New here and looking for folks with similar struggles

clintone3

Hello,

I'm new to myfitnesspal and looking for support from people with similar struggles. I am diabetic (Type II), with osteoarthritis and spinal stenosis (both make exercise and movement nearly impossible), and lots of pain.

If you can relate, it would be great to connect.

Clint

hbjw7218

Hi, I am also new to my fitness pal. I am in my early 70’s, just diagnosed with diabetes, overweight and struggling with what my Macro settings should be and advice on how I can use fitness pal.

AnnPT77

While exercise is good for a person, it's not necessary to exercise in order to lose weight: Tuning one's eating to one's actual activity level will work. (Yes, exercise lets a person eat a little more to get that same weight loss rate, which is nice, but it's not essential.) I didn't increase exercise to cause weight loss, though I admit I was already fortunate to be able to be fairly active. (I was 60 when I lost the big chunk of weight, 67 now.)

I do have some osteoarthritis, plus osteoporosis, though not the stenosis AFAIK. What I will say is that - for me, at least - reaching a healthy weight significantly decreased both frequency and severity of joint pain from that and my torn meniscus (for which I'm deferring surgery as long as practical). That wasn't my only quality of life improvement from weight loss, but it was a biggie.

I've also found that getting fitter and stronger has helped reduce pain and dysfunction, but that for me has been a very gradual progress starting in my late 40s after cancer treatment. Before the cancer, I was very inactive, but started doing more exercise in an effort to regain normal strength, energy and even happiness after surgery-chemo-radiation.

I hope that you, @clintone3, may see some improvements along the way as you lose weight - I and others here have found that some good effects start showing up even before we get to our ultimate goal weight.

@hbjw7218, to your questions specifically, I think this thread is the best single on-ramp to using MFP successfully:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1080242/a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants/p1

Don't let that joke-y clickbait title put you off: It's solid, serious, sensible information.

Beyond that, chip away at reading posts in the "Most Helpful Posts" section under the Community frum headings "Getting Started" and "Health and Weight Loss". Those are posts that were originally written by regular MFP users, then nominated for "Most Helpful" status by other MFP users: There's gold in there, and I learned a lot from them when I was starting out almost 8 years back.

The first post I linked will say some useful things about setting macros, but the MFP default values aren't a terrible starting place, as long as you're not trying to cut calories way too aggressively far for fast weight loss (like more than 0.5-1% of current weight per week, max). You can work with the defaults while you're figuring out what works best for you at a detail level.

It's calories that directly determine weight loss, not macros, anyway. Macros can have an indirect effect (through fatigue or appetite), but calories are the direct mechanism.

That said, macros are important for nutrition, health, energy level, satiation, body composition, and that sort of thing. Those goals are worthwhile, but we can gradually improve our nutrition and that will be OK: Humans are adaptive omnivores, after all.

It's a point of debate still among researchers, but there are some indications that folks our age can benefit from spreading protein through our day (rather than concentrating it all in one meal), because of concerns that we may absorb it less efficiently. For sure, protein is an important nutrient for anyone, and even more so for people who are losing weight, and yet more so for people in our age group. I'm sure you know that risk of muscle loss is higher as we age, and it's adequate protein plus some manageable strength exercise that help counteract that.

I hope you both find MFP as helpful as I have. I lost around 1/3 of my body weight - obese to healthy weight - back in 2015-16, have been hanging around here since to stay in a healthy weight range ever since. So far, so good.

Wishing you both success with MFP!

hbjw7218

Thank you so much. The bottom line for me is that I am a cheat (in the best sense of the word). I am hoping that the tracking will help me get over that.