TIPS

lily1972

Be realistic: it won't come off overnight, but it's totally "doable"! Look at all the success stories!
Be honest: log everything! Even the things you may be tempted to hide...
Make changes: you will learn tons of tips on this site!
Make friends: stay motivated and be accountable :-)

Good luck! :flowerforyou:

hroderick

1. commit to a new healthy lifestyle instead of going on a diet.
2. be accurate in your exercise calories, that means investing in a good heart rate monitor and using it
3. be accurate in your calories, that means investing in a kitchen scale and using it
4. make some MFP friends that are similar to you
5. eat clean...means cooking from scratch much more than packaged and restaurant food

PattiAnne87

Hate to sound stupid but........we are supose to be eating out exercise calories too?????? I just want to make sure I understand this because my wt loss has been supper sslloooowwww. If our calorie goal is 1440 we burn 200 calories then we are to eat 1640 calories for that day??? I have been trying to stay at 1440 no matter what. Thanks for your input.

lily1972

Ahhh, the dreaded plateau! I subscribed to Jillian Michaels' free newsletter on her site, and she explains that everything is a question of hormones... to keep them active, you have to avoid keeping the same net calorie intake. In other words, focus on making your mfp goal an average at the end of the week and vary your net calorie intake from day to day. I've put it to the test and it really works!! But don't forget to do cardio - sweating is (perhaps unfortunately) important!

Good luck! :happy:

Tangerine302

Yes, they are talking about eating the calories that you burned during your added excercise. (Other then what you put for how active you are in the beginning).
As you enter your excercise for that day, the counter will automatically change it for you and you will get to eat extra that day!

PattiAnne87

Thanks, never thought I would be disappointed I need to eat more. I'll start trying to get everything in and hopefully see the scales go down. I felt like today was a success but now I need to eat more, but its just to late to eat and go to bed. I'll hopefully do good tomorrow.

dwellsouth

Great tips everybody! Glad you posted this here.
One thing that has motivated me to do more exercise is a friend's challenge to burn at least 500 calories a day! So maybe I had 400 by 6pm. but because I'm in the challenge, I went out and gardened or jumped on my elliptical machine or cleaned house...anything to hit that target! LoL

Zakth

There a lot of great tips that people have already given, many of them are what I would have suggested. The most important thing is that you do not get discouraged by the scale. If you do weigh in each day or perhaps even a couple of times a week you may notice that sometimes you go up over the previous day and sometimes you reach a new low. The better option would be to get a cloth tape measure and use it to keep track of your loss. Also take pictures of yourself and compare them. The pictures will give you an idea of how others see you. Also make sure you are drinking water, plenty of water. If you don't get enough your body will retain it which can make you feel bloated.

PattiAnne87

So I increased how much I was eating for breakfast and the first day I went crazy. I didn't look to see how many calories I was consuming until I logged it. Was over my goa (but it was healthy food, not fastfood, high fats etc.) l. The next couple of days I watched things closer, tried to eat my exercise calories and dropped 2 pounds pretty quickly!!!!

Thanks for all the advise.
:flowerforyou: