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

I am a rule follower. To not follow the rules...BLASPHEMY!

I think the only rule is to make sure you eat enough!

All these people on 1000 or less a day

Hi and well done... couldn't agree more... sorry to be lazy but I have had to paste from my profile that i wrote yesterday as I have to go out.... but as I am new here, I would like to be added as a friend !!!

Since age 11 (loooooong time!) I have gained, lost, gained, lost ad nauseum then last April / May time, not exactly sure when, my car broke down and I realised I was well and truly stuffed. In almost every sense of the word. I didn't know how I could get home. Although it was only half a mile ??, (tho all uphill) I had reached a point where I just couldn't do it. Luckily I managed to flag down a neighbour who gave me a lift.

I sat in my house, at the top of the hill and realised I had two choices. Either walk down to the shop and back up that pig of a hill (even my fit, adult sons say it is a killer!) or starve! So I did it. Then something just clicked and I started walking... a bit like Forrest Gump and that's how I started to get my life back. I truly feel I have escaped.

I have now lost just over 100lbs and I have, quite literally, made it up as I go along with no other help except my dear old body telling me what it needs. Hungry? Eat. Thirsty? Drink. Tired? Sleep. Energetic? Walk. No pills, no potions, clubs or anyone barking at me to go faster, higher, stronger. And it has cost me nothing in monetary terms but given me so much because I truly cherish being alive now. The first thing I ask myself every morning is: Fatter or thinner? If the answer is thinner, which it always is, I pull on a trackie and trainers and just go.

The fundamentals aren't rocket science.

I'm a lot happier now that I've stopped trying to lose weight and instead have focused on making my body more healthy. Weight loss will most likely be a side effect of that--which, I won't lie, will be nice--but it's not the reason I eat the things I eat or exercise.

TRUE. I've gotten to that place a week ago. -I am currently 67kg, dropped down from 70 (on NY's eve) and that is the turning point. I was on that weight last year, but felt big, unfit, weak, older.... Because I was on antibiotics all the time, and those ice creams and pizza's really didn't help :sad:

I had a craving yesterday, ate some sweets ( I haven't touched them in a month!) and that's it. No regrets. I'm cranky, my period has just started, and I don't feel the need to apologize to anyone, not even myself.

I have to admit, my mood is better this morning, probably because of the chocolate I had last night, but I even exercised heavy, which I don't do on my TOM days. I just felt like it.

I really hate the fact that a lot of people here are judgmental, and there are also may who wanna quit (because they are always hungry, etc...) instead they should only be doing what's right for them, and not being on some idiotic STRICT regime that won't do them any good LONG-TERM.

Just take care of yourself!:flowerforyou:

ME!!! i used to obsess and read every little thing and think i had to follow it or i wouldnt lose weight. Now i just eat healthy, burn more calories than i eat and workout/weight train. Thats it. I do log but its for my own benefit so i can track my intake.
I really dont have time for all the sciences and rules and things and i think you can over analyse it too much. All you'll do is drive yourself crazy and end up with no life.

Move more-Eat less......simple

Me too, I hate rules! . but MFP has helped me learn and do much better. My pals have helped me stop having so many lazy days.
I no longer complete my dairy , but I do use it to keep tabs for the day.
If I stop loosing weight or getting fitter, then I may be a goody two shoes again, I like to feel free though!

I didn't know there were rules. Am I in trouble? :embarassed:

Rule #1 - Stay at or near my calories.

That's it. I've been on maintenance for a couple of years now just following one rule.

Seeing as a poster on here has just fleeing proclaimed in upper case that I drink ALCOHOL!!!!!!! and suchlike, and that her diet (which isn't recorded on here, coincidentally) is so much cleaner than mine, I think I qualify for this category. I think her argument was that, by not restricting myself to bland, single ingredients, pointing out she wasn't telling the truth about something factual meant I couldn't possibly be as good a person as her.

Whatever. The real world is full of junk and good things alike. A single junk meal isn't a disaster. It doesn't mean you are doomed to failure and your immortal soul is forever cursed. It's the cumulative total of your choices in food and actions that determines your progress.


People at a healthy weight make those choices all the time. Those who are heavier have to learn to do it.

Rules were made to be broken. :smokin:

, , , , , , , 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.

This.

Sometimes after reading the forums, I find my head spinning with all the confusing and (many times) contradictory advice. Then I take a deep breath, clear my head, and say, "Eat less, move more."

I know there's a certain amount of calories I probably shouldn't go over or under on a regular basis, I know that some exercise everyday is probably a good thing. I don't try to figure out how many calories I've burned and then how many I should eat back. If I'm truly hungry (as opposed to bored, emotional, or whatever), I eat.

Seems pretty simple.

Great thread.

I love this post. Everyone is at a different place. I always say that I should wake up in the morning and think of what a healthy person would do and then just do that. After a period of time, you become that healthy person following that approach.

I have counted calories since I was 10 years old. It has led to a pattern of restricted eating and binges that has led me to gain and lose 60-80 pounds every few years for my entire adult life. I love your post. I think calorie counting can have its place, but for some, like me, learning to eat intuitively again is much more important. I'm not even *supposed* to count calories based on my medical history, so while I do, to keep an eye out on my macros, I don't care if I go over. I do breakout micro-nutrients because I try to get enough calcium and iron, but that's just a tool that MFP offers me. Some days I make it and some days I have to use a multi-vitamin.

Once you basically know calories, I think it's your choice whether or not you count them. I pretty much know what calories are in food since I've been logging food for 30 years. This last time, I lost my first 35 pounds simply by eating cleaner, no single calorie counted. I am counting now but just to get my macros and micros.

Move more, eat less, make healthier choices. If you want to eat out for a special occasion, eat what you really want and the best that you can afford. Balance! Try new activities that are active so that workouts aren't a chore. I just learned how to to cross-country ski and am trying a pole dancing class on Monday. This is fun. Eating well provides me the energy I need for an active lifestyle.

To me, I stay in my calorie range but my main focus is nutrition, and cutting down on processed foods. The focus is portion awareness, that way all foods can be inclued because that is realistic to my life. I refuse to be hungry if I am I will eat despite the calorie count. I drink a ton of water and herbal teas (no milk or sugar). I work out most days as I have learned in the past that if I push myself too much, my body will push back (usually in the form of a cast and a couple months where I can't do much).

I want this to be a sustainable lifestyle change (I refuse the word diet!) and it has taken 24 years to figure out what works for me. I have been on here for almost a month, lost 4 pounds, my pants feel better and I feel like I am on the path to a healthy body inside and out.

Thank you for this post, I'm glad there are people who feel the same way!

I eat what I want to, the trick is, I portion control and I use common sense. Do I WANT to drink a 2-liter of diet soda? No, it's gonna make me feel icky. Do I WANT to eat a bag of chips? No, I'll just feel bad afterward.

So, I'm looking at this journey as a long-term thing. It's not reasonable to assume I will never have a slice of pizza again, so I'm not cutting it out now, I'm just balancing it with my other foods to stay in my calorie goal. I've given up coffee in the morning in favor of green tea (I drank it black anyway) but if I go to a coffee shop there's no rule that says I can't get a coffee - I just don't want it in the house, the same as with diet soda, if it's in the house I'll drink it and it always makes me feel like garbage.

A lot of people on here fancy themselves to be nutritionists or experts on exercise or diet. For me, fasting is absurd. Hey, it might work for someone else and that's great, but I don't see it working for me long term. For me, I get exactly one hour 3x per week at the gym (childcare is timed). That's all my schedule allows without killing myself over trying to get there. I just accept that I earn more calories on those days and have to be careful the other days and also try to amp up my normal everyday activity on those "off days" even though I don't track it as activity.

Everybody's body is different. I'm struggling with my last 15ish pounds (as my ticker shows). Certain things don't make sense to me and I'm struggling to figure out what my body is doing so that I can make adjustments where I need to. I know what works for me long term to keep the weight off because I've lost a ton of weight, 75 pounds at my best (I gained 10 back, but that 10 was lost due to stress in my life and wasn't a real loss based around lifestyle change). For someone else fasting 2 days a week might work for them long term, for me, I couldn't live like that forever so I'm not going to do it now.

The only "rule" I follow is the one that says I should lose weight by changing things in my lifestyle that I can maintain for years to come and not by following along with some fad or diet pill.