I tried going IIFYM today - here are my results

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Replies

  • PikaKnight
    PikaKnight Posts: 34,971 Member
    So, you basically ate a bunch of random food and then claimed it proves something about IIFYM? That doesn't make any sense. The point is it to hit your macros, not to "just eat stuff."

    yeah i dont quite understand IIFYM , well except for the people here who have explained it.. im still learning :)

    You could read up on it here

    http://iifym.com/
  • CakeFit21
    CakeFit21 Posts: 2,521 Member
    Let me break is down further;

    in order to do IIFYM it needs to, (are you ready?) ....... FYM !!!!

    Good grief. If you tend to go over LOG YOUR FOOD FIRST, THEN EAT so you know how much you can eat without blowing your macros.
  • rosellasweet
    rosellasweet Posts: 163 Member
    You didn't even hit your macros, you went over in everything. IIFYM should be about 80% "clean" foods and 20% for treats.

    Yes i did go over.. on purpose, for the couple of reasons I mentioned,, (No worry, it will undo itself in a couple days.

    Amazing that it did not take a lot of food for me to go over.

    Thats why i am so careful to not allow myself certain foods, because when i did, it is a negative thing for me. this is why i got so fat. I ate just a little bit too much every day which all added up to putting on fat.

    I still think this proves that my going cold turkey and restricting myself actually is a better method for losing weight.

    I also am asking another question here - I did the cold turkey method to jump start myself and now i can eat a few treats, but how do you begin including some treats or fave foods so that you dont mess up your macros allowed? I think i can, but im afraid of having too many of days like today. How do you do it?

    Prelog your meals so that you have room for your treats.

    This! I plan my days out so I can fit in treats like frozen yogurt, wine or pizza (today I just said screw it and had one more piece, but only went over by 100.) Following this method does not give me license to eat what I want when I want. I have to control every meal and snack. Going on 4 months and 21 pounds later...still working.

    Also, someone suggested adjusting macros. I do this too to up my protein and lower my fat.
  • NonnyMary
    NonnyMary Posts: 982 Member
    IIFYM is for people who have got their diet and training regime in strict order. It is for people who have jumped the first few hurdles and are trying to find a way to allow themselves to step back a bit. It's not for you. that's cool. No worries.

    aha!! i thought so.

    I have been seeing a trend in the people who encourage others to do IIFYM. it seems those with the 6 pack abs and 1600 posts can do that. You may have hit the nail on the head :)

    Ummm..how can you say that when you had no idea what you were attempting?

    I know im not making sense.. just thought i'd try something is all. and see what effect it has. not meant to make sense. :)
  • SamiAng
    SamiAng Posts: 23 Member
    Hi there. This is the first time I have heard this term (IIFYM). I have food issues or I wouldn't have gained as much weight as I have. I am just starting out, and my goal for a few months at least, is to hit my calories. I still look at the other macros, but if I started out trying to hit all I would have quit.
    Take it one step at a time...baby steps. Start with calories and maybe even fat. Drink all your water. That's what I am going to do. One other thing is to set a goal for fruits/veggies. I slack big time on these...my goal is to eat at least 5 servings combined...again, just counting all, but staying within my calorie goals.
    You can do this...just start out a little easier than IIFYM.
  • CyberEd312
    CyberEd312 Posts: 3,536 Member
    Pre planning will go along way to hitting your caloric intake and macros. .... Just curious do you measure and weigh out your food??? This in itself give you a good perspective of where certain things fit into your day... iifym is more about filling the majority of your day with good whole foods and if you have calories left over you then can use them on discretionary choices. This is where preplanning comes in... at least for me because it takes alot of the guess work out of it for the next day... like today I ate a lot of veggies, lean meats,chicken, whole grains, and some fruit. This evening I had hit my macros and had around 600 calories remaining so a measured out a bowl of ice cream with chocolate syrup for a bedtime snack. .. Its all in the planning...Best of luck. ...
  • NaomiJFoster
    NaomiJFoster Posts: 1,450 Member
    The phrase "Eat everything in moderation" doesn't mean you have to eat actually EVERYTHING. It means that there is nothing that is off limits entirely. Everything you like can find a place in your diet. It might not be every day, but you can indulge in all of your loves once in a while and make it fit your numbers. If you know that the treat food that you want that day is going to be very high in carbs, then you make sure that you eat fewer carbs the rest of that day. So that it FITS. But you aren't going to eat each of your treat foods all in the same day. That's not a treat.
  • nmtGurl
    nmtGurl Posts: 159 Member
    So, you basically ate a bunch of random food and then claimed it proves something about IIFYM? That doesn't make any sense. The point is it to hit your macros, not to "just eat stuff."

    yeah i dont quite understand IIFYM , well except for the people here who have explained it.. im still learning :)

    These links may be able to help you understand IIFYM better :flowerforyou:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/817188-iifym

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/819055-setting-your-calorie-and-macro-targets

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/833026-important-posts-to-read
  • PikaKnight
    PikaKnight Posts: 34,971 Member
    Here's the thing...

    Most of the really vocal proponents of the poptart, ice cream, bacon, cheeseburger, pizza variety of IIFYM do work out a lot and are very dedicated to fitness, from my observations on MFP. Most of them are also in maintenance or close to maintenance, and most of them were not compulsive eaters struggling with morbid obesity prior to losing their weight. Of course, I am making generalizations, and cannot provide exact details for every IIFYM proponent.

    As someone who is a compulsive eater, and who has not always been fit and active, I get frustrated when I see a string of replies that basically say, "I've lost all my weight drinking beer and eating wings and brownies every day." For one, I believe that they are exaggerating a bit, and they eat much less of the junk they profess to exist on than they would lead you to believe. It's sort of a "cook kid" think on MFP to profess your love of bacon, ice cream and deadlifting at every opportunity. Unfortunately, they lead people astray a bit by not going into detail about eating healthy more often than not (how else could you meet your macros consistently?) and not being up front about the amount of training they engage in.

    IIFYM would be better presented as "everything in moderation, with a focus on healthy whole foods that fuel your body, along with adequate exercise to burn excess calories." And even then, if you are a compulsive eater who has trouble limiting portions of certain foods, or who is "triggered" into a binge or uncontrollable eating by certain foods, you should be even more careful.

    I believe in the general IIFYM concept, but you have to remember that you have to eat a lot of healthy foods to actually hit your macros most days, and the more unhealthy (high calorie, not nutritious) foods you consume, the less calories you have for healthy foods.

    I try to follow IIFYM and I'm a stress/bored/emotional overeater whose been overweight to morbidly obese since the 5th grade. Thanks for trying to group people and make assumptions though.

    Oh, and I still work in poptarts and the such too. :flowerforyou:

    ETA: Moderation has actually taught me more about eating "healthier" and has helped me have a healthy relationship and mind-set about food.
  • CakeFit21
    CakeFit21 Posts: 2,521 Member
    one more thing;

    "everything in moderation" does NOT mean "moderately eat everything in one day"
  • laserturkey
    laserturkey Posts: 1,680 Member
    You CAN eat any foods you like. Just not all in one day. You still have to fit them into your macro goals, by portion control and by choosing which foods will fit on a given day.
  • NonnyMary
    NonnyMary Posts: 982 Member
    Here's the thing...

    Most of the really vocal proponents of the poptart, ice cream, bacon, cheeseburger, pizza variety of IIFYM do work out a lot and are very dedicated to fitness, from my observations on MFP. Most of them are also in maintenance or close to maintenance, and most of them were not compulsive eaters struggling with morbid obesity prior to losing their weight. Of course, I am making generalizations, and cannot provide exact details for every IIFYM proponent.

    As someone who is a compulsive eater, and who has not always been fit and active, I get frustrated when I see a string of replies that basically say, "I've lost all my weight drinking beer and eating wings and brownies every day." For one, I believe that they are exaggerating a bit, and they eat much less of the junk they profess to exist on than they would lead you to believe. It's sort of a "cool kid" think on MFP to profess your love of bacon, ice cream and deadlifting at every opportunity. Unfortunately, they lead people astray a bit by not going into detail about eating healthy more often than not (how else could you meet your macros consistently?) and not being up front about the amount of training they engage in.

    IIFYM would be better presented as "everything in moderation, with a focus on healthy whole foods that fuel your body, along with adequate exercise to burn excess calories." And even then, if you are a compulsive eater who has trouble limiting portions of certain foods, or who is "triggered" into a binge or uncontrollable eating by certain foods, you should be even more careful.

    I believe in the general IIFYM concept, but you have to remember that you have to eat a lot of healthy foods to actually hit your macros most days, and the more unhealthy (high calorie, not nutritious) foods you consume, the less calories you have for healthy foods.

    yes those posts are kinda - whats the word - frustrating or annoying to me, personally. No, im not jealous because you can have ice cream and i "cant" .. or some other such thing... but there has got to be something else that enables them to be able to eat like that.. I'm still fat. I cant do what a skinny weight lifter can.

    Well do not worry, im not going off my diet, im just testing the waters, and voila, for me, today taught me a lot. i am still finding my way around, and yes i did write that topic on me being liberated from food, but my way to stay on this is to have more boundaries than a body builder does for example. I am fine eating like i did all week. Some people say that a person who eats like me (restricing some items) may one day find it too restricting and then binge and then blow the diet off, but I still think - for me - that I will blow my diet if i start eating back those things which i am now laying aside.

    i think i have a gut feeling about this, how to make this work, and i think i am not ready for what IIFYM means, i dont know how to do it quite yet, or maybe i am saying i dont want to word it like that, but to just eat what i feel i should do like how i did it earlier this week, or maybe im getting hung up on semantics, in any case, im going to keep on doing what i have been doing all week.

    yeah sometimes i dont take time to prepare food, or take time to go to the store, or whatever, im noit going to make excuses, but sometimes, i just dont have everything ideally. like today i had to take my cat to the vet and that sort of screwed my day a bit.. i didn't take time to bring fruit as a snak and at 3:00 i was starving. so i grabbed what appealed tome. but oh well.. tomorrow is another day.
  • ItsCasey
    ItsCasey Posts: 4,022 Member
    It's clear that you just don't really understand what IIFYM means. It's not about percentages of clean vs. unclean food or diet meals vs. cheat meals. It's exactly what it says ... if you can make pizza or ice cream or Pop Tarts fit into your macronutrient AND calorie goals for the day, then you can eat it. No need to feel guilty about eating those things instead of salad.

    It's not true that you must have 6 pack abs to do IIFYM. You just have to be willing to do some planning and thinking about your meals ahead of time and be willing and able to make substitutions on the fly. For instance, if you just have to stop and get an ice cream cone on the way home from work, you are probably going to have to change up your dinner plans to still meet your macro goals. And if you're willing to do that, then it's absolutely fine to stop and get ice cream.

    And I agree with the others that you need to set your own macros according to whatever your personal weight goal is (lose/maintain/gain). MFP's default goals are not right for pretty much anyone.
  • Pixi_Rex
    Pixi_Rex Posts: 1,676 Member
    You keep using the term IIFYM... I do not think it means what you think it means.

    To do IIFYM you have to plan still.
  • Cranquistador
    Cranquistador Posts: 39,744 Member
    OMG OMG oooh ouch ouch

    The brownie alone has so much sugar plus the coca cola!!! It's a killer .

    All I need is a shopping cart full of pop tarts , brownies , sodas . I can eat all I want and hit my macros.
    I am on the highway to nowhere.

    YOU WILL NOT HIT YOUR MACROS WITH A SHOPPING CART FULL OF THAT STUFF.

    GOD

    does anyone even understand what making sure you hit your macros IS...?????????

    my protein macro is one hundred twenty, or whatever...i am SURE not going to hit that with a shopping cart of pop tarts...i may have room for one, or one brownie, or one cup of ice cream, IF IT FITS MY MACROS

    sjhfajhdfgbEWHLVLVDvldscvSKCGVSKVCKSVKGSvcv scbvdnkvafbnavfjcvjscvscvbk BAHBAHBAH:angry::angry: :angry:
  • mathjulz
    mathjulz Posts: 5,514 Member
    Didn't read all the responses yet …

    But, you chose to eat a lot of different treats today. Baclava, brownies, soda (the sugar kind), Subway (it was a pretty good choice, but still), and quesadilla. That really doesn't even quite follow everything in moderation (or IIFYM).

    I eat ice cream. I eat chips. I eat chocolate and Oreos, and I go to restaurants. But not all in the same day. One day will be a serving of chips (counted out). Another day will be 2 Oreos, and another will be the ice cream. I might even have 2 on the same day, but only after logging what I've already eaten, looking at meals ahead, and deciding if it fits my macros. (Eating out is really hard, because the food tends to be high fat and high carb, and some, like what I had today, didn't list all the macros … but notice I didn't have any other treats today, just 2 small meals plus the big indulgence out).

    I would suggest to try IIFYM again. But you can't wait and log everything at the end and see how you did. You have to log your day as you go (or even in advance) and check your macros when deciding whether or not to eat something, whether it's a treat or bread and peanut butter. I honestly believe IIFYM works, when you actually follow the plan.
  • Achrya
    Achrya Posts: 16,913 Member
    Here's the thing...

    Most of the really vocal proponents of the poptart, ice cream, bacon, cheeseburger, pizza variety of IIFYM do work out a lot and are very dedicated to fitness, from my observations on MFP. Most of them are also in maintenance or close to maintenance, and most of them were not compulsive eaters struggling with morbid obesity prior to losing their weight. Of course, I am making generalizations, and cannot provide exact details for every IIFYM proponent.

    As someone who is a compulsive eater, and who has not always been fit and active, I get frustrated when I see a string of replies to a new MFP member that basically say, "I've lost all my weight drinking beer and eating wings and brownies every day." For one, I believe that they are exaggerating a bit, and they eat much less of the junk they profess to exist on than they would lead you to believe. It's sort of a "cool kid" thing on MFP to profess your love of bacon, ice cream and deadlifting at every opportunity. Unfortunately, they lead people astray a bit by not going into detail about eating healthy more often than not (how else could you meet your macros consistently?) and not being up front about the amount of training they engage in.

    IIFYM would be better presented as "everything in moderation, with a focus on healthy whole foods that fuel your body, along with adequate exercise to burn excess calories." And even then, if you are a compulsive eater who has trouble limiting portions of certain foods, or who is "triggered" into a binge or uncontrollable eating by certain foods, you should be even more careful.

    I believe in the general IIFYM concept, but you have to remember that you have to eat a lot of healthy foods to actually hit your macros most days, and the more unhealthy (high calorie, not nutritious) foods you consume, the less calories you have for healthy foods.

    I'm a vocal proponent. I'm overweight (in a technical sense.) probably months and months away from maintenance, workout 3-5 hours a week (But usually 3) and I used to literallly (without exaggeration) put down an entire package of oreoes in a day. I would eat an entire pan of brownies, alone, in an evening. I've eaten entire tubs of ice cream while watching prime time TV. There are days in my diary from before IIFYM where I would drink 2 meal replacement shakes and then binge on candy because I felt like I had to restrict myself to succeed, but all restricting did was make me hate my entire life.

    You have no idea, not even close to an idea, of what 'most' or even 'many' proponents of IIFYM are actually like.

    It is only through learning about macros (and the TDEE method) that I was able to put my food into perspective and forge a healthier relationship with food. Learning to eat in moderation (Actual moderation, not "ALL THE THINGS IN SMALL AMOUNTS!!!") is one of the best things to happen to me with MFP, and that's because of IIFYM>
  • usmcmp
    usmcmp Posts: 21,220 Member
    Here's the thing...

    Most of the really vocal proponents of the poptart, ice cream, bacon, cheeseburger, pizza variety of IIFYM do work out a lot and are very dedicated to fitness, from my observations on MFP. Most of them are also in maintenance or close to maintenance, and most of them were not compulsive eaters struggling with morbid obesity prior to losing their weight. Of course, I am making generalizations, and cannot provide exact details for every IIFYM proponent.

    I'm a vocal proponent of IIFYM as are many of my friends. Many of us are dedicated weight lifters, that is true. Despite being close to maintenance we've used the method through our weight loss, not just because we are done or almost done losing. I am a binge eater and was obese for years prior to losing. There are lots of IIFYM supporters who binge eat and were obese or morbidly obese. IIFYM keeps my binge eating to a minimum. I may eat chicken and egg whites all day just to fit half a pizza in my macros for the day.
  • Cadori
    Cadori Posts: 4,810 Member
    OMG OMG oooh ouch ouch

    The brownie alone has so much sugar plus the coca cola!!! It's a killer .

    All I need is a shopping cart full of pop tarts , brownies , sodas . I can eat all I want and hit my macros.
    I am on the highway to nowhere.

    YOU WILL NOT HIT YOUR MACROS WITH A SHOPPING CART FULL OF THAT STUFF.

    GOD

    does anyone even understand what making sure you hit your macros IS...?????????

    my protein macro is one hundred twenty, or whatever...i am SURE not going to hit that with a shopping cart of pop tarts...i may have room for one, or one brownie, or one cup of ice cream, IF IT FITS MY MACROS

    sjhfajhdfgbEWHLVLVDvldscvSKCGVSKVCKSVKGSvcv scbvdnkvafbnavfjcvjscvscvbk BAHBAHBAH:angry::angry: :angry:

    Awwww...I'm yelling all that too. Twinsies!

    OP: On days I'm successfully within my macros I focus on protein first since that's the highest number and can be hardest to fill. Once I hit that with a combo of meat, eggs, beans, dairy...I look at the fat column. Sometimes it's right on, sometimes it's low. If it's low, I add some sunflower seeds to my cottage cheese, or cheese to my eggs.

    Once both of those MINIMUMS are met I let my carbs fall where they may within my caloric goal...and I have fun. Ice cream? Sure. Chocolate? Don't mind if I do.
  • Ang108
    Ang108 Posts: 1,711 Member
    Amazing that it did not take a lot of food for me to go over.

    That is the problem with the kind of food you eat.....it does not satiate a lot of people and they feel as if they have not eaten a lot in terms of volume, but over eat as far as calories are concerned.
    If you switch to more whole/natural foods with a wide variety of vegetables, fruit and healthy protein you will be surprised how much food for less calories you get.