Break the black/white thinking
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laurosaurusrex
Posts: 66 Member
I've re-wrote this a few times because I tend to ramble and rant. I'm sorry for the length and thank you in advance for reading.
I've done this rodeo before - lost 40 pounds through tracking macros and creating meticulous workout plans. But it all got too much. I was overdoing all of it. If I wasn't able to work out or eat a pre-tracked meal, I felt paralyzed. I jumped ship and the pendulum swung the other direction for 2 years (and +50 pounds).
I'm 30 years old, 5'3" with this 45-50 pounds to lose (goal weight 120-125 lb) - working out 3-5x a week. I'm really wanting to go back into this with a more approachable and sustainable mindset. I'm only a week in, and I do feel some of my extreme tendencies are starting to creep in - mostly not eating enough.
I know it's low, but MFP set me to 1200 calories a day. I checked a TDEE calculator and that gave me 1500 calories for a 1 lb. loss a week which I know is probably more realistic and sustainable. But of course, my mind has a hard time embracing that.
Just wondering if any of you could share your words of advice or support or wisdom.
I really do appreciate it
I've done this rodeo before - lost 40 pounds through tracking macros and creating meticulous workout plans. But it all got too much. I was overdoing all of it. If I wasn't able to work out or eat a pre-tracked meal, I felt paralyzed. I jumped ship and the pendulum swung the other direction for 2 years (and +50 pounds).
I'm 30 years old, 5'3" with this 45-50 pounds to lose (goal weight 120-125 lb) - working out 3-5x a week. I'm really wanting to go back into this with a more approachable and sustainable mindset. I'm only a week in, and I do feel some of my extreme tendencies are starting to creep in - mostly not eating enough.
I know it's low, but MFP set me to 1200 calories a day. I checked a TDEE calculator and that gave me 1500 calories for a 1 lb. loss a week which I know is probably more realistic and sustainable. But of course, my mind has a hard time embracing that.
Just wondering if any of you could share your words of advice or support or wisdom.
I really do appreciate it
9
Replies
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This is a tortise and the hare thing. You're definitely right in your thinking, sustainable is the key here. You feel better on a smaller deficit, it's easier to pull off, it's easier once you've lost the weight to shift into keeping it off.
It's also great that you're exercising plenty. You can lose weight without exercising, but it's harder, less fun, and less healthy.
Really sounds like you've got this. Remember it's a process, and we all screw up along the way. You're allowed to make mistakes too. The important thing is how you deal with it, and again, sustainable is the answer.9 -
Keep in mind that MFP is designed to let you eat back your exercise calories. The 1200 plus exercise calories will probably put you at 1500 or more. I’m also short, 5”2, so I get the challenge. Good luck.11
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My two cents, which is probably worth around 0.75 cent.
1200 calories is not enough food. My wife tried that and it just doesn't work. 1500 is much more realistic and doable. Very few people of any size or gender are able to be satisfied on 1200 cals, so the most likely outcome is binging and yo-yo dieting. Such is not true of 1500, which is a liveable amount of food. I'm not saying 1200 "can't" be done, just that it's stacking the odds against yourself over the long term.
The title of your post says it all. Everything that can be said about dieting that has any true insight is probably well summarized right there. Black vs. white doesn't work. It's always about finding an acceptable middle ground. We as organisms, with our dopamine reward/pleasure centers and taste buds and all the rest of it, were not designed to deny ourselves day after day after day after week after month after year. Millions of years of evolution make us want to stuff our faces with the hyperpalatable foods shoved in front of our faces 24x7 in this modern world of ours. To pretend that isn't true by declaring that a diet will involve ongoing extreme deprivation is just unrealistic and hardly ever works. We all have to find our way with this, but the "way" is almost always a balancing act between what we want and crave, versus what we need in order to reach our weight loss goals. 1500 is a valid version of the balancing act. 1200 rarely is, for most people, especially people who are overweight and love food.17 -
I know I can't do 1200 long term. I hit up against my lower end of what I could sustain back in February and that's around 1500, MAYBE 1400. So I started adding in activity that I hadn't done before - I had lost my initial 100 lbs on diet alone at sedentary settings, but I could see I couldn't realistically keep that going. Adding activity buys me a few extra calories to keep me around that 1500 limit but still lose at the rate I want to lose - not to mention all the health benefits, including greatly increasing my stamina and over all physical fitness!5
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One thing that might help is enlisting some help. 🙂 Here is a great resource, but if you can I'd suggest maybe seeing a dietitian.
Mine has been great with helping me figure out my calorie goals and stay on track. I see her about every 4-6 weeks and it is nice to have a professional so I can go "hey, I feel like I'm not getting enough protein, how can I get more?" or "I'm having a hard time staying in my calorie goals and not being hungry all the time, any suggestions?". She's also helpful at pointing out things like "sure, you didn't lose as much weight as you'd hoped since the last appointment, but look at how much more hydrated you are, great job!" or "sure, you didn't lose as much fat as you wanted, but you've stuck with your goal to work out 5 days a week".
You can get that here too, but I find it helps being accountable to an actual person and having her there to help me.1 -
I am struggling with the same type of thinking. To me it's easier to eat 1000 cals than 1500! However, I just read something that really helped me and maybe it will you too. Go up to the top and read the "Most Helpful Posts" about BMR and TDEE. It really helped me to see why I need to be eating a certain amount which will result in a moderate weight loss which can be sustained. Even though I want this weight to be off of me yesterday, I am going to try to do things different this time! Good luck to you too!6
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Don't weigh your food. Don't eat back your calories. Concentrate on learning how much and what to eat that helps you lose and maintain. Then keep your active lifestyle. Focus on finding foods you like and activities you enjoy.2
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How would you know "how much" food helps you lose and maintain if you aren't weighing it??? Makes no sense.13
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Presumably you would ditch all your issues, foibles, and proclivities that made you join the ranks of people who find MFP during their quest to lose weight, and through intense listening to your inner hamsters you would join the path of the majority of people who intuitively ingest no more calories than what they need to... wait, are normal weight adults STILL the majority in the internet enabled world? And out of the ones who ARE normal weight, are we sure that their hamsters voluntarily agree to not overeat all the Snickers?
I can report that MY normal weight hamsters would have been perfectly happy stuffing their face with the jar of peanut butter and the jar of marshmallow fluff currently on the counter, preferably spread on some jam enhanced cookies.... but the MFP supervisor hamster only approved some (ok, quite a few @ ~275 Cal or 10% of my day, but I could afford them) Medjool dates, *after* it popped them on the scale!!! 🤷♂️🐹😘8 -
This is something I've done a lot of work on and am still working on it. I'm a serial yo-yo dieter. I can lose weight, and have even lost up to 30-35 pounds, but then I regain it (sometimes plus more) and have to start all over again. I like to think that I at least learn something new every time and I am continuously working on making this more sustainable. I am really bad at falling into the trap of thinking that one little mistake means I've "ruined it" and I might as well binge for the rest of the day and then get "back on track" tomorrow, next week, etc. Obviously that leads to not getting back on track. This time around I'm working really hard at logging whatever it is I've done "off track" and strategically thinking about the rest of the day rather than saying "I've ruined it, might as well binge now." Often it's totally salvageable- sometimes by just doing some extra walking and making sure I'm careful the rest of the day. Or sometimes I can at least make sure I hit maintenance calories for the day so it doesn't impact the overall week too much.
And yeah, a big part for me was allowing myself more calories to begin with each day so that I'm not as tempted to go off the rails in the first place. It took me several rounds of this to figure out 1200 calories is just never going to work for me. I tried the 1200 calories and then try to earn 300-400 calories with exercise thing- not for me either. Last summer, I tried setting my goal to lose 1 pound per week, which gave me 1550 calories to eat before exercise. I found the eating pattern much more sustainable, but I was then frustrated with the "slow" loss. I started at about 200 pounds, so even after sticking with it all summer I was annoyed that I was "still really fat."
So like I said, I've learned something each time. I started again on January 1 and I've done something I thought I never would. I don't weigh myself at all. I used to weigh in and track my weight every single day. I'm sticking with the sustainable eating pattern, I'm doing mostly walking for exercise so I don't get burned out, and I'm not focused on the scale and "only" losing 1 pound per week. Now, because I've tried weight loss so many times I know what it takes and I know how my body responds- I know how to log accurately, weigh food, etc. For someone just starting out I think it's important to weigh in to make sure you're doing everything correctly and it's working. I'm past that point. I found in the past I'd be pleased with noticing my face and arms were slimmer, looser clothes, etc. but then get so disappointed when I stepped on the scale and felt "still super fat." When I got hit with some stressful things in the fall, I didn't stick with my healthier habits because I felt like it wasn't doing anything anyway- what was the point when I was still so big?
I'm now 5 months in and still going strong, and very pleased with my results. Over time, 1 pound per week makes a big difference. I have no idea what I weigh, but my face and arms look 10x better. At first I was celebrating being able to fit into the clothes in my closet that had gotten too tight, and now almost everything is too loose. I was barely squeezing into a size 16, I know I'm at least a 14 now, possibly closer to a 12- have to wait until trying on clothes at stores is an allowable thing again! And I'm feeling very confident that I was able to stick to this during stay at home when most people are gaining weight. At some point, when I get much slimmer I'll probably need to start weighing again because it will be harder to lose- right now I have a lot to lose so doing the basic stuff is going to work. But by then I'll no longer be dealing with the "why bother because I'm still really fat" mindset.8 -
OP, if you suffer at 1200 cal + exercise, then up it to 1500 cal + exercise. You need to do what works. Once you reach goal you need to maintain, so it's a good idea to build up healthy habits that are sustainable. Patience is probably the hardest accomplishment. There are thread after thread on motivation on here, but what they need to ask is "How do I achieve patience in my life"?3
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laurenjunda28 wrote: »I know it's low, but MFP set me to 1200 calories a day. I checked a TDEE calculator and that gave me 1500 calories for a 1 lb. loss a week which I know is probably more realistic and sustainable. But of course, my mind has a hard time embracing that.
Just to address this part.
MFP is a calculator and you control at least some of the inputs. Which means MFP didn't set you to 1200 - you did that with the choices you made.
And the reason the TDEE calculator is different to MFP is primarilly because exercise is taken into account in the TDEE calculation but isn't in the MFP goal. That MFP goal is 1200 + exercise expenditure. Which now makes sense as the two goals are going to be very similar - one with a same every day goal (part of which is indeed your estimated exercise expenditure), one with a variable goal having you eat less when you do less and eating more when you do more. Both methods work.
That both TDEE calculators and MFP (and all day trackers) take a perfectly valid energy expenditure into account shows how daft the advice to ignore exercise calories is!
Keep in perspective the passage of time - progress however slow moves you towards your goal, failure to stick with it because you make the process so difficult to adhere to gets you nowhere.5 -
NorthCascades wrote: »This is a tortise and the hare thing. You're definitely right in your thinking, sustainable is the key here. You feel better on a smaller deficit, it's easier to pull off, it's easier once you've lost the weight to shift into keeping it off.
It's also great that you're exercising plenty. You can lose weight without exercising, but it's harder, less fun, and less healthy.
Really sounds like you've got this. Remember it's a process, and we all screw up along the way. You're allowed to make mistakes too. The important thing is how you deal with it, and again, sustainable is the answer.
Thanks so much, I really appreciate your feedback.0 -
My two cents, which is probably worth around 0.75 cent.
1200 calories is not enough food. My wife tried that and it just doesn't work. 1500 is much more realistic and doable. Very few people of any size or gender are able to be satisfied on 1200 cals, so the most likely outcome is binging and yo-yo dieting. Such is not true of 1500, which is a liveable amount of food. I'm not saying 1200 "can't" be done, just that it's stacking the odds against yourself over the long term.
The title of your post says it all. Everything that can be said about dieting that has any true insight is probably well summarized right there. Black vs. white doesn't work. It's always about finding an acceptable middle ground. We as organisms, with our dopamine reward/pleasure centers and taste buds and all the rest of it, were not designed to deny ourselves day after day after day after week after month after year. Millions of years of evolution make us want to stuff our faces with the hyperpalatable foods shoved in front of our faces 24x7 in this modern world of ours. To pretend that isn't true by declaring that a diet will involve ongoing extreme deprivation is just unrealistic and hardly ever works. We all have to find our way with this, but the "way" is almost always a balancing act between what we want and crave, versus what we need in order to reach our weight loss goals. 1500 is a valid version of the balancing act. 1200 rarely is, for most people, especially people who are overweight and love food.
Definitely 2 cents+ worth of feedback here. I hear what you're saying and it logically makes sense. I hope this time around I can have a greater sense of appreciation for finding that balancing act, because it is crucial. Thank you so, so much!1 -
virginiajharris wrote: »One thing that might help is enlisting some help. 🙂 Here is a great resource, but if you can I'd suggest maybe seeing a dietitian.
Mine has been great with helping me figure out my calorie goals and stay on track. I see her about every 4-6 weeks and it is nice to have a professional so I can go "hey, I feel like I'm not getting enough protein, how can I get more?" or "I'm having a hard time staying in my calorie goals and not being hungry all the time, any suggestions?". She's also helpful at pointing out things like "sure, you didn't lose as much weight as you'd hoped since the last appointment, but look at how much more hydrated you are, great job!" or "sure, you didn't lose as much fat as you wanted, but you've stuck with your goal to work out 5 days a week".
You can get that here too, but I find it helps being accountable to an actual person and having her there to help me.
That's definitely a great suggestion and will look into that. Thank you so much!0 -
joyanna2016 wrote: »I am struggling with the same type of thinking. To me it's easier to eat 1000 cals than 1500! However, I just read something that really helped me and maybe it will you too. Go up to the top and read the "Most Helpful Posts" about BMR and TDEE. It really helped me to see why I need to be eating a certain amount which will result in a moderate weight loss which can be sustained. Even though I want this weight to be off of me yesterday, I am going to try to do things different this time! Good luck to you too!
Yes! For the time being, I've felt fine on the 1200 calories, but in the grand scheme, I do not want to destroy my metabolism and having issues down the line where my maintenance calories are so low that I'll feel like I'm always "dieting". Thank you for that suggestion, I will check that our for sure. Good luck in your journey
1 -
Here is an exercise for you. Grab a piece of paper and a writing utensil and at the top of it write "This is how I fail to lose all the weight I want to lose"
Then make a list.
Here is what would be on my list:
1) Eating less than I need
2) Restricting food I can moderate
3) Expecting perfection from myself
4) Failing to understand how the bathroom scale works.
5) Thinking it is okay to be miserable now in exchange for being happy when the weight is gone
6) Trying to hurry it up so I can get it over with
7) Making drastic changes
8) Eating only "diet" food
9) Thinking that if it doesn't feel hard I am doing something wrong
10) Not realizing that if I take a pill to block the absorption of my dietary fat that it will leak from my rear - yep that happened and yes I put it in there to lighten the post.
I could probably go on. I tried to lose for close to 3 decades so I am an expert at how to fail a diet. Learning how to see my mistakes is how I have finally been winning.10 -
swimmchick87 wrote: »This is something I've done a lot of work on and am still working on it. I'm a serial yo-yo dieter. I can lose weight, and have even lost up to 30-35 pounds, but then I regain it (sometimes plus more) and have to start all over again. I like to think that I at least learn something new every time and I am continuously working on making this more sustainable. I am really bad at falling into the trap of thinking that one little mistake means I've "ruined it" and I might as well binge for the rest of the day and then get "back on track" tomorrow, next week, etc. Obviously that leads to not getting back on track. This time around I'm working really hard at logging whatever it is I've done "off track" and strategically thinking about the rest of the day rather than saying "I've ruined it, might as well binge now." Often it's totally salvageable- sometimes by just doing some extra walking and making sure I'm careful the rest of the day. Or sometimes I can at least make sure I hit maintenance calories for the day so it doesn't impact the overall week too much.
And yeah, a big part for me was allowing myself more calories to begin with each day so that I'm not as tempted to go off the rails in the first place. It took me several rounds of this to figure out 1200 calories is just never going to work for me. I tried the 1200 calories and then try to earn 300-400 calories with exercise thing- not for me either. Last summer, I tried setting my goal to lose 1 pound per week, which gave me 1550 calories to eat before exercise. I found the eating pattern much more sustainable, but I was then frustrated with the "slow" loss. I started at about 200 pounds, so even after sticking with it all summer I was annoyed that I was "still really fat."
So like I said, I've learned something each time. I started again on January 1 and I've done something I thought I never would. I don't weigh myself at all. I used to weigh in and track my weight every single day. I'm sticking with the sustainable eating pattern, I'm doing mostly walking for exercise so I don't get burned out, and I'm not focused on the scale and "only" losing 1 pound per week. Now, because I've tried weight loss so many times I know what it takes and I know how my body responds- I know how to log accurately, weigh food, etc. For someone just starting out I think it's important to weigh in to make sure you're doing everything correctly and it's working. I'm past that point. I found in the past I'd be pleased with noticing my face and arms were slimmer, looser clothes, etc. but then get so disappointed when I stepped on the scale and felt "still super fat." When I got hit with some stressful things in the fall, I didn't stick with my healthier habits because I felt like it wasn't doing anything anyway- what was the point when I was still so big?
I'm now 5 months in and still going strong, and very pleased with my results. Over time, 1 pound per week makes a big difference. I have no idea what I weigh, but my face and arms look 10x better. At first I was celebrating being able to fit into the clothes in my closet that had gotten too tight, and now almost everything is too loose. I was barely squeezing into a size 16, I know I'm at least a 14 now, possibly closer to a 12- have to wait until trying on clothes at stores is an allowable thing again! And I'm feeling very confident that I was able to stick to this during stay at home when most people are gaining weight. At some point, when I get much slimmer I'll probably need to start weighing again because it will be harder to lose- right now I have a lot to lose so doing the basic stuff is going to work. But by then I'll no longer be dealing with the "why bother because I'm still really fat" mindset.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I hope to get to that point as well. I'm so glad you were able to focus on how you feel and look. That's definitely more important than any number on the scale 2 -
laurenjunda28 wrote: »I know it's low, but MFP set me to 1200 calories a day. I checked a TDEE calculator and that gave me 1500 calories for a 1 lb. loss a week which I know is probably more realistic and sustainable. But of course, my mind has a hard time embracing that.
Just to address this part.
MFP is a calculator and you control at least some of the inputs. Which means MFP didn't set you to 1200 - you did that with the choices you made.
And the reason the TDEE calculator is different to MFP is primarilly because exercise is taken into account in the TDEE calculation but isn't in the MFP goal. That MFP goal is 1200 + exercise expenditure. Which now makes sense as the two goals are going to be very similar - one with a same every day goal (part of which is indeed your estimated exercise expenditure), one with a variable goal having you eat less when you do less and eating more when you do more. Both methods work.
That both TDEE calculators and MFP (and all day trackers) take a perfectly valid energy expenditure into account shows how daft the advice to ignore exercise calories is!
Keep in perspective the passage of time - progress however slow moves you towards your goal, failure to stick with it because you make the process so difficult to adhere to gets you nowhere.
Got it! Thank you so much for addressing this and explaining it further. And appreciate your last statement. It helps more than you know!1 -
Don't weigh your food. Don't eat back your calories. Concentrate on learning how much and what to eat that helps you lose and maintain. Then keep your active lifestyle. Focus on finding foods you like and activities you enjoy.
Yep I still feel this way. Give me more dislikes please. I don't want to be chained to an app. The app is just a tool to learn and correct.
BTW I do this. Never weigh my food. Never eat back calories.
Two weeks at 100% goal and moving to maintenance now. Calories and macros are estimates at best anyways.
Is your life a diet or lifestyle?2
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