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james567mfp
Posts: 14 Member
Wanting to know from someone’s success story how they got started, so how many calories they’d consume in a day and how much exercise they did to begin with just to get an idea of where to start. It feels like when I look at people success stories online they never really say how much they ate, any help would be much appreciated.
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Replies
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That's going to be different for each person, and might not help you reach your goals. What does MFP set your calories at? My calories currently are close to 1600, but I know as I lose weight that will change.
Lots of good luck!0 -
I have a lot to lose so set MFP to calculate a 2lbs per week loss and ate that much. I then started walking to work once a week, increased it 2 twice a week after a few months and started taking a fitness class.
After 2 years I'd lost 4st and told MFP to reduce it to 1lbs per week and ate that.
Your stats will be different to mine as we're different heights, weight and gender but the principle is the same - eat less, move more and create a healthy calorie deficit.2 -
That's going to be different for each person, and might not help you reach your goals. What does MFP set your calories at? My calories currently are close to 1600, but I know as I lose weight that will change.
Lots of good luck!
Yeah so mfp say to consume 2400 while exercising and 1900 on an off day but just wanted to get an idea on other people’s journey and how long it took to see results, I’ve also wandered about how much water people drink in a day depending on their weight?0 -
Jackie9003 wrote: »I have a lot to lose so set MFP to calculate a 2lbs per week loss and ate that much. I then started walking to work once a week, increased it 2 twice a week after a few months and started taking a fitness class.
After 2 years I'd lost 4st and told MFP to reduce it to 1lbs per week and ate that.
Your stats will be different to mine as we're different heights, weight and gender but the principle is the same - eat less, move more and create a healthy calorie deficit.
Trying to create a healthy calorie deficit is something I’ve found hard to do personally because I don’t want to over do it and have a massive calorie deficit and see no results but then eat too much and be putting on weight0 -
The idea that drinking a certain number of glasses of water per day to lose weight has been totally debunked. Drink enough to keep yourself well hydrated for health. When you look at your urine, it should appear straw yellow. If it is darker yellow, you are not drinking enough. If it is basically clear, you are drinking too much.
There are no specific foods to be eaten or avoided, no times or numbers of day to eat, no hi-carb/lo-carb/paleo/Atkins/whole-food/fasting method that works particularly well or ill for everyone. How many calories you need to eat depends on your age, gender, your height, your current weight, your musculature and your activity level. The only way to lose weight is to consume fewer calories than you burn during your daily life. The only way to increase the calories you burn is to exercise (and increase musculature which requires exercise) but it takes a lot more exercise than you think to burn many calories.
For the most part, extremely sedentary, almost 70 years old, ca. 260 pound me loses weight limiting my calorie intake to about 1525 calories per day. Are you a couch-potato 70-year-old with a circumference close to your height? If no, my dietary choices probably wouldn't be optimal for you.
Successful MFP members are doing something self-determined and self-designed for them.7 -
Yep--everybody's different. You'd do better giving your stats and asking other people with those stats to post. You question is too wide--narrow it down and you'll get better answers.0
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Just my personal story and mine only.
I set my calories for one pound weight loss per week. Then I started doing exercise 3 days a week. I took a one hour class set to music. At first I did half the class, sat out one whole song to rest, then tried to finish the class. I was aware of exercise, did things like park farther from the building, take the stairs. As I got stronger, I left my calories at the same goal, but added more exercise, without eating exercise calories. I’m an accountant, very math oriented, so my calories were always within about 20 of goal, exactly on point if you average a few days. I had to learn to relax that a little. I had to learn that it’s okay to not count calories a few days a year—Christmas, my birthday. I lost 10 pounds a month for 6 months, total 60 pounds. I have never had problems with being dehydrated, so I never counted my water, still don’t.
Hindsight. I would have tried to lose just a little slower. I would have left my calories the same, exercised a little less.
I was happy with my calorie goal. It was something I could live with forever.1 -
I count calories
I eat low glycemic index foods, avoid sugar (but still treat myself occasionally), and am gluten free
I eat: Protein, veggies, and carbs like quinoa, corn, buckwheat, and millet
Snacks: carrots, handful of nuts, tortilla chips and salsa, berries, etc... - just make sure it fits into my calorie count for the day
I usually have a coffee/tea and a snack in the morning, a balanced lunch, another snack, and then dinner
I enjoy working out about 4x a week
With SIP, I have been doing yoga, walking and running
I run about 2miles 3x a week
My workout goal is simple: do something
Start where you’re at and do what you can
Be gentle with yourself
It’s not a race
My stats
Starting weight: 140lbs
I’ve been maintaining now at 125lbs
I’m 5’3” female
Eating 1500 calories/day
The weight came off really slowly for me
I know I didn’t have that much to lose
I hope this helps!
Good luck!0 -
When does "start" start?
After cancer and cancer treatment in my mid-40s, I realized that if I ever wanted to feel strong and energetic ever again, I was going to have to work at it. Starting from very inactive, I gradually increased exercise, ultimately finding on-water rowing, which I love. I do it regularly, plus (less fun) machine rowing in Winter when the river gets crunchy, and for the last 15 years or so have rowed 4 days a week in summer (less volume in Winter on the machine), taken spin class two days a week, and done some other random fun stuff, plus episodes of strength training in off season. I've even competed in on-water and machine rowing, not always unsuccessfully.
Despite that, I stayed obese for another dozen years. It's sooo easy to eat those few hundred extra exercise calories daily, when working out, and stay at constant weight. It's like a daily serving of peanut butter toast, or thereabouts.
At 59, it became graphically obvious to me that if I valued my health and continuing independent life, just being active was not enough, despite being the semi-mythical fit fat person. I committed to managing my eating, and lost about 50 pounds, almost a third of my bodyweight, from obese to a healthy weight. I didn't particularly change my activity level, I didn't particularly change the range of foods I was eating (it was already pretty nutritious), I just chose calorie-appropriate portions and proportions. At 5'5", sedentary outside of exercise (and hypothyroid, by the way), I lost most of the weight eating 1400-1600+ calories plus all exercise calories, which was 1600-1900+ gross calories most days. (I'm a woman, in case it isn't obvious.
).
Nowadays, I maintain on something around 2000 calories plus exercise, so low 2000s gross calories, though it varies seasonally and over time with activity changes.
None of that is meaningful for you, truly. It's not meaningful even for other women of my age and size.
Set up MFP with accurate values in your profile. Choose a moderate, sustainable weight loss ate appropriate to your situation. That will give you a sound, statistically based estimate, a much better starting point than any other individual person's idiosyncratic experience. Set your MFP activity level based on non-exercise activity (job, home chores, etc.). Log your food as accurately as practical. Make a reasonable estimate of your exercise calories, and eat the majority of those back, too. Do that for 4-6 weeks. Adjust your eating based on your actual average weight loss results. (Premenopausal women should compare weights at the same relative point in two different menstrual cycles.)
That will work.
Best wishes!0 -
I count calories
I eat low glycemic index foods, avoid sugar (but still treat myself occasionally), and am gluten free
I eat: Protein, veggies, and carbs like quinoa, corn, buckwheat, and millet
Snacks: carrots, handful of nuts, tortilla chips and salsa, berries, etc... - just make sure it fits into my calorie count for the day
I usually have a coffee/tea and a snack in the morning, a balanced lunch, another snack, and then dinner
I enjoy working out about 4x a week
With SIP, I have been doing yoga, walking and running
I run about 2miles 3x a week
My workout goal is simple: do something
Start where you’re at and do what you can
Be gentle with yourself
It’s not a race
My stats
Starting weight: 140lbs
I’ve been maintaining now at 125lbs
I’m 5’3” female
Eating 1500 calories/day
The weight came off really slowly for me
I know I didn’t have that much to lose
I hope this helps!
Good luck!
Thanks for sharing this it does help in a way but being a male I feel like it’s harder to get people to share their story and how much they ate etc.. but I can kind of adjust yours and kind of get an idea where I’m supposed to be at but you seem like you’re doing well and good luck to you0 -
When does "start" start?
After cancer and cancer treatment in my mid-40s, I realized that if I ever wanted to feel strong and energetic ever again, I was going to have to work at it. Starting from very inactive, I gradually increased exercise, ultimately finding on-water rowing, which I love. I do it regularly, plus (less fun) machine rowing in Winter when the river gets crunchy, and for the last 15 years or so have rowed 4 days a week in summer (less volume in Winter on the machine), taken spin class two days a week, and done some other random fun stuff, plus episodes of strength training in off season. I've even competed in on-water and machine rowing, not always unsuccessfully.
Despite that, I stayed obese for another dozen years. It's sooo easy to eat those few hundred extra exercise calories daily, when working out, and stay at constant weight. It's like a daily serving of peanut butter toast, or thereabouts.
At 59, it became graphically obvious to me that if I valued my health and continuing independent life, just being active was not enough, despite being the semi-mythical fit fat person. I committed to managing my eating, and lost about 50 pounds, almost a third of my bodyweight, from obese to a healthy weight. I didn't particularly change my activity level, I didn't particularly change the range of foods I was eating (it was already pretty nutritious), I just chose calorie-appropriate portions and proportions. At 5'5", sedentary outside of exercise (and hypothyroid, by the way), I lost most of the weight eating 1400-1600+ calories plus all exercise calories, which was 1600-1900+ gross calories most days. (I'm a woman, in case it isn't obvious. ).
Nowadays, I maintain on something around 2000 calories plus exercise, so low 2000s gross calories, though it varies seasonally and over time with activity changes.
None of that is meaningful for you, truly. It's not meaningful even for other women of my age and size.
Set up MFP with accurate values in your profile. Choose a moderate, sustainable weight loss ate appropriate to your situation. That will give you a sound, statistically based estimate, a much better starting point than any other individual person's idiosyncratic experience. Set your MFP activity level based on non-exercise activity (job, home chores, etc.). Log your food as accurately as practical. Make a reasonable estimate of your exercise calories, and eat the majority of those back, too. Do that for 4-6 weeks. Adjust your eating based on your actual average weight loss results. (Premenopausal women should compare weights at the same relative point in two different menstrual cycles.)
That will work.
Best wishes!
Thanks for sharing this knowing someone personally suffering from cancer I know how hard/easy it can be for someone to lose/gain weight but it is interesting to see someone struggle to lose weight? It’s weird you needing almost as many calories as me to maintain your weight as me losing weight considering we’re different genders, I would’ve thought you would’ve needed a lot less, this is what confuses me the most?0 -
james567mfp wrote: »When does "start" start?
After cancer and cancer treatment in my mid-40s, I realized that if I ever wanted to feel strong and energetic ever again, I was going to have to work at it. Starting from very inactive, I gradually increased exercise, ultimately finding on-water rowing, which I love. I do it regularly, plus (less fun) machine rowing in Winter when the river gets crunchy, and for the last 15 years or so have rowed 4 days a week in summer (less volume in Winter on the machine), taken spin class two days a week, and done some other random fun stuff, plus episodes of strength training in off season. I've even competed in on-water and machine rowing, not always unsuccessfully.
Despite that, I stayed obese for another dozen years. It's sooo easy to eat those few hundred extra exercise calories daily, when working out, and stay at constant weight. It's like a daily serving of peanut butter toast, or thereabouts.
At 59, it became graphically obvious to me that if I valued my health and continuing independent life, just being active was not enough, despite being the semi-mythical fit fat person. I committed to managing my eating, and lost about 50 pounds, almost a third of my bodyweight, from obese to a healthy weight. I didn't particularly change my activity level, I didn't particularly change the range of foods I was eating (it was already pretty nutritious), I just chose calorie-appropriate portions and proportions. At 5'5", sedentary outside of exercise (and hypothyroid, by the way), I lost most of the weight eating 1400-1600+ calories plus all exercise calories, which was 1600-1900+ gross calories most days. (I'm a woman, in case it isn't obvious. ).
Nowadays, I maintain on something around 2000 calories plus exercise, so low 2000s gross calories, though it varies seasonally and over time with activity changes.
None of that is meaningful for you, truly. It's not meaningful even for other women of my age and size.
Set up MFP with accurate values in your profile. Choose a moderate, sustainable weight loss ate appropriate to your situation. That will give you a sound, statistically based estimate, a much better starting point than any other individual person's idiosyncratic experience. Set your MFP activity level based on non-exercise activity (job, home chores, etc.). Log your food as accurately as practical. Make a reasonable estimate of your exercise calories, and eat the majority of those back, too. Do that for 4-6 weeks. Adjust your eating based on your actual average weight loss results. (Premenopausal women should compare weights at the same relative point in two different menstrual cycles.)
That will work.
Best wishes!
Thanks for sharing this knowing someone personally suffering from cancer I know how hard/easy it can be for someone to lose/gain weight but it is interesting to see someone struggle to lose weight? It’s weird you needing almost as many calories as me to maintain your weight as me losing weight considering we’re different genders, I would’ve thought you would’ve needed a lot less, this is what confuses me the most?
I'm an outlier (very atypical), in terms of calorie needs, for my demographics. In the strictest sense, I don't know why (though I have some theories), but nearly 5 years of fairly meticulous calorie-logging data says that this is the case. MFP materially under-estimates my calorie needs - by like 25-30%. So does my good-brand, good model all-day fitness tracker device, a brand/model that others here report is accurate for them.
My oncology team did a full-torso CT because they were concerned at my faster-than-expected loss rate (not panicked, just being conservative). No sign of untoward health conditions, and all blood work (done regularly because of my hypothyroidism and history of hypercholesterolemia) is good, too. I'm just out on the tail of the bell curve someplace.
Most people aren't. A few people are. I'm lucky. 0 -
At 55 I hit 315 no major health problems but that was just too much.
I started Atkins again and found the Atkins Calorie App and used it for about a year with good success.
Some Server issues shut the Atkins app down for long enough for me to find MFP that is the short story of how I got started.
As for the rest of your post to determine my daily calorie needs I have used https://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html
Might not be the best but I like it. I always use Sedentary as the activity option so the recommended daily calorie count is never too high.
Log everything, every day.
At first other than a couple of miles of walking I really didn't exercise. After about a year I started with Bodyweight Squats, Push ups, and Set ups.... maybe 20 or 30 each.
Once I had my weight down to 200 (two years) I started hitting the gym for weight training and some added treadmill just 45min to 1hr 15min Four or Five Days a week.
I'm 58 now down to almost 175lbs (trying for 170) I eat 1200 - 1700 cal most days for the week on the weekends 2000 to 2500. If I have a little much on the weekend I stick closer to 1200 for a couple of days during the week.
This is easier for me to do since I've been counting my calories every day for over 1000 days now.
Consistency in diet, nutrition (take a good daily vitamin), and exercise. It will take time but you can do it.
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