newbie nerves

evildeadedd

hello all. Like the subject says writing this to try and calm my nerves.

Little background, I have been overweight for about 15 years and morbidly obese for about the past 10. I have hovered around the

300 pound mark for the past 5 years or so. At 6' tall and 330 pounds; I hurt all the time, and am completely miserable. There are

many many things I need to change in my life, I am in a rut so deep I can't see over the sides. Weight loss is my first target, I

feel like maybe if I don't feel like crap all the time, maybe I can stop being so angry and such a jack wagon to people. I have

set what I believe to be a reasonable goal of 5 pounds a month, I know that is kinda on the low side for someone of my size,

but I want a sustainable goal for the long term, I know this is a likely a two year project I am undertaking.

Now that that is out of the way on to the part that has me nervous.

I have actually been working on myself for a couple weeks more than I have been tracking on here. my weight of 323 from last

week isn't my "official" weight. I only weighed myself then because I needed a more accurate number because when I started

to try and get healthier my scale read my weight as "ERR" which I assume means " GET THE HECK OFF ME CHUNK".

Because of this I had to weigh myself last week in hope of getting an actual number to put into the app not just an estimate, so

when it says I have lost 17 pounds that's just because 340 was a guess. June 6th is my actual official weigh in, with a goal of

320. like I said with 5 pounds a month I would like the starting number to be round for ease of calculations, but I am sure it will

not be. After all this rambling on to what is bothering me. I have been reading a lot on these boards and other sites, and I think

I may not be eating enough calories. The app set me up with 2300ish when I put in the weight of 340 so when I weighed and

was 323 I figured I would bump it down to 2100. I rarely hit that during the work week, I was treating it as more of a goal to stay

as under as possible while not feeling like my stomach had turned into a school of piranha. Now I read all this stuff about BMR

and TDEE, I see that I should be eating something like 3000 calories a day. And I should never eat less than 2400 ever. I know

I still don't eat very well, but taking this a little at a time. My sodium intake is out of control but other than that I do pretty good on

my other numbers. I have had a really bad day since I started tracking, but that's what happens when you put a fat man in a

Chinese buffet. I am just worried that I am setting myself to get sick or something, I feel fine now, been going to the gym 4 days

a week, and while I am not killing myself in there by any means, at my size every little bit helps ( biggest fear right now is injury,

if I pull something and can't work out for a while, I know how I am I will just take it as a sign and sit back on the couch, I need to

make the gym a habit). I just want to be sure I am going to improve my health not make it worse. My diary is open, those that

are well on their way to meeting goals please chime in,

kconrad1712

Hi there. I'm Kristina. My husband is around the 300 mark as well, so I know what you are going through. Calm down - we are all here with the same problems trying to help each other. Welcome to MFP! You've taken a huge step in getting your life back on track.

At first glance, your diary shows you going into the red a lot with your sodium. Salt dries up your cells, so your body will hold on to whatever water it can in order to function properly. If you drink lots of water, your body won't be tempted to hold on to water because it will get used to the constant flush. I know this sounds crazy, but the more water you drink, the more water weight you will lose.

I also see a lot of processed foods and beverages. My husband and I are eating low-carb, and eating "clean" whole, organic foods. Our methodology is that if we can hunt it, grow it or fish it, we can eat it. My husband lost 25 pounds in his first month after applying this methodology. It works for some, and not for others. All I can say is that your diet (and by diet, i mean entirety of foods you eat, not the restrictive sense of the word) will take some tweaking before you figure out what works for you. Try to keep all of your numbers in the green, drink lots of water, and eat less processed foods. A good thing to also remember is not to eat within 2 hours before going to bed - for better digestion.

So - that's my two-cents. Good luck!

spngnetwork

I'm new here too, just looking around the site when I saw your post. I think we are both headed the right direction if we are making an effort to sign up with myfitnesspal. I just started making healthy changes and it seems crazy hard. My recommendation is to start small, I'm trying out things such as:

Keeping a gallon of water at work (and actually drinking it)
Having some unsalted crackers when I need a snack.
Buying more fruits

It ain't much, but it's stabilized my weight, I just need to get a exercise routine down, then I'm sure I can start seeing the pounds come off.