Need help with this

debbie5874mfp

Hi. I am new to the forums. Not really sure ho this works. I have been using mfp for a long time and never stick to it. I have gained 30 pounds and very down about it. I am looking for some encouragement. Thanks.

goal06082021

Hello!

Your first step should be to do the guided setup and get your calorie budget. The activity level in the guided setup doesn't include purposeful exercise, so if you work out every day but have an office job, mark yourself Sedentary and log your exercise manually. Since you don't have very much to lose, set your rate of loss to 0.5lb or 1lb per week - the temptation will be there to set it to 2lb per week, but that's too aggressive for you, you'll burn out and hate it the whole time.

I think you're the same OP from the hip pain thread, right? Exercise may be a challenge at this point, but the good news is that you don't actually have to work out to lose weight, just eat fewer calories than your body burns to keep you alive in the course of a day. The best way to make sure you're doing that is to get a food scale and weigh everything you eat - guesstimating and eyeballing often underestimates how much you're eating, and an extra 50 cal here, 30 cal there, it adds up. Don't forget sauces/dressings, cooking oils/fats, crumbs and nibbles from cooking scraps, etc. I'm definitely guilty of, say, shredding up a wedge of parmesan and then noshing on the rind while I finish assembling my lasagna or whatever...but the difference is that now I weigh that rind and log that 2oz of cheese in my diary. And sometimes I even weigh it and decide to just eat 1oz, or put the whole thing away for another time. But, baby steps.

You can start by just logging your food honestly for a week - don't worry about staying under budget necessarily, just start by getting in the habit of making note of what you eat. Even if you start by writing it down on a piece of paper, or in your phone's Notes app, instead of in this app. Then, once you have that data, you should be able to see where you can make one small, sustainable change; do that until it's easy, then find another small, sustainable change, rinse repeat until you've revamped your lifestyle. To become a person who is 30lb lighter than you are, you must learn to eat like that person. Eating the way you have been got you to where you are now, so any change you make is going to need to be sustainable and permanent. For instance, to use myself as an example again, I can't afford to not eat carbs (like, monetarily, meat and vegetables are too expensive not to stretch them with starches), so I'm not going to cut them out temporarily until I'm at GW - I need to learn how to live with carbs and fit them into my budget, both financially and calorically.

debbie5874mfp

Thank you. I am going to concentrate on my calorie intake as suggested. I really want to stick to it this time. I was just on vacation and was bummed as to how hard it was to get around. I am 55 and 275 lbs. my goal is to get down to 199. Then go from there.