Hi everyone! Newbie here :)

Nadoriel

I’m new here and decided to share a bit of me in the meantime

I’m a nurse and recently came to a new country, to live by myself (first time). Thought I had everything in my control, but between sweets offered in the hospital, eating out, cookies and bread at almost every snack… Well, apparently I wasn’t. 10kg came up.. And now I want them down.

I’ve never been slim all my life, but I always had a huge pressure on my shoulders, from my parents, to try and get thinner. I’ve tried… loads of things. I’ve come to hate gyms, where I gave my best at cardio, not having a tiny bit of fun, avoiding the strength training at all costs. I keep having this love/hate relationship with food. And my weight keeps going up and down, up and down… but always ending up a bit higher than before… eventually.

I also have hypothyroidism. Should be controlled by now… even though I still get very tired and sleepy. I just don’t know what’s my normal “fit” me anymore. And it doesn’t help with 13h shifts 3 days a week and then one or a couple 6h shifts more. I tend to eat a lot to survive a working day. And unfortunately I tend to eat a lot on my off days as well.. When I’m resting or at the computer. Rest of my time is laundry, buying food and preparing food. The good thing is.. I don’t own a car, so I cycle everywhere.

One month ago I started a low carb diet, which didn’t maintain very well because I try to go to my homeland once a month (and just there’s no diet in there, sorry. Food is so much better). Eating salads or not.. didn’t lose a thing, even with a couple of days a week with cardio training. Found MFP almost a week ago and started weighing my food. Ended up reducing it a lot, I had a couple of times of it saying that it wasn’t healthy eating less than 1200cals a day.

Two days ago I found this group… And well.. I think this is a “diet” I can actually maintain. It’s healthy, not a yo-yo style thing. I can’t wait to have a better figure, more than weigh, I want to fit in my clothes again, instead of them fitting me – barely.

My estimated BF (according to the spreadsheet) is 36%, BMR is 1429 and TDEE is 2202. I know it’s not approved by the group but I ended up customizing my daily cals to 1684 (what’s advised on the spreadsheet). I’m still eating a bit less than that, but I’m not hungry anymore. I have a very good breakfast and my meals include carbs and proteins… and salad. I eat fruits.. and yeah there’s some sweets as well. I’m just eating a bit less carbs (I have this pasta portion thing that I’m using).

I am trying to lift weights. I’ve never done it before so I’m doing the best I can with the machines on the gym, and I’ll make myself go there at least 2x a week! I’m not sure if I’m doing it right.. I just go there, pick random machines (some for arms, some for chest, back and legs) and try to lift as much as I can. I do 15 repetitions, 3 times each. Does it sound right? And I still do 30min cardio when I go there.

Should I really eat more for now? Or try and eat healthy for longer, until my weigh actually fits what I’m eating? Also.. I’m having some trouble meeting my protein intake.. Should I go for protein bars or something? I love meat, and I eat at least a yogurt a day. I don’t think there’s much more I can do there.. I kinda prefer sweet snacks like roasted apples and such.

Anyway.. thank you for your time. I’d appreciate every bit of advice you have to tell me and I’ll try and follow it as best as I can.

Bye

heybales

Good job starting off on right foot, after seeing what too extreme a deficit can do.
Good job looking at lifting as means to really change the body.

I'm really surprised cycling everywhere led to such a small TDEE. Perhaps you do errand cycling a tad easier so as not to be sweating it up, so more medium cardio level is what you used? Might compare HR doing that to walking flat 4mph sometime just to confirm if more or less intense.

The eating more phrase means eating more than bare minimum, which you are already starting to do. Sounds like you weren't exactly eating bare minimum for very long anyway.
Should still do a diet break every 2 months for about a week, eat at TDEE during normal routine.

One suggestion on lifting, the 3 x 15 is fine as you learn the machines, but if there are dumbbells available in progressive weights, that would be better.
Find an exercise routine that uses them for biggest muscles first, and compound lifts. That way ever pulling motion uses the biceps already, every push is triceps already, so no need to waist time on them. Legs important too.
http://www.exrx.net/Lists/WorkoutMenu.html

If machines is it, read the instructions to get the pivot points correct with joints, feel the good form, and progress to 3 x 8 to 12 reps with enough weight you barely finish with good form, but you do. When you get to 12 reps, you increase weight and move back to 8 reps. Building your way back up again.
And start with muscles in legs first, then back, chest, shoulders, ect. Biceps and triceps can be skipped for time.
Biggest first, don't want to wear yourself out on minor muscles and not give the biggest ones a truly good workout.

That same progression happens on dumbbells and barbells if you can feel comfortable.
If you can enjoy it, it'll do wonders for the body.

Protein, even without lifting, is very important. You want to meet the daily calorie goal so not too much deficit, and meet your macros, protein and fat mostly, carbs can be tad lower.
Protein bars usually have much more carbs in them, so think protein shakes if needed, whey before bed gives body something to repair with while sleeping. But usually not hard to reach protein goals if you do cottage cheese, Greek yogart that has more protein useful too.

Nadoriel

Thank you! I really look forward to a healthy prolonged lifestyle, with lots of good food and well fitting clothes!

I bought a very cheap bike, 70 pounds, at the time, since I was really struggling with money. So what happens is.. I go up in the road (it's going up the hill to go to the hospital - 10/15minutes) and even though I'm pedaling the quickest I can, and well I do get a sweat, I often see people pass me and go ahead. Plus, there's a huge hill, very inclined that I just can't go while cycling, so I usually walk fast with it by hand. The way back home is way easier (going down), though I also increase the velocity to break a bit of sweat. Everything else doesn't take that long to go on a bike anyway, it's very rare to go on a 30min ride. So yeah, I did count cycling as 80min per week as 3 to 4mph on the spreadsheet (4x20), plus 10min weekly of low cardio for cleaning the house and such things. I also put only 60min of high cardio in the gym and 60min of weight lifting (though I'm doing it a bit more) because I can be so inconsistent to go to the gym.

I'll do that diet break it'll be good! It's so strange to think about this diet as a long term on though.. 2 months.. It hasn't been a week yet!

Thank you so much for the list of exercises! They have dumbbells, though I think I'd feel just a bit embarrassed to work out in the middle of so many men ^^' specially without almost any strength. My legs are somewhat okay, but I know I'll struggle if I do too many lunges or squats. My chest and shoulders are probably the worst, I can't even lift 5kg with them. So I think that I'll stick with the machines until I build up some strength (2 weeks? 3?) and then try out dumbbells.

Cardio is what I don't really like in the gym, strength training is different.. I think it's because I don't associate it with weight loss, or starvation or anything.

I usually eat a yogurt a day (greek yogurt, yes!!) Though cheese it's only once in a while. I haven't seen it selling around here though. At least not the fresh ones I'm used to. Maybe I'll get some whey and increase the amount of meat on my plate xD I do like my grilled chicken steaks.

Thank you so much for the input, I'll try my best!

jaeone

I’m new here and decided to share a bit of me in the meantime

I’m a nurse and recently came to a new country, to live by myself (first time). Thought I had everything in my control, but between sweets offered in the hospital, eating out, cookies and bread at almost every snack… Well, apparently I wasn’t. 10kg came up.. And now I want them down.

I’ve never been slim all my life, but I always had a huge pressure on my shoulders, from my parents, to try and get thinner. I’ve tried… loads of things. I’ve come to hate gyms, where I gave my best at cardio, not having a tiny bit of fun, avoiding the strength training at all costs. I keep having this love/hate relationship with food. And my weight keeps going up and down, up and down… but always ending up a bit higher than before… eventually.

I also have hypothyroidism. Should be controlled by now… even though I still get very tired and sleepy. I just don’t know what’s my normal “fit” me anymore. And it doesn’t help with 13h shifts 3 days a week and then one or a couple 6h shifts more. I tend to eat a lot to survive a working day. And unfortunately I tend to eat a lot on my off days as well.. When I’m resting or at the computer. Rest of my time is laundry, buying food and preparing food. The good thing is.. I don’t own a car, so I cycle everywhere.

One month ago I started a low carb diet, which didn’t maintain very well because I try to go to my homeland once a month (and just there’s no diet in there, sorry. Food is so much better). Eating salads or not.. didn’t lose a thing, even with a couple of days a week with cardio training. Found MFP almost a week ago and started weighing my food. Ended up reducing it a lot, I had a couple of times of it saying that it wasn’t healthy eating less than 1200cals a day.

Two days ago I found this group… And well.. I think this is a “diet” I can actually maintain. It’s healthy, not a yo-yo style thing. I can’t wait to have a better figure, more than weigh, I want to fit in my clothes again, instead of them fitting me – barely.

My estimated BF (according to the spreadsheet) is 36%, BMR is 1429 and TDEE is 2202. I know it’s not approved by the group but I ended up customizing my daily cals to 1684 (what’s advised on the spreadsheet). I’m still eating a bit less than that, but I’m not hungry anymore. I have a very good breakfast and my meals include carbs and proteins… and salad. I eat fruits.. and yeah there’s some sweets as well. I’m just eating a bit less carbs (I have this pasta portion thing that I’m using).

I am trying to lift weights. I’ve never done it before so I’m doing the best I can with the machines on the gym, and I’ll make myself go there at least 2x a week! I’m not sure if I’m doing it right.. I just go there, pick random machines (some for arms, some for chest, back and legs) and try to lift as much as I can. I do 15 repetitions, 3 times each. Does it sound right? And I still do 30min cardio when I go there.

Should I really eat more for now? Or try and eat healthy for longer, until my weigh actually fits what I’m eating? Also.. I’m having some trouble meeting my protein intake.. Should I go for protein bars or something? I love meat, and I eat at least a yogurt a day. I don’t think there’s much more I can do there.. I kinda prefer sweet snacks like roasted apples and such.

Anyway.. thank you for your time. I’d appreciate every bit of advice you have to tell me and I’ll try and follow it as best as I can.

Bye

Welcome to the group!
Eat more to weigh less is basically eating at a smaller deficit to lose weight rather than starving yourself! I would still recommend you eat 1870 That's a 15% cut. Eating less than that is creating a very large deficits, and hard o maintain. You may lose weight quickly, but the weight will also come back when you start eating normal.
To up your protein you could try protein shakes, ( I mix mine with water, blend with ice) you could also eat protein bars for snacks. Also Greek yogurt with fruit on the bottom is a good sweet snack.
Since you are new to lifting, a good book to get is NWOLFW( New Rules of Lifting For Women). It gives good instructions and you can do it at the gym you already belong to.

Nadoriel

Hi Jaeone,

What I am afraid of is... I mean, if I loose weight, eventually my TDEE and BMR will be lower right? It's just... 3x week going to the gym is perfectly fine for me, but I can't believe I'll do more than that xD It would be changing myself a lot! So I am afraid of starting eating a lot now and get used to it.. and then my TDEE lowers and I'll just struggle to keep up with it. That's what's going to happen eventually right?

Thank you for the tips and book!! I'll get the whey today, and I'm checking amazon :> yes... because I really am bad at lifting.. yesterday I recorded what I was able to lift, just enough to do it 15 times in a row! Geez... I was embarrassed

kathleenjoyful

I'm excited for you to begin this lifestyle of eating well and exercise! Dumbbells and machines got me where I needed to be to have the confidence and strength to pick up a barbell (...I wish I'd done it sooner!). With dumbbells, there are so many videos on YouTube you can watch where a trainer will demonstrate a move for you. Pick up some water bottles and practice privately at home, so you can walk into that gym and own it, and pick up whatever weight you want - even if it is light! If your gym has Kettlebells there are some challenging and fun moves you can learn with those too. Heybales is right in focusing on compound moves that use biggest muscles first, I wish I'd known that when I first started back at the gym.

heybales

Hi Jaeone,

What I am afraid of is... I mean, if I loose weight, eventually my TDEE and BMR will be lower right? It's just... 3x week going to the gym is perfectly fine for me, but I can't believe I'll do more than that xD It would be changing myself a lot! So I am afraid of starting eating a lot now and get used to it.. and then my TDEE lowers and I'll just struggle to keep up with it. That's what's going to happen eventually right?

Thank you for the tips and book!! I'll get the whey today, and I'm checking amazon :> yes... because I really am bad at lifting.. yesterday I recorded what I was able to lift, just enough to do it 15 times in a row! Geez... I was embarrassed

I'll comment that your Katch BMR based on LBM doesn't have to lower if you retain your LBM. May lose some though.
Now your TDEE, being lighter yes you would burn less during the day.

You can pretend in the spreadsheet and enter goal weight as current weight and adjust the BF% where you'd like to see it, and see what the results are too.

But not that much less for TDEE usually.

Nadoriel

ahahah Kathleenjoyful the only problem is that I'm renting this very very tiny room (with kitchen and wc, but still.. a room), and there's no space for anything else but me! (some days I actually think I don't have enough space for me anymore). So I guess.. when I feel confident enough to actually go to dumbbells, I'll have to do it from memory. Could be worse though. Lunges, squats, I know how to do that. I think they have kettlebells and a lot more as well, I haven't explored all the gym yet, too many unknown things to me.

Anyway feel much better after a week "dieting" and starting lifting. I've lost 1kg already, and some body mass. I've uploaded my results on to the spreadsheet... and it tells me to eat more!! what?

BF of estimated 34.82%, BMR = 1437 and TDEE = 2238. Which means... - 15% will be = 1900. Can this be right? Seriously? I just put a bit more minutes lifting because.. well it takes time if I'm trying to reach 8x15.

So yeah Heybales, I kinda did that with the "results" from this week and that's what I got O.o it seems too good to be truth? Should I update my daily cals to that?

heybales

ahahah Kathleenjoyful the only problem is that I'm renting this very very tiny room (with kitchen and wc, but still.. a room), and there's no space for anything else but me! (some days I actually think I don't have enough space for me anymore). So I guess.. when I feel confident enough to actually go to dumbbells, I'll have to do it from memory. Could be worse though. Lunges, squats, I know how to do that. I think they have kettlebells and a lot more as well, I haven't explored all the gym yet, too many unknown things to me.

Anyway feel much better after a week "dieting" and starting lifting. I've lost 1kg already, and some body mass. I've uploaded my results on to the spreadsheet... and it tells me to eat more!! what?

BF of estimated 34.82%, BMR = 1437 and TDEE = 2238. Which means... - 15% will be = 1900. Can this be right? Seriously? I just put a bit more minutes lifting because.. well it takes time if I'm trying to reach 8x15.

So yeah Heybales, I kinda did that with the "results" from this week and that's what I got O.o it seems too good to be truth? Should I update my daily cals to that?

If your weight and measurements dropped, your LBM could have stayed the same, or as it happened in your case, went up.
LBM goes up, BMR goes up, TDEE and TDEG both go up. Besides the fact you increased the TDEE by increasing exercise time.
But it would usually be minor.
If BF% changed that much, it may also be that it is auto-adjusting to show more accuracy. It could go the other way too, appears that BF% goes up. But in reality you were already higher, the estimate is just showing that fact correctly now. Of course in that direction you'd then eat less.

jaeone

Hi Jaeone,

What I am afraid of is... I mean, if I loose weight, eventually my TDEE and BMR will be lower right? It's just... 3x week going to the gym is perfectly fine for me, but I can't believe I'll do more than that xD It would be changing myself a lot! So I am afraid of starting eating a lot now and get used to it.. and then my TDEE lowers and I'll just struggle to keep up with it. That's what's going to happen eventually right?

Thank you for the tips and book!! I'll get the whey today, and I'm checking amazon :> yes... because I really am bad at lifting.. yesterday I recorded what I was able to lift, just enough to do it 15 times in a row! Geez... I was embarrassed

But if you start at the higher point of your cut now, if and when you hit a plateau, you can cut a little more if needed. If you start low already, and go lower , your right back where you started.

Nadoriel

Heybales, yeah I found out that I still had a value written on a yellow space that wasn't truth (body composition scale..) so I took it out and confirmed every other value. I can only use this two methods, since I don't own any equipment:
36.21 U.S. Navy Circumference Method
25.04 Covert Bailey "Fit or Fat" book Method
30.62 Avgerage body fat % of the two to four methods

So on the current body fat % I put the average value, though there's still a huge difference between them. Which means my intake has gone up again to 1970 cals per day with a 15% deficit, of a 2,327 TDEE.

Well... I'll increase my intake again then. At least I'm doing it slowly, though now with my night shifts my food intake is all disorganized.

Thank you Jaeone for your reply. I guess you are right. So 1970cals a day it is!! I'll try my best to fit this in my meals.

heybales

Heybales, yeah I found out that I still had a value written on a yellow space that wasn't truth (body composition scale..) so I took it out and confirmed every other value. I can only use this two methods, since I don't own any equipment:
36.21 U.S. Navy Circumference Method
25.04 Covert Bailey "Fit or Fat" book Method
30.62 Avgerage body fat % of the two to four methods

So on the current body fat % I put the average value, though there's still a huge difference between them. Which means my intake has gone up again to 1970 cals per day with a 15% deficit, of a 2,327 TDEE.

Well... I'll increase my intake again then. At least I'm doing it slowly, though now with my night shifts my food intake is all disorganized.

Thank you Jaeone for your reply. I guess you are right. So 1970cals a day it is!! I'll try my best to fit this in my meals.

So yes, that BF% isn't likely correct, yet. 2 potential 5% methods that don't overlap.
You could though be right in the middle though, but likely you are at one end of range or the other to some degree.

After first few measurement drops you'll usually see one end of range move more than the other. That's the least accurate side usually.

So you could see the average BF figure go up actually even while weight dropped, but know that merely means it's reflecting fact better, and at least you'll be eating less and getting the truer deficit you need to actually lose reasonable amount of fat.

Since those 2 calcs use mainly different measurement sites, you may also know exactly what body part it is that could be throwing a high/low result out. Like perhaps you know your forearm is out of proportion to skinny wrist, or bigger thighs to skinny calf, ect.
And you may even know that at goal weight, some body part is always out of proportion to others, in which case you may know one calc is always going to be off one direction or another.

Night shift. Does your schedule allow you to treat it like a morning, so you can wake up, have breakfast, and then go in, have lunch during work, and dinner afterwards?
Though sometimes it is useful to wake up with sun at least. Then lunch before you go in, dinner at work, snack afterwards and to bed.

Nadoriel

Oh that's handy Heybales xD yeah, my thighs and upper arm/shoulders are, I think, out of proportion. I mean I always had very small wrists. Your spreadsheet is giving me the weight advise for a small frame, and I don't think I've ever weighted that in my life (50kg?? omg) I always thought I had large bones, and a large frame. Maybe only my wrists are out of proportion! ahahha. Anyway I'll try that as my goal anyway, since at maintenance I might gain 4 extra kg anyway. I'd be happy with 64kg actually. Never went back to that weight since I started going to university. Comparing it to now a days, it would be just awesome. That or fitting into the clothes I used to wear by that time. There's that too.

I never thought that with exercise and all I'd have a "very active" lifestyle. Well.. In case my TDEE is messed up I'll just start gaining weight for a while I guess. Though I think I was accurate with the activity calculator.

Hmmm... I don't think I can workout my night shift like that. Since I upped my daily cals, what I am trying to do is:
1st day
- wake up at 10h, have breakfast
- have a snack
- lunch
- snack
- go to work at 19h, have a snack between (23h - 24h when I pause to do care plans, there's just no way I can have a proper meal during that time, there's too many interruptions)
- rest period more or less from 1h to 2h30.
- drink a tea just to wake up
- have "dinner" at 4h, 4h30 am.
- go home at 8h30, have a snack then sleep.

The 2nd and 3rd days are similar but with less snacks! I kinda messed up on the first day since I didn't have that planned yet, so I ate a jelly as a "dinner". I ate the whole lot though, about 500ml of it, 325cal approximately. I usually eat jelly specially when I come back home after long days. It's rare to have prepared food on my fridge (like I said, it's a rented room with a tiny kitchen and toilet, but just a room. My fridge is minimal and it doesn't freeze very well). I'm just too exhausted after working from 7h30 to 20h30 in a row, and I usually have another long day after, so I just want to have something quick and fall asleep.