Very frustrated!

CSARdiver

rainbowbow wrote: »

Listen, Listen... You are making this way more complicated than it has to be. Your mindset of assuming failure before you've even begun is not going to be doing you any favors. You thinking you're going to accomplish even DIDDLY SQUAT in a couple weeks is setting you up for failure. Comparing yourself to others isn't going to be doing you any favors. Trying to follow every piece of BS advice (meal timing, low carbs, no artificial sweeteners,etc.) isn't going to be doing you any favors.

I would go ahead and sit down and take a long look at how you got to where you are. Think seriously about this. Was it your lack of activity? Was it you not having any idea how many calories you were eating? Was it consistently overeating? Was it alcohol?

From there you need to set SMART goals.

• Specific: Vague goals such as “I want to lose weight”, “i want to tone up”, etc. will never lead you to success. Instead, pick very specific goals such as “i will lose 5 pounds in 30 days”, “I want to have a BMI of 20”, or “I want to be 18% body fat”.
• Measurable: Once you have your specific goal you need to ensure that your goal is measurable. How will you track your progress? Will you weigh yourself, reevaluate your BMI, use calipers to measure your body fat? If so, when? What schedule are you going to implement in order to ensure you are on track?
• Attainable: Can your goal actually be accomplished? For example, can you actually achieve the body of your dreams with diet and exercise? This is very important as often we set an unattainable aesthetic goal that does not actually reflect our capabilities due to our height, body shape, or genetics.
• Realistic: Is your goal realistic? Can you actually eat the calorie goal needed to lose “x”pounds in “x”time? Is it realistic to expect yourself to stick to these changes? Is it realistic to expect an increase in strength or weight loss within the time you’ve set for yourself? (I.E. losing 30 pounds in 30 days would be unrealistic) In order to reach your goals you must be able to stick to this plan and this is something only you can decide.
• Timely: How long is this going to take? If you started right now, how long would it take for you to reach your goals? How often are you going to re-evaluate this goal and make sure you’re on track? How long do you plan on using training services?

A general rule of thumb is you can lose UP TO 1% total of your body weight per week if you're overweight or obese and about .5% of your body weight per week if you're within a healthy range. Even then, you want to look at the realistic and timely aspect and set a goal that you can actually stick to. Who gives a crap if you can lose the weight in 6 months vs. a year if you can't maintain your loss long-term anyway?

THEN-

1. Set you calorie goal.
   
2. Track your foods with accurate measurements (weight for solids via a scale and in ML for liquids).
   
3. Eat the foods you know, love, and can maintain long term that allow you to stick to your calorie goal. You can take a multivitamin to ensure you're meeting your nutritional needs. You can experiment with eating the foods you love and finding calories for them, if they are too calorie dense you can try and emulate these foods with lower calorie options, if they are WAY too calorie dense or you have problems controlling yourself eliminate these foods entirely.
   
4. Find an exercise regimen that includes resistance, endurance, cardio, and functional training for a healthy body, heart, bones, and muscle mass over time. This is especially important as a woman as we have great risks for osteoporosis.

That's it. It's simple. Don't waste your time trying to follow trends, fads,

@rainbowbow Absolute brilliance in posting.

OP - print this out and tape this to the fridge.

To share my own story when I started MFP I dealt with a lot of the same challenges and unloading of years of misinformation. I was 277 lbs when I started and lost 4 lbs some weeks, gained 2 lbs some weeks, but over time generally averaged ~1 lb/week and was down 60 lbs over the course of a year. Please don't use this as comparison, but only to show that weight loss is not linear. My water weight alone fluctuates ~5 lbs/day. Like many I started thinking I needed to eat "clean", but found that over time this simply was not sustainable. I utilized the SMART goal system and instead identified my eating trends and modified these to support my fitness goals.

The key to all of this is to build awareness. You start by identifying your calorie budget, then logging to understand what it is to manage a budget, just as you would managing your checkbook. Over time you'll identify bad habits that detract from your goals and replace these with good habits that support your goals.

Afura

skinnyfatty1983 wrote: »

ur food is sabotaging your progress... vanilla, chickensoup , cheese and oil... your body is burning these things instead of burning your fat.. you need to eat clean, when i start eating clean, when my weight stopped moving, and i added workout and it dropped again...eating clean and lower calories will give u magic results

Whut? No. Some foods will give you better nutrition for the amount you eat, but your food can't sabotage you. nor does your body burn cheese instead of burning your fat.

skinnyfatty1983 wrote: »

no, if u eat less calories with dirty food, you only get a smaller fat version of the bigger size of yourself....

What in the world is dirty food? I wash my potatoes thank you. What shenanigans, eat what you want at a calorie deficit, there's no wrong or right way to eat foods just how you prefer (unless you have a medical reason!).

tamera_g

@rainbowbow that is Great advice!