Explain your method to a nutrition newbie in 10 steps

lemasney

What 10 things would you say to someone who wanted to learn about what we do here? My ten are:

1. Know how many calories you eat to gain, maintain, or lose weight.
2. Know your weight and what makes it up.
3. Count every calorie, record it, and treat it like cash.
4. Do not exclude foods, ideologically, but try to eat real, unprocessed, close to whole, preferably organic food.
5. Be happy.
6. Exercise, and no need to kill yourself over it.
7. Use a reliable, free system to record, manage, and guide your weight loss. (I suggested MFP, of course)
8. Find out what is holding you back and annihilate it.
9. Prepare your own food, or eat foods that you know and recognize the contents of.
10. Drink more water.

I wondered what you would change about this list, or better yet, what your ten things would be?

All my details for each of the steps are at http://diaryofcalories.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/longform-on-my-method-of-nutritional-progress/ in case you'd like to see my explanations, etc. Cheers!

healthymission92

I wish someone would have told me number 4 on your list, a few months ago and i'll be a lot better off. I suppose it's an expeirence I can learn from...

healthymission92

I'm currently stuck on number 8 atm.

mybuddysgirl

Thanks for the advice. I will definitely focus on these ten things I am beginning my journey of my weight loss and was recommended to use FMP. I would think that I will struggle with #4 at times. Your loss so far is an accomplishment i cannot wait to see for myself.

davidjulian

I would quote Michael Pollen: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

But I would support it with a few details:
> Eat real food. If you can't pronounce it or it sounds like it should be in a chemistry lab, don't eat it
> Make the non-plants lean meats, and eat enough of them to fulfill your protein requirement (realistically, that seems to be about 75% of my body weight in grams, for me at least)
> Don't limit yourself, don't be afraid of cheating
> And move your @$$ through the pain.

Rae6503

1. Get an estimate of your TDEE.
2. Eat less than that to lose, more to gain. Weekly averages are easier.
3. Get an estimate of your body fat percentage.
4. Eat Body Weight * (1 - body fat percentage) in protein daily.
5. Eat "mostly" "whole" foods.
6. Lift weights. 3 to 5 sets of 5 to 12 reps, such that the last rep on each set is pretty damn hard.
7. Cardio you enjoy, low intensity is fine, be wary of too much, or too high of intensity.
8. Stick with it. If you have a bad day, start again tomorrow.

paintlisapurple

That's a great list, although some of those items take a while to understand properly. I'm not stupid (a bit dingy here and there mind) but I still don't understand parts of the caloric energy in/out "math". (I hate math to begin with so the whole thing makes me crazy.) My BMR is 1569 (or so the calculator says) and my TDEE is 2270. I understand that my deficit should be 990 (according to mfp) and that comes from the TDEE which leaves me with 1,280.

This is where I get lost...If people are saying its unhealthy to eat under your BMR why am I set at 1290? (Not complaining about not getting enough either because I can't seem to fit all 1290 in most days anyway...I feel like such an oinker trying!)

All of these items are important. It might be easier to understand (for me) if the theory (of number one) wasn't contradicting itself.

PrncessBre

This is awesome. Bump!

Rae6503

That's a great list, although some of those items take a while to understand properly. I'm not stupid (a bit dingy here and there mind) but I still don't understand parts of the caloric energy in/out "math". (I hate math to begin with so the whole thing makes me crazy.) My BMR is 1569 (or so the calculator says) and my TDEE is 2270. I understand that my deficit should be 990 (according to mfp) and that comes from the TDEE which leaves me with 1,280.

This is where I get lost...If people are saying its unhealthy to eat under your BMR why am I set at 1290? (Not complaining about not getting enough either because I can't seem to fit all 1290 in most days anyway...I feel like such an oinker trying!)

All of these items are important. It might be easier to understand (for me) if the theory (of number one) wasn't contradicting itself.

"People" say don't eat less than your BMR, but I'm not sure that's supported by science.

MFP uses 1200 as a bare minimum. How much did you tell it you wanted it lose? 2lbs a week? 1 pound of fat = 3500 calories. So if you told it 2lbs, it's subtracting 7000 from your weekly TDEE but that'd be less than 1200 so it tells you 1200.

However, for most people 2lbs a week, or a daily deficit of 1000 calories is "too big". It's hard to stick with, you don't have a lot of energy, it might result in muscle loss, etc. 500 calories a day (1lb a week) or even less seems to work better for most people.

Additionally MFP seems to estimate low compared to other websites which would make the deficit even bigger than 1000.

jamiealdridge02

1)-drink lots of water
2)stay at or around your recommended. Calories per day.(I just use mfps recommendations)
3)eat mostly real foods (as opposed to packaged foods with tons of ingredients)
4)move your body-find what you like to do and do it
5)limit sugar
6)save room for treats but try to find healthier versions and use moderation
7)cook most of your own meals
8)keep a cooler of food with you when you are on the go so you always have a healthy snack.
9)make it a lifestyle change not a diet.
10) you can do it. Good luck!!

lemasney

Loving what you all are saying.

lemasney

I would quote Michael Pollen: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

But I would support it with a few details:
> Eat real food. If you can't pronounce it or it sounds like it should be in a chemistry lab, don't eat it
> Make the non-plants lean meats, and eat enough of them to fulfill your protein requirement (realistically, that seems to be about 75% of my body weight in grams, for me at least)
> Don't limit yourself, don't be afraid of cheating
> And move your @$$ through the pain.

Michael Pollen is one of my favorite authors. And he supports his simple statement with details too. Food Rules is amazing.