Trying to start loosing weight?

horrorfan

Hello! I am just starting to get back into mfp yet again and I decided to turn to everyone on the forums to help me decide a good plan.

A little bit about me, I am 18 years old, a senior in high school, and I work a job where I am on my feet the entire time about 10-15 hours a week, usually cleaning and keeping busy. At school, of course I am mostly behind a desk besides walking to classes. After school, if I don't have work, I just go home and hang out. I usually don't do much. I am trying to work out at least 4-5 times a week (everyday after school) though. My first question is, would I be considered sedentary or lightly active?

My weight is 222, my BMI is 39.5, my body fat percentage is 48.8 (as of April 27; I have a digital, metal scale that reads all of this for me-- lucky me haha). I was wanting to start C25K (or do another workout that is 20-30 minutes of cardio, 3 days a week) and then on my other days at the gym do mostly the strength equipment. Is this an adequate program to jump start my weight loss? In regards to "do you get discouraged by scale numbers", usually yes. But with this new scale, if I see the BMI going down and muscle going up, the lbs can barely move. I do want to drop 80-100 lbs though.

Also, MFP says my goal caloric intake to lose 2 lbs a week would be roughly 1400 calories. Is this too little? I usually set it at the highest weight loss goal so that if I go over in calories a bit, I still know that I will lose. I know my eating this week hasn't been the greatest, but I do generally eat healthy. I have been continuously struggling with sodium intake, going over by 1,000 almost everyday and struggling with not getting enough potassium and vitamins. How much will this affect weight loss?

Example menu for a day:

Breakfast: Boca burger with low sodium ketchup and mustard, cherub tomatoes, clementine
Lunch: Either a subway turkey sandwich with veggies and doritos or a tofurkey (tofu lunch meat) sandwich, townhouse crackers, almonds, fruit
Dinner: My dad switches it up every night. It is usually a salad with vegan tacos, vegan spaghetti sauce, or vegan chilli over rice
Snack: Protein bar on workout days, soy fruit yogurt

I know I am not getting a lot of veggies but it's hard to pack them in my school lunch. I don't like carrots so there's not much I can do... Is this eating plan okay? Even with exercise it's hard to stay under my calories and macros. Everything is extremely high in sodium!

Please help(:

hitsnooze

I was just wondering why you eat just vegan stuff all day and then turkey on your subway? surely all that vegan stuff is more expensive than just lean turkey and stuff if you're not vegan. honestly curious

and i know you'll get the sexy pants link from someone, have a read through that and it's honestly great advice

ottermotorcycle

Hokay so here's a few things!

I would say you are MODERATELY active. You're more than lightly active just from being up at your job.

You are eating too little. I don't know how tall you are, but I can almost guarantee your BMR is higher than 1400 calories. You can calculate that here: http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/. Your BMR is the number of calories your body would burn in a coma, and so it is the MINIMUM amount of calories you should intake each day.

Once you have that, you should multiply it by ~1.7 to get your TDEE, or your maintenance level. You can cut calories from there to create your deficit.

Your diet plan actually looks okay. You're getting a good variety of foods. The Subway and doritos are probably causing you to go over on your sodium. To prevent water retention, you should really log your water and make sure you get at least 8 cups a day.

AliceDark

1400 sounds really low to me, too, especially given that you're 18 and still growing. I would try setting MFP to moderately active and to lose 1 pound per week at first. It's really not about how fast you lose it, or how low you can get your calories and still survive. You want to be able to eat as much as you can, and get as much nutrition as you can, while losing slowly and steadily. After a month or two, if you've gotten used to your intake and are seeing some progress, you can increase it to 1.5 or 2 pounds per week. It's easy to fall into the trap of restricting way too much, losing really quickly and then regaining it again in a year or so, but you don't want to spend your 20s doing that! Lose it slowly and steadily, and you'll only have to go through this once in your life :flowerforyou:

I took a quick peek at your diary, and it looks like you're not vegan but someone doing the cooking/shopping for your household may be? If you're not fully vegan, I'd suggest doing some reading about good vegetarian protein sources. The processed soy "meats" can be good, but depending on the brand they can also have a lot of sodium and some aren't as good protein sources as others. You could mix it up with some cottage cheese, greek yogurt or eggs to get some variety. I've been veg since I was 11 (ovo-lacto right now), so you can feel free to look through my diary for ideas if you'd like.

horrorfan

Thank you everyone for replying!

I'm transitioning into becoming a full vegan because my Dad is. I like the vegan diet and I will sometimes eat lean protein, but I am weaning off of it(:

No, I don't believe I've read the sexypants post! I will look for it.

As for height, I am almost 5'4". I think I have good variety in food, but I am not getting enough veggies I believe. The doritos and subway definitely puts me 1000mg over my sodium and, again, with the full vegan thing, I am transitioning. It's not really vegan so much as whole foods, plant based.

I like the idea of setting my goal to 1 or 1.5 lbs because I've noticed I get let down when I set it to 2 lbs and I don't lose that whereas I get really happy when I set it to 1 and lose 1.5 or 2. As for the 50 percent carbs, 30 percent fat, 20 percent protein, I think that's way too many carbs. I was thinking doing 40 carbs, 30 fat, 30 protein so I have protein to fuel some of my muscle.

Any input on the work out regime? I want my body to look as nice as I will feel being healthy so I know it needs variety, but for now I just want to get started and then I can mix it up with classes at my gym and whatnot.

My activity was already set to lightly active, but I changed my goal to 1.5 lbs and now it says 1700 is what I need. Sound more correct?

AliceDark

Yeah, 1700 sounds better. Make sure you're eating back your exercise calories -- MFP is designed for you to do this. Keep in mind that it can take a month or so for some people to see losses, so try to be as consistent as you can for four weeks before changing anything. Your new macro breakdown -- 40C, 30F and 30P sounds better than the MFP default.

Also, take measurements and pictures right now, then again in two weeks or a month. The number on the scale is just one data point, and you will have weeks where you lose inches and not pounds (and vice versa). You get to count a loss on the scale, a loss in inches, or a visual difference as a win.

horrorfan

Thank you so much! Sounds good!