Need Some Motivation...

judgejess

So yesterday, I went on a bike ride. I ate relatively well. And then, I took a medication (Ambien) and it made me night-eat like crazy. This happens whenever I take it, and I wake up the next morning feeling humiliated.
Now, seeing the # on the scale and the long journey in front of me, I could use some motivation/inspiration from others.

What got you over the initial hurdle? What do you plan on eating daily? Also, since I'm first starting out here, how did you figure out the appropriate caloric intake? I went to usda.gov, since I figured that the 1200-calorie plan automatically assigned by MFP wasn't going to work.

Anyhoo, enough of my blabbing. Feel free to add me, and I look forward to this journey together!!

xx,
jess

SCSURaynmann

Jess,

The biggest thing for me was my Vitamix. I'm no promoter, but the coffee smoothie I make in the mornings keeps me feeling full from 6:30am to about 10:30am. It has around 350 calories, but is very filling and very nutritious. I also wasted some money and saw a dietician who said the only change she would make for me was to make sure I ate something every 3 hours or when I was hungry regardless of how many calories MFP said I could have. The only stipulation was that I needed to have 7g of protein with each snack or meal minimum. I started with a goal of 1600 calories, but found that with exercise I could fairly easily keep that below 1400 by not eating back all of my exercise calories burned. I put 1400 in for my own number now, and with my normal eating I can stay below 1400. Add me as a friend and you can see my diary to get an idea on what I eat on a daily basis. You may also want to consider not taking ambien if it causes sleep eating. If you get on a good exercise routine not too late at night, you may find it easier to get to sleep at night. Also cut out the caffeine by 2pm at the latest in the afternoon.

-Ray

judgejess

Thanks so much, Ray. I really appreciate it.

tilmoph

I've found that a turkey burger with mozzarella cheese is surprisingly filling. That may help with the eating, I'm not sure how Ambien works.

For motivation, do not look at the total number of pounds. Set various mini goals. Mine were drop through the stages of obesity (started at morbid, dropped to severe, am currently 5 pounds out from being just regular overweight). After that, drop below 200. I'll sort something out for under 200 later. So pick something easier to get to than your ultimate goal, so you can have little victories throughout the process.