Brand new, seeking advice

brr3k5 · October 2014

Hello, all. First post here, new to MFP, dieting, nutrition and just about everything healthy. I'm a male, 250lbs, don't exercise, heck I've never even set foot in a gym since school. I do work on my feet all day though. Yay for justifications, lol.

I'm hoping to get some advice as I'm starting to think this is just too much for me to tackle. For starters, I thought dieting would be extremely easy on paper, but hard in practice. Stop eating junk food and eat healthier. Might be hungry throughout the day, but it is what it is.

I'm on my fourth day and I'm just at a loss here. 1st day I consumed 1118 calories, 2nd 968 and third day 1170. I know now about BME and TDEE and that I am supposed to consume TDEE -20% = 2012(?!) calories. But how the heck? I'm not even starving myself, yet I need to eat twice as much?

I don't cook and I work night shifts, 3-5 to atleast midnight with no break. Breakfast is usually oatmeal and these past few days after doing research, I've been eating Kashi frozen diners, two a day, which are surprisingly good. Maybe an apple or something inbetween. This is exactly what I did day 2, which resulted 968 calories.

And yet I need twice that...more, even. Having to eat more was the very last thing on my mind when I decided to go on a diet and I don't know what to do.

I have a feeling I'm going to get a lot of "cook your own meals" comments, but I don't know, I'm just not a cooking guy. I could probably get a crockpot and just make days' worth of meals at a time, but I worry about portion control and calorie counting. And of course blowing up the kitchen.

Does anyone have any advice? Should I just ditch healthier food and instead make sure I don't consume more than 2000 calories of regular junk? Should I drink half a gallon of chocolate milk a day to make up the calories? Haha, joking of course!

Thanks in advance!

yarwell · October 2014

Closed diary so can't see. At 250 lbs you have a fair bit to go at so can run a higher deficit for now, if you can eat 1200-1500 calories and be comfortable then go with that - no need to eat up to a number (which is only an estimate to start with).

People will point out you must have been capable of eating 3000+ to get to where you are. There may be other issues - any health problems, had your fasting blood glucose measured ?

If you don't / won't cook you are under the control of food packagers and the producers of food-like products. Ensure you get ~100g of protein or more per day, moderate the carbs in preference to reducing fats and protein.

Liftng4Lis · October 2014

Can you open your diary? Also, are you weighing and measuring?

cookmtn · October 2014

Try to eat in a way that you can do forever. You probably won't eat Kashi meals at christmas, for example. Try to get in fruits and vegetables, yes, but you can eat higher calories stuff, too. You may not be hungry now, but at some point you will probably crash and binge if you keep eating that low. Lean body mass loss is also a probability. I don't know how much you are trying to lose, but if I could eat that many calories I would be ecstatic! You can go out with friends, etc. Get a food scale if you don't have one and weigh your food as mentioned above. Good Luck, don't make it harder than it has to be.

consideritdonemi · October 2014

No way are you eating enough. You can still eat more than that and lose weight. I'm a 5' 2 " female and my target is 1200-1500. And I eat my exercise calories back most of the time, go over my calories in moderate excess fairly often, and I still lost/lose. I hate being hungry. I really have to eat. I just make (mostly) better choices now.

ETA: Ease into adding healthier things as you count. Ease into exercise. I made no huge dietary changes for the 1st 2 weeks when I started as I wanted to get into the habit of moving 1st and that entailed getting my a** up, out, and walking 4x a week.

20LEgend20 · October 2014

Hi, lot of similarities here. My second day doing this, never done this before. Sorry if I'm supposed to start my own thread, let me know. You seem to know more than me. I have started scanning my food but have no clue what I am looking at or what I am supposed to do with the information.

brr3k5 · October 2014

I spent a bit last night, after this post, reading stuff online, Honestly, I'm conflicted. So far, I've seen two schools of thought. One where you just ensure you've got more calories going out than in, and another where you eat more to lose weight.

Both make sense to me. As someone brand new to all of this, the first seemed the most logical. But after reading about it, eating more also makes sense. It is not my intention to start a debate here, just speaking my mind I guess.

I'm just not sure how I should proceed. Do I continue the way I've been going for the past few days, 900-1200 calories (which is not intended, just the same it came out) or do I force myself to eat more to reach my TDEE -20%. If I felt like I was starving myself, I would eat more, but in all honesty I'm not. That may very well change over time.

I just thought I could eat less and lose weight. Simple. As far as calories go, it is indeed simple. I expected the hard part to be being hungry all day, which I am not. But now apparently I am consuming 50% of my BMR, which supposedly will make my body operate inefficiently. Just need time to process this and decide how I wish to go, I suppose.

Thanks for the comments.

@Yarwell: I could probably consume 10k calories if I tried, haha. Problem was snacks. If I bought it, of course I ate it. Usually that same day... Chips, sweets, ice cream (though usually 1 pint a week, I'm addicted to ben & jerry's...), etc. Then for food, I had no regard for what it was. Could be a large pizza, a burger, chinese food...whatever I felt like eating. But on the plus side, it is extremely rare for me to eat more than one meal a day, so whichever of those terrible foods I decided on for that day, it would be the only meal.

@Liftng4lis I actually haven't weighed myself for the past 10 years or so as I've never actually cared. I'll pick up a scale next time I'm at the store. As for measuring, I know I've been the same weight size for the past ten years, but I've probably gained atleast 1 shirt size . So I guess my answer is no.

@consideritdonemi: I tried walking myself a while ago. Even though I started it easy and slowly raised my pace, the soreness afterwards...for the next 4+ days... Climbing up the stairs to my apartment would be so painful. And then I work on my feet too, so it was hell. This will eventually lead me to exercising, so I'll get familiar with those pains again soon enough.

20Legend20: I am in absolutely no position to be giving you advice, as I am here doing the same, sorry!

PaytraB · October 2014

Start slow. Trust MFP to start you off.
Put in a weight loss goal/week that is reasonable for the amount of weight you have to lose. I suggest 1 or 1.5 lbs/week.
Eat the calories that MFP suggests for a month and see what happens. You'll be amazed.
We're brought up to believe that in order to lose weight we have to cut back on our food consumption drastically and that we've got to learn to cope with the hunger and misery of that.
However, the truth is that you have to cut back 500 calories/day/pound of loss in order to lose. It's not linear, which means that on some weeks you'll lose under a pound and others you'll lose more than a pound. But the average will be roughly a pound a week loss. You don't need to be hungry; just stay within the calorie limits set for you by MFP.
Yes, you may find that you need to tweak the calories allotted a little bit since every body is different, every person has a different activity level (and different definitions of activity level, so they may choose the wrong one for them), etc.

I would suggest setting your goals to a 1.5lb/week weight loss goal, follow what MFP says, eat back half of any exercise calories and see what happens over the next month. It'll give you an idea of how things work and give you confidence to go forward.

You can do this.

kimny72 · October 2014

When you were asked about weighing and measuring, what they meant is - are you weighing and measuring your food? If you are eyeballing servings sizes or choosing incorrect entries in the database, you could be eating more calories than you think you are. This jumps out, because you say you aren't hungry while only eating 1,000 cals.

Most of the time, when someone new has numbers that don't add up, it is a logging issue, so the first thing to deal with is to make sure your logging is accurate.

Congrats on starting on the road to a healthier life! I have learned a lot here, and you will too

brr3k5 · October 2014

@kimny72 I'm positive about the calorie counts. Everything I am eating comes out of a box, which I scan and then add. Of course I also ensure 'servings per container' are accurate. I even log my morning coffee, lol. I don't cook, so there's currently no way for any miscalculations. Literally log everything that goes in.

I ate a very bad meal today, a pot pie with more total fat than my daily MFP allowance, haha. Even though I wasn't hungry, I got a plain chicken sandwich from Wendy's with no sauce on my way home from work, worth 370 cals. Which ends day 4 at 1595. The pot pie was 1020 cals.

Ordering fast food at midnight is so... "WTF AM I DOING?" but I gotta eat the calories...or so I read. =/

IHateThinkingOfAUsername · October 2014

cookmtn wrote: »

Try to eat in a way that you can do forever.

Cookmtn has hit the nail on the head for me. Personally I don't "eat clean" because after work the last thing I can be arsed to do is cook. I eat "shove in the oven" pre-packaged meals for tea Monday-Friday. I cook at least once at the weekend, but mainly so I can reduce my grocery bills. This is a way I can maintain for the rest of my life.

I had lost all my weight previously by eating clean and preparing every meal from scratch, but after I lost the weight I got bored of it, hated the time it took, so stopped. For me back then it was either cook or take away, and being knackered from work most days takeaway won. So it's hardly surprising I gained all the eight back.

This time I've realised what is feasible for me to carry on for life. This is a way of life I can do. And I'm losing weight. I'm 5ft2, 34 female with a lightly active job. I eat a net of 1320 cals. I eat back my exercise cals which is normally cardio 5 times a week. I've lost 33.5lbs in 160-170 days.

My advice would be just make sure you don't undereat for so long that in 2-3 months time you crumble, binge and put it all back on. That's really the only reason people say to eat more to lose weight (but making sure you're still at a deficit). To make this whole thing easier to carry out.

*edit to add*
There is nothing wrong with fast food if it fits your calories (some say macros). I have chocolate or biscuits every day. Others have ice cream daily. Sometimes I have a KFC. The main problem for me, when I have fast food within my calories, is because it's so calorie dense, the lower volume of food compared to what I'd normally eat doesn't tend to fill me up, and I want to eat more. So I don't tend to have it often.

brr3k5 · October 2014

Well I may have been binge eating all along and just didn't know it. Like I mentioned earlier, for the past several years, 99% of the time I eat one meal a day. Something large, right before work, as I won't have the time to eat during my shift. By the time I get off, around midnight, hungry or not, eating feels pointless as I'll be going to bed within a few hours anyway.

Or maybe not, maybe it's simply all the junk I feel inclined to buy everytime I go to the supermarket. Chips, ice cream, snacks, crap crap crap. Either way, this is done. No more junk. However, since I have so many calories to spare, I hope I don't allow myself to dip into the jar again, since "hey, I need to consume another ~800 calories, anyway"

On the other hand, maybe I should allow it for my body to have the calories it needs...but I'm supposed to be dieting... Wtf. All I can say is wtf. Lol.

Brand new, seeking advice

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