Hi All, new here.

KayJaMikel

I am very new to losing weight. I am 48, have 3 kids, oldest 16, youngest 13, and have been married 20+ years. He is not big and never seems to gain an ounce. I work from home and get very little exercise, sitting at my desk the majority of the day. I also have a back condition that makes standing/walking/showering/doing dishes/really any activity extremely painful. I have to get that checked out and see what it is but I was hoping losing a few pounds would help and allow me to do some moving.

I do not even own a scale and have never ever counted calories, I am so clueless to all of this. What are macros? How do you count a meal inputting all the items in it, do you count everything like spices, teaspoons of salt, etc. I have no imagination as to cooking. Growing up, mom made just the regular, burgers, fried this and that, etc. I was never big until in past say 3 years since i had my gallbladder removed (not blaming this but my weight was manageable until then). Thing is, I barely eat to begin with. I eat maybe 1 meal a day. I know many will say well that's part of the problem, but I really cannot stomach more food. Especially breakfast, it makes me nauseous for the remainder of the day if I eat before my stomach is ready.

Last night, encouraged by the picture thread, I made a salad. I had fresh broccoli, carrots, lettuce, mushrooms, tomatoes, and as dressing made poached eggs. I was convinced it would be delicious because I love sunny side over eggs and thought the yokes would flavor the rest. I was wrong and it was really not that great but ate it anyway just to have some food in me. To be honest, I am finding I feel horribly guilty eating anything lately. I am drinking shakes at least 2 times a day to stop the stomach growling and dizziness, but I know I cannot continue this way.

Anywho, I wish I was rich and could hire a nutritionist who can cook for me, but I can't, and again, have no imagination when it comes to cooking. I also hate seafood, so I am limited really.

Anywho again, I just wanted to thank all ya'all for a place to chat about this and I will be reading and absorbing as much as I can and hope to get some ideas, support, etc.

sadrithmora

Hi there and welcome! My cane is Kat and I work from home as well (no kids or back problems though), and when I started losing weight I did feel similar to all the confusion you're going through. I never actually even learnt to cook properly, was just following whatever recipes I thought looked good.

Anyway, to answer some of your questions. If you want to track your own weight, scale is pretty necessary but doesn't mean you need to own it. In fact, having a scale at home might be a bad thing as you might get tempted to weight yourself everyday, which isn't very good for most peoples' motivations. Weight yourself at a gym whenever you go, or your doctor (even if it's once a month). Usually people do it once a week.

As for a cooking scale, yeah, those are very handy for things like loose veggies and fruit and such, but you don't really need it either. A lot of stuff you buy is already weighted and you can just use cups to measure the rest, or get an approximate. It's not a very exact science.

Now about macros. It stands for Macronutrients, which includes carbohydrate, fat, or protein and alcohol. You won't find alcohol part in MFP though . When you set up your goal, you set what kind of percentage you want those to be, i.e. 50%/25%/25% means that your goal is to get 50% of you calories from carbs, 25% from fat and 25% from protein. Your personal macros depend on what kind of meal plan you're going to be following. For example, people who do long sessions of cardio would have more carbs in their diet, while those following paleo or primal or such diets would have their carbs low.

As for the imagination and recipes, just don't give up. If you've always cooked 'boring' food, your imagination will start developing once you realise that you can't have those things anymore. For example, I used to quite like shepherd's pie, but I'm on paleo so I don't eat potatoes anymore, so I had to substitute cauliflower for potatoes, and coconut milk for milk, etc. (It was delicious). If you have time, just browse around and look for recipes. Just because you want to lose weight doesn't mean you need to eat those boring salads.

Which brings me to the next point, just because you're losing weight, it doesn't mean you can't have fats. In fact, that would most likely make you lose less than what you could if you eat good fats (not hydro).

About the number of meals, you probably read a lot how if you want to lose weight you need to eat 4-5 meals a day. And it works for some people, but as a rule it's rubbish. If you don't like eating that many times, you don't have to. If all you eat is dinner it's totally fine too, as long as it makes you feel good. There's nothing worse than feeling miserable because of your diet.

As for what you should input, let's see. You don't really need to input spices, but you DO need to input your sauces or dips. Also keep in mind that not all of the cooking oil would be absorbed into whatever you're cooking, so you shouldn't input the whole amount you used (unless you know it all made it onto your plate and into your stomach). You can make it easy by creating a recipe, or inputting all ingredients individually and then 'save as a meal'. Don't forget you can just scan the bar codes of products for fast input if you're using a tablet or smart phone.

As for some recipes you can try, why not give something like bacon-wrapped chicken a try? It's incredibly easy and delicious. Just cut a chicken breast and stuff some Philadelphia inside, wrap it with a bacon rasher (I prefer unsmoked) so the cheese doesn't escape, and put it in the oven covered in tin foil for about 25 minutes. You can also season it with pepper and such, but I'd recomend not using salt because of cheese and bacon already. I usually eat it with a portion of baby carrots or some grilled courgettes.

If you would like to talk more, feel free to add me as well, always glad to help. Just keep in mind that all of my recipes are going to be paleo Have fun and good luck!

KayJaMikel

Thanks so much Sadrithmora!! I am going to keep coming back to this post as a reference. Trying to figure the site out more and more and wanted to thank you for responding so quickly too. All awesome tips. Again, thanks for your help. I think I am doing great, really only eating my one meal a day and for past 2 days it has been a salad, and then my shakes for like breakfast and lunch. We shall see. Day by day is my motto.

sadrithmora

Not a problem, but try not to deprive yourself too much. Nothing worse than feeling miserable on a diet, if you're anything like me you'll just end up saying something along the lines of 'to hell with it' and stuff yourself silly with pizzas