New to MyFitnessPal

Naty2024

Hi everyone 👋🏽, my name is Nataly and I’m currently 150lbs and want to loose about 20lbs. I usually struggle more with my diet than exercise. I love cardio but it’s still hard loosing weight. Feel free for any advice or easy quick meals! Thank you !

mtaratoot

Welcome to the community!

Exercise is great. Cardio will build a strong heart and lungs. It also burns calories, but maybe not as many as you imagine. The way to lose fat is to be in caloric deficit. It's hard to do that strictly with exercise. Use the setup to set a calorie goal, then log honestly and completely. Try to stay in a small deficit - you don't have that much to lose. Aim for a quarter to half pound a week. Stick to it. Go slow. Watch your results over time. If your results don't match your expectations, you may have to make other changes.

Naty2024

@mtaratoot thank you for the welcoming and for the advice. Yes, yesterday was my first day logging my food on the app and it was nice seeing how it can help you track your calories. Thank you again I really want to try this since it’s been a year where I stay the same and can’t go down.

mtaratoot

You can do it.

The main thing is don't get frustrated on the days when things don't go right. We all have them. Stick to it. It works!

Naty2024

@mtaratoot thank you. Your simple “you can do it” comment made my night and I feel more motivated to not give up. Also quick question, if I work out for an hour (speed walk for 30min and running for 30 min), do I have to eat more food than the goal I have set up or just eat bigger portions? These past days I haven’t worked out but typically I’m more active.

mtaratoot

What I would do if I were you is to log your exercise in the exercise diary. Then MFP will adjust your calorie goal.

MFP uses a method called "Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis" for our goals (NEAT). It includes regular routine activity, like what you do for work and the like. It doesn't include intentional activity. There are other calculators that use "Total Daily Energy Expenditure," or TDEE. Those calculators assume you have a regular exercise routine from week to week. You can play around with Sailrabbit to see what different activity levels will do to your goal. The activity level you set in the MFP setup doesn't include INTENTIONAL exercise.

Be aware that all these numbers are population estimates, and they may vary from person to person. The best thing is to log completely and honestly and then after several weeks see if your results are what you expected. If so, great! If not, you can tweak your goal. You'll need to adjust your goal as you lose weight anyway - there will be less of you to carry around and to fuel.

Also beware that motivation will wane. That is unimportant. Carry on anyway even if you aren't motivated. It's just something you are going to do from now on. Build that habit. Then you don't need the motivation.

Finally, beware that the exercise calorie burn you get from MFP may or may not be accurate for you. Some people only eat back half of their calories. If you set a very large deficit for yourself, I'd suggest you eat them all back. If it's a small deficit, you can play around with a portion of them. I find with my tracking wrist device, my goal is pretty spot on day to day as far as results matching expectations.

The most important things are to keep sticking to it, to log to your very best ability, and to observe the results and then adjust your approach.

I look forward to reading about your next seven successes.

Naty2024

@mtaratoot Great!!! Again, thank you so much for the information and recommendations, will definitely take into account all of this. Yes I’m also excited to see my results and continue this journey!