who else isn't too worried about 'the rules'?

Rules for losing weight: eat at a deficit
Rules for health: meet or exceed your nutritional requirements and exercise

What else is there?

i make my own rules. and what im doing is working! i have lost 37 lbs since january 1st. i eat! i made exercise fun when i was not working the first month. me and a friend went to different classes at our gym. we set ourselves little goals and had fun walking on the treadmills and other equipment. i see a victory as being something i change from what i previously did. i am being more active because i want to. im not going to stress out and do insanity and heavy intense workouts. i eat what i want and use this as a guide. guide meaning, i plan better. i still eat my chocolate! pizza! junk food! i just dont eat the whole pizza. im not going to diet the rest of my life. so im going to learn how to eat better. i have had binge moments. i have gone places and had cake and appetizers. that is part of life. i have my calories set at 1600 and go over. im not going to beat myself up cause im not in the 1200 calorie club. or the clean eating club. i also have to shop on a budget. so i do include processed foods. i dont follow any rules. and i have deleted friends who constantly obsess over the stupid things. im not going to use scales and heart monitors. im not going to be 60 plus and weighing my food and tracking my calories im burning with things strapped to me. i can go on forever about this! and i love the ones who use health problems as an excuse. i have diabetes, high blood pressure, and pcos. YES you can lose weight with those problems. and correct them just by getting off your butt. but many people dont want to just move. they think about quick fixes and pills. again. are you going to take pills to maintain when your 60? done ranting!

I have started incorporating treats and food that I like that I know aren't that healthy in my diet.... But limited. I am also not scared of going over 1200 anymore. I put my deficit to about 1300, and if I eat over, I do not panic as it's a friggin -deficit-.. It's not like I'll gain back everything or anything at all from a little over eating due to me already eating so little in the first place. I do not mind "maintaining" for a little while in the name of yummy stuff I am in no rush. I already like my body even if im kinda overweight. to me, it doesn't matter if I lose everything in 3 months or in a year. I know it comes off eventually because I've made a -lifestyle- change. Yes I might eat the things I did before sometimes. But I've made a promise to stay on the healthy side, buy as much organic food as I can, eat good nutrition, give up sodas(for the most part... I probably wouldn't mind them on events and such) and exercise. Exercising really helps.. In just few days I noticed my stamina is increasing, muscles going firmer and Ive been experiencing some interesting dumps in my weight.

But yea, don't sweat the small stuff... And if you binge one day, just make sure the rest of the days are cool Somehow I think that the different intake of calories might even be good. But I have no way of knowing.

I once learned about an 80/20 rule...be on your best 80% of the time and 20% allow for your splurge. Whatever it maybe.

Personally I just found this ap...and so far I dig it. I am not "learning" anything about rules and blah, blah, blah...however...I do find myself making different choices becuase I just don't wanna put something "bad" in my logs. I feel like I have been learning LOTS over the past few years...and it feels that all is starting to click. AND...I am loving the journey so far. It's great to see how my day adds up...makes me think about things.

Today, I was in SO MUCH pain and it was raining sideways here...so I didn't go out for my activities. It was a stressfull day at work...and I had and emotional convience eating...and now I am having my second glass of wine....and I am OK with it all...this is about making a transition, and a transformation for me...not about a crash diet...not about rules.

How can I change how I think and feel about food...if I am CONSTANTLY obessing about it? I do my logs and my excercises (when I can) and allow for the process to shift...it's taken me a LONG time to get here...it's not gonna change overnight.

I think it is beautiful for so many people to be contemplating where they are at with "diet" and excercise. I want to feel good. I want to be happy...sure...that means loosing some weight and getting stronger...it doesn't mean obessing and beating myself up

beautiful.
thank you for the post!

I stay within calories and try and average a 300 calorie workout each day. That's IT. I don't worry about all the nitty grittys, I don't worry about the 'should's' and I don't really get too worked up if the scales do idiotic things. I feel amazing, fitter, healthier, happier and 9 kg lighter since boxing day.

Who else out there is like me, almost along for the ride, but seeing results? Tbh, if I had to follow the myriad of 'must-do rules'on here, I'd either go mental or give up. Just make it easy on yourself, I say. Good choices, because you want to be healthy.

Anyway, can anyone relate? I'm not havinng a go at those who are way more into the specifics, coz it evidently works for them, but I don't think its necessary for all

Pretty much sums it up. What this place did for me is made me aware of how much I was putting away.
I have learnt so much from various threads and groups on here, and have adopted and adapted stuff that works for me ... I eat more healthily, I exercise, and the lbs and inches are coming off!
I understand more about what my body needs to function than I did when I started and for those threads, I thank them!

And if my progress looks slow - that's because a great mate on here suggested once that I flip to maintenance over a weekend to have some wiggle room to live life! And it suits me just fine :-))

Kind of with you on this one - so far not too worried if I'm a bit over my calorie limit if I've made healthy choices all day. BUT I've only just started MFP and have only lost 1lb in my first week... so I may change my mind later on! Having said that, I do feel happy and positive about the food changes and choices I'm making.

Oh my god, THANK YOU for creating this topic!!

I was just thinking about this today. People on my FL, on Tumblr or anywhere else where I follow people who are trying to lose weight and be healthier, sometimes just puzzle me with all the details and numbers. Numbers of completed work out routines, how many grams of what, how many calories and when... It's all just too much for me. Let alone the fact that there doesn't even seem to be THE set of rules. Everyone is following a different set and don't get me wrong, it seems to work for a lot of the people I see here and that's great. I'm just not convinced that their success would be that much different if they changed their diet around a little or if they stopped focusing on the numbers all that much.

I haven't been that successful myself yet because I keep falling off the wagon. I thought I'd have to obsess about the details much more which scared me but seeing all you guys here who have lost so much weight without following "the rules" makes me feel like I can actually do it. All I need to do is get better at logging everything and not cheating on myself all the time.