How can i lose weight? Help Please

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Arianna2930
Arianna2930 Posts: 16 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hello everyone ive been trying to lose weight for a long time. i had two babies not so far away one is 3 the other is 1 yr old. ive been on A lot of Diets my last was Medifast but had to stop because i was always feeling faint and hunger so I decided to count calories, ibe been counting calories for the past week but dont know if im.doing it correctly? what should i eat? im.not exercising right now i just wanna be succesfull and lose weight help.please... current weight 193 lb 5'1 female.. Thanks!

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  • Snow__White
    Snow__White Posts: 1,650 Member
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    how many calories are you eating a day?

    its not a race,start off slow....
    get use to logging your food every day
    then work on hitting your macro's (fat,Carbs,Protein)
    read the forums and educate yourself on diet and exercise
    good luck hun :)
  • snowmaniac
    snowmaniac Posts: 600 Member
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    If you're average, based on your height, weight, and age, if you are sedentary you should eat between 1600 and 1700 calories per day to get 1-2 pounds per week of steady weight loss. Track EVERYTHING that you eat and drink. Try that for around 4-8 weeks to get a good representative idea of your progress considering that there are other factors that are going to come into play. Also, make sure you only weigh once per week or you can drive yourself crazy with daily fluctuations.
  • Arianna2930
    Arianna2930 Posts: 16 Member
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    Wow see that confuses me what are macro's? im eating 1200 calories a day i didnt know i need more for weight loss :-\
  • Arianna2930
    Arianna2930 Posts: 16 Member
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    how many calories are you eating a day?

    its not a race,start off slow....
    get use to logging your food every day
    then work on hitting your macro's (fat,Carbs,Protein)
    read the forums and educate yourself on diet and exercise
    good luck hun :)

    1200cal what are macro's? i thought i only had to log calories. Thanks hun :-)
  • bookworm_847
    bookworm_847 Posts: 1,903 Member
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    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

    This thread has a lot of great information in it to help you get going. Good luck!
  • HerpDerp745
    HerpDerp745 Posts: 223 Member
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    http://lmgtfy.com/?q=what+are+calorie+macros
  • AliceDark
    AliceDark Posts: 3,886 Member
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    1200 per day is super low. I would be STARVING and ready to kill my coworkers and eat them at 1200. (Just for context, I'm 5'4" and 125 lbs, and I'd be losing weight around 1500-1700).

    What happens to a lot of people is that they start by cutting their intake drastically and they can't sustain it. You're better off making little changes that you can stick with over time. When you signed up for MFP, how did you set your goals? Everyone jumps in and says "I want to lose 2 pounds per week" right off the bat, but that's really extreme for almost everyone. If you change your goal to lose 1 pound per week, how many daily calories does that give you? I'd try that for a month and see how you do. If it's working consistently, you can try increasing that to 1.5 or maybe 2 pounds. Maybe. 2 pounds is really only appropriate if you have 75+ pounds to lose, and you're going to get under that threshhold pretty quickly.

    Macros are just fat, carbs and protein. MFP gives you some general guidelines for how many grams of each you should have per day.
  • MYhealthyjourney70
    MYhealthyjourney70 Posts: 276 Member
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    all the macros etc confuse me as well.. right now i am only worrying about getting my calories under control and back into a workout routine and then i will worry about macros...

    one step at a time. i found the more i tried to do at one time only confused me and made not motivated.

    good luck on your journey
  • Holly_Roman_Empire
    Holly_Roman_Empire Posts: 4,440 Member
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    http://lmgtfy.com/?q=what+are+calorie+macros

    :cry:

    OP, macros are protein, fat, and carbs. Personally, I wouldn't worry about that until you nail down hitting your calorie goal for a couple of weeks.

    ETA: The sexypants thread is a good one, but don't let it overwhelm you. Weight loss is simply burning more calories than you take in, but proper weight loss requires a little more than that. Set an appropriate calorie goal, and aim for that for now.
  • DrJenO
    DrJenO Posts: 404 Member
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    I agree w/ starting slow.

    When I first started this for real last October (don't let the December 2012 join date fool you), I was still nursing my youngest and needed lots of calories to function. I set my goal at 1lb per week, which gave me like 2000-2100 calories. It sounds like a lot, until I realize what I must have been eating before.

    The weight was coming off, slowly but surely. I wasn't even exercising yet.

    Once I got the hang of tracking my intake and weight, I started incorporating exercise into my daily routine. I started learning about TDEE and macros and the like. I got serious about tracking everything, instead of "taking weekends off".

    I've lost 10 pounds in the last 2 months.

    It will work for you, if you can make it such a normal part of your routine that you barely have to think about it. At least, that's what works for me :)

    Good luck on your weight loss journey.
  • Quasita
    Quasita Posts: 1,530 Member
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    If your stated numbers are accurate, you are probably either undereating at 1200 calories, or you haven't quite gotten a handle on the actual nature of counting calories.

    Our bodies are mysterious things. If we eat too much, we gain... But if we eat too little, losing is going to be a major struggle. Why? It's because our bodies are interested in staying alive. They will hold on to the calories as long as possible before burning off if we convince them that they aren't getting any more.

    Go easier on yourself. Patience is key when it comes to weightloss, especially when you've elected to do it with dietary changes alone rather than incorporating any extra activity. While you will lose weight, and can probably handle eating less than if you were being more active, activity does a lot of things to encourage the process... It energizes us, revs the metabolism, encourages the body to use stored calories and water, and more.
  • GummyBears7779
    GummyBears7779 Posts: 35 Member
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    Agree with wat everyone else is saying, 1200 is too low. Thats wat id need to take to lose a pound a wk, but im not gonna even try... Drastically reducing doesn't do any good, i went on 900 cals a day for like 3 days....lost a lotta weight, but it wouldve been mostly water and muscle...

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