Doing it wrong??

Hello, I have been on mfp for about 15 months, lost 34lbs but still have a long way to go.

Anyone is welcome to friend me but the following are MUSTS for me.
1. You log onto mfp regularly
2. You comment on post and not just use the like button.
3. The support is two way and you give support to me in return for the support I give to you.

I do delete those that do not support and comment as I want to be a supportive friend on this journey.
Good Luck to you all.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good - Smart Ones are high in sodium, but a McDonald's double cheeseburger has about twice the sodium. (Plus, unless you know you have sodium-sensitive high blood pressure or some other medical reason to limit sodium, limiting sodium is probably way down on the list of health-improving changes you could make. No need to do everything at once!)

I'm a decent cook, and cooking every night for my picky and unappreciative 11 year old (who considers both vegetables and leftovers inedible, despite the fact that all the adults in the household eat plenty of both!) is an unrewarding hassle. Better to eat out, making good choices, than to give up because transitioning to 100% home cooked dinners is too much trouble.

Eating food you like, in portions that fit your calorie budget, is more likely to work over the long run than eating food you don't like. Small changes are more likely to stick than drastic changes.

You've gotten great advice here. Cut the sports drinks and sugary frappe drinks. Don't drink your calories. Fast food and convenience food is full of sugar and salt that makes you want to eat more of them while not satiating your hunger. I saw that on one day for dinner you had a frappe and some chicken. No vegetables? You drank more calories than you ate and mostly that was sugar.The advice to do batch cooking is a great one. If you have the crock pot put it to use. I get great deals at a butcher on meats on Saturdays, buy bulk and freeze them. Take out a package of chicken the night before and thaw in the fridge. In the morning put the chicken in the crockpot with a cup or two of broth and turn on. While you work or study it is cooking. I do this many times a week and have chicken or some other protein with a large fresh salad. There are lots of crock pot cookbooks and tons of recipes on Pinterest and other sites.Yes, the greens do go bad quickly but if you are eating them every day you will use them up before they spoil. A salad spinner can help get excess moisture off the lettuce, too. IKEA has a cheap one that works great. Frozen veggies keep for a long time. I like the steamer bag vegetables the most. Chili, soup and other casseroles can be made in big batches and frozen into meal sized packages. All it takes is a little advance planning. If you want to avoid sugar crashes late morning or afternoon eat more protein. Eggs, protein smoothies, yogurt, etc. will help a lot with that. And yes, you should worry much more about getting ill from all the prepared and fast food than from your own home cooking. You can teach yourself to cook and it can be very empowering. Good luck!

tiffnkailey wrote: »

ketorach wrote: »

Yes, you are doing it wrong. But, also yes, you can do it right.

I'm sort of floored that you are an adult with a child and can't cook anything. Please find some simple recipes on the internet that you can learn. Buying groceries and cooking at home is much less expensive and creates better habits for you and your daughter.

Good luck.

Most people are. It's a long story, something traumatic happened to me, and I was stuck mentally as a 16 year old for a long time. I didn't get out of that victim mentality till I was 27. I'm 30 now. So I have a ton of catching up to do. While most young girls are learning to cook/clean. etc I was on sucide watch. While most young girls are going to college, having their first apartment, I was in an abusive marriage with a child.

So life was always survival mode, until 27. Then 27 was getting out of victim mentality, making better choices, trying to get a job. 28-29 was holding down a part time job and starting college, while parenting, getting my first apartment. 30 Was/is Fulltime job, part time college, parenting, bigger apartment, and finally being able to work on getting myself healthy through eating and exercising.

First, I think it's great that with all you've been through, you're trying to get yourself healthy and making YOU a priory

I was also looking at your exercise calories and they seem really high. You might be overestimating those numbers and if you are eating them back it could be contributing to the lack of progress you are seeing.

If you don't have a salad spinner, put your washed greens in a clean pillowcase, go outside and swing it rapidly in a circle to fling most of the water off. You can store the greens in the pillowcase in your crisper. I actually prefer this to a salad spinner.

I would also suggest a crock pot. It is really easy for people short on time to just put something in that morning and bam...dinner is ready that night. I use mine all of the time. That way you are cutting down on the fast foods.

Good luck.