Insight please!!!

agerena007

Hi all. I am new here as of yesterday. I am trying to lose about 80 lbs. Initially I was going to semi starve myself, but read that it will work against me. So i just changed my "diet menu" actually I threw it out the door, lol. I started with a calorie intake of 600 or less, then crashed on saturday. I saw this website and was curious. I need support and I really need some insight on healthy filling meals. I am exercising daily, which has honestly given me more energy and motivation. I do not eat beef or pork, I have been eating chicken and turkey for years now. I only have wheat bread and wheat pasta, etc. I dont understand why I havent lost any weight but in fact gained weight within the years and have been eating "healthier". I was never the type to eat too much and I only eat 2- 3 meals a day, someone said your supposed to eat 5-6 meals a day, if I do I would look like a ball. Enough about me, if anyone has any meals or snacks that I can eat, that is filling, healthy, few calories, etc. Also feel free to add me as a friend or inbox me. Thanks and best of luck to you all!!! :flowerforyou:

Excellentia

First of all, welcome to the fam! :flowerforyou: We're glad you're here!

Secondly, you'll need to find what works for your body, but a 600 calorie intake is NOT good. I have my diary set up for 6 meals a day. That helps me, but you may need something else.

omegamaster4040

I am not suprised you gained wieght on the diet you were doing. The body goes into freak out mode when you dont give it enough calories (such as only 600) and stores as many as it can in case it needs it for a life or death situation (dont run from bears much anymore, but the ol' body hasnt realized that yet). You want to eat the correct amount of calories for your weight and then create the excess calorie count (only about 500/day) from working out.

eating at least 5 'small meals' a day is the way to go. Some of those 'meals' are really just snacks, such as a banana and few almonds. It is all about avoiding the burst crash burst crash cycle that comes from eating just 2 or 3 meals a day or eating meals that break down quickly (such as a candy bar or white bread).

I hope you are excited to change the way you live for the rest of your life! :-) Just keep thinking about how awesome it will feel when you look back after meeting your goal. It will not be a quick road so be patient and expect times of minimal improvement, remember to climb the tallest mountain you have to take a lot of small steps.

agerena007

On biggest loser, I heard that you can lose 10 lbs a week, if you exercise more than the calories you take in it is possible. Thats why i was ok with a 600 calorie or less diet, but it left me hungry at times. I will up the intake to food that fills me up and is healthy but i wont do more than 1200 calories, i want to take it down to 1000. I just have been so unhappy with my weight for so long and i want to get rid of it. Although people say i dont look what i weigh, i know how much i weigh and it kills me, literally.

agerena007

thank u so much omegamaster, ur insight is welcomed and much needed. i dont think i will do the 5 meals but i totally understand what u r saying. i dont want to crash, so i will do a better calorie intake but not too much past 1200...

j77r68

Welcome ! You definitely are in the right place to get healthier and lose weight. I am only going to be brief because I know the more knowledgable pals on here will tell you the in's and out's. With feeding your body only 600 cals a day your body wants to hold onto all of it because it thinks it is in trouble. In order for it to survive it hlds onto all energy it is given but your body doesn't work well that way. It can't work for you if you don't feed it properly. The more healthy you feed it the more it will work for you. When people tell you you should be eating 5-6 times a day they don't mean full size dinners. They basically should be little energy pick-me-ups in between your 3 main meals. You should be able to spend hours on here looking through all the forums on healthy eating, recipes for that healthy eating and exercise. What a lot of people do including myself is look at other people's food diaries to get ideas from what they eat and how it can be incorporated into your food. Things you might not have even thought about. Did you get set up with your daily calorie intake yet?? MFP sets you up at a 500 cal deficit each day so even if you didn't exercise and just ate your daily cals you could lose up to a pound a week. It really is up to you how much effort you put into yourself and your health.

Good Luck on your journey and this is something I do to help keep from getting too discouraged when the scale isn't moving fast enough; I only focus on losing 1 pound at a time, 1 pound is easier to handle than the 90 pounds that is my goal!! I also focus on smaller Non Scale Victories (NSV- you will see that a lot on message boards) like my jeans fitting looser on my thighs, climbing flights of stairs without being winded, jogging for 10 minutes straight etc...

omegamaster4040

The biggest loser is extreme cases with very heavy medical watch and if you follow-up a lot of them actually put it all back on. Unless you are over 400 or 500 lbs, i wouldnt expect the same results. Losing 1lb a week is the most healthy, safest, and best for long term results. I would recommend making that your target.

Also, remember, muscle and dense bone both weight a lot. Pure weight really doesnt say much about health.