ONE YEAR IN MFP: LESSONS LEARNED THE ENTIRE YEAR
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LaMujerMasBonitaDelMundo
Posts: 3,634 Member
I started here exactly one year ago, with starting weight of 68 kilos (150 lbs.) & was in major plateau at that time. I'm happy to tell that I learned a lot on this site especially on fitness & nutrition that contributed to my success.
Lesson#1: Portion sizing - I remember my very first lesson that I learned in MFP, the shock that I had when I discovered the true reason about my plateau. After all this time I thought I was eating sensibly until I found out about the calorie content for each serving & also the correct serving size. Since then I learned to become more conscious on the serving sizes
Lesson#2: Calories - Sure this dieting thing is about calories in vs calories out but not all calories are created equal. You better off eating 100 calories of carrot sticks than 100 calories of chocolate cake. While there is no difference on the total number of calories but the big difference is in the macros. In short, aside from looking at the total calorie content, also look at the macros because those are equally important to the total calorie itself.
Lesson#3: BMR & Metabolism - Although I already heard about the BMR thing even during my pre-MFP days but I only took it seriously when I joined this site since it accounts our age, height, weight & activity level. With this one I was actually shocked to find out that the bigger you are, the higher your BMR/metabolism is & the reasoning is in line with the law of gravity, it takes more energy to move a heavier object. Which is also one of the reasons that I discovered why it is harder to lose the last 5 or 10 lbs. than losing the first 50 lbs.
Lesson#4: Exercise calories - To be honest, I got quite confused with this terminology being a non-English speaker but I learned that it means the calories burned from exercise. Anyway going back, I learned about the calories that I'm burning doing that activity (although I know that MFP has been generous with those numbers that it is kinda overestimating). Prior to MFP, I thought that just eating sensibly & exercising 30 mins of cardio + some weights are enough but unfortunately it isn't. We need to know the estimate how much energy we are consuming & burning. Otherwise, we might ended up still with a surplus despite exercising & eating clean.
Lesson#5: Everyone is different - I can see it from people sharing different ideas on the forums about what works for them. What works for one may not work for the other. All tips that are shared in the forums are just to give you an idea but by no means that you shouldn't copy everything unless it also works for you.
Lesson#6 (the lighter side): TOM, NSV, WTG, DOMS, LMAO etc. - Seriously I had no idea what these abbreviations or even the whole word itself means but thanks to my MFP friends & to all of you, I now learned something apart from fitness hehe
Finally thanks to MFP, to those who shared ideas & tips, before & after pics, also motivation & even some fun to the forums & just to everyone even if I can be sarcastic or posts too straightforward answers but I'm just like that & I hate sugar-coating everything. I owe most of my success to this site because honestly without MFP, I don't know how can I be able to track down everything & I don't have money to join WW or other paid fitness online community site. I also like to thank all my MFP friends for sticking with me for the entire year even if sometimes I can be moody or weird, hehehe... Even if I'm no longer here for weight loss, I will still stick around as I need this site to track down everything that I need for my maintenance & to my bulk/cut cycle program.
Cheers :drinker:
Lesson#1: Portion sizing - I remember my very first lesson that I learned in MFP, the shock that I had when I discovered the true reason about my plateau. After all this time I thought I was eating sensibly until I found out about the calorie content for each serving & also the correct serving size. Since then I learned to become more conscious on the serving sizes
Lesson#2: Calories - Sure this dieting thing is about calories in vs calories out but not all calories are created equal. You better off eating 100 calories of carrot sticks than 100 calories of chocolate cake. While there is no difference on the total number of calories but the big difference is in the macros. In short, aside from looking at the total calorie content, also look at the macros because those are equally important to the total calorie itself.
Lesson#3: BMR & Metabolism - Although I already heard about the BMR thing even during my pre-MFP days but I only took it seriously when I joined this site since it accounts our age, height, weight & activity level. With this one I was actually shocked to find out that the bigger you are, the higher your BMR/metabolism is & the reasoning is in line with the law of gravity, it takes more energy to move a heavier object. Which is also one of the reasons that I discovered why it is harder to lose the last 5 or 10 lbs. than losing the first 50 lbs.
Lesson#4: Exercise calories - To be honest, I got quite confused with this terminology being a non-English speaker but I learned that it means the calories burned from exercise. Anyway going back, I learned about the calories that I'm burning doing that activity (although I know that MFP has been generous with those numbers that it is kinda overestimating). Prior to MFP, I thought that just eating sensibly & exercising 30 mins of cardio + some weights are enough but unfortunately it isn't. We need to know the estimate how much energy we are consuming & burning. Otherwise, we might ended up still with a surplus despite exercising & eating clean.
Lesson#5: Everyone is different - I can see it from people sharing different ideas on the forums about what works for them. What works for one may not work for the other. All tips that are shared in the forums are just to give you an idea but by no means that you shouldn't copy everything unless it also works for you.
Lesson#6 (the lighter side): TOM, NSV, WTG, DOMS, LMAO etc. - Seriously I had no idea what these abbreviations or even the whole word itself means but thanks to my MFP friends & to all of you, I now learned something apart from fitness hehe
Finally thanks to MFP, to those who shared ideas & tips, before & after pics, also motivation & even some fun to the forums & just to everyone even if I can be sarcastic or posts too straightforward answers but I'm just like that & I hate sugar-coating everything. I owe most of my success to this site because honestly without MFP, I don't know how can I be able to track down everything & I don't have money to join WW or other paid fitness online community site. I also like to thank all my MFP friends for sticking with me for the entire year even if sometimes I can be moody or weird, hehehe... Even if I'm no longer here for weight loss, I will still stick around as I need this site to track down everything that I need for my maintenance & to my bulk/cut cycle program.
Cheers :drinker:
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Replies
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Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom. I hope to follow it so that I can pay it forward next year.0
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Completely agree with all of this!
I don't think I could even list all the things I've learnt from this site!
But, hear, hear! I'll drink to that :drinker:0 -
:flowerforyou:0
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I LOVE this post because it is ALL true. Your amazing and congratulations on meeting your goal!0
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I loVe ur post congrats (: ya tienes 1 año aki eso es excelente as trabajado muy fuerte para alcanzar tus metas por eso te almiro muchísimo amiga !!
Ami todavía me quedan con 6 meses para que esa 1 años !! I can't wait hopefully by that time I reach my goal ((:0
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