Newbie Here

xsjb9hdyt2

I’m relatively new to MFP although I’ve had the app for a few years. I’m 64 yo female, retired teacher, full time minister and seriously overweight. I am committed to getting physically fit and healthy. I started working out about three months ago and found I gained weight, not lost. So now I’m working on the food aspect of my journey. Can anyone relate to my experience? And have been successful? Please let me know. I have done diets in the past and lost weight just to gain it back. Looking for real lasting change that I can sustain.

nossmf

Welcome to the MFP forums, @xsjb9hdyt2! I think the key is not think of MFP as a "diet" in the sense used by much of social media, as in a short-term pattern designed to rapidly lose weight, followed by returning to old eating habits which have too many calories for the lighter weight and result in adding weight back on again.

If you truly want to have lasting change you can sustain, you need to figure out a pattern you can live with FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. Birthdays and holidays not withstanding, if you find an eating pattern which is satisfying, tasty, and has just the right amount of calories for the weight you want to be, you only need to change your eating habits once. (Small tweaks can of course occur anywhere as needed.)

AnnPT77

Good advice from @nossmf, as usual!

I'm a 68 year old woman, active and at a healthy weight. When I joined here at age 59, I was not.

Well, yeah, like you I'd started working out before that. It was a good thing, improved my quality of life . . . but I stayed overweight/obese for another dozen years. Turned out it was easy to eat back the surprisingly small number of calories that a workout needs for fuel. A whole pretty-intense cardio workout only burned maybe one open-faced thinly-spread peanut butter sandwich, or even a dollop of creamy salad dressing. Who knew?

When I joined MFP and started logging my eating, things began to fall into place. Right away, once I knew the calorie "cost" of certain foods, I knew that some weren't worth it to me in terms of their tastiness, satiation and nutrition. Those were easy cuts, whether just smaller portion, less frequent, or dropped altogether. Then I started working on gradually remodeling other aspects of my eating, to get to appropriate calories, reasonable satiation, decent overall nutrition, and general all-round happiness with my new habits . . . more or less in that order, not all at once.

(Details about that process here, if it sounds interesting: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10636388/free-customized-personal-weight-loss-eating-plan-not-spam-or-mlm/p1 . That may not be right for you - no one approach is universally perfect - but it's one option to consider.)

Nossmf is right: It's all about finding new habits . . . practical, tolerable, relatively easy new habits that suit you, as a unique individual. Try some new tactic. If it helps you, keep it, and practice it until it's pretty much autopilot. If it doesn't help, toss it out, a good lesson learned, but not the right long-run thing for you. Then try something else.

Weight management, to me, is a sequence of analysis and problem-solving opportunities. Keep at it, trying things, keeping the keepers, dropping the "didn't work", and you'll accomplish your goals.

The commitment you feel is a great start. If I, a hedonist aging-hippie flake, can do this, I'm quite confident that an educated, disciplined woman such as yourself can do it. Hang in there, and keep working at it!

I'm cheering for you to succeed: The results are worth it!

xsjb9hdyt2

@AnnPT77 ,
Thanks for the encouragement, I really appreciate it. I’m starting to realize some of what you mentioned as far as the right foods to eat or rather the right combination of macro nutrients to get me feeling right.
I knew some of what both you and @nossmf said but putting it into practice is going to require the discipline I’ve been using in other areas of my live. I am hopeful. Thanks again for the encouragement.

AnnPT77

xsjb9hdyt2 wrote: »

@AnnPT77 ,
Thanks for the encouragement, I really appreciate it. I’m starting to realize some of what you mentioned as far as the right foods to eat or rather the right combination of macro nutrients to get me feeling right.
I knew some of what both you and @nossmf said but putting it into practice is going to require the discipline I’ve been using in other areas of my live. I am hopeful. Thanks again for the encouragement.

That sounds like a great start! If you feel up to it, maybe come back to this thread and let us know how it's going for you? Despite being a total stranger, I'd love to see you succeed . . . and help if I can.

Best wishes!