Your MOST helpful tip to new users.

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  • _Terrapin_
    _Terrapin_ Posts: 4,301 Member
    weigh it, log it, eat it, live it
  • seltzermint555
    seltzermint555 Posts: 10,740 Member

    Most people give up a weight loss or exercise program after 3 weeks. Don't be one of those people!

    This is probably my favorite advice in this thread.

    I personally never truly tried a weight loss program until MFP, even though I was 36 when I joined last Spring! But I joined with the thought of like, "I'll do this for a year and see what happens" not "I NEED TO LOSE 46 LB BY THIS WEDDING IN JULY". I didn't know it at the time but I think my approach set me up to succeed rather than fail. Even if I'm only down 2 lb at the end of a month, I'm ahead of someone who totally quit and gained weight. Good advice.
  • BrainyBurro
    BrainyBurro Posts: 6,129 Member
    don't take candy from strangers.
  • MscGray
    MscGray Posts: 304 Member
    Don't just listen to all the advice that you get...sort it all out and look into it yourself!!! Especially if it came from the message boards, as they are full of conflicting opinions and schools of thought.
    Also when reading a message board post, do your best to read it with out any "tone" at first it felt like people who were answering me were being snotty and snide....they weren't, more often just short and very direct....which is needed to avoid the whoa is me's that pop up all over the place
  • lsorci919
    lsorci919 Posts: 772 Member
    don't take candy from strangers.

    But candy from strangers is the best! :(
  • whitebalance
    whitebalance Posts: 1,654 Member
    I have two, sorry. The first one is... Inertia is your friend, if you make it work for you. A body at rest tends to stay at rest; a body in motion tends to stay in motion. Starting is the hard part of anything. Turn off the computer and start now. Don't worry abut how long you're going to spend on the treadmill, or whether you're going to complete your whole strength workout - just get in there and get started. Once you've started, it's so much easier to keep going. Do keep going... Don't stop... Because then you have to start again, and inertia becomes your nemesis. Make it work for you.

    The second is... You didn't get to your starting point all at once; it's ok not to change all the things all at once..You're probably a real person with a real life, and upending that real life probably isn't going to work out for you in the long term. If you commit yourself overnight to living on 1200 calories, cutting out whole food groups you've always loved, getting up three hours early to spend two hours a day every day in the gym, starting a 6-day-a-week compound lifting program you designed for yourself, and running X miles every day... You are setting yourself up for failure. Pick one change you can fit into your life today, and start making that change today. Master that change. You will see results... You will get excited... You will want more. Then find another change you can make, and do so. Keep kicking it up a notch at a time... You will find you're capable of more and more, and you will have progress along the way.

    We laugh at the word "journey" here, but it fits for a lot of people. Get started, don't overthink it, and don't burn yourself out by trying to sprint the first mile of a 100-mile trip.

    tl;dr version: Start NOW with some manageable change, and keep it going.
  • nomorebingesgirl2014
    nomorebingesgirl2014 Posts: 378 Member
    Bump
  • RHachicho
    RHachicho Posts: 1,115 Member
    Keep it simple. Over complication, Fad diets cutting out macro nutrients etc etc. Are all basically the tools of excuse makers. Don't get me wrong they can help sometimes. But not as much as the people on them THINK they do. Oh and EXERCISE. Seriously you can lose weight without exercising. But without good exercise habits you will probably but it all back on.

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