a lot of muscle soreness is not uncommon with new exercise and may continue longer than necessary if you don't get adequate rest. this is something i'm guilty of as well. i'm afraid that rest will slow my momentum and it does more harm than good to over train, even if it's just walking. also, DOMS and water retention are linked and can mask fat loss.
DOMS is not an indicator of how hard you exercised and it definitely does not mean than you should not be exercising the same muscles, unless recovery is otherwise incomplete.
Usually 48 hours is more than enough time to exercise the same muscle groups again in the majority of the population.
what do you mean by otherwise incomplete? i am like the DOMS queen, so i'm interested in learning more about this.
I'm guessing those studies didn't show that additional exercise and/or activity flushed out the lactic acid - mostly because DOMS isn't caused by lactic acid build up (lactic acid is generally gone 1-2 hours after a workout).
However, active recovery is a good strategy for DOMS. Some other things that help include; adequate nutrition, hydration and sleep (these are the most important IMHO), you can minimise DOMS by building up volume and intensity slowly, avoiding or limiting exercises that emphasise eccentric loading and training regularly (not having big gaps in training) so that your muscles adapt to exercises. There's less convincing evidence for things like, foam rolling or other self release, Epsom salt baths, stretching and massage. You can try ibuprofen or icing if it's really bad but I'm not a fan of anti-inflammatories or things that limit inflammation generally as it's an important aspect of recovery.
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Again, I recommend "Thinner Leaner Stronger" or something similar to educate yourself properly.[/quote]
I ordered this book, have just started reading it now, looks very good.1 -
sunshine12870 wrote: »Again, I recommend "Thinner Leaner Stronger" or something similar to educate yourself properly.
I ordered this book, have just started reading it now, looks very good. [/quote]
I have that book! It's a bit long but good info.
Mike Matthews also has a YouTube and podcast- excellent information!! He kinda loves to hear himself talk but his advice is sound.0 -
sunshine12870 wrote: »I came on here hoping to find out how many calories a woman at 240lbs should be having a day to enable her to lose weight, and as much as I'm grateful for all the advice and have acted upon it.....I didn't get an answer to that question.
Sorry, I do not mean to appear snippy but there is so much lazy thinking and misinformation in this thread that it gets tiresome.
My statements on rationalizing and excuses are warnings to you; DON'T fall into those traps.
You are not a special snowflake.
Everyone faces the same problems when it comes to diet and exercise. It is merely a matter of degrees.
You might need 500 calories a day less than 1 person, but 250 calories more than another person.
The issue is that you are looking for absolutes when it comes to biological processes like diet, TDEE, BMR, exercise and such.
There is no method to come up with an absolute number to lose weight! The person who comes up with it will surely win the Nobel prize.
You must track EVERYTHING you eat so you can adjust your estimates from there.
It comes down to Calories In (CI = what you eat) and Calories Out (CO = metabolic processes AND exercise).
CICO is simple. If your CI is less than your CO then you will lose weight.
If your CI is MORE than your CO you will GAIN weight.
If they are close to even then your weight will stay about the same.
The problem is manifold:
You don't know with a high degree of certainty about how much you are really eating (few people do)
You don't know how much you really need to be eating (few people do)
You are having trouble exercising so your metabolic rate is unpredictable at best.
Several well-meaning people here are giving you encouragement and advice but it is not going to help you as much as educating yourself on proper diet, nutrition and exercise.
All you can do is track everything to determine your CICO requirements and adjust your estimates every 3 weeks or so if you don't see the changes you want.
Weight changes, gaining muscle and the like change your CICO requirements. It is not a static number.
Exercise increases your CO so you will lose "weight" faster".
The more muscle you have, the higher your CO will be.
If you ONLY worry about losing "weight" then you will lose fat AND muscle.
Losing muscle means your CO will be LOWERED and it will be HARDER to lose more "weight" or keep the weight off.
If you are not seeing the changes you want (say the loss of 1 or 2 lbs) after 3 or 4 weeks then your CICO is WRONG.
Adjust it by about 250 calories and adjust it again in another few weeks if necessary.
A realistic LONG-TERM goal is to lose 1 to 2 lbs per week.
The faster you try to "lose weight" the more likely you are to LOSE MUSCLE in the process, especially if you are not lifting weights.
Weight loss is not linear, you must be tracking longer term trends of a few weeks at a time.
Weighing yourself every day does far more harm than good.
Weigh yourself the same day each week, first thing in the morning after you go to the bathroom.
By the way, your "weight" does not really dictate your calorie requirements in the first place.
You need to know your body fat percentage if you want a more accurate estimate of your calorie requirements.
Your calorie requirements at 240 lbs and 50% body fat vs (a hypothetical) 240 lbs and 20% body fat would be different.
Muscle requires extra calories just to maintain it, fat does not.
That is why some people keep telling you that you should exercise, even though several well-meaning people are saying you don't need to. "Need"? Try SHOULD.
If you do not exercise properly then you will lose muscle and your CO will be LOWER.
Again, I recommend "Thinner Leaner Stronger" or something similar to educate yourself properly.
Bought this book1 -
courtneyfabulous wrote: »sunshine12870 wrote: »Again, I recommend "Thinner Leaner Stronger" or something similar to educate yourself properly.
I ordered this book, have just started reading it now, looks very good.
I have that book! It's a bit long but good info.
Mike Matthews also has a YouTube and podcast- excellent information!! He kinda loves to hear himself talk but his advice is sound. [/quote]
Cheers honey I will check him out on you tube...not literally of course...happily married me2 -
Hi Everyone
As promised it's March and I'm reporting in.
I only weigh myself once a month on the 1st every month.
Today I'm happy to report I've lost 9lbs25 -
sunshine12870 wrote: »Hi Everyone
As promised it's March and I'm reporting in.
I only weigh myself once a month on the 1st every month.
Today I'm happy to report I've lost 9lbs
Well done!!!!
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sunshine12870 wrote: »Hi Everyone
As promised it's March and I'm reporting in.
I only weigh myself once a month on the 1st every month.
Today I'm happy to report I've lost 9lbs
That's *wonderful*! I hope that you've found a way to accomplish it, or that other circumstances in your life have changed, so that you are also feeling better.
Thank you for reporting back!1 -
sunshine12870 wrote: »Hi Everyone
As promised it's March and I'm reporting in.
I only weigh myself once a month on the 1st every month.
Today I'm happy to report I've lost 9lbs
AWESOME!! Persistence is key....you can do it....you ARE doing it....just awesome!1 -
No it isn't. It is a matter of duration, intensity and conditioning.sunshine12870 wrote: »I'm lugging that around all day ... approx an extra 8 Stone {112 lbs} ...
That's like lifting 50kg at the gym, and keeping it lifted, never putting it down
Is it difficult? Yes. Is it rough on your joints and cardiovascular system? Yes.
Is it the same as lifting 110 lbs in the gym and never putting it down? No.
Don't believe me? Try it sometime.
It might be called a "Farmer's Walk", depending on how you do the lift and keep it lifted.
LOL! You got that right. I do a "waiter's walk" with a 20 lb dumbell, and also a "farmer's carry" with 2 25 lb dumbbells, and I walk as far as I can stand, for as many sets as I have time for. I'm pretty strong but let me tell you, these are hard. Certainly NOT possible to hold these positions for very long. Not the same thing at all.0 -
Thanks guys.
The only thing I done different was up my calories from 1200 to 1600 and I've started losing weight again, quire a considerable amount .
Health wise no further on at the minute, my appointment was cancelled due to both nurses being off sick, so now getting bloods rechecked on 6th March then appointment a week later to discuss my levels and possibly upping my dosages. Hopefully that will go well and things will just keep improving from here on in4 -
I'll bet that while the only thing you purposely have done was eat about 400 calories more, you have non-purposely increased your activity level from having more energy.
Still cold where you are?
Do you feel as cold? (might be hard to compare coming out of winter)
Do you feel more energetic?
Do workouts feel better, able to do more, or higher intensity?2 -
No honey....
exercise if anything has been a lot less due to the dental surgery and extremely painful legs. Just haven't been able to exercise every day like I would normally .
So for me that result came after more calories and less exercise.
I'm going to try my best tho this month to get back to exercise every single day again, and I'm definitely gonna push myself to step it up a notch.
Instead of just walking every day, which I will continue to do, I've now ordered an indoor exercise bike and instead of sitting on sofa watching my TV I will be cycling whilst watching tv0 -
I'm also starting swimming0
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What is wrong with these boards on mfp today they are only posting parts of my messages......0
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I'm also starting swimming again been years since I done that.
And.....today I've just joined a Gym so I can start working out with weights.
I'm in England, UK.
Yes still cold and horrible here0
This discussion has been closed.
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