Any tips on this new weight loss goal of mine?

Forayounglady · April 2013

Hi, I'm Jemma 28 and I have a 1 year old baby girl. Iv been piling on the pounds and stones over a few years now from final year at uni - stress binge eating to relationship - I'm happy lets eat and now the biggest iv ever been from added baby weight. I need to lose at least 4/5 stones in order to feel healthy and fit but also to be within my BMi. I'm like a size 18/20 jeans and hate finding no clothes to wear.

I'm currently exercising 3x week with Pilates, spinning and gym plus walking. I need to watch my eating habits because I love food and basically an emotional eater.

Please give me any tips, advice you have on losing a lot of fat and keeping it off.

anarose13 · April 2013

instead of emotional eating pick up a pen and write. if your not good at that, clean. turn the negitive action of emotional eating into a positive action of some other sort. walking, writing, cleaning, running, something! you can do it!

cyoka13 · April 2013

Hi Jemmaleigh-

I am an emotional/stress eater myself. I have found since I have started to exercise over the past 4 months or so, I feel less need for emotional eating. Working out gives me that release in endorphins that food used to give me. My recommendation is to keep up on the exercise to minimize stress eating.

Also, if that baby of yours is not walking yet, she will be soon! So take her to the park, go for walks and strolls, play outside- all of this will help alleviate some of the stress eating!

Good luck!

paulcer · April 2013

Well, start tracking your calories for sure, make sure you have good low calorie foods around for when you feel the need to munch, it happens. One thing that has worked for me in the past is to step down my calories. For example, If you track your calories and find that you are eating 2500 per day, then step the calories down to 2000 per day for a week or so then lower your daily intake by 100-200 each week until you are at a comfortable place where you start losing weight. I find that tapering down my calories that way is easier than going "cold turkey" on a diet.

Forayounglady · April 2013

Great advice. I need to think before I go for that naughty snack habit and replace it with something positive. I am defiantly going to start doing this, or all my hard work at the gym will be lost to calories from food binges. I'm starting a blog so will write instead of eating eating eating. Thanks again. X

Forayounglady · April 2013

I'm new to this message board and not sure if my replays are sending directly to sender. Argh.

Thank you Paulcer this too is good advice! I want to start this for life so counting Calories needs to be part of my daily life - I will try my hardest to not be lazy about this because before I know it iv had way too many calories but then again like you said if I replace my munches with low healthy snacks it should help my cravings. One step at a time hey. X

Forayounglady · April 2013

Thanks for the advice cyoko. I agree. I am really starting to enjoy exercising and love the after affect. My daughter is walking so yes now the sun is shining we are going out more for walks and parks so hopefully this will help. But this English weather is very unpredictable so I need to plan in advance what I can do for alternative. Thanks again. X

Froody2 · April 2013

Try and minimise junk food in your cupboard. If it's not there, it's not tempting you.

Experiment and find healthy food you enjoy eating. Makes it much easier to stick to long term.

Don't expect miracles. Weight loss is a long road slowly taken, not a sprint.

Move more. Not just dedicated exercise sessions, but during every day life. Take stairs instead of lifts, park further away etc. It all adds up.

Realise that everyone has bad days and eats more than they should. It's the ones who accept it, move on and keep going that eventually meet their goals.

Don't restrict any one food group. Food is life, enjoy it.

Portion control is important. Measure and weigh until you can fairly accurately assess how much you're eating.

Lastly, enjoy the process. It's one of the hardest things you'll do, but the skills you can learn now will set you up for life :flowerforyou:

Mrsallypants · April 2013

Exercise is nice, but if you're overeating to compensate for the burned calories exercise will be for nothing.

You must count your calories and reduce them. You should be losing 1.5 to 2lbs a week, and perhaps more if you just started dieting.

Don't undereat your calories, and always log the calories you burned when exercising so you eat enough calories.

rwhyte12 · April 2013

Hi,
I agree with the above poster. I used to work out like crazy with little effect. It wasn't until I joined MFP and posted my first day of calories that I realized why. I've never e

exceeded the calories allotted since and I caught on that I could do exercise in a more peaceful manner (weight lifting, swimming, walking, even standing to watch my kids do stuff instead of sitting, basketball on my breaks, vigorous walking as I do some work related to my job). Let's just say I sleep well.

Normally, my summer clothing doesn't fit me until about the end of July when I've been swimming every day but I'm pleased to report that the smaller of my summer clothing already fits me and in fact, one pair of capris are ridiculously big on me as are a pair of jeans of the same size.

Long story short, I never got these results with the punishing results of an hour and a half in the gym three times a week (burning an average of 800 calories on the cardio machines before switching to weights for twenty minutes) but I'm getting there with calorie counting. The coolest thing is that my body physically can no longer eat 2,000 calories in a day without getting a major stuffed feeling. To me, that is real progress.

Also, the weight didn't get there in a day. It will take months and months for it to come off, often only as a measurement and not a scale victory. But just keep going because MFP is awesome! Good luck.

Any tips on this new weight loss goal of mine?

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