I'm ready to give up

Read this link!

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1339672-should-you-give-up-the-answer-is-no?page=1#posts-20568796

Not to bash on you OP, but without meticulous logging you never know exactly how much you are honestly eating. It's more beneficial, in the long run, to measure out everything you can when you can. It's honestly surprising just how far off our guessing can be when it comes to calorie counting. 1200 may not be a number for you. Did you set weight loss to 2lbs a week? 1.5? 1? .5? That can also help you with your calories. Make sure you have the correct activity setting and a reasonable pounds lost per week. I have mine set at .5 lbs a week and I still have about 7-12 pounds to go until I reach my ultimate goal. It's more sustainable, for me anyways, to work off of .5 lbs a week because it leaves wiggle room. And in my current situation, it leaves me plenty of calories for when I start eating normal again so that I don't throw my whole body out of whack because of the super VLCD I'm going to have to eat because of a tonsillectomy.

Logging may seem like the enemy, but it is your best friend. So is measuring foods. Like chips! Man was I the happiest woman alive when I learned 12 chips were NOT a serving. I could fill a whole bowl for 28 grams of chips and not even polish it off because there were more than I needed or wanted. I don't feel restricted weighing everything I eat and I find it fun. It's not miserable and it's a good habit to have because you learn what ACTUAL portions look like. Everything is so super-sized nowadays that what a true portion is gets lost by things like 1/8th of package, 1/12th of package, 1/3 or pizza. What is really one third of the pizza? Better off just weighing it, divide by three and then boom! Perfect size. It makes it easier and makes you conscientious of what you put in your body.

Play around with your number and find what works with you, but if you aren't honest with your logging, this is going to be a bit tougher of a journey than you'd like.

Thank you for the compliment DistantJ, on my previous post; I am so happy that it is also working for you!
It is proof that we are all indeed wonderful and unique individuals when you see all of the different ways MFP members are having success. Everyone has to find their own path. For some that will be vegetarian or vegan, some low fat/high complex carbs and for some the opposite holds true. One note on exercise: recent studies have shown that it will have a negligible effect on weight loss as you saw with your Zumba, etc... exercise focus should be on other reasons like how you feel, flexibility, cardiovascular health. Weight loss, sadly, isn't going to be the result for most people without necessary accompanying dietary modifications. I was bummed to hear that myself but I have also exercised my brains out over the years and I agree with the studies. Still, there are a ton of other reasons to do it!

In my lifetime I have had only one doctor tell me that my family has the efficient fat gene. This is on my father's side who is American of English, Scottish and southern Irish descent though he does have an olive complexion. I am planning on a dual DNA test via Ancestry.com to see what else is lurking there, lol. The diabetes and fat manifestation are all on his side of the family tree with his father, my dad, my brother, my two aunts, several cousins all type 2 diabetics even though some are of normal weight (my dad and brother are not overweight). About 1/3 of paternal family is prone to weight gain (why me?!). My mother's side (she is from N. Ireland with English and Scottish ancestry, too) are all of normal weight but the younger generation (my cousins) are all struggling with keeping weight gain at bay and they were invaded by Asda (Wal-Mart) many years ago...interesting. This doctor's explanation went like this: if there were a disastrous world famine most people would die of starvation in a week I, however, would be one of the last ones standing and I could easily live a month or more which gives me time to find sustenance and survive. So I have a very old gene that persists because survival like that was necessary to our ancestors (which is great) but we of course live in abundance atm. That is one of the concepts studied and discussed in some of the books I mentioned. Very interesting and makes a whole lot of sense. My body takes any carb and, through insulin, shunts it into a fat cell for the anticipated famine kind of like the Little Engine that Could. The only solution is to deprive it of the carbs, keep the insulin response low and switch to fat for fuel over glucose. That is what has greatly improved my blood sugars and overall health. My body does not do well on glucose at all or I wouldn't be obese with diabetes. So this is what I set out to learn about and what to do about it for myself. An interesting side line; I fasted for 36 hours to see what would happen and just like my day long medical test fasts, my energy absolutely skyrockets and I feel wonderful. This is an easy way to see if your body has this genetic propensity but don't do that if you are not fit to try it. It has to do with your body's ability to use flex-fuel, as my husband calls it, we can fuel partition and it is amazing stuff. Bet you didn't know that you were a dual fuel machine! Boy, the human body is a marvel of engineering, isn't it?!

The protocols I described in the earlier post were LCD (low carb diet) VLCD (very low carb diet aka Dr. Bernstein's protocols) and LCHF (low carb/high fat which is also a ketogenic dietary protocol). Don't confuse ketogenic or dietary ketosis with ketoacidosis people! May dietitians still do this and it is simply inexcusable. Studies show that all are excellent for blood sugar control and a myriad of health benefits with the LCHF ketogenic diet is superior if done correctly. Almost anyone can benefit from carb restriction whether diabetic or not (there are a few and I mean a FEW who do better on higher carb ratios). It has taken me 6 months of learning to be comfortable switching off to that particular protocol but that is because I have a long standing medical condition which warrants a bit more caution. Time will tell if it works any better for me than just LCD or VLCD but I have only been working on that for a month. Either way, I am amazed at the results as I have said before. There are obviously a multitude of people who have this efficient fat gene which may now just find itself being switched on (expressed) due to the SAD or chemical manipulation by big food. Humans are certainly not immune to biochemical or corporate manipulation! Just look at our entire lives: food, medicine, gasoline prices, it goes on and on...

So what does big food do when the honeymoon is over or greed runs rampant? Like big tobacco they move to 3rd world countries to pawn their goods and now obesity and accompanying health issues (not to mention lung cancer) are rampant. Why? Because big food has wormed its way past healthy traditional local diets and supplanted them with processed foods, refined carbohydrates, GMO wheat/soy/corn all in the name of money. Capitalism at its worst if you are not sitting on the Board of Directors. In my research I have found that none of those 3 foods are remotely like what was grown just 50 years ago. Just look at the US obesity rate: it began ramping up in the 1970's when three big things happened and they were: GMO grains were developed, increased pesticide and herbicide use both of which have been steadily rising for the last 30-50 years and they linger in the soil which is depleted from over work and synthetic fertilizers. You can find map overlays of their use and obesity rates- it is astounding. It is like over-fishing the oceans; we are over working the land and practicing no long term husbandry. Sometimes I think that old corny Charleton Heston movie Soylent Green could indeed come to pass if we don't shape up. The third big puzzle piece was that the committee recommendations were issued widely to eat low fat and high carb. The world looked to the US and followed suit. Once an idea takes hold on that scale it is hard to wedge it out. Big food is no slouch and jumped on that like a hungry chicken on a grasshopper. Big food and big pharma are often as intertwined as big auto and big oil; keep that in mind as well.

For me, I am 51 and I started gaining at early puberty in the 1970's, my dad used approved pesticides on our home garden believing them to be safe if we rinsed the food, my mother started "watching" what we ate and changed from whole milk to skim or 1 % dairy among other things. As a child I was of perfectly normal slender muscular size until all of that happened and, despite a very active childhood, for me it meant that I was affected by my genetic make-up (the fat gene) and early manifestation means very high carb sensitivity. By the time I turned 13 I had gained about 40 lbs despite constant activity and I was hungry much of the time. My mother began to be concerned but didn't know what to do about it other than to encourage me to be active and "diet" traditionally by watching my food intake. Well, we all know how that works out, right?!

My history was exacerbated by widely disseminated dietary guidelines (I remember seeing the huge You Are What You Eat campaign posters all over my schools). In my lifetime I have also seen a huge change in big farming to huge corporate farms taking over not unlike Wal-Mart eating up all of the small grocery chains (did you know that Wal-Mart profits $1.8 million per MINUTE?). Food became a colossal business in that era and we all went willingly along for the ride. By the age of 14, I began manifesting lactose intolerance but milk was (and still is) required in school lunches. I had to get a doctor's note to keep my girls off of it because they had problems, too. Ridiculous. I know I was 14 because I had an afternoon art class and would double over in agony from the milk every single day- thank goodness it wasn't algebra! It was Phil Donahue who did a show about lactose intolerance that made us realize what it was and we bought the new Lact-Aid drops for our milk. It worked but we didn't know to drop the commercial milk entirely (we were told it was healthy after all) so, like doctors, we slapped a band-aid on the problem. I noted commercial milk because for awhile my father had access to whole raw milk and I, like many others, had no issues with that product. There is a whole lot of research on that subject, too. Our family also switched off to all whole wheat bread/products and things slowly got worse with my intestines. I was in perpetual gas pain, abdominal grumbling, sluggish feeling and this went on for the next 36 years with little old me clueless and frustrated. Weight gain persisted and nothing made it budge; not youth, not exercise, not calorie restriction. That is now ALL history! The only regret I have is that I didn't invest in the company that makes Phazyme- I could have bumped up those stock returns all on my own .

So, again the take away is arm yourself with knowledge, research and learn, don't rely completely on your doctors who are highly likely to be out of date with research and mostly want to give you drugs. If you have one that isn't like that well God bless them and you don't let go! Despite society's pedestal doctors are not Gods and do not have bigger brains than you; they only have an ego complex (after all, wouldn't you if you were always being told how wonderful you are?) and want you to think that they are smarter than you. Think about what they do; they study at universities sponsored by big food and big pharma (yep, guess who provides the textbooks and trains them up early) then they emerge already out of date if they don't practice continuing education (they are so overworked they would never have a family life so something has to give). They get daily sales pitches by pharmaceutical reps who leave samples, doctor freebies (sometimes trips) and discuss the sliding scale of financial compensation for prescription writing. I have several physician friends and they confirm that it is a regular part of their expected income to receive kickbacks from big pharma for every new prescription that they write and especially for promoting the newest drugs. Think back to your last doctor visit...how many new wonder drugs did he or she offer you? Mine was 2 at one doctor, 1 at another doctor all in the last 6 months. QUESTION this! One drug leads to two more to counteract the side effects and it just grows and grows. Did you know that there is a medical movement to put children on routine statins?!? I have chosen to become much healthier on my own and visit a doctor for routine check ups, lab work and if I am acutely ill. It is far better to take my own health into my own hands and avoid illness in the first place. That won't make my doctors, big pharma or even big food very happy and certainly not much money but hey, why should I owe them any loyalty when they demonstrate none to me? So, I chose the red pill and I am glad I did. Thanks Morpheus!

How tall are you??

I started out on 1200+exercise calories and it worked for awhile, until it didn't. I learned from some of the 'meanies' on here about TDEE-% and looked into that.

I started eating 1200 calories a day, just like MFP told me to do. I felt so righteous eating Laughing Cow cheese on a dry English muffin for breakfast, a salad for lunch and small portions at dinner. I joined the local gym and was amazed when I was able to walk for 30 minutes straight on the treadmill. I was doing awesome! But I was also hungry, kinda miserable and definitely wanting the good food I was accustomed to. I no longer enjoyed eating, it gave me no pleasure or satisfaction. It became a chore to eat the bare minimum of calories. Yes, dieting sucked!!

I started reading in the forums and found “In Place of a Road Map”. That single post changed my life! I learned about TDEE, BMR and a sustainable lifestyle. My weight loss strategy suddenly changed from a temporary diet to a long term way of life – one of eat a little less, move a little more.

I have lost 50+ lbs with that strategy. I eat TDEE-500 calories, walk about 15-20miles/week and do strength training (honestly, I'm not consistent enough to see any real results yet, but I will get there). The best part is that losing weight is not a chore, a job. It is a new lifestyle I fully embrace and enjoy.

Just try the suggestions you have been given for 90 days. I think you will be very pleasantly surprised. If you don't like the results, you can always go back to 1200cals/day.

Skip breakfast, eat your first meal at noon, and see what happens.

Eat pretty much anything you want at other times.

Counting calories is boring.

I bet you will survive.

At least.

This will screw up your metabolism.

Mostly bad advice, but breakfast doesn't work for everyone. Eating in the morning makes me ravenous. But not calorie counting? That's fun! I couldn't imagine NOT calorie counting.

I started out at 1200 calories (per MFP recommendations). I did lose some weight but then one day I started shaking and couldn't stop.. I realized I wasn't eating enough. I bumped my calories up to 1400 and guess what... I still lost! In fact, I lost quicker. I'm no poster child for sticking to it.. I've been off the wagon for a month now. Oddly I haven't gained.

Just stick with it.

Think about investing in a food scale and weighing everything that enters your mouth. You'll find yourself with more wiggle room by being meticulous with your entries. I think logging as accurately as you possibly can will be your saving grace, since your calorie goal doesn't leave much room.

Also, if you exercise, you should be eating those calories, since it's 'extra' work you're putting your body through. This is what increases your calorie goal, and eating those extra calories will actually go a long way for you physically and mentally.

So in short, until you have an accurate account of your calorie consumption, you're probably not going to see the losses you're looking for, because really, right now, your logging is just a guess and not all that accurate. And because it's not accurate, you are probably eating more than you think.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/872212-you-re-probably-eating-more-than-you-think

If I were you I would stop looking at the scale since it's making you discouraged. Just be cool and comfortable with being overweight. Stop making it a struggle. Be happy where you are. Tell yourself you are gorgeous and you are happy with your body as it is (even if this is not true, keep telling it to yourself).

Meanwhile, always try to improve your habits to be more and more healthy. Set little behavioural goals (like drinking more water, having more salad) and meet them. Focus on what you CAN eat, not on what you can't eat. How delicious can you make your veggies today? Can you try your hand at some exotic recipes? Before you know it, you'll be losing weight.

And this is when IIFYM (Flexible Dieting) comes into play.

This a link where it talks about how you can eat the foods you enjoy and still lose weight. Its long but Its worth reading.

http://www.anasci.org/ebooks/Guide_to_Flexible_Dieting.pdf

I prefer to use My Fitness Pal (MFP) as opposed to another tracker called Sparks because MFP is more user friendly but SPARKS did list my calorie intake from 1200 to 1600 so when I eat 1600 I do NOT beat myself up. Sometimes I give up (kind of) but I always list everything I eat. Sometimes it's not as bad as I think. I thought yesterday was a bad day because I had an orang pop and a date square. I felt crappy last night and thought about eating but realized I wasn't hungry I was just trying to do something good from myself cause I felt bad and was equating nutrition to feeling better. Then I thought I'll just feel worse by eating cause at this point there would be not shut off valve. I didn't enter my food yesterday. Today I woke up and went to Goodlife - I'm the slow uncoordinated one on the floor - I don't care - I'm there and I know (from past experience) that I'll get better. I ate a nice organic (yes treat yourself girl to a nice organic) tomato and eggwhite fired in olive oil - that's why I could last 2 hours at the gym (took two one-hour classes). If I can't get it with speed, I'll get it with endurance. Anyways, I came back home. Decided to be a big girl and track yesterday's food - turns out I didn't go over my calories. Course, nutrition wise - that's another story.
If you are going to make pancakes for your daughters then also include protein with this meal - bacon and eggs - why not.. then lower calorie lunch. I just had fried sole fish and an apple. Did not want to eat my asparagus - so I'll have that later. Your girls are watching you - being obsessive about your food intake is a part of being insecure. If you don't want your girls to be insecure, employee good nutritional eating with them. The

Please read the links I posted on the first page. I know it's a lot of information, but it will help you.

Are you planning on quitting carbs for the rest of your life? Most of my diet is carbs (vegetarian here). You really shouldn't be miserable and only eating salad. You can eat other things. I have a friend on here and she's lost 109 lbs eating the things she loves to eat.

Lifestyle sustainable changes. You have to make your life fit into your "diet" though I don't like calling it a diet because diet is temporary.

I'm no expert with lots of experience at this, however in my effort to learn I did as you asked and viewed your diary prior to the last week or so...I don't see any big glaring issues, but I see a lot of what I'd consider little things that combined may be the reason for your frustration. Specifically I'm looking at Tues. 6/17

BREAKFAST
On the half English muffin did you put anything on it? Butter, cream cheese jelly etc.?
You show the Lucerne Coffee Creamer...what about the coffee you put it in. When I enter the Yuban coffee in my diary it shows 3 calories...not a big deal, but does add up.

LUNCH & DINNER
Nothing stands out

SNACK
Again...what did you put the raw sugar and half & half into?

It's those "sneaker" calories I think that end up derailing us.

Please don't think you're the only one puzzled by this. I've been pretty diligent for the last 4 weeks with exercise and 3 with diet and as of day before yesterday....hadn't lost an ounce. This is from someone used to eating 3500 to 4500 calories a day....now doing less than 1800. The MFP shows I would maintain at 1860 calories/day. I gain another 250 to 450 from exercise and then eat maybe 1400 or 1500....logging virtually everything I eat...if it passes my lips...it goes in the diary and when in doubt...I weigh it....something is wrong and I have to figure out what, so I share your frustrations.