First day

jasminemars01

Hi, it's been a long time since I have logged in via facebook. I was never active on myfitnesspal and want to start now. I have a lot of weight to lose and don't know how to begin.
How does a person just start a weight loss journey when they know they have a mountain to climb? What should day 1 look like?
I am having a hard time believing I can do this repeatedly day after day when my progress will be so slow.
I am in a terrible mood today because I was passed up for a promotion at work. I figured, that's it. Screw
These people. I need to finally do what I want for myself and my life.
I overrate a little at breakfast and had Easter candy here mid morning. What do I do for lunch? How do I deal with my angry feelings and depression and not abuse myself with overrating?

katy_jane_2013

i would say don't stress about it, its going to be a long journey dont hate it before you start, maybe to begin with just try cutting out bad foods crisps and chocolate, and log everything you put in your mouth for a week or so, you will see where your going wrong a lot of the time you just eat without thinking but once you can see how much you are eating and what types of food your eating it helps.
Just take it easy you don't have to change everything over night just take little steps.

also find some good friends on here who will motivate you and encourage you daily that helps alot, so you can see other peoples diary and what they are eating.

also start believing i yourself, you can do anything you set your mind too
hope this helps

jasminemars01

Thank you so much, Katy Jane, for your kind words
of advice! They really did help! I appreciate that you took the time to write back to me! Writing everything down is a good first step I think. Thx.
jasmine

JoshD8705

Take it slow, and don't scare yourself off. I started byputting in my weight information, and how much I wanted to lose per week on here. I'm just starting too btw

I've been tracking my calories on here, and going to the gym. Any time I go over my calories I earn them back plus a few at the gym. If you don't have a gym, you can walk atleast 30 mins a day, and try something like hip hop abs.

Goodluck!

JoshD8705

Reread your post. Take out the depression, and anger with some weights and cardio. Everything gets easier faster than you'd imagine.

merlewalton

Well typically you should assess where you currently are. Figure out what your end goal is and how you want to get there. If applicable talk to your doctor about your health and what they suggest for a healthy plan for weight loss. You can talk to a dietician about how to take care of meals.

My personal plan is extremely aggressive and I don't really suggest it to other people because it's strict and not considered a safe way to lose weight.

All of that being said if your goal is to lose weight a good way to start, as others said, is to be careful with your meals. A good way to start easy is to make your meal portions a little smaller than they have been recently and have a healthy snack with you at all times in case you need to snack. Get 100 calorie snack food to start off with and when you need to snack only eat 1/2 of it. The next time you need to snack eat the other half.

Track all your food in MFP. This really helps ALOT!

When your ready to exercise start off small. Just walk as long as you comfortably can at least 3 times a week. As you get used to it add another day or another 1/2 of the time you've been doing it (3 - 4 days a week or 30 minutes to 45 minutes). If your a healthier person start by jogging instead of walking until you can run... or bike.

Soon you'll be able to walk every day for over an hour.

Buy a heart rate monitor. I have a Polar FT80 but I started with a Polar FT7. For me seeing how many calories I've burned in a run really pushes me and being able to see my heart rate helps me during my work out. You can get them off ebay pretty cheep (around $70-110 depending on the model).

Take before pictures and put up motivational things around for you to see. "Have you worked out today?" "I will be X lbs by (date)" Make your goals reasonable. At first, being new, plan to lose 1 pound every two weeks. You can, in a healthy weight loss program, lose 2 lbs a week but don't expect to do that the first time you start otherwise you'll think you failed when you don't see two or four pounds come off right away.

Remember small changes can make a big difference over time! Drinking 1/2 the soda you normally drink or taking out 1/4 of each portion of food you normally eat will add up big over a year.

jasminemars01

Thank you, josh. It is encouraging to hear that everything can get better faster than I think. Now that the weather is finally getting better here in the northeast, that will help to get me moving, walking at least. Thank you for your words of
Advice and support!
jasmine

jasminemars01

Wow, thank you Merle for your long and very helpful response. You've given me a few things to think about, like getting some sort of calorie and distance tracker. Never considered a heart rate monitor. That's a great idea. Getting to the point where I actually want to take action and am ready to commit to it has been the hardest part. I really enjoyed reading your advice. Thank you so much!
Does tracking food take a lot of time? Is it a big hassle or does it get to be easy?
Thanks,
Jasmine

ktaylormusic

Go to the success stories in the message boards. I find them INCREDIBLY inspiring. You'll find people who started in the same place as you and have faced all kinds of hardships and just stuck with it. You can do the same. It isn't magic. It's a decision that you just make every day. Sometimes you'll choose not to stick with this. But if most days you stick with it, you will be successful.

I would add that to guarantee success, it's super important to be sure you're accurately logging: weigh and measure your food. After a little while it gets fast and easy.

I'd say "good luck" - but it's mostly choice, not luck.

Welcome!

loosebyjune

Once you start adding your weight loss and tracking your measurements, you Won't want those sweets anymore. I would eat anything I wanted before, including jelly beans, snickers, buttery filled popcorn and hotdogs! I simply eat healthier now. I try to stick to actual portions. I am just getting started too and I am in no way perfect when I comes to what I eat but I am not going cold turkey either because I know I won't stick to it. My drug of choice is Mt. Dew!!! Since I started I have cut down to about a 1/3rd of what I used to drink. I used to eat .88 white loaf bread from Walmart or Aldi now I only eat Nickle's wheat bread for $1.98 at home. It's worth the extra dollar trust me!

I am not a big girl at 5'5" and only 137 at my largest but it's too big for me and my frame. To give you an idea I was 103 when I met my hubby 12 years ago. I am already down 131. 8 after only a few weeks. This is a great system if you use it! Good Luck~ You can do it!!!!!!

only1bones

Hi Jasmine,

Believe you can do anything you set your mind to. Like the others said..take it slow.

I'm trying to lose weight I gained when I quit smoking. This is one tool I use. Another I found to keep me from eating too much is LOTS of water. I get the Aldi's liquid flavor squirt things and that has helped alot. I'm trying to drink a gallon a day and keep my sodium down. I shop on the outer area of the supermarket..that helps me avoid junk food. I'm doing the Chris Powell plan/carb cycling. I can't exercise too much right now because of a spinal problem but I do what I can. I'm trying to at least eat the minimum calories of 1200/day but sometimes I can't get them in-which can be a bad thing. I'm also gluten free. I find now that I don't miss the chips and cookies. Instead I have flavored rice cakes.

Measurements and pictures are important because sometimes the scale doesn't go down because you are gaining muscle with exercise.

You can do it!

piercedee

You can do it! Be realistic with your goals. I know that in theory I could lose 2 pounds a week. I would be miserable though. So I aim for 1 and get a bunch more calories to eat each day. For a while I packed Easter Candy in my lunch on purpose. It fit my calorie goal and I really wanted jelly beans. I also set up mini goals that were both weight and fitness related. 55 pounds to lose seemed like a mountain at first but setting smaller goals allows me to focus on more attainable goals. Just stay positive!

jasminemars01

Thank you for the encouraging words! I am definitely an all
Or nothing type of person and will have to fight perfectionism to reach my goals. It's tough to get up the energy and drive to attempt such a long and hard project. But it's time. Thank you again!!
Jasmine

merlewalton

If you have a smartphone tracking your food can be as easy as having the My Fitness Pal app. You can track on the website too but you can't scan bar codes with it.

Any food that you eat out of a purchased package is the easiest. You can scan the barcode and put how much of it you ate (or drank).

You can also make a recipe of your food and input all of your ingredients and then tell it how much of it is a portion and it will create the nutritionals for it. I've done this for fudge someone makes... makes you rethink that second square lol.

If you are eating out it can be harder because what size is the portions. If it's a 1/4 lb burger it's not so hard but if you get an order of French fries you don't really know how much your getting. Some of that will be trial and error or estimation. I don't particularly like to do that myself.

My caloric intake (for the most part) comes from packages of yogurt (the small single serve ones) and shakes I make from skim milk and mix. It's easy enough to set those up by using a shaker bottle, blender bottle, or measuring cup. I put 8oz (1 cup) of skim milk and one scoop of mix. I used to input them separately but now I've made recipes of them so that I can just check one thing and it's done. But if you do it with the parts individually you have more direct control. Need another 60 calories? Put in 1 1/2 cups of skim milk and you can tell MFP you had 1 1/2 portions of 1 cup of skim milk. Need to have 60 less calories? Put in 1/2 a scoop of mix and tell MFP you had 1/2 of 1 scoop of the mix... it's so easy. And that's when it works best.

Trust me it's quicker and easier if you keep it simple and keep it accurate. The more you do it the faster it gets.

As for a HRM remember you get what you pay for. I don't work for Polar (actually I work in Food Safety and Quality) but I highly recommend you find an FT7 off eBay (it's cheaper than one from Polar) or if you have the extra money the FT80. You can just use a smart phone (if you have one) with one of the many sports trackers for distance or you can get the Polar footpod for speed and distance. I love my footpod! I bought it used off eBay and the seller put in a little note to keep on running it brought a smile to my face.

It's hard to start. But you can do it. Be strong. Friend me and msg me if you need encouragement. Good luck and keep at it YOU CAN DO IT!