Just starting my weight loss journey! Tips/Suggestions???

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mmc100
mmc100 Posts: 3
in Getting Started
I'm just starting my weight loss journey :) I wanted to know if anyone has any tips or suggestions for starting out. They would be greatly appreciated

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  • MaryACoffey
    MaryACoffey Posts: 6
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    log in everything you eat but don't use that info to make yourself feel bad if you eat cookies or ice cream, use it to learn more about yourself. Knowing when I eat and why helps me to adjust my habits and choices. Also don't worry about how many sit-ups or pushups you can or can't do, just keep moving. I started walking to work on nice days. The best part of the walk is I get fresh air and sunshine and arrive at work in a much better mood. Just stay with it and don't stress out if you have a pig out day, we all do :)
  • LAT1963
    LAT1963 Posts: 1,375 Member
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    Pay attention to your calorie targets, but eat real food. Don't try to live on yogurt and rice crackers.

    Use exercise to give yourself a higher calorie target so that you can eat until you are not hungry. If you are hungry all the time you won't be able to stick with your plan for long.

    Using myself as an example:

    MFP target for my activity level: 1540
    Typical daily calories that make me feel not-hungry: 1800-2000

    So if I want to eat reasonable food variety without feeling hungry, I budget about 600 calories per meal and I exercise at least 300 calories per day. ("Exercise" being activity that is above the level of my daily activities of living that I would have done anyway to survive when not trying to lose weight.)

    Buy a food scale and weigh your food. Itemize and weigh ingredients in recipes (you can store recipes you use frequently).

    Use technology such as phone apps MapMyFitness or Runkeeper to estimate the calories of your exercise whenever possible, or enter your age and weight data and use the output of computerized gym machines. Estimate using MyFitnessPal only as a last resort when you cannot actually *measure* how many calories you burned.

    The biggest reason people fail in whatever plan they adopt, is estimating instead of measuring food and exercise. The second biggest reason is overdoing it--setting ridiculously low calorie targets, or attempting ridiculously ambitious exercise routines.

    You are a beginner at this. Start off at a beginner's level.

    Read books and magazines about how to work out and about diet physiology. I find the concept of "target heart rate" particularly useful in gauging proper workout intensity--you can read about that from several sources with a web search.

    Someone is going to link you to a stickied thread with the suspicious sounding word "sexypants" in it. Don't worry it's not full of questionable photos, the first few posts have a lot of good advice. Everybody new here winds up getting referred to it.
  • gothchiq
    gothchiq Posts: 4,590 Member
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    My advice is to home prepare your food from scratch as much as possible. This way you get maximal nutrition and satisfaction for minimal calories because there won't be added corn syrup, sugar, trans fats and all that crap. You'll save money, too! Prepackaged low calorie foods are usually pretty gross and unsatisfying, but what you make at home can still be delicious and filling, even if it's something very simple.

    For example, 4 oz of chicken breast (like half a breast) with sauteed mushrooms, a cup serving of nonstarchy vegetable of your choice, and a half cup of mashed potatoes or rice, then for dessert you can cut up an apple and cook it with some cinnamon til soft, sprinkle on a tiny bit of brown sugar, eat warm.
  • LAT1963
    LAT1963 Posts: 1,375 Member
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    Ooh, yeah. Not to digress, but I fry sliced apples with cinnamon, a limited amount of butter (~15 g), and a tablespoon of almond meal--no added sugar. totally awesome.
  • lindainprogress
    lindainprogress Posts: 129 Member
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    the weight came on steadily and it will come off that way. embrace and stick to the logic of calorie deficit to lose weight and stay in touch with the community. check out the success stories and the struggles of others. knowing I am not alone in this has helped me soooooo much. identify your trigger foods, the ones that send you on an out of control spiral and just don't have it around at all. I cant have chips around, but I will get flavored rice cakes or some kind of cracker. that way I feel like I got the crunch I was after, but they aren't so good that I have to have more. and yeah, I will sometimes each an entire bag of them, but it is still a win over a bag of chips, which leads to another and another. one bad day does not equal two bad days or a bad week. it only equals ONE bad day. get back in the game ASAP. I look forward to your success!
    blessings
    Linda (inprogress)

    I almost forgot, make your passwords to everything you do up lifting and supportive of your self. Like slim4life or something
  • alereck
    alereck Posts: 343 Member
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    Eat less, do more, be patient.

    - Weight solid foods, measure liquids, be accurate, learn to read labels
    - Watch your macros, sugar and sodium intake are important too
    - Read and learn about strength training and have a fitness plan
    - Watch lots of videos and learn proper form and technique for exercises
    - Take progress pictures constantly, even if the scale doesn’t change – you will thank me later
    - Weight yourself and adjust your calorie intake appropriately
    - Be consistent and don’t complicate things
    - Don’t stress, this can be fun

    Things that worked for me

    - I never ate my exercise calories back – it’s too easy to overestimate
    - I had one cheat meal a week – kept me sane and my metabolism up
    - I pre-logged my meals to make sure I stayed on track
    - I did meal planning twice a week and always had healthy food available
    - I ate often – 6 meals daily - and before I got hungry
    - I never went hungry – protein shakes / bars are great

    Good resources

    General MFP: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/10118-eat-train-progress
    Exercise plans and proper form: http://www.bodybuilding.com

    Good luck on your journey
  • Kalikel
    Kalikel Posts: 9,626 Member
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    Be strong.

    Be committed.

    Be determined.

    Be patient.

    And prepare to work very hard, for a very long time seeing only the tiniest advances. (They add up!)
  • Roogura
    Roogura Posts: 11
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    Eat a lot of foods with protein in them. Fish, chicken, eggs, etc. Also fruits and are your BEST friend! If you're craving a sugary dessert like chocolate cake or ice cream or whatever, having a cup or two of fruit will satisfy that sugar craving.

    Do a lot of exercise. I do 90 minutes of cardio every day. You don't need to get into it that much, but try and do at least an hour.

    Also, weight loss slows down after sometime. Don't let this bother you. It's perfectly natural.

    Be motivated and dedicated and you will see results. :)
  • drabbits3
    drabbits3 Posts: 140 Member
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    Decide what you can and cannot live without-time wise and food wise. Since I started this, I find I am much more selective about what I "spend" my calories on. I love pastries of all kinds-cookies, pie, croissants, donuts, cake, all of those things BUT one single croissant is like 250 calories or something ridiculous. So it turns out I am not willing to cancel out 35 minutes on the elliptical burning off 250 calories with one food item. But…I am willing to have three or four small cookies that add up to 150ish calories with my cup of tea in the evening. That feels comforting to me and helps me feel not so deprived. It also turns out I can pass up bread and butter/oil at restaurants and not care. Pretzels, goldfish, chips in the house for lunches--those I can walk right by and not care. I am sticking to 1200 calories + 200-400 calories of exercise per day and I am able to do that. A lot of days I don't get all the way to 1200. Watermelon is my new best friend. I am less hungry on days I exercise. I grocery shop much more carefully. Eat TONS of fruit and veggies. Cherry tomatoes, grapes, baby carrots, melon, pineapple--it turns out those things are really really satisfying…and don't blow your calories. Find other things to do with your free time besides snack. I learned to knit. I'm terrible at it and have knitted perhaps 4 inches in like 5 months, but whatever-it's something to do with my hands. Load your phone/iPod with music or podcasts that you will want to listen to while you work out. I LOVE classical music, so I actually work out to Yo Yo Ma's Unaccompanied Cello Suites. Bizarre choice of workout music, but I love it and often will walk longer to hear the end of a piece.
    Decide what's important to you and then act accordingly--if you really want to lose the weight, you will make decent decisions most of the time about how you spend your time (exercising or not) and what you put in your mouth. It's not as hard as I thought it would be. Most importantly, do it for yourself-not for vanity, for health. It's nice to look nice, but it's even nicer to feel strong and healthy. I have lost 11 pounds and would you believe my husband hasn't noticed and I don't care. He's not why I did it. I feel better. I have been taking my two boys with me to the Y to work out and I like them seeing me making better choices for myself. That's a good reason too.
    At first logging everything here took over my life--thinking about what i was going to eat, making what I was going to eat, planning what I was going to eat, thinking about what I WASN'T going to eat…it took over for a while, but now it's not such a big deal. I absolutely think about and plan what I'm going to eat but it isn't so all-consuming any more, and it's only been 60-something days since I started this. I'm figuring out better portion control, healthier snacking options, healthier meals, how to do this now that I am back teaching. This first week was harder than I thought.
    I hope this information had some tips in it that you can use! Good luck--you won't be sorry you made time for yourself and your health. You are worth it.
  • hearthwood
    hearthwood Posts: 794 Member
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    Be faithful about logging in everything each day. Remember weight loss is simple math, calories in versus calories out. A calorie is a calorie regardless if it comes from carrots or cookies, protein, fat or carbs.

    As you keep logging in, you will quickly discover the high calorie foods you're eating. It's not that you can't eat them, just focus on eating less of them. For me, two slices of bread turned into one, and a piece of cake is now a sliver of cake. It's all about portion control.
  • AmyRhubarb
    AmyRhubarb Posts: 6,890 Member
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    I'm just starting my weight loss journey :) I wanted to know if anyone has any tips or suggestions for starting out. They would be greatly appreciated
    Great info right here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1235566-so-you-re-new-here :smile:

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