Help!

ali_coggs

Hi I am trying to lose quite a large amount of weight. Have tried and failed so many times. Any tips and help?? I work nights so always find healthy snacks my downfall as I just eat junk. Trying to set myself meal plans any help would be appreciated

RachelElser

Don't take cash to work! No cash= no vending machine! At least that's how I do it at work.

Good luck!

fitdragon484

ali_coggs wrote: »

Hi I am trying to lose quite a large amount of weight. Have tried and failed so many times. Any tips and help?? I work nights so always find healthy snacks my downfall as I just eat junk. Trying to set myself meal plans any help would be appreciated

Hi there!
I understand the failings, I had more than 20 every year. When ever I wanted to loose weight, i would start enthusiastic, I would lose 3 pounds, and after 1 week I would give up. But what I learned last month is that we need to see bigger picture. Set smaller goals, don't expect to much in a short period of time. We didn't gain the weight in 2 weeks, and we can't loose it in 2 weeks.
I have a lot of ups and downs. But I decided I will do this and will make myself feel good in my body.
So try baby steps. Try changing only one meal, begin with breakfast, make your breakfast a healthy one, for a week. Than go with breakfast and lunch, until you feel comfortable having healthy meals all day. I love my snacks. I have three main meals and 3 snacks. Don't starve!!!
Good luck!! You can do it.!!Don't you dare forget that!!

Brabo_Grip

I dropped 90+ lbs and am in the best shape of my life at almost 43. (Got visible abs for the first time in my life which was really cool.) I have maintained for about 3 years.

1. Buy a food scale. Weigh all your food.
2. Log your food into MFP religiously and honestly.
3. Maintain a caloric deficit.
4. Find an activity you love. You can get excercise from many different sources not just the local Planet Fitness. I loathe traditional gyms, but once I found a non-traditional way of excercising it changed the whole ballgame for me.
5. Always keep in mind this journey is a marathon not a sprint. It is also not "dieting" for lasting success it is lifestyle changes.

steveko89

If you're truly needing to lose a large amount of weight there aren't enough tips around that can magically get you going; you need to make a commitment to be all-in on not just losing weight, but living a healthier lifestyle. Treat it like the process that it is and you can see success. More info will help provide more targeted advice, in the absence of details I'm going to fling everything I have learned about this process at you. It's going to be a lot, settle in, see what sticks, feel free to friend and/or message me. I apologize in advance if I over-explaining anything and my occasional poor attempts at humor that are sprinkled in.

-Determine your activity level and set your daily calories. Some swear by the default estimates and macros the site generates, others will suggest other calculators and adjusting macro splits. I've done both with success, it all depends on what works for you and how much energy you want to put into that effort. You can easily start with the defaults and adjust as you go, I believe my body to be more carb-sensitive than what MFP suggests for their macros, fat loss is also a little harder the closer you get to suggested weight/fat loss. There are plenty of calorie estimators out there, most of which work out to around 10x body weight in lbs as a starting point. Some suggest 10x goal weight in lbs if you're over 25% body fat. Regarding macros, the medical recommendation is typically 0.8g Protein/kg body weight. For me I don't believe this is nearly enough, I stick to the body building adage of >/+ 1g/lb body weight, though that mentality aligns more closely to my fitness goals, and worth noting that less is typically required/recommended for women.

-If you haven't already, start by meticulously logging what you're eating now. Read labels, get a food scale (decent ones are cheap on Amazon), weigh and measure everything you eat accurately. Don't cheat yourself by fudging your numbers, treat it like scientific data collection, everything you put in your mouth counts, on weekends, holidays, birthdays, late night snacks, all of it. Learn the contents of what you're eating and pick your spots where you can adjust your nutrition (be it quality and/or quantity) so the changes you make are sustainable.

-The reason you'll see so many people on here who "start over" or "trying to get back on the wagon" over and over is that they get hyped up to get healthy/lose weight, try go from their normal diet of fast food and 2500+ calories to 1200 calories of "I'm only eating salads and protein shakes and I'll workout five times this week". That 0-to-60 approach may work for some, but they're certainly outliers. For most it seems like that works for days or weeks at best until they run out of motivation to buck their routine that severely and then regress back to the mean of the long-standing habits they've built. Instead of trying to make wholesale changes that focus on getting a little better every day and every week, all the while building positive habits (with the exemption of destructive vices like smoking, binge-drinking, cocaine... stop doing those immediately).

-This dovetails in the previous point; motivation is fleeting an unreliable. There are going to be days when your motivation has faded, your willpower is waning, and you'll be tested. For me it's if I have a work function or planned dinner out for a special occasion, someone brings in donuts or Panera, the adjacent department is having their monthly potluck and my office smells like tacos, or my boss goes and get's Wendy's so I spend all lunch smelling his fries. It's all too easy to say "I've been doing well, it's only one meal/choice/indulgence, I deserve a reward" and chow down. I'm not a fan of this methodology, which I know can be popular here, as I believe it continues to foster what is all too often a negative relationship with food and isn't productive in the grand plan of being a healthier individual. The biggest defense against this is to plan and cultivate structured discipline. Bring lunch from home, have some healthy-ish emergency snacks in your car or desk, or wherever you determine your snacking-risks to be (I've also done the no cash to avoid vending machines trick, works pretty well). If you're eating out, know where you're going to go, look at the menu ahead of time (preferably when you're not hungry), pick the best option for you and log it preemptively to mentally lock in the decision. Over time you'll find dishes and restaurants that will become go-to's for not torpedoing your calories. Healthy eating at home starts at the store, if you don't bring it in your home, you can't snack on it when you're bored. My wife and I used to take turns grocery shopping, now we do it together to keep each other accountable on the quality of food we purchase. On the exercise front it took some trial and error form me to find exactly what get's me jazzed up to do, and the best time for me to do it; coincidentally it's weightlifting at 5am. There are many-a-day when my alarm goes off and it's the last thing I feel like doing. However,through removing the obstacles to me working out, I don't remember the last time I just flipped my alarm off and went back to sleep. My workout clothes are laid out in the bathroom, right next to my pre-workout ready to mix, something I ritually do the night before, so it's far easier to tell myself "you're awake, just get out of bed and do the right thing" (I usually tack on something self-deprecating too, but I digress). Exercising isn't necessary to lose weight but it certainly doesn't hurt. Find something you enjoy and will do consistently. The best workout program you can have is the one you actually enjoy and subsequently do consistently. Contrary to what the fitness industry will try and sell, there's no such thing as an exercise or exercise program that will overcome poor nutrition and/or overeating. You can't spot-reduce fat on any one area or body parts, fat loss occurs in different areas at different rates for different people.

-With all that being said about decision-making, removing obstacles, and creating habits, it's never going to look perfect, and it certainly won't look perfect right away. Give yourself some latitude to make a poor choice, just don't let one poor choice derail a whole day, weekend, or month, undoing the precious efforts you've been making; in short, never miss two-in-a-row. If you over-indulge at lunch, make sure you double-down on being healthy at dinner. If you skip a workout because you're just "not feeling it" that day, make it a point to crush the next one and evaluate what you can do to avoid giving yourself that option next time. If you can be successful and on your game 80% of the time you that should be good enough to still make progress.

-Make sure you set attainable goals and expectations for yourself; this will likely be a lengthier process than you'd like. The most aggressive recommended weight loss rate is typically cited as 2 lbs/week. Depending on your current caloric intake and what MFP gives you at this setting, this deficit may be steep and hard to adjust to at first. If you're interested in preserving muscle mass once you get closer to your goal weight, I read a study that found the weight loss rate that didn't impact muscle mass was 0.7 lbs/week. "A large amount of weight to lose" will mean different things for different people, assuming you're talking about at least 25-50lbs, that will take a minimum of three to six months to lose. However, I once lost 30 lbs in the span of about six weeks, very happily and coincidentally without really trying, though those were unique circumstances well before MyFitnessPal, which I'll detail below for those interested. Weight loss if often not linear either; hydration fluctuations, bodily adaptations, and women's hormonal changes throughout the menstrual cycle all have an impact on weight. Opinions will vary on when and how often to weigh oneself, especially if a person is sensitive to what the scale says relating to self-worth and self-esteem. I think weekly weigh-ins are manageable for most, I would encourage monthly checks of other body measurements and/or progress photos. If you're incorporating any type of strength training for the first time or following a hiatus, an increase in muscle mass may mask fat loss on the scale and I typically notice visual changes and the way my clothes fit before I see too much a difference on the scale.

-Fair warning, I'm going to venture off in the weeds a little on this one; lastly, what to do with exercise calories? I would have to say this is probably one of the more polarizing topics on the MFP forums, and you'll find a lot of content about it if you look for it ("Do I count my fitbit calories?", "Do you log sex and daily housework?", "How many calories for mowing the lawn?", etc.). I'll assume there's a basic understanding of Calories In/Calories (or CICO) as it's the basis of MFP's methodology. Since starting with MFP in 2011 I've tried a variety of different ways to account for activity; set my activity level based on projected exercise and not double-logged activity calories, set my activity level to zero and logged activity using the MFP database, and a variety of HR monitors (UA39 strap, apple watch, Polar H7). I went for months earlier this year recording my workout calories using a Polar chest strap HR monitor and eating back all my workout calories, supposedly eating at a deficit in trying to drop some fat I'd picked up after a back injury last year.

I know scale BF calculation is not the most accurate, looking at the delta more than focusing on the number itself, here's what that looked like.

2/6/2017 = 178 lbs 16.6% body fat (29.5lbs fat, 148.5lbs LBM)
7/24/2017 = 182 lbs 16.6% body fat (30.2 lbs fat, 151.8 lbs LBM)
NET: +0.7 lbs fat, +3.3 lbs muscle
Overall, not bad, round numbers 3:1 muscle to fat gain is pretty good for my lifting level, been at it for a few years now. However, during this time I was focusing on trying to lose fat, but my allotted calories were betraying my efforts.

Not seeing the scale dip was frustrating. After some googling and redditing I found a spreadsheet on r/Fitness. Instead of trying to measure or estimate TDEE it uses daily weight and calorie counts to back-calculate true TDEE every day, and averages over time to round off peaks and valleys. Since 7/24 I have weighed myself every morning upon waking and urinating, for consistency, and logged my calories.
10/9/2017 (today) = 175 lbs 12.1% body fat (23.1/151.9)
NET since 7/24: -7.1 lbs fat, +0.1 lb muscle
Average TDEE = 2325 cal
Average intake = 2222 cal (~5% deficit)

Grain of salt for accuracy of my scale for body fat, but an apples to apples comparison of the same scale and what I see in the mirror says to me there was much more improvement since 7/24 than before. I also have a skulpt muscle scanner which I should use more often and feel is more reliable/accurate than my scale. Alas, my battery was dead when I went to use it this morning so the scale data comparison is the best I've got. For what it's worth, the skulpt data from 2/6 and 7/24 was also identical at 14.7%.

So, my math shows MFP overestimates maintenance TDEE and both MFP and recording devices overestimate the calorie burn from exercise and it's effect on TDEE. At Maintenance for a 175lb 6'1" male (me) the default MFP settings are 2260 calories, with woefully low protein intake (~100g) and way too many carbs. Tack on exercise calories, which average out to about 500/session whether measured or estimated, call it 2760 would be my MFP calculated TDEE, 118.7% of what my calculated TDEE (maintenance level) is from 12 weeks using the reddit spreadsheet. I thought about going back through my diary to compare actual intake to TDEE but I blew past TL;DR territory 1500 words ago and at some point I should think about getting some work done today. I realize I didn't really answer the question of "what to do with exercise calories?" Again, I feel this is probably something that you can get close enough with any method if significantly overweight provided you consistently eat less than you did previously. The more weight one loses, the less room for error these sort of calculations provide. If you're interested in the spreadsheet, check out the wiki on r/fitness, there's a link to a google sheet under "Getting Started". That page also talks a little more about macros and why they agree the default MFP settings leave a little to be desired.

Tale of inadvertently losing 30lbs at age 17:
I was a very heavy snacker and mild to moderately overweight growing up, resulting in weighing ~195-200lbs at 5'11" at age 17 in July of 2006. That summer I spent three weeks at a college prep program at a University I was considering attending. Went from living at home, not really being very active, and eating poorly and pretty much whenever I wanted to living in a dorm without a TV or computer (pre-smartphones and tablets), spending a good bit of time outdoors playing ultimate frisbee, eating three squares at the student union with minimal snacking, and mandatory intramural sports every few days, all in the July Indiana heat and humidity. I noticed after the first 10 days or so that my pants were feeling baggy which prompted me to curb my food choices to encourage the newfound weight loss for the remaining time I was there. That forced adjustment period curbed my appetite and snacking habits such that I continued to lose weight when I returned home and was down to a size 32" waist (from 36") at 165lbs by the time school started in mid-August. Since it was well before MFP I have no idea what my calories or macros looked like before or during this stint and it was long enough ago I don't remember what my typical day even looked like. If I had to speculate, I would guess I was probably looking at a minimum of 2250+ calories/day prior to that program. I recall my usual high school routine was 1-2 Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches each morning, turkey sandwich, chips, some sort of sweet for lunch, meat & potatoes type diet for dinner, some snack at 7:30-8:00, probably only got about 6 hours of sleep. While at that program, I want to say I'd have a decent sized bowl of cereal, an apple, and a nutrigrain bar for breakfast, cold-cut sandwich, chips, a cookie for lunch, whatever the special was, or burger/chicken sandwich from the grill for dinner, no snacking, 1-2 hours of athletic activity; so call it no more than 1500 calories, probably more sleep. All-in-all, that truly changed my life and how I viewed myself and my body. Prior to losing that weight I was pretty well resigned to being overweight and that there wasn't anything I could or needed to be doing about it, due in large part to my parents, who were always very supportive of any self-esteem issues I had. Health and fitness was not a priority in our household. Yes, I played organized sports, and would play outside, but my parents have never been ones to exercise for the sake of exercise with any semblance of regularity (still aren't, unfortunately). Coming back from that program and going back to school was a revelation. My friends were floored, my girlfriend at the time was pretty happy and probably a little jealous, and I felt like a different person. I say with certainty that I would not be the person I am today without the confluence of circumstances that led to that weight loss and the resulting boost to self-esteem and realization that I didn't have to be the doughy nerd all my life.

Slow clap for anyone who made through all that rambling.