New to weightloss and new to workouts! Helppp!

jennabulldog

After years of my weight going up and down I need to make some serious changes now that I'm a mom of 5! I've been as small as 150lbs or as big as 211lbs, not including my pregnancies. I'm 27 years old, 5'7" and 183.5lbs, according to the 21 day fix plan I need 1500-1799 calories, MFP says 1260 calories, and the TDEE calculator is saying 1,917 calories! I'm so confused. I don't think I have ever worked out in my life, where do I start? Can I just follow the 21 day fix workouts or some workouts on youtube? Thanks!

dametrieg7039

Start with Whole Foods and no sugary drinks, walk more. Take baby steps stay away from fad diets because they aren’t sustainable and remember fat loss is a marathon not a sprint. Try Keto or IF or even both.

LyndaBSS

Don't do anything called a 21 day whatever. Find a way of eating that will be sustainable. This is about a lifestyle, not a diet.

Eat the foods you love and stay at a calorie deficit. You will lose weight even without exercise.

BarbaraHelen2013

I think if MFP says 1260 and you’re 5’7” you must have entered an aggressive weight loss goal of 2lbs a week and maybe set your activity as sedentary?

Try setting it to 1lb a week and if you have 5 children I very much doubt you’re sedentary! Unless you have a couple of nannies and a housekeeper I guess! 😂

It’s perfectly possible to lose the weight without ‘working out’. Much more important to get your calorie goal worked out and start eating within that goal. That’s what will help you drop the weight, not some YouTube video workout.

Swap YouTube for a food scale and you will never look back!

AnnPT77

Most plans set a calorie goal based on your total activity, or TDEE, which includes exercise calories. MFP works differently. It sets your calorie goal based on your NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) which is the amount you burn doing your daily life activity (work, home chores, non-exercise hobbies) but not intentional exercise. MFP then expects you to log your intentional exercise, then it gives you more calories to eat.

The implication is that TDEE calculators will give you a higher daily calorie goal than MFP does, because the TDEE calculator figures in your intended exercise, and MFP doesn't. MFP waits until you actually do the exercise to figure in those calories.

It's trying to teach a good life lesson: Move more, eat more. Move less, eat less.

If you want to eat the same amount every day, rather than eating more on exercise days, you can either use the TDEE calculator estimate and set your MFP calorie goal manually, or you can use MFP's daily calorie estimate but bank some exercise calories to use on other days. For most people, the end-product calories will be similar either way (MFP or TDEE), as long as the target weight loss rate is the same in both cases. If you do the TDEE method, it's important to actually do the exercise you told the calculator you intended to do, because it's telling you to eat those calories: They're just averaged into the daily goal.

Like some of the others, I'm a skeptic about "21 day fix" type plans. For me, one of things I wanted from the weight loss process was to figure out how to eat permanently in an enjoyable way that would keep me at a healthy weight for the rest of my life. So, I looked at weight loss as a learning opportunity for how to do that.

I started out at 183 and 5'5", and lost about 50 pounds in a bit less than a year. This is pretty much the eating plan I used to do that, and to maintain a healthy weight for the 3, almost 4 years since:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10636388/free-customized-personal-weight-loss-eating-plan-not-spam-or-mlm

MFP gave me a 1200 calorie goal at first (I'm old, 59 when I started here, 63 now, and sedentary). MFP estimates are usually close for most people, but it was low for me, even though I ate back all my exercise calories. (I guess I'm kind of twitchy for a li'l ol' lady. ) I lost most of the weight at 1400-1600 net calories (i.e., before exercise), and more like 1600-2000 gross calories most days (after getting credit for exercise).

Common advice around here is to use the MFP estimate for 4-6 weeks, then adjust based on actual average weekly results to get a sensibly moderate and sustainable actual weight loss rate. Like I said, MFP is usually pretty close for most people, but it can be low or high for a few (that's kind of the nature of statistical estimates ). Since the first couple of weeks of weight loss can have some wild water-weight fluctuations for a lot of people, and premenopausal women ought to compare the same point in the menstrual cycle to get a sensible average besides, the 4-6 weeks gives time for that stuff to sort out.

Best wishes!

P.S. At 183 pounds, 2 pounds a week is pretty aggressive. 1 to 1.5 (max) pounds a week is probably more sensible to start, to minimize health and appearance risks. As goal weight approaches, it can be good to slow down even more.

Terytha

You can follow YouTube workouts if you want. Don't expect any drastic results from them though. Weight loss is 80% diet.

beautybykellyb

Been gaining a steady 10 lbs a year for a few years now. I’m 5’4 and my heaviest weight 172lbs I work retail so my schedule is very chaotic I am pescatarian .even though I meal plan and pack all my lunches I have a hard time with routine and very little will power so many snacks at the job! I don’t know where to start .🤦🏽‍♀️

gallicinvasion

beautybykellyb wrote: »

Been gaining a steady 10 lbs a year for a few years now. I’m 5’4 and my heaviest weight 172lbs I work retail so my schedule is very chaotic I am pescatarian .even though I meal plan and pack all my lunches I have a hard time with routine and very little will power so many snacks at the job! I don’t know where to start .🤦🏽‍♀️

Start very slow; pick one easy goal you can stick to, and practice that for a week. Once you have it down, add a second small goal. (Think “drink 30 oz of water a day” or “log all my breakfasts in MFP” or “eat two work snacks instead of three this week”. The smaller the goal, the easier to set yourself up for success and keep yourself motivated to continue). If there’s a goal you set that’s too hard to stick to, look at your habits to figure out what makes the goal too hard, and then reevaluate the goal (make it easier, if necessary).

You’re building a new lifestyle, not a temporary fad. Take your time, only make changes you know you can stick , and work towards eventually logging all your food in MFP to hit your daily calorie goal for a modest rate of loss.

AnnPT77

beautybykellyb wrote: »

Been gaining a steady 10 lbs a year for a few years now. I’m 5’4 and my heaviest weight 172lbs I work retail so my schedule is very chaotic I am pescatarian .even though I meal plan and pack all my lunches I have a hard time with routine and very little will power so many snacks at the job! I don’t know where to start .🤦🏽‍♀️

Ten pounds a year implies you've been eating about 95 calories a day above your weight-maintenance calories. Doesn't take much added intake or reduced daily life activity to get you there!

Set up your MFP profile to lose no more than a pound a week, pound and a half max (but 1.5 only for maybe the first 10-20 pounds), based on your current size (less/slower is fine if that makes it easier to stick with). Figure out how to stick to that calorie goal the majority of the time, while eating foods you enjoy and that keep you mostly full/satisfied, and odds are excellent that you'll soon see your weight start to drop.

Check out the eating plan link in my post above for more details about how to do that.

Best wishes!