I tried going IIFYM today - here are my results

candylilacs

Well, you're talking to someone who just ate three cookies from Whole Foods after saying yesterday she has to stay away from sugar and flour. I found out by accident that the Whole Foods chocolate chewie, which is this totally too rich chocolate cookie and I can really only eat one before getting sick, only has 100 calories (it's a huge cookie!) So I feel slightly better.

Anyway, we have to be truthful with ourselves. Do we have the willpower to withstand temptation or not? Usually, I would say I do. However, put me in front of an Indian buffet and I will easily eat 1,000 calories or more, so I avoid Indian buffets most of the time.

Part of the difficulty of weight loss is portion control. So, what I do is I create a reasonable portion so even if I eat it all, it's not going to tank my day or week.

I bought three petite vanilla macarons from the Whole Foods bakery. I ate two. I could have eaten all three, but I realized that would be selfish because the hubs might want to try one when he came home (he did.) So I ate two macarons. No big deal. Did I buy the 24-count package? No. Why? Because I would probably eat the whole thing and I don't need that right now. I tried it, I liked it and now I know.

To get myself out of the binge mentality I tell myself that there's no reason to gorge because that food -- any food -- will always be there. Whenever you want it, it will be there -- except my mother's pilaf or chicken en mole, and I'd eat that -- and you can pretty much count on that. Lose weight, gain weight, it will still be there. I buy Ghiradelli's Dark Chocolate with Sea Salted Caramel when it's on sale and I bought five bags three weeks ago. I have three bags left (the hubs eats them, too) and I think I've probably eaten 3/4 of a bag (there's something like 12 or 13 squares in a bag). Sometimes knowing that you have them makes you feel a little less panicky about being deprived.

Dark chocolate is great for you, by the way.

Anyway, if I ate too much at one meal, it's not a big deal, but I can't use it as an excuse to go crazy. First, just one meal where I overeat will do little to change my weight loss. Probably even one day won't -- unless I'm really trying to derail my hard work. So, I just move on and try to do well.

We learn from our experience and it seems to me that you're understanding your willpower is less around certain foods. Be aware of that as you continue the journey. At some point you will be strong enough to eat without binging.

As for me, I can't eat ice cream anymore without getting crazy sick. Apparently not eating ice cream for three months made me even more lactose intolerant. It's easy to avoid now.

NonnyMary

Well in a way we ALL do IIFYM around here.. we are all trying to fit everything in our macros.

So why is there such a war between what looks like 2 groups of people? I dont mean to insult anyone.

there was a thread which someone said they were going to go cold turkey and others from the IIFYM crowd were giving their opposite points of view.

I think i got a bad impression of what some of the people were saying in defense of IIFYM. Some people thought i was being too deprivating myself since I was not allowing myself treats.

so while trying to work this out in my head, this is where I am,, and I dont know if i have a wall there or something because I interpreted it as if i dont have ice cream, fried chicken and poptarts, i was gonna be totally deprived and binge or something.

But now i see even with you all who beleive in IIFM, there are limits you do put on yourself, so its not what i was interpreting. i see you guys as giving yourself to eat all these things, and i tried to copy that, and it did not work out.. so it is confusing.

ItsCasey

As someone who is a compulsive eater, and who has not always been fit and active, I get frustrated when I see a string of replies to a new MFP member that basically say, "I've lost all my weight drinking beer and eating wings and brownies every day." For one, I believe that they are exaggerating a bit, and they eat much less of the junk they profess to exist on than they would lead you to believe. It's sort of a "cool kid" thing on MFP to profess your love of bacon, ice cream and deadlifting at every opportunity. Unfortunately, they lead people astray a bit by not going into detail about eating healthy more often than not (how else could you meet your macros consistently?) and not being up front about the amount of training they engage in.

Totally disagree with this. I'm a compulsive eater. I have not always been fit and active. I eat ice cream, Pop Tarts, cookies, etc., literally every day. I train for a grand total of 3.5 to 4 hours per week. And I lose weight. It's not my fault that some people are unwilling to control their behavior when there's a tray of cupcakes in front of them. Don't tell me I'm lying or just trying to be a cool kid. It's hard work that clearly not everyone is willing to do.

DavPul

this thread should be titled, "I tried IIDFYM and it Eureka, it worked perfectly!"

devil_in_a_blue_dress

Sweet baby Jeebus, you mean to tell me I cannot eat as much as I want of everything I want, everyday and stay in my marcos?!

Your results are not IIFYM, it's your results from eating whatever the heck you wanted with reckless abandon and being sad you cannot lose weight that way. IIFYM is about making choices to allow yourself foods that traditional diets shun as no-nos. Maybe this means you have boring broiled fish for lunch so you can have pizza for dinner. Or eating smaller portioned meals throughout the day so you can have dessert. IIFYM is about balancing the need to eat healthfully and get the nutrients you need while also enjoying treats so you don't binge out and wonder why your diets always fail.

Ugh. This thread.

/Rage.

usmcmp

Here's the thing...

Most of the really vocal proponents of the poptart, ice cream, bacon, cheeseburger, pizza variety of IIFYM do work out a lot and are very dedicated to fitness, from my observations on MFP. Most of them are also in maintenance or close to maintenance, and most of them were not compulsive eaters struggling with morbid obesity prior to losing their weight. Of course, I am making generalizations, and cannot provide exact details for every IIFYM proponent.

As someone who is a compulsive eater, and who has not always been fit and active, I get frustrated when I see a string of replies to a new MFP member that basically say, "I've lost all my weight drinking beer and eating wings and brownies every day." For one, I believe that they are exaggerating a bit, and they eat much less of the junk they profess to exist on than they would lead you to believe. It's sort of a "cool kid" thing on MFP to profess your love of bacon, ice cream and deadlifting at every opportunity. Unfortunately, they lead people astray a bit by not going into detail about eating healthy more often than not (how else could you meet your macros consistently?) and not being up front about the amount of training they engage in.

IIFYM would be better presented as "everything in moderation, with a focus on healthy whole foods that fuel your body, along with adequate exercise to burn excess calories." And even then, if you are a compulsive eater who has trouble limiting portions of certain foods, or who is "triggered" into a binge or uncontrollable eating by certain foods, you should be even more careful.

I believe in the general IIFYM concept, but you have to remember that you have to eat a lot of healthy foods to actually hit your macros most days, and the more unhealthy (high calorie, not nutritious) foods you consume, the less calories you have for healthy foods.

I'm a vocal proponent. I'm overweight (in a technical sense.) probably months and months away from maintenance, workout 3-5 hours a week (But usually 3) and I used to literallly (without exaggeration) put down an entire package of oreoes in a day. I would eat an entire pan of brownies, alone, in an evening. I've eaten entire tubs of ice cream while watching prime time TV. There are days in my diary from before IIFYM where I would drink 2 meal replacement shakes and then binge on candy because I felt like I had to restrict myself to succeed, but all restricting did was make me hate my entire life.

You have no idea, not even close to an idea, of what 'most' or even 'many' proponents of IIFYM are actually like.

It is only through learning about macros (and the TDEE method) that I was able to put my food into perspective and forge a healthier relationship with food. Learning to eat in moderation (Actual moderation, not "ALL THE THINGS IN SMALL AMOUNTS!!!") is one of the best things to happen to me with MFP, and that's because of IIFYM>

I used to eat a box of pop tarts for breakfast, two McDonald's meals for lunch and two bacon ultimate cheeseburgers for dinner with double fries and cheese sticks. I often ate a few candy bars before bed. I could easily put that much food away again and there are days I really want to.

NonnyMary

Amazing that it did not take a lot of food for me to go over.

That is the problem with the kind of food you eat.....it does not satiate a lot of people and they feel as if they have not eaten a lot in terms of volume, but over eat as far as calories are concerned.
If you switch to more whole/natural foods with a wide variety of vegetables, fruit and healthy protein you will be surprised how much food for less calories you get.

yes! I do generally do that every day 98% of the time. I was doing ok till a few posts from people who follow IIFYM, but they know how to do it. I do have a problem with temptation.. if i see it, i will want to eat it. So my success has to do with instead choosing other delish food that i do want to eat. I have even begun to love certain things that were just meh before. I believe in "clean" eating (dont shoot me! lol )

I_mustacheU4pancakes

Do you eat pancakes for breakfast?
You should.

TheMOC

Oh ok,, well then... that may be it.

However, I think there is another issue.. A lot of people here say "eat everything in moderation"..Taking that literally I did. And they were not big portions, they were small, but still it caused me to go over my MFP macros.

So i think that proves we cant do everything in moderation, but that we have to moderate what we eat, we cant eat everything in moderation. It doesn't leave room for other things that would have been healthier for me.

You can't eat all of things, all of the time. You can eat all of the things, some of the time. I don't know how to explain it any easier for you.

CyberEd312

Here's the thing...

Most of the really vocal proponents of the poptart, ice cream, bacon, cheeseburger, pizza variety of IIFYM do work out a lot and are very dedicated to fitness, from my observations on MFP. Most of them are also in maintenance or close to maintenance, and most of them were not compulsive eaters struggling with morbid obesity prior to losing their weight. Of course, I am making generalizations, and cannot provide exact details for every IIFYM proponent.

I'm a vocal proponent of IIFYM as are many of my friends. Many of us are dedicated weight lifters, that is true. Despite being close to maintenance we've used the method through our weight loss, not just because we are done or almost done losing. I am a binge eater and was obese for years prior to losing. There are lots of IIFYM supporters who binge eat and were obese or morbidly obese. IIFYM keeps my binge eating to a minimum. I may eat chicken and egg whites all day just to fit half a pizza in my macros for the day.

QFT!! I have used this method even when I was super morbidly obese and not just since I took a weightloss break 11 months ago and went into maintenance. I prefer this method because it helps give me the control over my previous food addiction tendencies. ........

NonnyMary

As someone who is a compulsive eater, and who has not always been fit and active, I get frustrated when I see a string of replies to a new MFP member that basically say, "I've lost all my weight drinking beer and eating wings and brownies every day." For one, I believe that they are exaggerating a bit, and they eat much less of the junk they profess to exist on than they would lead you to believe. It's sort of a "cool kid" thing on MFP to profess your love of bacon, ice cream and deadlifting at every opportunity. Unfortunately, they lead people astray a bit by not going into detail about eating healthy more often than not (how else could you meet your macros consistently?) and not being up front about the amount of training they engage in.

Totally disagree with this. I'm a compulsive eater. I have not always been fit and active. I eat ice cream, Pop Tarts, cookies, etc., literally every day. I train for a grand total of 3.5 to 4 hours per week. And I lose weight. It's not my fault that some people are unwilling to control their behavior when there's a tray of cupcakes in front of them. Don't tell me I'm lying or just trying to be a cool kid. It's hard work that clearly not everyone is willing to do.

Ok you are one of the people I was referring to when i said its the poeple who have 1600 posts or more that found a way to eat treats. How the heck do you do it?

Unless its like this - something weird i found out -

a piece of chocolate cake can have 400 calories, but a regular ham sandwich can have 800 calories. some sweets can have lower calories. but it wouldn't give you much nutrition.. is this what you mean? or do you exercise those extra calories? do you miind telling me how you do it?

ryry_

Here's the thing...

Most of the really vocal proponents of the poptart, ice cream, bacon, cheeseburger, pizza variety of IIFYM do work out a lot and are very dedicated to fitness, from my observations on MFP. Most of them are also in maintenance or close to maintenance, and most of them were not compulsive eaters struggling with morbid obesity prior to losing their weight. Of course, I am making generalizations, and cannot provide exact details for every IIFYM proponent.

As someone who is a compulsive eater, and who has not always been fit and active, I get frustrated when I see a string of replies to a new MFP member that basically say, "I've lost all my weight drinking beer and eating wings and brownies every day." For one, I believe that they are exaggerating a bit, and they eat much less of the junk they profess to exist on than they would lead you to believe. It's sort of a "cool kid" thing on MFP to profess your love of bacon, ice cream and deadlifting at every opportunity. Unfortunately, they lead people astray a bit by not going into detail about eating healthy more often than not (how else could you meet your macros consistently?) and not being up front about the amount of training they engage in.

IIFYM would be better presented as "everything in moderation, with a focus on healthy whole foods that fuel your body, along with adequate exercise to burn excess calories." And even then, if you are a compulsive eater who has trouble limiting portions of certain foods, or who is "triggered" into a binge or uncontrollable eating by certain foods, you should be even more careful.

I believe in the general IIFYM concept, but you have to remember that you have to eat a lot of healthy foods to actually hit your macros most days, and the more unhealthy (high calorie, not nutritious) foods you consume, the less calories you have for healthy foods.

First, congrats on your weight loss. 100+ pounds is no joke.

I lost 85 lbs, eating an atkins style diet. There was a time I could literally refer o the last I had pizza in years. Problem was, my diet was not something that was sustainable long term. I maintained for like 2-3 years, then it was the up and down gain.

I was never a binge eater until I got on a "diet plan".

IIFYM or moderation or whatever you want to call it has gone a long way in viewing food in a healthy manner. Its a process, and its not perfect. There are days I fall back into old habits and start playing the perfection/binge eat game.

Refer to my post above, as long as you are keeping that at the front of your mind and making it happen day in and day out you will be successful.

NonnyMary

Do you eat pancakes for breakfast?
You should.

No,,, sorry ,, no. i haven't had pancakes in a while.

spick123

just eat healthy whole foods, make sure you eat two servings of fruits and veggies, by all means eat more then that if you please, get at least 20g of fiber and drink plenty of water. then its ok to have the 20% discretionary calories, BUT YOU MUST REMAIN IN
YOUR TARGET CALORIC INTAKE.


and give it some time before you doubt things..... i'm talking like at least 3 months and then see the changes your body makes,
aslong as your are consistent, it doesn't have to be perfect but atleast have a range for your proteins carbs and fats

hope this helps, and good luck

MyOwnSunshine

As someone who is a compulsive eater, and who has not always been fit and active, I get frustrated when I see a string of replies to a new MFP member that basically say, "I've lost all my weight drinking beer and eating wings and brownies every day." For one, I believe that they are exaggerating a bit, and they eat much less of the junk they profess to exist on than they would lead you to believe. It's sort of a "cool kid" thing on MFP to profess your love of bacon, ice cream and deadlifting at every opportunity. Unfortunately, they lead people astray a bit by not going into detail about eating healthy more often than not (how else could you meet your macros consistently?) and not being up front about the amount of training they engage in.

Totally disagree with this. I'm a compulsive eater. I have not always been fit and active. I eat ice cream, Pop Tarts, cookies, etc., literally every day. I train for a grand total of 3.5 to 4 hours per week. And I lose weight. It's not my fault that some people are unwilling to control their behavior when there's a tray of cupcakes in front of them. Don't tell me I'm lying or just trying to be a cool kid. It's hard work that clearly not everyone is willing to do.

I wasn't trying to attack anyone. I actually use IIFYM as well, and I deadlift and eat bacon and ice cream.

I was trying to explain the concept of IIFYM to the OP in a way she could understand and use or not use, depending on her situation.

I get frustrated because there is almost a guaranteed automatic response to new posters who post their "great diet plan" that includes only clean eating/paleo/low carb/vegan/insert restriction here kind of eating. Multiple people will respond to their plan with claims about IIFYM in a boastful way that is almost misleading. While they exclaim about the ice cream, poptart, cheeseburger eating that IIFYM entails, they don't always share the details like ice cream = 1/2 cup serving and not a whole pint every single day.

You are all right that IIFYM is probably the best way to lose and maintain, but there really isn't a book or catchy website detailing the plan to people who don't know what it means. People like the original poster can easily get the wrong idea about what "moderation" and IIFYM entails, especially if they are new and don't know what questions to ask.

I certainly stated in my original post that I was making a "generalization" and not detailing the food logs of specific dieters.

Sapporo

I'm not one of those 1600 post people who are fit and eat treats. Even I can tell that you were doing it wrong. If it doesn't fit your macros then you failed. Plain and simple. Doesn't prove any lame point you may have, you just didn't know what you are doing and still can't understand a simple concept. You either do it or you don't. Preplan if you really want to and give it a real go after getting some understanding.

NonnyMary

Sweet baby Jeebus, you mean to tell me I cannot eat as much as I want of everything I want, everyday and stay in my marcos?!

Your results are not IIFYM, it's your results from eating whatever the heck you wanted with reckless abandon and being sad you cannot lose weight that way. IIFYM is about making choices to allow yourself foods that traditional diets shun as no-nos. Maybe this means you have boring broiled fish for lunch so you can have pizza for dinner. Or eating smaller portioned meals throughout the day so you can have dessert. IIFYM is about balancing the need to eat healthfully and get the nutrients you need while also enjoying treats so you don't binge out and wonder why your diets always fail.

Ugh. This thread.

/Rage.

Why does this thread make you feel so much "rage" ?

Im trying to sort out something that was bugging me on MFP, and I'm trying to deal with myself.

BeachIron

I have to say though that a 1 day attempt when it took me a couple of years to get things dialed in, and when after years and years and I'm still improving, doesn't really give me pause

Cranquistador

Well in a way we ALL do IIFYM around here.. we are all trying to fit everything in our macros.

So why is there such a war between what looks like 2 groups of people? I dont mean to insult anyone.

there was a thread which someone said they were going to go cold turkey and others from the IIFYM crowd were giving their opposite points of view.

I think i got a bad impression of what some of the people were saying in defense of IIFYM. Some people thought i was being too deprivating myself since I was not allowing myself treats.

so while trying to work this out in my head, this is where I am,, and I dont know if i have a wall there or something because I interpreted it as if i dont have ice cream, fried chicken and poptarts, i was gonna be totally deprived and binge or something.

But now i see even with you all who beleive in IIFM, there are limits you do put on yourself, so its not what i was interpreting. i see you guys as giving yourself to eat all these things, and i tried to copy that, and it did not work out.. so it is confusing.

NOW you are getting somewhere.

the whole idea is to allow yourself something you enjoy IF it fits.

I have my goals set to 40% carbs, 30% protein, and 30% fat...what are yours?

Pixi_Rex

Do you eat pancakes for breakfast?
You should.

Coming from a profile pick with a waffle... I think the waffles would be disappointed.

Edited to fix my spelling.