Well, I'll just get big bulky man muscles then!

likitisplit

All I can say is, exercise keeps my mind off food. I am lucky because I have to bring food into work, so can't eat there, I don't have anything really exciting to eat at home, I'm constantly busy and don't have much eating time going on.

I still find it extremely difficult to not overeat.

Good point. I'm a SAHM and have apportioned my workout time to one time per day in the afternoon (the only 2hrs per day that I am childless). Because I have a family, there will always be food at home (all food is exciting to me, lol), but maybe if I tried a squat challenge or some nonsense like that, that would have me squatting or doing situps in my "spare time" at home. I agree, exercise is good for keeping my mind off of food. My main problem is night, after the kids go to bed, when I "decompress" and end up polishing off the salad from dinner and a big bowl of yogurt and maybe some toast with a little jam, etc etc. Maybe if I did some situps or something, I might eat half that much.

I tend to eat out of tiredness then. Maybe tea or something tasty - popcorn?

ETA - I'm late to the party and your list is better.

suremeansyes

Ohmygerd, that's genius! And I'll bet it seemed obvious to you, right?! Seriously, genius! How did I NOT see that?!?!

Thank you.
(I kinda feel stupid now for not having thought of that. doh)

I was a preschool teacher for years! I know how it gets when you have kids wearing you down during meals. Lol. I never ate lunch when they were eating lunch because I couldn't enjoy the meal, too much up and down, so obnoxious! I just snacked at lunch and ate lunch around 2:30 instead, at home! Ha.

Springfield1970

All I can say is, exercise keeps my mind off food. I am lucky because I have to bring food into work, so can't eat there, I don't have anything really exciting to eat at home, I'm constantly busy and don't have much eating time going on.

I still find it extremely difficult to not overeat.

Good point. I'm a SAHM and have apportioned my workout time to one time per day in the afternoon (the only 2hrs per day that I am childless). Because I have a family, there will always be food at home (all food is exciting to me, lol), but maybe if I tried a squat challenge or some nonsense like that, that would have me squatting or doing situps in my "spare time" at home. I agree, exercise is good for keeping my mind off of food. My main problem is night, after the kids go to bed, when I "decompress" and end up polishing off the salad from dinner and a big bowl of yogurt and maybe some toast with a little jam, etc etc. Maybe if I did some situps or something, I might eat half that much.

Yes that's tough, I have a child too, so have some kiddie food about, and I will eat it.

I have a ritual after dinner when I'm usually still hungry, while I wait for dinner to go down I do the dishes, put the kettle on, take an omega 3, then have a little bowl of Greek yoghurt with honey and a hot drink. That is my signal. Stop. Finish. My body knows it. There's no option. Then brush teeth, I've trained any after dinner snacking away by using habitual behaviour. Try it.

ndj1979

You need to eat at a deficit to burn fat. Get rid of that first. If you do a lot of low impact exercise and a bit of high impact, if you get the calculations right you can eat quite a lot and still lose fat. Also, you'll be too busy at the gym to eat! It's not an ideal way to set up a deficit coz of the wear and tear, but I'm the same and need big dinners.

To build muscle you need to be in an excess calorie situation. But because building muscle doesn't go very well with high intensity cardio, it's going to be even harder. I suggest 2/300 calories only per day. Heavy lifting 3 x week. Resting and adequate protein in between.

I bulked at 1950/2150. That was hard but really effective and fun. Now I'm fuelling loads of triathlon training and I'm stuffed!

You really need to discipline yourself with food though, it's worth it and you can get the body you've always wanted and manage your eating.

listen to spring ..she is smoking and knows her stuff

OP - I would add to this that if you still feel you are somewhat overweight then you really want to cut down your body fat to say 20% for woman, and then go a bulk to add muscle…

Unless you feel that your underrating has lead to a "skinny fat" situation, then you may want to start bulking now….

for me, I am trying to get to 10% body fat until I do my next bulk….

ndj1979

PERSONALLY I find that I want to continue eating once I've started,

Exactly! But for me it's on a much larger scale than just a meal. It's the reason that I can easily diet on 400cal/day (and did, in the past), but if I allow myself 1700, I find myself actually eating 2400. It's a slippery slope.

have you tried spreading the 1700 out over like six meals or something…that works for some people…I am cutting on 2200 a day right now and I have it portioned out into three big meals and an evening ice cream snack….

Noalikachka

I only read the first page of the post because my eyes hurt so I'm sorry if this has already been said, but my $0.02 is:

Save most of your calories for night. Or, the time you like eating the best (which for you seems to be evening/night).

More important than anything else, IMO, is finding something that works for you. Something that fits into your life and that is comfortable for you - not something that you have to fight yourself over. Your diet should fit your life, not the other way around.

You want to keep eating after you start. You enjoy eating in the evening. You have dieted on very low amounts of calories before.
--> Sounds to me like it would be so much more enjoyable for you and fitting to your nature to eat less during the day and more during the evening. You know you've been able to eat so little in the past, so it should be simple to do it again - except this time, eating the rest of your calories at the end of the day.

FromHereOnOut

All I can say is, exercise keeps my mind off food. I am lucky because I have to bring food into work, so can't eat there, I don't have anything really exciting to eat at home, I'm constantly busy and don't have much eating time going on.

I still find it extremely difficult to not overeat.

Good point. I'm a SAHM and have apportioned my workout time to one time per day in the afternoon (the only 2hrs per day that I am childless). Because I have a family, there will always be food at home (all food is exciting to me, lol), but maybe if I tried a squat challenge or some nonsense like that, that would have me squatting or doing situps in my "spare time" at home. I agree, exercise is good for keeping my mind off of food. My main problem is night, after the kids go to bed, when I "decompress" and end up polishing off the salad from dinner and a big bowl of yogurt and maybe some toast with a little jam, etc etc. Maybe if I did some situps or something, I might eat half that much.

Yes that's tough, I have a child too, so have some kiddie food about, and I will eat it.

I have a ritual after dinner when I'm usually still hungry, while I wait for dinner to go down I do the dishes, put the kettle on, take an omega 3, then have a little bowl of Greek yoghurt with honey and a hot drink. That is my signal. Stop. Finish. My body knows it. There's no option. Then brush teeth, I've trained any after dinner snacking away by using habitual behaviour. Try it.

That's good advice, but unfortunately I get hungry eventually. I tried being strict on myself the other night, but got hungry, couldn't sleep, and ended up getting out of bed for a sandwich in the middle of the night, then I could sleep.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to be eating light all day (& at family dinner) and then eating most of my calories at night after the kids go to bed (as real food, not snacky food, except my "snacky" Greek yogurt which I HAVE to have every night).

Thanks!

FromHereOnOut

You need to eat at a deficit to burn fat. Get rid of that first. If you do a lot of low impact exercise and a bit of high impact, if you get the calculations right you can eat quite a lot and still lose fat. Also, you'll be too busy at the gym to eat! It's not an ideal way to set up a deficit coz of the wear and tear, but I'm the same and need big dinners.

To build muscle you need to be in an excess calorie situation. But because building muscle doesn't go very well with high intensity cardio, it's going to be even harder. I suggest 2/300 calories only per day. Heavy lifting 3 x week. Resting and adequate protein in between.

I bulked at 1950/2150. That was hard but really effective and fun. Now I'm fuelling loads of triathlon training and I'm stuffed!

You really need to discipline yourself with food though, it's worth it and you can get the body you've always wanted and manage your eating.

listen to spring ..she is smoking and knows her stuff

OP - I would add to this that if you still feel you are somewhat overweight then you really want to cut down your body fat to say 20% for woman, and then go a bulk to add muscle…

Unless you feel that your underrating has lead to a "skinny fat" situation, then you may want to start bulking now….

for me, I am trying to get to 10% body fat until I do my next bulk….

Yes, I get that about 20%, which I am certainly not at yet. I think that I have inadvertently been bulking (building muscle mass) because of diet-adherence issues, but that's fine (better than packing on all fresh fat!!). I've gotten so many great ideas from this thread that I am implementing to help with diet-adherence issues and I think I'll be losing in no time. After that, I'll see if I need to maintain or bulk.

Thanks!

FromHereOnOut

I only read the first page of the post because my eyes hurt so I'm sorry if this has already been said, but my $0.02 is:

Save most of your calories for night. Or, the time you like eating the best (which for you seems to be evening/night).

More important than anything else, IMO, is finding something that works for you. Something that fits into your life and that is comfortable for you - not something that you have to fight yourself over. Your diet should fit your life, not the other way around.

You want to keep eating after you start. You enjoy eating in the evening. You have dieted on very low amounts of calories before.
--> Sounds to me like it would be so much more enjoyable for you and fitting to your nature to eat less during the day and more during the evening. You know you've been able to eat so little in the past, so it should be simple to do it again - except this time, eating the rest of your calories at the end of the day.

I think you hit the nail on the head. This is almost exactly what I've done so far today (eating just enough to stave off hunger and to not be the "non-eating stick-in-the-mud" of my family) [plus having my protein shakes] and it's been great and I know that I have some good eatin' to look forward to, after the kids are in bed.

I feel like I've gotten some really great ideas in this thread and am very hopeful again.

Thank you.

tigerblue

Wow! So many good ideas. I has to respond so I can keep coming back. Thanks everyone!

MSLUC

Watch the carbs. By restricting carbs you force your body to convert fat, and because of weight training not muscle, into sugars for fuel. You may not lose any weight at first, but you will lose fat. It takes time for your mind to adjust your metabolism. Give it six months. I for one think you'll do fine. I'm 65, 6'2",235 lbs with 12 percent body fat. A year ago I carried 26 percent around ,and weight 225. Because of bad knees, most of my exercising is free weights. Limiting calories is not always the answer. Good luck.

Springfield1970

One more thing.

Your body and appetite is your slave, not your master.

Teach it to not get hungry at night. Give it a few nights. I promise it will work eventually.

Make sure you're getting 70g of fat a day.

I'm not an advocate of it any more but you may be a good candidate for the female version of intermittent fasting.

We don't do well fasting more than 14 hours, as we get hormonal issues, but why not stop at 7pm and eat again at 9am? Your body will get used to it, I swear! I managed my weight like this for years, but my fasting window was too big and I got grumpy and lethargic. I binged at night too and food comatosed myself a lot! (Using food emotionally again!)

astronomicals

so you can do 1200, but, you dont want to.. but doing 1800 is impossible...


wow youre so full of it

pearlmullet

I'm about your size and was inadvertently doing a really good job at maintaining as well, until recently. AND I like to save calories for the afternoon/evening. Someone mentioned "reverse tracking" to me - where you start your day at whenever your hungriest point is and then end it in the morning? That way you don't "run out" of calories when you're the hungriest?

I'm sure someone else could do a better job of explaining. I never did get my MFP set up to work that way.

Also just want to send out kudos for fitting exercise in and trying to watch your eating as a SAHM. If I stayed at home I'd eat all the everything all day.

FromHereOnOut

re: all the ideas such as restricting carbs and IF-ing, etc. Thank you. All great ideas for exploration. I'm going to save those ideas here and come back to them later if I need to. At the moment, I'm nibbling light all day (enough to fuel my activity/workouts and to participate in meals with my family, without consuming the bulk of my calories) and recording what my intake was at the time my kids went to bed, and then eating my main meal after they've gone to sleep (& comparing total w/ subtotal for reference). I think this will help me to be able to ENJOY food without "extracurricular" snacking at night, because late night eating will hopefully be budgeted for. I'm going to check out my results after a month (in terms of adherence). If my adherence is good, I'll assess my actual results (weight, inches, size, etc) after ANOTHER month. If either of those results are not good, I'll revisit some of these ideas. I just don't want to make some kind of change in eating, if not totally necessary, because I have been maintaining (while progressing wrt performance in running and weights), which means that if I can just get one little thing under control (such as nighttime nibbling), I should be able cut and then easily transition into maintenance afterwards.

So, that's my plan, but I'm loving all of the ideas, which I may or may not need (and from which someone else might also benefit), so keep em comin! To be honest, I thought that by posting here that I'd get some sort of workout ideas or nutrient timing or something to help ensure all those cals are going toward muscle-building, but these ideas for adherence are really what I need.

Thanks everyone!

tigerblue

I think you are on the right track. I know lots of people frown on late eating, but I lost 40 lbs eating dinner at 8 every night. It was because that is when everyone at my house got home from school, work, practice, whatever for good, so that's when we would eat. It worked great for me because I wouldn't be hungry for late night snacking. I pretty much knew I was done after dinner. As long as I controlled the afternoon snacks, I was good to go!

likitisplit

re: all the ideas such as restricting carbs and IF-ing, etc. Thank you. All great ideas for exploration. I'm going to save those ideas here and come back to them later if I need to. At the moment, I'm nibbling light all day (enough to fuel my activity/workouts and to participate in meals with my family, without consuming the bulk of my calories) and recording what my intake was at the time my kids went to bed, and then eating my main meal after they've gone to sleep (& comparing total w/ subtotal for reference). I think this will help me to be able to ENJOY food without "extracurricular" snacking at night, because late night eating will hopefully be budgeted for. I'm going to check out my results after a month (in terms of adherence). If my adherence is good, I'll assess my actual results (weight, inches, size, etc) after ANOTHER month. If either of those results are not good, I'll revisit some of these ideas. I just don't want to make some kind of change in eating, if not totally necessary, because I have been maintaining (while progressing wrt performance in running and weights), which means that if I can just get one little thing under control (such as nighttime nibbling), I should be able cut and then easily transition into maintenance afterwards.

So, that's my plan, but I'm loving all of the ideas, which I may or may not need (and from which someone else might also benefit), so keep em comin! To be honest, I thought that by posting here that I'd get some sort of workout ideas or nutrient timing or something to help ensure all those cals are going toward muscle-building, but these ideas for adherence are really what I need.

Thanks everyone!

Great plan. Except maintenance is a little boring compared the alternatives.

allaboutthecake

You sound like a great candidate for a FitBit or someother techie gizmo that you can SEE what your calorie intake/outtake looks like. I too adore toast slathered in butter especially at night. And milk & cookies. Oh ya and that little bit of 'sgetti from dinner too ...hmmmmm so I took to going outside and watering my flowers after kitchen's cleaned. Or taking a easy stroll. Or going outside and pulling weeds out of the grass or picking at the vegetable garden. Killing those dastardly bugs. There's something about the Big Bang Theory on TV that makes me want to snack. Maybe its cuz the actors are always doing their thing around food.......so ya....not alot of help for ya but I feel for ya! :flowerforyou:

NorthCountryDreamer

All I can say is, exercise keeps my mind off food. I am lucky because I have to bring food into work, so can't eat there, I don't have anything really exciting to eat at home, I'm constantly busy and don't have much eating time going on.

I still find it extremely difficult to not overeat.

I have the same issue. It is so easy to overeat whether I am lifting or running high miles.

MyChocolateDiet

what if you tricked your mind since you are so bad at eating less or hitting any eating goal.

eat less

move more

what if you move more but estimate your workout and don't log it. that will force you to stay within 100 or 200 cals of your upper limit of your cal goal but a decent workout should have burned at least that much if not more?

would that work?

FromHereOnOut

You sound like a great candidate for a FitBit or someother techie gizmo that you can SEE what your calorie intake/outtake looks like. I too adore toast slathered in butter especially at night. And milk & cookies. Oh ya and that little bit of 'sgetti from dinner too ...hmmmmm so I took to going outside and watering my flowers after kitchen's cleaned. Or taking a easy stroll. Or going outside and pulling weeds out of the grass or picking at the vegetable garden. Killing those dastardly bugs. There's something about the Big Bang Theory on TV that makes me want to snack. Maybe its cuz the actors are always doing their thing around food.......so ya....not alot of help for ya but I feel for ya! :flowerforyou:

I've wanted a device like that for ages (sooo jealous of people who have been using BodyMedia!), but where I live they only sell the clip-on fitbits and I already had a clip-on pedometer. But I recently sweated my pedometer to death, so I need a new one. I'd be better with a band so that I couldn't sweat it to death, but they just don't sell them here (well, there might be one place, if I ever venture far enough on the metro to check it out). Don't have a yard, so I don't usually go putter around outside (live in a concrete jungle). These are such good ideas though. Like today, we had company, so it was a forced rest day and I had to have dinner with everyone else (because guests, and also was hungry). The combo of no exercise & early dinner means I'm totally screwed tonight. The kids just went to bed and I totally want a big bowl of yogurt. So, I could do some squats at least, right? I just need to suck it up and do it. Every little bit helps.

FromHereOnOut

what if you tricked your mind since you are so bad at eating less or hitting any eating goal.

eat less

move more

what if you move more but estimate your workout and don't log it. that will force you to stay within 100 or 200 cals of your upper limit of your cal goal but a decent workout should have burned at least that much if not more?

would that work?

I'm not sure if I totally get what you mean, but right now my calorie goal has the deficit, as well as a fairly active lifestyle built into it (but not exercise built in). I have it set at a calorie goal that on a "sat at home, did nothing" day, if I ate at my calorie goal, I would at least maintain. But most days, I do lots of walking b/c I live in a city and don't have a car, so I walk to/from kids school, to/from bus stops (sometimes going to farther stops or getting off a stop early), to/from supermarket, to/from kids lessons, to/from DH's office, etc. Pretty much every little thing I do involves walking, plus we live on a hill, so we are always lugging stuff from the store up the hill, etc. But if one of my kids are sick or the weather's bad, then I might not even leave the house. Like the other poster said, I'd probably really benefit from an activity tracker, so I could see the difference my running around does.

More good ideas! thanks!