NSV - eating stabilised, and not stupid

PoleBoy

I joined MFP because I realised my diet had gone from a sensible one to a really incredibly stupid, harmful one.

Unfortunately - at least for the sake of this graph - I'd already stopped the worst of my behaviour (negative net calories!) by the time I'd joined, so you can't see just how bad things were.

But here you see how MFP helped me on the first 4 steps of my journey

Step 1: 10th February - 14th March
Start to eat a regular (gross) intake of 1500 calories a day (the first week was hard - there was no way I could eat that much - does that ring any bells?) I fixed that by eating junk at the end of the day to get to my target. I soon started eating more in the day to avoid the unhealthy stuff. For the first two weeks of this I put on weight, and was struggling to keep to it - while I didn't want to be harming myself by losing weight to quickly, I had emotional problems dealing with gaining weight - I'd worked so hard to get off my plateau after all. However, after those two weeks, I started to lose weight again.

Step 2: 15th March to 23rd March
A bit subtle this one. Start to eat a regular 1500 calories gross (as before), except eating more to stop my net intake going under 1200 calories.

Step 3: 24th March - 30th March
Once I got below the weight I was when I started Step 2, I felt brave enough to take the next step to health. I switched to enforcing a net intake of 1500 calories - that being the male equivalent of the 1200 calories that women should not cross.

Step 4: 31 March - 27th April
Unfortunately, as I ate more my weight loss accelerated, and I lot three pounds in the one week of step 3. so I worked out roughly where my deficit needed to be to get myself to a 1/2 lb/week loss, and adjusted my goals accordingly. Yet again I had to deal with the terrors of weight gain for the first couple of weeks, but yet again my body started to lose weight at roughly the predicted rate after that.

Step 5: 28th April - ?
Having once again got to a "lowest recoded weight" I've made a minor change to the way to how my exercise is calculated - I've been using a BodyMedia device to track my daily Total Energy Expenditure, but I've just been looking at that data - and according to that some days my deficit has been significantly higher than my exercise alone has accoutred for. I've now started using it to insert a "fake" exercise so MFP now knows just how sedentary, or not, my working day has been. I'm hoping this will help deal with the feelings of hunger, lethargy and irritability I've been having.

Step 6: ? - ?
Maintenance

Step 7: ? - ?
hopefully I will have learnt to listen to my body, and I'll be able get away from relying on gadgets and numbers, and just "eat right"

Kirsty_UK

that's great! I love the mfp teaches people to eat a balanced diet

EDIT: didn't word that too well, I meant teach people good habits, obviously it's possible to meet he calorie goal without eating a balanced diet

oh man I'm too tired to get my words out straight, I know what I mean

basically, well done, and keep it up!

PoleBoy

I know what you mean

And yes, there are still a few dubious points in my diet (protein bars?!?!), but the macronutrients are roughly balanced - although I do depend heavily on prepared meals to get there.