please weigh in and MAKE me understand (help me)
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So what about the types of food how much does that really matter... ie carbs vs protein? If calorie numbers are followed perfectly can I eat lots of carbs up to my calorie limit? I am also trying to drink a minimum of 100 oz of water each day.0
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So what about the types of food how much does that really matter... ie carbs vs protein? If calorie numbers are followed perfectly can I eat lots of carbs up to my calorie limit? I am also trying to drink a minimum of 100 oz of water each day.
So long as you're getting enough protein to preserve as much muscle as you can, for weight loss, the type of food doesn't matter so long as it keeps you satisfied, and the amount you eat is neither too much nor too little.
I deleted the water metric from my log. I just drink when I'm thirsty.8 -
I drink water when I'm thirsty. I don't like water. I'm wondering what MFP says you should be eating to lose 2# a week. When I follow MFP completely, don't go over, and only eat back about 1/2 of the exercise calories (often they are inflated on MFP), I lose the weight I'm supposed to by month.
As for what you eat, if you eat just carbs, you might not feel great. Balance your food and don't sweat the details at this point. Count any drinking calories, milk in coffee, any nibbles, they all add up. Measure in grams as it's more precise than ounces. Take your time, as many have said, so that you can learn how to do this and keep the weight off once you lose it.2 -
Measure in grams as it's more precise than ounces.
just tried to do this with dinner had to convert grams to oz on the cheese i used in my pizza burger dinner
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Measure in grams as it's more precise than ounces.
just tried to do this with dinner had to convert grams to oz on the cheese i used in my pizza burger dinner
The entry you chose is for fluid ounces, which is a volume metric not a weight metric. Unless you're measuring water, you shouldn't be trying to convert from grams to fluid ounces.2 -
If you're sure about your entries.... of course go with them.
If I was randomly logging a meal such as the one you describe, I would probably log it as per below.
Assuming you got the actual low moisture part skim Lucerne mozza, from the various entries in the database, I would assume it to be approximately 80 Cal per oz (28.35g)
if your 4fl oz represent ~120 grams, the entry you're using is wrong.
note that a fl oz does not equal an oz, unless you're talking water.
Note that a full fat mozzarella would have different values.
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Here's the thing: The first response you got was correct. If you were really eating 800 cal to start with, there should have been no way you were losing only 2 lbs/week. With that kind of starvation diet, and based on your weight, that should have given you about an 1800 cal/day deficit -- if you're sedentary, and not counting exercise -- meaning you should have been losing around 3.5-4 lbs/week. You were almost certainly eating more than you think.
My wife has the same problem. (So to speak.) She's on a medically supervised diet where in theory she's eating 800 cal/day -- only everyone in the house knows she cheats on it rather outrageously, so it's taking her much longer (and costing much more) to get to her target weight than she should. But with that few calories as your target you can still cheat a LOT and still lose weight. (How outrageously? I found a completely empty jar of this in the trash that I know she'd only gotten 2 days earlier: https://www.amazon.com/Maranatha-Natural-Foods-Chocolate-Almond/dp/B004SIA0AU )
But that's not healthy, and it's not sustainable. You'll have a lot of trouble getting the right nutrition, and you will likely lose more muscle than you'd like. If you want to get rid of the beer belly you need to hit the FAT, right? So slow and steady, with enough nutrition and plenty of exercise, is the way.
I know the goal is to look good with your shirt off for your vacation. You're not going to get a 6-pack between now and December, but you can at least look better than you do now. Weigh every single mouthful you eat. Use good numbers for the calorie content, not the numbers that make you feel better. (USDA database is most reliable. MFP has USDA's information in its own database, but generally doesn't return them with a simple search. Look up the calories on the USDA's site here: https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list and then search MFP's database by the NDB No. For instance, if you're looking up BBQ chicken breast, search MFP for 05358 and you should find it.) Drink plenty of water. Get some cardio in, log it in MFP, and then "eat back" about half the extra allowable calories you gain from it. Recalculate your calorie needs every 10 lbs lost or so. Drink plenty of water. Do this right, and at 2 lbs/week you should be just over 200 by the time you go on vacation.8 -
www.convertunits.com is a handy site to know about.3
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Measure in grams as it's more precise than ounces.
just tried to do this with dinner had to convert grams to oz on the cheese i used in my pizza burger dinner
In that instance you can use the first serving choice - 0.25 cup (1oz/28g). If you weighed out lets say 100 oz of cheese, you would log it as 3.57 servings. Or as PAV888 suggested, weigh out 4 ounces and log it as 4 servings.2 -
Measure in grams as it's more precise than ounces.
just tried to do this with dinner had to convert grams to oz on the cheese i used in my pizza burger dinner
Find a better database entry for the cheese, or enter your own based on the package label. It should have the portion amount in grams on the label.
If you're using the app barcode scanner, be aware that the entry it picks is often not the best one. I frequently had to manually search or create personal entries because the barcode pulled up a junk entry.3 -
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Cross reference your details from the package with MFP, a lot of the database is user created so wrong entries or their own recipes that could be literally anything, there's no way of knowing. Make sure to look for entries with the weight measurement (sometimes this is harder than is reasonable but it is what it is). If in doubt refer to the USDA website for correct calories.4
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daisyfields79 wrote: »Starvation mode might be the wrong wording for it but your body does store everything you eat as fat when it's being deprived for a period of time. It does not stop storing over night, it takes time to change. So I refer to it as starvation mode but you can call it whatever you want.
Hi daisy.
That's actually am old way of thinking that was never true. Your body may retain water and times but that's it. Because we are MFP friends, you may have noticed that I eat under 1200 cals a day (medical reasons) and have lost weight steadily. Anorexics also continue to lose and they truly starve themselves.
Any type of stall is just water (or constipation), not stored fat.3 -
MFPs database is notoriously full of weird and inaccurate entries. People add their own entries, and they're trying to personalize what THEY do with it, or they just get the math wrong when they divide down to "one serving," or they do weird things with units of measurement.
If you really ate 4 ounces of part-skim mozzarella, that was nearly 300 calories, not 160.
How lean was the ground beef for that patty? Did you really use 95% lean meat? Four ounces of 90% lean ground beef are more like 200 calories for four ounces uncooked - what that means is you bought a pound of ground beef, divided it in four, and made four hamburgers out of it.7 -
I have never been able to eat under 1000 calories unless I was really sick and when I do eat under 1000 cals, I am dropping nearly a pound a day. But even if I eat a little under 1200, I am still dropping 2-2.5lbs a week at 240 (so I would guess my TDEE is about 1900-2100 at my current weight and you being a male it should be way higher than that) so you might want to make sure your logging is as accurate as possible.
And don't go off labels or eyeballing or what others have entered on MFP. Measure everything! Go a week with strict measuring...I mean down to the very last morsel and see if there is not a difference.1 -
So what about the types of food how much does that really matter... ie carbs vs protein? If calorie numbers are followed perfectly can I eat lots of carbs up to my calorie limit? I am also trying to drink a minimum of 100 oz of water each day.
Depends on what your focus is...If you are focused solely on dropping weight, macros don't matter as much just CICO, but if you are trying to retain as much lean muscle mass as possible along with a great strength training program, getting an ample amount of protein in your diet is vital.
If you want to get into ketosis and drop fat really fast, then going low-carb is what you would focus on along with CICO (though you could do this also with High Carb/Low Fat plant based diet as well). (I have attempted both and lost 10lbs in the first week with both so you will lose about the same either way but I love meat and I love carbs so I had to let both lifestyles go)
I am doing low fat and don't really care how much carbs and protein I get in because right now my main focus is dropping weight due to having hypertension, but I am starting to get into a strength training routine and will be upping my protein a bit.5 -
People telling you that you must be eating much more than you think aren't necessarily right. I was on a supervised 600 calorie VLCD for medical reasons and there were weeks I didn't lose, and on average I lost a pound a week. Bodies aren't machines. They do work, though.VintageFeline wrote: »It honestly sounds like your logging is off. You'd have lost significantly more than 2lbs per week if you were truly eating 800 calories. For perspective that's about a large baked potato, a bit of butter, average chicken breast and a protein bar.
So yes, you should be eating far more than 800 calories but your losses show you were anyway.
My advice would be to see a doctor, if you can, and take your log with you. They may want to runs tests or have ideas about what to do to help. It doesn't have to be this hard.
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Not sure if we've gone over this in either this thread or another one the OP started.
OP is a little bit impatient.
I am pretty sure that someone has mentioned that what matters is the trend over time and not just a day to day or week to week loss you can't necessarily see.
And that a trending weight web site or app is your friend in managing to see what your weight is doing over time.
The body weight planner which can be found at the USDA SuperTracker web site (you may want to run it in expert mode) is based on Dr. Kevin Hall's modelling which, depending on your inputs, does NOT predict 1lb of change for each 3500 Cal.3 -
VintageFeline wrote: »Cross reference your details from the package with MFP, a lot of the database is user created so wrong entries or their own recipes that could be literally anything, there's no way of knowing. Make sure to look for entries with the weight measurement (sometimes this is harder than is reasonable but it is what it is). If in doubt refer to the USDA website for correct calories.
did this for my meal today here is what i came up with.. this is hamburger patties from a cow we purchased from a local farmer so 80% lean is a guess according to the butcher who processed the meat for us... also besides a kombucha for lunch this is all i have had to eat today besides 90 oz of water and 16 oz of black coffee..
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Your hamburger bun is suspiciously low on calories, I know the couple of varieties I have had very recently were over 200 calories each but otherwise this is looking pretty good!0
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VintageFeline wrote: »Your hamburger bun is suspiciously low on calories, I know the couple of varieties I have had very recently were over 200 calories each but otherwise this is looking pretty good!
I looked at a couple of different sites and was surprised that the Winco hamburger bun at 43 grams actually is 100 calories. That is a really small bun!
OP you should be weighing the bun though - I would be really surprised if they weighed exactly 43 grams every time.2 -
creatureofchaos wrote: »
People telling you that you must be eating much more than you think aren't necessarily right. I was on a supervised 600 calorie VLCD for medical reasons and there were weeks I didn't lose, and on average I lost a pound a week. Bodies aren't machines. They do work, though.VintageFeline wrote: »It honestly sounds like your logging is off. You'd have lost significantly more than 2lbs per week if you were truly eating 800 calories. For perspective that's about a large baked potato, a bit of butter, average chicken breast and a protein bar.
So yes, you should be eating far more than 800 calories but your losses show you were anyway.
My advice would be to see a doctor, if you can, and take your log with you. They may want to runs tests or have ideas about what to do to help. It doesn't have to be this hard.
He does have a lot of data, he was consistently losing 2lbs per week, that tells us exactly what was happening. You don't start at his weight and "only" (2lbs is great so it's not truly only) lose 2lbs per week over the period he did. I go weeks without losses, as you say, that's normal but to stall for 4 weeks when you think you're eating 800 calories? Highly unlikely. It would be quite a thing to retain 14lbs+ for an entire month.
And aside from that, it's never terrible thing to tighten your logging because the less you weigh the more accuracy matters.3 -
VintageFeline wrote: »Your hamburger bun is suspiciously low on calories, I know the couple of varieties I have had very recently were over 200 calories each but otherwise this is looking pretty good!
I looked at a couple of different sites and was surprised that the Winco hamburger bun at 43 grams actually is 100 calories. That is a really small bun!
OP you should be weighing the bun though - I would be really surprised if they weighed exactly 43 grams every time.
Wow! I'm just picturing a bun half the size of the ones I buy and I think it would disintegrate during eating, that's a messy burger.
But I digress. Weighing the bun is obviously making things more accurate but at such a low calorie item I personally wouldn't bother (and for disclosure I don't weigh packaged items, living alone I figure it all comes out in the wash).1 -
VintageFeline wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Your hamburger bun is suspiciously low on calories, I know the couple of varieties I have had very recently were over 200 calories each but otherwise this is looking pretty good!
I looked at a couple of different sites and was surprised that the Winco hamburger bun at 43 grams actually is 100 calories. That is a really small bun!
OP you should be weighing the bun though - I would be really surprised if they weighed exactly 43 grams every time.
Wow! I'm just picturing a bun half the size of the ones I buy and I think it would disintegrate during eating, that's a messy burger.
But I digress. Weighing the bun is obviously making things more accurate but at such a low calorie item I personally wouldn't bother (and for disclosure I don't weigh packaged items, living alone I figure it all comes out in the wash).
yesterday i weighed them a whole package they weigh between 41 and 44 grams each so 43 seems perfect3 -
VintageFeline wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Your hamburger bun is suspiciously low on calories, I know the couple of varieties I have had very recently were over 200 calories each but otherwise this is looking pretty good!
I looked at a couple of different sites and was surprised that the Winco hamburger bun at 43 grams actually is 100 calories. That is a really small bun!
OP you should be weighing the bun though - I would be really surprised if they weighed exactly 43 grams every time.
Wow! I'm just picturing a bun half the size of the ones I buy and I think it would disintegrate during eating, that's a messy burger.
But I digress. Weighing the bun is obviously making things more accurate but at such a low calorie item I personally wouldn't bother (and for disclosure I don't weigh packaged items, living alone I figure it all comes out in the wash).
I'm picturing something similar to sandwich thins. Messy burger for sure.
And I don't weigh most packaged items either unless I am in serious lose mode (I'm in sorta lose mode now). But for someone starting out trying to pinpoint issues weighing everything is a good practice to get into.0 -
VintageFeline wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Your hamburger bun is suspiciously low on calories, I know the couple of varieties I have had very recently were over 200 calories each but otherwise this is looking pretty good!
I looked at a couple of different sites and was surprised that the Winco hamburger bun at 43 grams actually is 100 calories. That is a really small bun!
OP you should be weighing the bun though - I would be really surprised if they weighed exactly 43 grams every time.
Wow! I'm just picturing a bun half the size of the ones I buy and I think it would disintegrate during eating, that's a messy burger.
But I digress. Weighing the bun is obviously making things more accurate but at such a low calorie item I personally wouldn't bother (and for disclosure I don't weigh packaged items, living alone I figure it all comes out in the wash).
I'm picturing something similar to sandwich thins. Messy burger for sure.
And I don't weigh most packaged items either unless I am in serious lose mode (I'm in sorta lose mode now). But for someone starting out trying to pinpoint issues weighing everything is a good practice to get into.
Fair points too.
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VintageFeline wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Your hamburger bun is suspiciously low on calories, I know the couple of varieties I have had very recently were over 200 calories each but otherwise this is looking pretty good!
I looked at a couple of different sites and was surprised that the Winco hamburger bun at 43 grams actually is 100 calories. That is a really small bun!
OP you should be weighing the bun though - I would be really surprised if they weighed exactly 43 grams every time.
Wow! I'm just picturing a bun half the size of the ones I buy and I think it would disintegrate during eating, that's a messy burger.
But I digress. Weighing the bun is obviously making things more accurate but at such a low calorie item I personally wouldn't bother (and for disclosure I don't weigh packaged items, living alone I figure it all comes out in the wash).
yesterday i weighed them a whole package they weigh between 41 and 44 grams each so 43 seems perfect
Perfect!
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Defiantly more burger than bun but not messy ... I just use a bit of ketchup to dip them in so not messy at all.. I eat sandwich thins all the time also ... My wife wants me to do low carb but no way i like bread too much2 -
so far(since yesterday) all the packaged food that I have weighed has been spot on1
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Just want to weight in and say that you've gotten some great advice and you have the right attitude and approach OP! Good on you!3
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