Healthy Habits First Then Calorie Counting

devrinator

Hello everyone,

I've had a MFP account for many years and tried many things—lost many pounds and gained them all back, so I'm trying something new and inviting you to try, discuss, etc.

My plan is to impact my habits for 3 months before actually trying to lose weight (coming back here and calorie counting, etc.). I believe if I exercise 20 minutes a day, eat fiber, (and for me, drink a cup of green tea, because it gives me bright energy), then after 90 days, I think I might solidify a life-long habit and try to go for the calorie counting and more intense exercise to intentionally lose weight.

The goal is long-term weight loss. I created a simple web app for myself—so it could be buggy? It's free and available for you to try at https://seven-tend.netlify.app/.

I'm interested in seeing if this new approach might work. The web app is stupid—it's like a to-do list, so it's nothing special, and I'm no web coder, so there's that.

It's basically a way to track whether I've completed the following each day:

Eat fiber with breakfast
Eat fiber with lunch
Eat fiber with dinner
Walk or exercise 20 minutes
Do 10 squats
Do 10 counter pushups
Drink a cup of green tea

So yes, you should exercise more, drink water, and not eat processed food, but mentally, these things are my start for the long haul. Also for me, I have a bad habit of not eating breakfast and lunch every day (but TONS of food in the evening), so forcing myself to include fiber for breakfast and lunch makes me do that.

If you want to try along with me, go to the web site, and you can add the page to your home as a home page. It should track your activity as you use it. On iPhone, you just go to the page, click "Share" then scroll down to "Add to Home Screen" and it works like an app.

OR, you can just do this without that. For me, I'm trying to make the commitment, so that's why I wanted a way to track it. It makes me feel accountable. I probably could have used MFP in some way or an online journal, but I just wanted a click-button and I didn't want to jump into the obsessive calorie counting and exercising that has always worked for me to lose weight but has never been sustainable.

In short, I'm just going to try these habits for 90 days before I try counting calories. I just wish my insurance company would allow a GLP-1 Agonist so I could look forward to that.

Lietchi

Building good habits is certainly a good foundation for durable weight-loss and improved health, so I think it's a good approach.

Personally, I do feel just tracking in MFP without aiming to lose weight can be a good habit too, or a good way to find out where you can make improvements when you do decide to lose weight.

I use the app Finch for tracking the things I'd like to make habits of (and/or tend to procrastinate on), if you want an alternative to what you created yourself.

devrinator

Thanks for the tip on Finch! You're right, tracking can be a good habit, but I tend to get tired of doing it and just want to be free of it. I was looking for a super simple app—like even a simple food journal where you just say what you ate and move on. Many apps have costs or too many steps. I think there are other apps out there that are simple with some fun motivations—just click the button, move on about your day and get a cool message or image.

The challenge for me is integrating what comes natural with what I can change to make a meaningful change for the long-term for health.

I also don't want to track weight. Done with that! I know you don't have to in MFP, but I just want to live, lol :)