I Desperately Need Help!

I disagree about not logging housework. If you're doing it for a span of time, laundry, putting clothes away, doing dishes, putting them away, vacuuming, picking up, for like twenty minutes or more straight, I would log it.

Logging it is fine, but make sure not to eat it back if you're doing TDEE or you're double dipping as it's already accounted for in your activity level (unless you do house work once in a blue moon or something.)

Housework is not exercise. I wouldn't log it, but I would set my activity level appropriately to accommodate for it.

I wear a fitbit. One day I did yard work and house cleaning for about 5 hours straight. My fitbit calorie adjustment was about 300 calories. If I logged all that work using MFP it would've given me over 1000 calories.

Again, it's not exercise. It's life.

A lot of the advice you've already gotten on this thread is really excellent: log your food and exercise, cut down your portion sizes but don't try to limit yourself too much (that will cause bingeing!), try walking for exercise, etc.I'll add two things to the mix:

1) If you feel like you do want to change something about your food, try cooking. Personally, I think cooking is kind of fun, and extremely satisfying. Don't limit what you cook, either. I have never, ever made broiled chicken with brown rice and steamed broccoli. Honestly, that sounds bland and disgusting. Anything you cook will be healthier than the pre-packaged version you find in the store, and very, very often, it will actually taste better! Only cook meals that sound delicious, and which you feel up to based on time, clean-up, and complexity. For time-crunched days, crock pots are magic. I usually play some music while I'm cooking, so I'm dancing around as well as creating a healthier meal for myself.

2) For exercise, find things you like. You don't need to stick with the same program for 90 days or whatever. Find some videos you have fun doing, try hula hooping (adult hoops are much larger and heavier than children's hoops, making it much easier, and a lot of people have gotten fit hooping...check out hoopnotica if you're interested), lift some weights or do bodyweight strength training, take walks (like other posters have recommended), go for a bike ride, etc. Whatever you do, don't force yourself to do the same thing every day if you're losing interest. Schedule your workouts every week, and do whatever you feel like doing in that time, as long as you enjoy it and/or feel satisfied about it afterward.

I love sweets and bread too. I don't deprive myself of either. I stay under my calorie count each day, but handle those cravings with things like sugar free jello and sugar free pudding with a little light whipped cream. I eat light bread(pepperidge farm oatmeal, seven gratin ) and i also splurge with Skinny cow ice creams and candy . Watermelon is sweet and so is pineapple. There are plenty of things that you can use to handle sweets & carb cravings. I started back with MFP in Jan and have lost 41 lbs. just logging everything i eat daily. Good luck!

I've read that once you eat only healthy food for awhile, then you lose your cravings for junk.

This is true for me. I haven't lost my cravings completely, but the frequency of my overeating has decreased substantially, along with my cravings. I would say that it's more about watching sugar and fat intake than eating healthy per se, because sugar and fat are addictive (source: youtube documentary "big mac under attack"). It's easy to overeat fruit (too much sugar) or nuts (too much fat) thinking you are being healthy, but really you aren't. This could be your problem. I think IIFYM is pretty good advice.

EDIT: added source for claim

If you are at 300 or so, you really do need to cut out your sugar & starches. You can do this, but you have to change your lifestyle of eating. You can still have good food, but sugary foods are not the food you need for your body. Please make a committment to yourself to change your bad habits. You can succeed, you have to want it.

I'm no nutritionist or doctor. I've mentioned this suggestion to people in my life, and many people have found success with it. When you're morbidly obese and have diabetes/high BP/high cholesterol/etc. it can seem overwhelming. Advice is conflicting. It's hard to know, should you go vegan? Low carb? Gluten-free? Join weight watchers? Count calories?

If you'd rather, I recommend the following. (And I can give you VERY easy advice on how to do these without stress or worry.) (1) 100% cut out High Fructose Corn Syrup (for a while at least) (2) 100% cut out "trans fats" and (3) focus on non-saturated fats.

Now, I'm not here to tell you that high fructose corn syrup is "bad" (since no nutrient is "bad") but the thing about HFCS is that it is very calorie dense and is in a lot of crappy food. So when you go to a restaurant or grocery store, look at the label. Does it list "High Fructose" anything in the ingredients list? If it does, put it back. Look for a different brand. Whether that's cereal, peanut butter, flavored yogurt, ketchup, soda, bread, cookies, crackers, dessert... anything. If it contains HFCS, just put it back on the shelf and pick a different brand until you find one without HFCS. AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS. For just 4-6 weeks, maybe. It's, like, a challenge. What happens when you eat a lot of HFCS is your sweet-tasting taste buds die off from hyper-use. So you have to keep eating sweeter and sweeter things to be "satisfied." Once some of your taste buds start to regenerate, seemingly suddenly, foods like carrots and sweet potatoes actually taste sweet. You can taste the sugar in roast onions. Really!

Trans fat. Just like with HFCS, avoid it. 100%. Read labels. If a product contains it, just put it back on the shelf and buy a different one. The ingredients will say something like "hydrogenated x" or "partially hydrogenated y" if the product contains trans fat.

Focus on un-saturated fats. Every food at the store has a label (at least in the U.S.). Check out the fat content. I don't care what the total calories or whatever it is. Just look at the fat listing. If the label says a portion has 9 grams of "total" fat, make sure the product has 3 or less grams of "saturated" fats. Make sure the saturated fat is less than 1/3 of the total fat. This way, at least 67% of your total fat consumption is un-saturated.

(Caution: this advice only applies to people 100 lbs. overweight or more who also are suffering from type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol types of issues.) By following the above three tips, it is much easier to improve your bloodwork numbers without even thinking about it. It is almost impossible to remain morbidly obese over the long term. Unless you are basically eating butter constantly, if you cut out all products with trans fats and HFCS, it is much harder to eat too many calories.

PROTIPS: (1) if a food at the grocery store doesn't have a label, then it contains no HFCS or trans fat. (2) don't be a d!ck and eat butter all day. Even if you follow my advice about HFCS and fats, but never eat fruits and vegetables, then my advice probably won't work.

Hmmmmm, logging the housework, and slow walking, is working for me so far, but maybe in the future it won't.

Check out this definition of BMR, I got from the "apps" on the MFP website:

"What is your BMR?

Your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) is an estimate of how many calories you'd burn if you were to do nothing but rest for 24 hours. It represents the minimum amount of energy needed to keep your body functioning, including breathing and keeping your heart beating.

Your BMR does not include the calories you burn from normal daily activities or exercise.

Our calculator uses the Mifflin-St. Jeor equations to estimate your BMR which is believed to be more accurate than the more commonly used Harris-Benedict equation. "

So,...... it already had my height, weight, age, etc, so I clicked on "calculate". It said my BMR is 1669 calories per day -- for completely resting for 24 hours. MFP gave me 1600 calories per day to stay at or under. SO..........I say, log any of the "exercise" listed at MFP!!! I've been logging "light housework", "leisurely walking", and also "mowing with the riding lawn mower" (that's one of my favorite things, to mow on the tractor), and I'm slowly losing. Apparently, mowing with the riding tractor burns more calories than just resting. It makes sense.

And my point is, it's a place to *start*. You know? It's a place to start. (I'm just starting, too).

Good luck and cheers. :flowerforyou:

You don't have to cut anything out completely. You just need to set a reasonable calorie goal and if you really crave something make allowances for it as long as you stay on your calorie budget for the day. If its a big thing, you might need to average it out for two days instead of one. That is why this diet is working for me. If I really have to have buffalo wild wings ultimate nacho platter, which usually happens at least once a month, then I have a 200 calorie breakfast and a 200 calorie lunch and that leaves me 1100 for my nacho platter. It gets easier as you go and you learn what you can have. Good luck to you and just be careful to not cut your calories back too far. If you do , it will just make it harder to stay on the program.