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So which are you ?
Athaiguy
Posts: 31 Member
Are you a person that Diets all in gung ho ? Or are you the type that is far more casual and cheats here and there at times ? I have always been the Gung Ho dieter not cheating keeping to my 1500 Calories a day. I walk 5 to 10 miles a day and amass many extra calories a day but never still eat over my 1500. Once in awhile but not often I will put a meal plan together for the day and find I am over those 1500 and I feel terrible because of it. I should not as I have amassed so many calories with the walking I am doing but still feel guilty none the less.
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Replies
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I am neither. I am the person that tries to be consistent about having a calorie deficit and looks at it over the long term not the short term. I hate the term cheat when it comes to diet, if you look at your calorie intake over a week/month, most people can easily fit in the foods they like, just maybe not in the portions they were previously accustomed to.
If you are not eating your exercise calories back, you aren't using the tool as intended. 1500 is the minimum recommended amount of calories for a short, light, sedentary male. If you're walking 5-10 miles per day then you are far from Sedentary and should be eating at the very least some of those calories back because otherwise you're netting well below the minimum recommended amount to get the nutrition and fuel your body needs.
Feeling terrible about eating enough to fuel yourself is not a very healthy attitude and that's perhaps what you should work on - your relationship with food.
It may help to know how exactly your calorie goal is calculated:
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I am neither too.
It seems a false choice between 2 extremes to me.
I guess I am more casual in that I have always advocated loose logging and law of averages ( rather than meticulously weighing every banana, for example ) and I consider my calories over the week, so some days I go over, some I go under, as long as weekly count is around the mark, and I dont consider that cheating in any way - it is just making it work for me in user friendly way in real life.14 -
I'm fairly new on here, I don't do much exercise if any, but started watching what I eat an seems to work for me there is days I blow my target out the water but carry on regardless 👍6
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I have a meal plan but I use mfp to allow myself to flex from that whenever I want to. I don't restrict any foods, and eat to my calorie and macro goals.5
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I'm neither. I'm the person who just eats food. I have no food distinctions other than "tastes good/tastes bad" and "worth it today/not worth it today" and don't really consider what I do cheating. I try to stick to my calories, on average, consistently enough to lose weight, but I have days that are lower and days that are higher depending on my hunger and what foods are available/I feel like eating. It basically balances out to "not casual" because when I'm dieting I almost always end the month having averaged the deficit I chose for myself.
I also have periods where I just choose to maintain my weight whenever I don't feel like being in a deficit for whatever reason. I guess I'm also casual?
I eat every single calorie I earn from activity, because why not? I like food, and activity gives me more food. My base allowance isn't really that low so I can handle not eating part of my exercise calories if I choose to (although, as I said, I always do), but if it was low like yours is, not eating back exercise calories would mean undereating and all the issues that can cause.13 -
The fact that you are asking about people’s dieting strategies saying “I have always been the Gung Ho dieter not cheating” suggests that it’s something you’ve had to do often meaning... maybe your approach isn’t working. Perhaps the reason you’ve had to diet regularly is because you’ve taken such an extreme, restrictive, and unsustainable approach which means you give up and then have to start again another time.
Perhaps consider what others have said that by choosing the bare minimum calorie requirement and not eating to fuel your activity level - you are actually setting yourself up for failure.18 -
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10722305/my-new-normal/p1
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10731694/after-a-year-over-150lbs-lost-learned-a-few-things/p1
These two threads are the highlights of my journey so far.
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I am also neither. I follow a weekly calorie goal, so I am able to have days with more calorie dense foods balanced with lighter days. I don't restrict any foods and do keep an eye on my macros based on the fitness goals I have at the time. So ultimately, there's no need for cheating as I am not restricting anything and can fit stuff in as I want to.
I also don't consider myself a dieter; it's just how I manage my intake. I lost some weight doing this, then I bulked and cut a couple times, and now I am maintaining.4 -
When I go over what I planned to eat, I too can feel guilty. And that can derail my eating for the rest of the day. Feeling guilty can make you feel really bad about yourself. I don't know how to rid of that feeling - like we did something bad. Hugs2
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For me it was recognizing that treats weren't cheats. They were choices. The minute I started logging what I meant to eat at a social gathering in advance, that became all I took. No complimentary side order of guilt and negativity that had always triggered my going off the rails. Just the cookie or piece of cake.11
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Why not both? I'm strict most of the time and schedule myself a refeed day.0
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150poundsofme wrote: »When I go over what I planned to eat, I too can feel guilty. And that can derail my eating for the rest of the day. Feeling guilty can make you feel really bad about yourself. I don't know how to rid of that feeling - like we did something bad. Hugs
Stop associate food with being good or bad? It's fuel, and yummy...11 -
I think I’m gung ho, I just want to get it done and over with.1
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Are you a person that Diets all in gung ho ? Or are you the type that is far more casual and cheats here and there at times ? I have always been the Gung Ho dieter not cheating keeping to my 1500 Calories a day. I walk 5 to 10 miles a day and amass many extra calories a day but never still eat over my 1500. Once in awhile but not often I will put a meal plan together for the day and find I am over those 1500 and I feel terrible because of it. I should not as I have amassed so many calories with the walking I am doing but still feel guilty none the less.
I'm someone who uses MFP as it was intended and eats back exercise calories to fuel my exercise and avoid undereating.9 -
What you call "gung ho" I call under-eating. It is not a positive trait to be emulated. Eating 1500 as an active male is too little. That you have described yourself as "always being" this way leads me to believe that you have lost and gained several times before. This type of under-eating often leads to yo-yo dieting so I am not surprised on that. You need to properly fuel your body.
I consider myself committed to my new health and fitness lifestyle. That includes eating quite a few things you would consider "cheats" but for me they are just part of a successful lifestyle change.11 -
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amusedmonkey wrote: »
Weight loss is never over? Pretty sure I only have five more pounds and I’m done.11 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »
Weight loss is never over? Pretty sure I only have five more pounds and I’m done.
Carefully attending to one's own well-being is never over. That is, until you're dead. The idea which I believe we share is to put that moment off as long as possible by implementing newfound knowledge into our lives as we live.5 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »
Weight loss is never over? Pretty sure I only have five more pounds and I’m done.
You're done with weight loss. But if you don't focus into maintenance, you can easily gain it all back again. So sometimes going all out and trying to lose the weight as quickly as possible doesn't actually benefit you in the long term because it doesn't help you develop healthy and sustainable habits that let you transition successfully into maintenance.
Because yes, you don't lose the weight and then it's automatically gone forever. Most people gain back what they lose because they put too much focus on the losing and not enough on the maintaining.11 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »
Weight loss is never over? Pretty sure I only have five more pounds and I’m done.
You're done what? And when?
<how did your last period of "maintenance" go? were you also "done" before you started it?>
For most of us who arrived here with significant amounts of weight to lose, weight MANAGEMENT is going to be with us for a long time: Either active and potentially successful weight management, or indifferent and probably not successful weight management.
14 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »
Weight loss is never over? Pretty sure I only have five more pounds and I’m done.
You're done with weight loss. But if you don't focus into maintenance, you can easily gain it all back again. So sometimes going all out and trying to lose the weight as quickly as possible doesn't actually benefit you in the long term because it doesn't help you develop healthy and sustainable habits that let you transition successfully into maintenance.
Because yes, you don't lose the weight and then it's automatically gone forever. Most people gain back what they lose because they put too much focus on the losing and not enough on the maintaining.
I’m talking about weight-loss and preferring to sticking with a goal without setbacks by going outside of my weightloss routine and cheating. Not losing it quickly by being unhealthy, but to sticking with my goals that’s it.
I think a person who’s only five pounds overweight and wants to lose mostly vanity weight has a different relationship with food than person who has had a problem with their weight most of their lives and or extremely overweight/ obese. It’s not always that complicated for everyone as people like to make it seem.
11 -
Are you a person that Diets all in gung ho ? Or are you the type that is far more casual and cheats here and there at times ? I have always been the Gung Ho dieter not cheating keeping to my 1500 Calories a day. I walk 5 to 10 miles a day and amass many extra calories a day but never still eat over my 1500. Once in awhile but not often I will put a meal plan together for the day and find I am over those 1500 and I feel terrible because of it. I should not as I have amassed so many calories with the walking I am doing but still feel guilty none the less.
I only ever really dieted once and have been in maintenance for 6 years. I would fall in the camp of neither extreme...and I always made sure I fueled my fitness. If you're only eating 1500 calories and doing a bunch of exercise then you are under-eating. 1500 is the floor for a sedentary male...if you're doing tons of walking, you're not sedentary. You're doing your body a disservice. If you feel guilty about anything, it should be that you're not providing your body what it needs from an energy or nutrition standpoint.4 -
I think I’m gung ho, I just want to get it done and over with.
This mindset sure helped me fail many times. I know some people can handle it but I am not one of them.
I do want my excess weight gone and I do not want to do unnecessary things to prolong the process but I know myself and I will not get there being my version of "gung ho."10 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »
Weight loss is never over? Pretty sure I only have five more pounds and I’m done.
You’re only “done” with weight loss at that point, not with weight management. When you get to your goal weight, there are really only three things that can happen:
1) You follow a maintenance plan to stay in your desired weight range.
2) You don’t follow a maintenance plan, gain the weight back, and engage in a cycle of yo-yo dieting until you move to either option 1 or option 3.
3) You don’t follow a maintenance plan, gain the weight back, and decide to stay at the higher weight.7 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »
Weight loss is never over? Pretty sure I only have five more pounds and I’m done.
I think she's talking about the fact that needing to manage your weight, health, and fitness is a life long endeavor. Most people who are "done" go back to old eating habits, stop regular exercise, etc and put the weight back on and then some and just go through life yo-yo dieting.4 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »
Weight loss is never over? Pretty sure I only have five more pounds and I’m done.
You’re only “done” with weight loss at that point, not with weight management. When you get to your goal weight, there are really only three things that can happen:
1) You follow a maintenance plan to stay in your desired weight range.
2) You don’t follow a maintenance plan, gain the weight back, and engage in a cycle of yo-yo dieting until you move to either option 1 or option 3.
3) You don’t follow a maintenance plan, gain the weight back, and decide to stay at the higher weight.
And that’s the only part I was talking about.
That’s why I got confused as to why that poser said “ its never over”. Should’ve elaborated.
The OP basically asked what kind of dieters we are all are, no cheating or more flexible. That’s all I was answering to, the topic at hand
My maintnece weight always fluctuates between 3-5 pounds when I’m not watching my weight.2 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »
Weight loss is never over? Pretty sure I only have five more pounds and I’m done.
Weight loss is temporary, but most people find that *weight management* is something that requires a long-term commitment unless you want to regain the weight.
I started calorie counting in January 2015. I stopped losing weight in the fall of that same year, but I didn't stop any of the behaviors that allowed me to lose weight. I don't plan on ever stopping weight management because I have no intention of ever being overweight again. I'm just not eating at a deficit.4 -
Anyways I’m a gung ho and that’s what works for me
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Are you a person that Diets all in gung ho ? Or are you the type that is far more casual and cheats here and there at times ? I have always been the Gung Ho dieter not cheating keeping to my 1500 Calories a day. I walk 5 to 10 miles a day and amass many extra calories a day but never still eat over my 1500. Once in awhile but not often I will put a meal plan together for the day and find I am over those 1500 and I feel terrible because of it. I should not as I have amassed so many calories with the walking I am doing but still feel guilty none the less.
As to the OP... do you believe that feeling guilty is a good and healthy feeling?
In case you're wondering if your thoughts are starting to stray into slightly less safe territory... you're right!
They are.
And the reason, quite probably, is the excessive deficit you're subjecting yourself to.
Your Total Deficit (TD) determines your weight loss and is equal to your average daily deficit (ADD) multiplied by the TIME you apply it (T).
TD = ADD * T
You're trying to maximize TD
Minimizing T is not helping you!2 -
I'm the 'Can I see myself eating this way (plus a few extra calories for maintenance) for the foreseeable future?' type.9
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