loseing weight\

sandyromanno1960

Hello, I'm a new member on here and I have been doing the calorie counting. I don't know if I'm getting the right nutrition I should be. I eat a lot of fresh fruits and wing it making a meal since it's only me. I walk, do steps & sit ups for exercise. Any advice from anyone would be helpful!! Sandy

AnnPT77

It's the calories that matter directly for weight gain/loss/maintenance.

Nutrition is important for health, but doesn't have a direct impact on body weight. (Sub-ideal nutrition can affect body weight indirectly by triggering fatigue or appetite, but the direct effect on bodyweight is still via calories - lower calorie burn with fatigue, higher calorie intake if appetite makes it hard to stick with calorie goal.)

If you want to get good nutrition - which is smart - start by paying attention to your macronutrient goals here in MFP. Log your food, see if you're getting enough protein and fats on average most of the time - we need a certain minimum of each of those, but extra within reason is fine. (Carbs are more flexible.)

If you have a pattern of being very low a lot of the time on one or both of fats or protein, work on changing your routine eating habits to get closer. Getting some of the fats from sources like nuts, seeds, nut butters, avocadoes and olive oil is a good thing, rather than getting all of them from things like meats and dairy.

The MFP goals for those aren't sacred, but they're a decent starting point for most people, as long as those people aren't trying to lose weight aggressively fast. There's no way to get adequate nutrition on too few calories, no matter how the protein and fats percentages look.

Once you have reasonably consistent and reasonable protein and fats intake on average over a few days to a week, start looking at fiber and micronutrients. For micronutrients especially, make sure you choose accurate database entries from the food database. Even when you do, don't believe you're truly short on a nutrient without further checking, because the micronutrients aren't always accurate in the database here. But the things that look low in your log are the first things to check further. If your MFP nutrition pages show you as getting enough of certain micros, high odds that you're in an OK range.

With the fiber and micros, it's still about doing pretty well on average, not about being exactly exact every single day. Bodies are somewhat adaptable, so daily exactitude isn't essential.

It doesn't matter heaps which foods you choose to get your protein, fats, fiber, and micronutrients. The big deal is getting them. Usually, it will be easier to get most of the essential nutrients within a calorie goal by choosing mostly things like lean meat, fish, dairy, veggies, fruits, whole grains . . . and less of highly-processed or treat foods. As long as nutrient goals and calories are looking good overall, occasional treat foods and processed foods in the mix aren't life-threatening.

It's OK to take your time chipping away at improving nutrition by tweaking your routine eating habits, as long as not starting out with diagnosed deficiencies or diet-relevant health conditions. If you do have deficiencies or those kinds of health conditions, it might be a better plan to ask your doctor for a referral to a registered dietitian.

Best wishes!