Im finding it difficult.

Welcome, all I can tell you is make sure at the end of the day your net calorie total is very close to the suggested amount or you will get the little message that you are in starvation mode. My pilates instructor has told me don't eat all of your earned exercise calories, I still have a little trouble at the end of the day coming up short but if its early in the day I will usually have a little something more to eat. You will soon get the hang of it. Good luck on your journey.

Have you read through this Scott?

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10665-newbies-please-read-me-2nd-edition

There is some good advice & tips here and should help you to figure it out. Feel free to add me as a friend if you need encouragement - (I'm rather fond of cider myself!)

K.

Hello Scott,

Before I got on MFP (the minimum calories I would eat would be 1200, the maximum would be 1800. Even when I ate the maximum and exorcized, I was still losing weight. Now that’s a few hundred calories over what MFP had me on. They recommended that I eat 1568 calories. So, I shifted from the minimum and maximum of calories (I was previously eating and ate around the amount of calories they suggested. So far, I’m still losing weight with my daily exorcize routine.

I do think that they recommend the right amount of calories to eat a day.

But I’m no doctor, and they could probably give you better advise than I could. ^_^

Hi Scott,

The 2,250 calories per day that MFP has allotted you already figures in a deficit. That means if you eat 2,250 calories/day you should be losing weight.

If you've calculated a 2 lb/week deficit in your "Goals" section, then it would make sense that you're running a 1,000 cal deficit / day x 7 days = 7,000 calories (a 3,500 calorie deficit is required for 1 lb weight loss, roughly).

So far, so good.


Now as far as your diary goes, it looks like you aren't eating enough. There is some back and forth as far as personal opinions go, but most people suggest eating back your exercise calories, and you aren't even eating your baseline.

I would suggest to you that you start off by eating your allotted 2,250 calories.
You'll quickly learn that dieting isn't all about restriction.


I hope that helped?

Sounds wierd eh, eat to lose weight?!
True. So true!

You must fuel your body (with the right foods) to lose weight. If you don't eat enough, your body feels like it is starving, give me food! Doesn't know when it's going to get it's next meal - so it reserves all the calories you do eat (just in case you don't eat again, or eat spuratically). If you eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat - good CLEAN healthy foods - your body knows it's going to get fed again so it burns the extra calories you have stored.

You need to eat a good healthy whole grain breakfast paried w/some carbs. Like steel cut oats or oatmeal with peanutbutter or a scoop of protein powder, or a hard boiled egg.....you might need about 5-600 calories for breakfast - I have 3-400. SNACK! Fuel your body every couple of hours, even if you are not really "hungry" a couple (2-3 hours after your bfast) EAT! Have an apple and a light string cheese, a cup of low fat, low sugar yogurt with some protien - Lunch, have grilled or steamed vegis with some chicken, have a salad w/some tuna, have a turkey sand w/light cheese whole grain bread and NO MAYO (hehe) after lunch a couple hours later have another snack!!! Eat! Have your carbs paired w/protien, I like crackers and low fat cheese with some fruits and vegis - dinner, same as lunch but add sweet potato or brown rice - protien/carbs......

If you are hungry later have some v8 and a hard boiled egg, or have some cottage cheese and fresh fruit.

I am going a little heavy on the protien here because it looks like you burn a lot of calories at the gym and you need protien to gain muscle.

Good luck in your journey! You can do this! Oh and beer and wine, OK in moderation - crap we'd all be miserable if we didn't do anything fun every once in awhle :-)

Fat intake? Good fats?

Avocado - add a slice to your turkey sandwich (NOT 1/2 avocado, like 1/4 or so!)
Olive Oil - drizzle on steamed vegis (in moderation)
Nuts are full of good fats and they help satisfy the appetite, handfull of nuts (fats/protiens) paired with complex carbs.

Scott, are you able to wear a HRM (heart rate monitor) while going to the gym to get your true calories /HR? That might help. Also, I and other don't always eat the total caloric amt they say to eat.

So don't worry about not coming up to the daily allotment of cals. I saw your diary and you're doing well on it! Don't worry about eating up all your cals, but as I said, get a HRM to make sure you're actually burning all the cals you think you are.