I tried going IIFYM today - here are my results

Ignoring all the haters here and talking only to NonnyMary, who I believe has legit issues and is trying to work through them:

First off I'm curious about your calorie goal of 1600. Is that really right for you? Is that artificially low or should you be eating a bit more? I ask because I don't know if 1600 was set manually by you based on realistic goals or if that is what MFP truly recommends. It seems like a low target to me, but I'm not sure. If its low, its unrealistic, you won't be able to stick to it.

A lot of people here won't understand what you're going through because they've never been obese. I was at 280lbs for my peak weight, eating way too much sugar, salt and cals. My portion sizes were too big and I had too much junk food in the mix. I had high blood pressure, high cholesterol, kidney and liver problems, frequent headaches, tired all the time, irritable. I fixed all that with at first small changes to diet, then progressively more changes. It has taken about a year for me to just do basic things and really fix those problems.

I don't think your numbers are that bad because I could easily see that typically they have probably been a lot worse. Ignoring calories for a second, the real issue I see with what you ate today is sugar. Much of my own weight gain was from excessive amounts of sugar, namely soda, but also candy or whatever else. You may not be able to cut it out of your diet right away, but start to work on it. 117g of sugar in a day is horribly excessive. An adult human should have no more than 30-50g of sugar a day, and a single can of soda will have 50g or close to it. Plus its that HFCS which is arguably worse than sugar.

I made immediate progress by cutting out soda from my diet, I recommend you do likewise. Watch your sugar intake and get that number way down. Some bodybuilder or personal trainer might feel comfortable having a soda, but I don't think you can afford it. Those healthier people have never been obese and they don't understand all the complications that go with it.

Likewise on sodium, you should have no more than 2500mg a day and preferably less. I cut mine to 1500 a day, I don't always succeed but I try for it. Most American diets consist of about 5000-6000mg of sodium or more a day, we are all being poisoned by salt. One of those mcd's burgers might be only 400 cals but it could be 1200mg of sodium just right there. Focus on cutting that back too. So in the big picture, 3000mg of sodium is bad but may be a lot better than you've done before. It may be better than most typical American diets. That's better than I was eating at 280lbs.

I would just keep eating and logging and trying to replace unhealthy foods with healthier choices. You need to do a bunch of research on what foods are good and bad. Read labels. Get really serious about it. Just do it incrementally, try and replace one bad snack with a good one. You're gonna keep going over on your numbers for months probably, but just keep trying, keep experimenting, keep trying to change your habits. That's the key thing is you need to replace bad habits with good sustainable habits. No gimmicks or BS, but things you can actually do till you die. You gotta think of it in those terms, if you are trying to force yourself to eat something you just can't stomach, don't do it. Work on eating better than yesterday and finding healthy foods you like.

And an important point with fixing your diet, is also a contradiction, which is never starve yourself. Don't stress if you have to go over now to figure out how not to go over later. Maybe you were eating 3000 cals a day before, and 2000 cals would represent a huge improvement, I don't know. But if you have a day where your target is 2000 and you eat 2500, don't panic. Just analyze what you're eating and pick out those bad actors that gave you calories without filling you up, and work on replacing them with healthier more filling foods.

I don't know your exact experiences, but having been through some real weight loss I assure you it will not be quick or easy. Just keep logging, always eat when you need to but watch your portions and work on replacing bad foods with good ones. You might even have whole months where you are over every day and just not hitting your numbers. That's ok, keep trying, keep researching. Google is your friend, keep searching and learning these subjects, the amount of information out there is enormous. You should be a constant student.

Incidentally my caloric intake is about 2500/day on non-workout days and 3000/day on workout days. Those are my numbers, roughly, to maintain my weight. So if I'm able to eat a bit under that and be satisfied then I'm losing weight- hooray! It has sometimes worked for me to think of it more in terms of here's my maintenance line. Instead of trying to suddenly reverse course and drop weight fast, you could try focusing on "do no more damage" and start with maintenance. Fill your maintenance cals up with better foods, and work down from there. You don't want to feel stressed or as if its hopeless just because you're going over by 300 cals or so, that is really no big deal.

Good luck, I hope this helps you.

Ok now i have read your posts - thank you and i have an understanding of it, but putting to practice is a challenge for me so far.

though i may have been doing it somewhat but calling it by a different name (forget about today, that was an experiment

Now, what i dont get is this - on MFP we ALL are fitting everything in our macros.

So what is the difference between saying 'on MFP i can eat 1600 calories, 35 sugars, etc." and "I do IIFYM".

I dont think there is a difference because MFP is doing IIFYM.

You're absolutely correct. MFP is set up in iifym style. It's the users the start with the Eat Clean and Sugar is the Devil and Wheat Belly crap.

I did not read all the other responses so forgive me if you've already clarified the point of this thread. I just have no idea what you're trying to prove.

IIFYM means 'If It Fits Your Macros', not 'If It Fits (in) Your Mouth'.

What you did is not fit anything into your macros so I don't know what the problem is. :flowerforyou:

OP is making this thread go round in circles