Starting back tomorrow 3/7/22

tut8936

Hello I'm tut8936 and I'm starting back tomorrow I'm 43 now and I'm 5"5 and I'm 286 even and I need motivation and a push to stay consistent I'm on a 1350 calorie intake and really don't know what to eat and I'm I'm do slim fast protein shakes for breakfast and lunch and I don't eat after 7pm

springlering62

Well, did you start?

My problem was “too many tomorrows”. I finally had to start “today”.

Much success to you.

I’d substitute “real” food for slim fast. You could eat a large piece of chopped or grilled boneless skinless for the calorie cost of a slim fast, and be satiated.

Got an air fryer? Season a few breasts with a simple seasoning (Lawry’s or lemon pepper. I adore Victoria Taylor honey aleppo- sometimes available at TJMaxx or Marshall’s cheap) and throw them in til nicely grilled. Voila! Lunches and/or snacks for a few days.

Make your calories count for satiation. I’d gnaw my arm off with two liquid meals a day!

AnnPT77

An option: Just log what you'd usually eat, or what you want to eat before you eat it, look it over, decide which things are/aren't worth their calorie "cost" to you for satiation, nutrition or happiness. Eliminate or reduce those things, maybe sub in other foods that work better for you, until you're in calorie goal, feeling mostly sated, getting adequate nutrition. A remodeling project!

I'm with Springlering62 (as usual): For me, eating real food that I can chew makes me happier, keeps me fuller, than drinks. There's an added advantage that when eating regular food, we can work on figuring out long term eating habits alongside losing weight. (Maybe you can go on permanently drinking 2 shakes, eating one meal - some people can. Personally, I couldn't.)

Underlying suggestion here: Think about how to make the process (relatively) easy, rather than necessarily super-fast or extreme. The easier the new habits are, the more enjoyable (or close), the less motivation we need. (I stink at motivation.)

It sounds like you've picked the 2 pounds a week loss rate. That should be fine, given where you're starting. Just as a reminder: MFP expects you to log exercise, if you do any, and eat a reasonable fraction of those calories, too. Doing that can make the process more sustainable.

I'm your height (5'5"), and started here class 1 obese (although somewhat lighter than you are now) nearly 7 years ago. I've been at a healthy weight for the last 6ish years. If it required infinite motivation and rock-solid consistency every minute, I wouldn't have succeeded. Figuring our relatively-happy new habits, and thinking in terms of behavior/choices averaged over a few days, so things are flexible, made a big difference to me.

For myself, I decided I wasn't going to do anything (other than a sensibly moderate calorie deficit) to lose weight that I wasn't willing to do forever to stay at a healthy weight long term, which put my focus on experimenting (not always successfully on the first try! 😆) to find those happy habits.

You can do this. Keep chipping away. Don't give up. If something goes poorly (as it tends to do sometimes for all of us), learn from it, revise your plan accordingly, then let it go, and go on.

Wishing you much success!

TheLovelyQueen

You can do this ❤️ I’m going to send you a friend’s request.

chrissypooh86

I'm going to send u a request

Sinisterbarbie1

I agree with @AnnPT77 and will add one slight piggy back to her post about starting out by just keeping track of what you eat/eating at maintenance and making adjustments. When you are eating, REALLY pay attention to what you are eating and what it tastes like/feels like/makes you feel like/why you are eating/when you are eating I found that if I did that I actually didn’t like many if not most of the junky high calorie stuff I sometimes thought I craved and I genuinely either don’t have true cravings often anymore, or if I do they are satisfied by one or two bites.

I come at this from the perspective of someone who is an accomplished home cook and has taken lots of professional cooking classes/ate out a lot at the hot new places/traveled for work and took clients to fancy business dinners at such places etc, so asking myself “is it worth the calories” is sort of like asking “is it worth the money” for those fancy dinners out pre-COVID days.