Extremely New

ALHickok
ALHickok Posts: 10
in Health and Weight Loss
I've always had good intentions with my weight loss, but it's never amounted to anything. I am 5'2" and 173 lbs. Ideally I would like to be 145. My question is where to I really start? Seems like everywhere I go I get a different answer. I've been told to really focus on cardio at first to jump start things, but then I've also been told not to do so. I've been told to and not to eat all of my workout calories back. And everyone says that 1200 calories isn't healthy, but MFP only has be at 1320. I don't see much of a difference there. Someone please help, I'd really like to get this process going. The past two days I have done 40 minutes of cardio and ate back half of my workout calories. Any input is great as to me being so clueless.

Replies

  • AllTehBeers
    AllTehBeers Posts: 5,030 Member
    The way MFP works is that if you just ate the 1320 calories per day, you would lose weight. Did you set your loss to 2 pounds a week or 1 pound? You can set it to 1 pound to get a few more calories to work with if you're feeling like the 1320 isn't enough.

    Also, with MFP's default settings, they want you to eat what you burn in exercise calories. So if you burn 300 calories, your total intake for the day should be 1620.

    I also don't strive for a certain calories burned per day, but for a higher level of fitness. For example, I'd love to eventually be able to run a 5k. When I first started, I couldn't even run 30 feet, but now I'm up to 2 miles.

    Have a goal and work towards it, the weight loss with come with over all end results.
  • RougeIllusion
    RougeIllusion Posts: 59 Member
    There's a million different answers that you could get. You really have to figure out what works for you. For example, I enjoy cardio more than strength training so I usually do an hour of cardio most days and do a strength training video maybe three times a week. I try to stay around 1200 calories, which is actually healthy for women, but some days (like today when I have a yummy Mexican feast) I go over. I don't eat back my exercise calories and so far all this has worked for me.

    You can feel free to add me or look at my diary, I'm not an expert be any means but I am losing weight!! :smile:
  • BarackMeLikeAHurricane
    BarackMeLikeAHurricane Posts: 3,400 Member
    Start here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/654536-in-place-of-a-road-map-2-0-revised-7-2-12
  • ALHickok
    ALHickok Posts: 10
    There's a million different answers that you could get. You really have to figure out what works for you. For example, I enjoy cardio more than strength training so I usually do an hour of cardio most days and do a strength training video maybe three times a week. I try to stay around 1200 calories, which is actually healthy for women, but some days (like today when I have a yummy Mexican feast) I go over. I don't eat back my exercise calories and so far all this has worked for me.

    You can feel free to add me or look at my diary, I'm not an expert be any means but I am losing weight!! :smile:

    Thanks. This is pretty much what I've been doing so far. I didn't know if it would actually help. I know different things work for different people. I still have to give it a little time to see if this works for me. It's just really hard for me. Most of.my family, including my hubby and in-laws are all naturally skinny, so support is pretty far and in between. My hubby is willing to help as long as he still gets to ear as he chooses ans doesn't have to step foot into a gym.

Categories