Hey, I'm gaspode on mefi.

Combining this with health month for some accountability re. healthy eating.

Hello! I'm tatiana131 here and there. I've gained about 40 lbs in the last decade, on a 5'1 frame and I'd like to lose 20-30 of them. I spend a whole year lifing heavy weights with a personal trainer 2x/week, and cleaning up my diet (although not portion control), and I lost exactly 0 lbs. Even accounting for muscle weighing more than fat, I still have plenty o'fat to lose.

My main problem is portion control. I can eat very healthy, but I tend to do 'gourmet' healthy which tastes good and I eat for satiety as much as flavor. I love stuff like buckwheat as it gives a lot of fullness for not too many calories.

This approach will include adding running to the regimen - starting Couch to 5K tonight, and serious calorie control. I'm pretty good at disciplined eating during the week and really struggle on weekends. So if you have any suggestions to weekend survival, I'm all ears.

hi all- I'm leslies on mefi. Been working with a personal trainer for most of the last year focused on fitness more than weight loss. Decided to try to lose about 20 pounds starting with the new year. I'm also 5'1". My biggest downfall is my sweet tooth but having a starving athletic teenager at home doesn't help either! I'm down 5 lbs since I started using myfitness pal - have never tracked what I ate before using it and it's been eye-opening to really keep track of what I eat and when to stop.

I do strength training 2-3 times a week, circuit training 2x a week and try to get out and walk/hike the other days.

Hi all. I'm kbar1 on mefi. It's been a good month - I'm down 13 lbs since Jan 11th (yay!) but even with that good news I was feeling frustrated and deprived today. I had pasta salad for lunch - and when I entered it in the tracker, I discovered that 1 cup was a whopping 880 calories! Even though I limited myself to lentil soup and steamed broccoli with a lowfat cheese sauce for dinner, I ended up exceeding my daily goals. I'm hoping tomorrow will be better.

Howdy all! I'm Roommate over on mefi (mostly a lurker). Been on mfp for about a month but just learned of this group today. I had some success with Weight Watchers online several years ago, but the weight has slowly been creeping back in. This time I'm just counting calories on mfp and trying to exercise at home (dvds... right now a mix of Power 90 and, um, Hip Hop Abs). Also using a fitbit to try to spur myself into more general movement throughout the day - it was kind of shocking to discover how little I move, having a desk job. So far, so good - my eating habits have definitely improved, my downfall will be all the great craft beers brewed around Asheville...

Howdy, I'm smuna on MeFi; I'm pretty new here and over there as well. I want to use this application to keep track of my nutrition and to motivate me to exercise. I maintain a vegan diet for cholesterol lowering purposes, so MFP has been useful already in determining where my nutrition could improve. I am a sporadic cyclist and yoga practitioner, but I enjoy myself the most when working out with weights in the gym. I lost my routine when I moved across the country a few years ago, and never re-established it. Yesterday I signed up to the gym in my neighborhood, and today I went, so that's progress at least!

Hey y'all! I've been a long time lurker of MeFi (sans account) and I love the culture there. I mostly read AskMeFi and MetaTalk.

I started out getting by going from a sedentary lifestyle to become active after joining a running club. In Florida. In August. It wasn't the easiest thing but somehow fate gave me a freebie because our first run was in the cool rain. It was hard, but I was hooked. I'm now training for a 10k in April to meet one of my resolutions for the year.

I set weight goals for myself in January and due to progress last Fall, I'm halfway to my goal weight.

Look forward to seeing everyones progress!

kjbarone - I feel your pain about eating something, then tracking it in MFP and getting a shock, Sometimes if I am faced with a challenging day, like going out to eat at a restaurant with co-workers I'll pre-track my meal by researching what the restaurant has and plugging in different options until I find a meal that isn't too high in calories or sodium (I'm looking at you, Olive Garden soup and salad!)

Hi All, I'm cocoagirl on AskMe and this is one of many things I'm doing and have done to manage my weight before it gets beyond my ability to deal with it rationally. I'm 45 and notice that my early, athletic frame just doesn't deal with weight the way it used to. I'm pretty active when I stick to it, but often life throws me for a loop and I get out of the habit and then, BAM, it's 8 months later. So my strategy needs to encompass ways to deal with the loops. Often I can predict them: For instance, I know that the end of my kids' school year, and the end of the summer, when they're home full time for a few weeks before or after camp starts, is one of those times. I have them 24hrs/day and can't work out, and spend more time out and about at novel activities with hectic food choices in front of me. But sometimes I can't predict the loops (divorce & injury seem to be my refrains!). Anyway, having more awareness and choice over my food is something that I can depend on throughout those loops, so it seems like a good habit to get into.

Oh, I also have a massive chocolate addiction and two voracious boys in the house, so, yeah, not the greatest combination. Recently I gave myself permission to have a different dinner than them--it felt like sacrilege but I think it will make a difference. Not every body at the table needs that food or that much of it.

It's been pretty quiet here over the past month, so It's great to see another mefite joining the group.

I started MFP and Weight Watchers in mid January, weighing 209. I've been sticking with both programs and I'm down to 175 - woohoo! I'm hoping to eventually transition to just MFP but for now, the weekly weigh in at WW is helping me.

I really started to feel and see the difference when I hit the 10% weight loss point in March. Now my size 18 clothes are all too big on me. My ultimate goal is to fit comfortably into a size 10, but I'll be thrilled to wear size 12!

Best of luck to you Miranda - Cheers!

Glad to see folks talking on here recently. I know that motivation can be difficult to find. I've made strides after connecting and following with others on MFP. Now I see all the activity from my MFP friends and that motivates me to continue tracking and posting. I'm just hit 150 days of tracking and that really is making a big difference. Also, I know it's a personal choice but some people share their food diaries. It's interesting to look at others daily food intake even though everyone is on their own path and have different daily calorie goals.

So if you haven't already, start friending each other! The support really helps.

Hello all, I'm syanna over on MeFi. I got a Fitbit in 2011, lost 20 lbs over 10 months and got within 5 lbs of my goal weight. Then I slacked off and most of it has crept back on. I've been making half-hearted efforts to get back on track for a while now. Then I came back from vacation, and yikes! And within a few days of that, I got engaged. So now it's time to crack down for real and stick to it. Calorie counting is what made the difference the first time around, and the comments I've seen on the green about MFP in that regard have me feeling pretty good about my future here.

Welcome! MFP is certainly working well for me - after 5 months, I'm nearly halfway to my goal. You've got to be honest with yourself for it to work; record every calorie.

A couple problems some people seem to have, based on the MFP forums:

- Setting activity level. MFP asks for your activity level _excluding_ exercise, which you account for separately. For many of us, that means "sedentary." I'm cycling over 100 miles a week this summer, but my job is reading and writing, which is done mostly at a desk or on the sofa, so I set my activity level to sedentary. During the semester, when I was teaching, I had it set to "lightly active," but I think that was probably too high.

Whatever activity level you choose, you may need to change it if your results don't meet your expectations. People vary in their basal metabolic rates, and MFP's assumptions are based on averages.

- Counting exercise calories. The databases in MFP, and many heart rate monitors, often inflate the number of calories an activity requires. I use a bike computer that combines HRM data with my weight, equipment weight, speed, and elevation change to estimate calories; it seems pretty accurate (based on my weight loss) and its numbers are 25-40% lower than what MFP tells me I am burning. (For cycling 10-12 mph, MFP exaggerates by 40%; for 16-20 MPH, by 25%.) One study found that a Polar HRM overestimated calories consumed by women doing step aerobics by 27-28% (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21178923), and other studies suggest that HRMs are less accurate for women than for men (e.g. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15292754).

Again, if you are honest about calories eaten, and you've set your activity level accurately, and you're still not losing (or not losing at the rate you want), you should look at what you're entering as exercise calories, and possibly "discount" them by 20-25%.

MeFites are probably less likely than the average MFP user to be unaware of those problems, but I thought I'd bring them up, since MFP is more useful as a tool if you're aware of its design and limitations.

And the average MFP poster is way less likely than a MeFite to cite the NIH. Broscience abounds on the main boards.

Yes, especially that tired "Eat more to weigh less" canard.

Hi, Heartguts! Welcome! Good luck with your goals and feel free to add me if you are in the market for MFP friends. Roller derby sounds like an awesome way to get in shape...