I JUST WANT TO BE NORMAL

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  • ponycyndi
    ponycyndi Posts: 858 Member
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    I hope you are able to find a way to cope with your binging. There is a lot of practical advice on this thread.

    I'd like to add that when I came to the realization that "normal" is a misnomer, that there is NO. SUCH. THING. Then I was able to live and care for myself, instead of comparing myself to others.
  • SunofaBeach14
    SunofaBeach14 Posts: 4,932 Member
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    Yes im in maintenance and my calories are set to 1740. It's just so hard for me to fit in restaurant food and still feel satisfied at the end of the day so I try not to do it. Is that my problem? I am hungrier at night so I try to save most (1300) of my calories for then BUT I STILL feel hungry while eating things like fruit, dark chocolate, a quest bar, almond milk, etc ALL after dinner

    1740 for maintenance seems kind of low to me. I eat 1,700 to lose a pound a week.

    I can cut as low as 1800 during a cut and I'm a guy. This is going to depend on a variety of factors.
  • ModQuad
    ModQuad Posts: 20
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    I feel your pain. My coworkers eat pastries for breakfast and big cheesy sandwiches for lunch every day. They always joke that I should be the one eating the junk b/c I "deserve" it for how healthy I eat and how much exercise I do. It sometimes depresses me that I can't indulge like them. Sometimes I just REALLY REALLY WANT those pastries, but I don't want to fall back on old habits and I don't want to compromise my fitness.

    I plan ahead if I want to treat myself to something indulgent or when I know that kind of food is my only option... like when I have a work meeting that will be catered by a pizzeria, or when I take my nieces of nephews out to ice cream. I'll make sure my other meals are lower cal and I'll chose lighter snacks (just celery instead of celery with peanut butter... a handful of berries with my breakfast oatmeal instead of a more calorically dense fruit like a banana). It's amazing how many calories you can shave off the day with small changes. If i have time to do extra exercise beforehand, I'll do that too, usually before the indulgence not afterwards so I don't worry.
  • Dnarules
    Dnarules Posts: 2,081 Member
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    Yes im in maintenance and my calories are set to 1740. It's just so hard for me to fit in restaurant food and still feel satisfied at the end of the day so I try not to do it. Is that my problem? I am hungrier at night so I try to save most (1300) of my calories for then BUT I STILL feel hungry while eating things like fruit, dark chocolate, a quest bar, almond milk, etc ALL after dinner

    I used to have a big issue with mindless night time snacking, back before I lost weight, (I'd sit down at 8pm with a book and a can of Pringles and finish the whole can oiy!). So, during weight loss that was one of the things I worked on and I slowly pushed my eating window back, until it cut off at 7pm. It was a weight loss tool that I've now carried over into maintenance :) Maybe doing something similar would be helpful to you, if the night time eating is a problem? I realized that for me, it was about habitual eating and not because I was actually hungry. I'm to the point where now I don't even think of food at night-last night I made cupcakes for a party today and my husband and kids were devouring a pkg of Oreos at the same time. It honestly didn't even cross my mind to eat any of it :)

    My maintenance calories are also higher than yours as well-mine are at around 2,200. How long have you been in maintenance for? Are you sure that's your top end for maintenance calories-have you played around with eating a bit more and seeing what happens? For me, I found I was able to bump mine up by quite a bit, and still maintain.

    I was thinking this as well. When I was in maintenance, I could eat 2000-2200 calories a day while exercising 4 to 5 days a week. OP, maybe try adding 100 calories a day for a few weeks and see what happens. If you don't gain, you can try 100 more. You might be surprised. You may be able to eat more.
  • devil_in_a_blue_dress
    devil_in_a_blue_dress Posts: 5,214 Member
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    I have been at maintenance for quite a while. Nearly 10 months. How do you go on about feeling SATISFIED. I always find myself hungry and thinking about food.. even if I just ate. I do try to eat all of my calories but certainly have days when I am eating less than my goal. Does carrying over calories actually work? I'm just so confused.. i have no idea how to ENJOY my life which is what I ultimately want to do and still feel like I am on track. It's like ever since i decided that I would "lose weight," food has become what EVERYTHING revolves around. Do you guys now understand why i want to feel "normal"

    I go about feeling satisfied by fiddling with my macros. 35% carbs, 30% fat, 35% protein, currently - but sometimes I more carbs and less fat/protein. I prelog days I don't plan on eating out. I save calories to help me fit in extra special meals.
  • AllonsYtotheTardis
    AllonsYtotheTardis Posts: 16,947 Member
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    Yes im in maintenance and my calories are set to 1740. It's just so hard for me to fit in restaurant food and still feel satisfied at the end of the day so I try not to do it. Is that my problem? I am hungrier at night so I try to save most (1300) of my calories for then BUT I STILL feel hungry while eating things like fruit, dark chocolate, a quest bar, almond milk, etc ALL after dinner

    1740 for maintenance seems kind of low to me. I eat 1,700 to lose a pound a week.

    I was thinking the same thing. It does sound low.
  • AllonsYtotheTardis
    AllonsYtotheTardis Posts: 16,947 Member
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    Yes im in maintenance and my calories are set to 1740. It's just so hard for me to fit in restaurant food and still feel satisfied at the end of the day so I try not to do it. Is that my problem? I am hungrier at night so I try to save most (1300) of my calories for then BUT I STILL feel hungry while eating things like fruit, dark chocolate, a quest bar, almond milk, etc ALL after dinner

    I used to have a big issue with mindless night time snacking, back before I lost weight, (I'd sit down at 8pm with a book and a can of Pringles and finish the whole can oiy!). So, during weight loss that was one of the things I worked on and I slowly pushed my eating window back, until it cut off at 7pm. It was a weight loss tool that I've now carried over into maintenance :) Maybe doing something similar would be helpful to you, if the night time eating is a problem? I realized that for me, it was about habitual eating and not because I was actually hungry. I'm to the point where now I don't even think of food at night-last night I made cupcakes for a party today and my husband and kids were devouring a pkg of Oreos at the same time. It honestly didn't even cross my mind to eat any of it :)

    My maintenance calories are also higher than yours as well-mine are at around 2,200. How long have you been in maintenance for? Are you sure that's your top end for maintenance calories-have you played around with eating a bit more and seeing what happens? For me, I found I was able to bump mine up by quite a bit, and still maintain.

    I was thinking this as well. When I was in maintenance, I could eat 2000-2200 calories a day while exercising 4 to 5 days a week. OP, maybe try adding 100 calories a day for a few weeks and see what happens. If you don't gain, you can try 100 more. You might be surprised. You may be able to eat more.

    ^^ This. So much this. I'm discovering that my maintenance calories are at least 200 more than what MFP calculated for me.
  • Siansonea
    Siansonea Posts: 917 Member
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    I have been at maintenance for quite a while. Nearly 10 months. How do you go on about feeling SATISFIED. I always find myself hungry and thinking about food.. even if I just ate. I do try to eat all of my calories but certainly have days when I am eating less than my goal. Does carrying over calories actually work? I'm just so confused.. i have no idea how to ENJOY my life which is what I ultimately want to do and still feel like I am on track. It's like ever since i decided that I would "lose weight," food has become what EVERYTHING revolves around. Do you guys now understand why i want to feel "normal"

    And this is why I didn't make tons of lifestyle changes when I decided to lose weight, I just cut calories and called it a day. You've built this whole identity around "weight loss", and now that you don't have any more weight to lose, you have to focus all that energy on "maintenance", which is a pretty achievable goal if you're simply paying attention to the scale on a regular basis. But it can't be that simple, it has to be work, right? You worked hard to get where you are, you did all this exercise and ate all these special foods and did all this research and blahblahblah. But you could have achieved the same result by just eating what you always ate, just less of it. And now you could be maintaining by just eating what you always ate, but less of it than before you lost weight. You're making this harder than it has to be and focusing on micromanaging your weight and your calories, and at this stage, you should be focusing less on that and learning how to maintain without the "training wheels" of calorie limits and daily logging.

    And if managing hunger is an issue, do the same thing you do when you're trying to lose—prioritize fat and protein, and ditch carbs and sugar. Fiber is also good.

    And if you've been maintaining for 10 months, you've probably learned a thing or two, you just don't realize it yet. :)
  • twixlepennie
    twixlepennie Posts: 1,074 Member
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    As someone else said-MFP's maintenance calories were set to low for me-going by TDEE however, was spot on. I used this calculator
    http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html

    And yes, going by weekly calories instead of focusing on daily ones is working great for me :) But, I also know the pattern my weight will follow with this-I always am at the high point of my maintenance range on Monday, and by Friday I am at the low point. That's because I tend to eat higher calories on the weekend. But, it all averages out and I've consistently stayed within my maintenance range doing this.
  • lean1979
    lean1979 Posts: 2
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    Oh I feel you so much! I have nothing to add in my comment that others haven't already said. I belive you can eat out, I'm planning to do so in our favorite restaurant tomorrow, it's a buffé and still feel good about myself. If you overeat once in a while it's no biggie, wont break a good streak if you don't do it to often. And if you want to go out without overeating, just eat a little bit less of everything. Stop at the Point of diminishing returns and you'll be fine. You'll still be full and satisfied but not feeling like crap. Then if you want to just workout a bit extra that day or the days after. :smile: :smile: :smile:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/sv/blog/lean1979
  • verptwerp
    verptwerp Posts: 3,659 Member
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    I feel your pain ....... but for me eating "normal" like my family is what got us all FAT, FAT, FAT in the first place ...... not to mention all the medical problems.

    Seven years ago I began to make better choices at each meal. Little by little. Even at family functions. i didn't talk about it, I just did it. Still ate most foods, just less of them, and very little sweets. Oh sure, my family poked fun at me, but I stuck to my guns & ended up losing weight. Slowly my family also made changes & now they've lost weight as well. We joke that the dessert table isn't surrounded by a bunch of "big butts & guts" anymore.

    One meal at a time, honey ....... keep on truckin' !
  • lean1979
    lean1979 Posts: 2
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    Oh and the most important thing! Don't beat yourself up about it, staying positive is key! :)
  • spoiledpuppies
    spoiledpuppies Posts: 675 Member
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    I agree with at least one other commenter that the day will come. I lost 50 pounds about 10 years ago and was perfectly happy with my weight. (My ticker reflects an additional loss from just recently when I decided to try to drop a few more pounds and just kept going!) Ten years ago, after I had maintained for a year or so, I felt I was able to eat whatever I wanted *sometimes*. I would stay at my boyfriend's house for the weekends, and eat kind of crappy. I considered M-W recovery days. They weren't bad days, or days I counted calories, or restricted things too much. But I was just healthy those days and it made up for the weekends. Note: other than crappy eating with the boyfriend, I did eat healthy/light and continued to work out quite a bit. So that will probably have to be a part of your normal too.

    With my recent weight loss, I'm also looking forward to getting back into a balance. I plan to log really consistently at least for a few months and take some time to figure out when I can loosen the reins at some point.
  • devil_in_a_blue_dress
    devil_in_a_blue_dress Posts: 5,214 Member
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    Yes im in maintenance and my calories are set to 1740. It's just so hard for me to fit in restaurant food and still feel satisfied at the end of the day so I try not to do it. Is that my problem? I am hungrier at night so I try to save most (1300) of my calories for then BUT I STILL feel hungry while eating things like fruit, dark chocolate, a quest bar, almond milk, etc ALL after dinner

    I used to have a big issue with mindless night time snacking, back before I lost weight, (I'd sit down at 8pm with a book and a can of Pringles and finish the whole can oiy!). So, during weight loss that was one of the things I worked on and I slowly pushed my eating window back, until it cut off at 7pm. It was a weight loss tool that I've now carried over into maintenance :) Maybe doing something similar would be helpful to you, if the night time eating is a problem? I realized that for me, it was about habitual eating and not because I was actually hungry. I'm to the point where now I don't even think of food at night-last night I made cupcakes for a party today and my husband and kids were devouring a pkg of Oreos at the same time. It honestly didn't even cross my mind to eat any of it :)

    My maintenance calories are also higher than yours as well-mine are at around 2,200. How long have you been in maintenance for? Are you sure that's your top end for maintenance calories-have you played around with eating a bit more and seeing what happens? For me, I found I was able to bump mine up by quite a bit, and still maintain.

    I was thinking this as well. When I was in maintenance, I could eat 2000-2200 calories a day while exercising 4 to 5 days a week. OP, maybe try adding 100 calories a day for a few weeks and see what happens. If you don't gain, you can try 100 more. You might be surprised. You may be able to eat more.

    ^^ This. So much this. I'm discovering that my maintenance calories are at least 200 more than what MFP calculated for me.

    Me too. MFP said like 1950 or something, but it's actually 2,300.I definitely see a consistent 1 pound loss a week eating 1,700 calories - which is how I figured out my magic number. I was totally paranoid I was going to gain bumping up -- I didn't.
  • Otterluv
    Otterluv Posts: 9,083 Member
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    I have been at maintenance for quite a while. Nearly 10 months. How do you go on about feeling SATISFIED. I always find myself hungry and thinking about food.. even if I just ate. I do try to eat all of my calories but certainly have days when I am eating less than my goal. Does carrying over calories actually work? I'm just so confused.. i have no idea how to ENJOY my life which is what I ultimately want to do and still feel like I am on track. It's like ever since i decided that I would "lose weight," food has become what EVERYTHING revolves around. Do you guys now understand why i want to feel "normal"

    Yes, I do think I understand what you mean. My mother is slim, and always has been. However, I thought that that meant that she never really had to think about what she eats. We've had enough conversations about this to know that it's just not true. She regulates what she eats. If her clothes are getting snug, she cuts down on treats for a while and go on more walks. She watches her portion sizes. Honestly, she's just much better at it than I am so she's never had to write things down or be as meticulous as I am.

    The whole notion that "normal" people can eat what they want all of the time and not think about food is an illusion. But, do enjoy the occasional dinner out. And you really may be able to get away with more calories than you are currently eating.
  • margaretturk
    margaretturk Posts: 5,068 Member
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    I find going out to eat a challenge too. Often times I will gain one to two pounds from water weight after going out if I do not plan.. I find what helps me is I look up the restaurant menu ahead of time, so I can think about my choices. It also helps me if I do a half order, share with a friend, or ask for a box right away so it forces portion control.
  • Capt_Apollo
    Capt_Apollo Posts: 9,026 Member
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    Normal is an illusion. What is normal to the spider is chaos to the fly.
  • ILiftHeavyAcrylics
    ILiftHeavyAcrylics Posts: 27,732 Member
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    Yes im in maintenance and my calories are set to 1740. It's just so hard for me to fit in restaurant food and still feel satisfied at the end of the day so I try not to do it. Is that my problem? I am hungrier at night so I try to save most (1300) of my calories for then BUT I STILL feel hungry while eating things like fruit, dark chocolate, a quest bar, almond milk, etc ALL after dinner

    1740 for maintenance seems kind of low to me. I eat 1,700 to lose a pound a week.

    I was thinking the same thing. It does sound low.


    It's about the same as mine if I do no exercise.

    OP my maintenance with exercise is 1850-1900. So I usually eat 1800 per day. Sometimes I drop down to 1700. Then there's usually one or two days per week that I go over. Just keep an eye on your weight range and adjust if you start to see it creep up. I've maintained for more than a year this way without feeling deprived.

    The only thing I occasionally miss is the ignorance of mindless eating. I can't do it now, even if I want to, because I know how many calories are in most foods.
  • sarahd10876
    sarahd10876 Posts: 4
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    I think everyone feels this way...remember that normal is just a setting on the wash machine...:wink:
  • fitnotskinnyxo
    fitnotskinnyxo Posts: 38 Member
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    My calories are at the number they are because I don't exercise! I am a student and also have a job so i find it difficult to find time to exercise. I also never exercised while I was losing weight. I just really focused on the numbers. I do understand that exercising will allow me to eat more, but its not something that I have ever really done for a long period of time, and also isnt something that I have time for. I do have access to my school gym for free and I am at school five times a week, but after a LONG day of being at school from 9-6 and working on weekends, I have ZERO motivation/time/energy to go to the gym.

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