Welcome

Welcome! Have a good time here and we are here to help if you get off track.

Hello all!

New to MFP and paleo. Would love to make some new friends to help me through my healthy living journey. Thank you

Welcome! Feel free to add me!

Looking for motivation friends too please add me.

Today my husband and I have started out first day on the Primal Blueprint. Been on myfitnesspal for a couple of years, but think I have finally found a lifestyle that fits us within PB. Would love to have some like minded Paleo/Primal Blueprint friends! I'm trying to lose weight, but my husband is trying to gain.

Hi I am new to MFP and to Paleo/Primal. I have been reading up on it for a couple of years and make slow changes.

Welcome! Feel free to add me. Please put "primal/paleo group" in the request, though, so I know you came from this group, if it's not too much trouble.

I'm not online much right now, but I am trying to get on the computer at least once a day, again, to start logging again, to make sure I get enough calories. (Having dropped all the "other" stuff that crept into my diet during the holidays, I'm so full of good, healthy food that it's hard to get enough calories. I love paleo/primal!)

Me too from down-under!!

Would you please add me too? I eat pretty Paleo-ish and I would love to have some friends who share that lifestyle.

susanitalee wrote: »

Hey guys, I've been strict Paleo for almost two years and lost weight only when I did the Whole30 diet. Sadly, that's extremely difficult to maintain. My problem is that I have fibromyalgia which all but prevents me from losing weight. At one point I had two personal trainers scratching their heads when they saw my workout schedule and my food diary. However, I do feel incredible on this diet and my blood tests show I'm SO much healthier, so I'm sticking with it.

This go around, I'm going to try my FitBit, plus a heart rate monitor plus MyFitnessPal. I hope that combination, along with my regular workouts, will at least help.

My problem is I don't know what to put in the calories section of MyFitnessPal. Since we aren't really supposed to count calories on Paleo. Any ideas?

I have my calories set to 1500. MFP would have set my calories to 1200, at my present weight, in order to lose. However, I found 1200 calories was not enough. When I dropped below 1350 (MFP will adjust your calories downward as you lose weight), my weight loss stalled. It was like my metabolism went into conservation mode. Someone on this forum suggested that I increase my calories between 1500 and 1700. Years ago that was a "maintenance level" of calories for me, after I lost weight with Weight Watchers and entered maintenance phase -- of course, eating the Standard American Diet -- and this, as I said, was years ago, when I was younger and running every day.

However, I can lose weight years later (when I'd expect to be trying to get along on 1000 calories or so) eating 1500-1700 daily calories, following low-carb paleo guidelines. Go figure.

My experience on "needing" to count calories? I found out I need to count, on occasion, to make sure I'm getting *enough*. The food is so satiating that it's easy for me to get by on 800 calories or less and not feel deprived, and I'm pretty sure 800 calories is probably not a healthy practice.

So yes, I log, and I do look at the bottom line where the calories are, but only to make sure I got over my (self-assigned) minimum number. Some days I have to settle for anything over 1250, just because I can't eat another bite.

susanitalee wrote: »

FYI, here's what I have for protein, carbs and fat (though I'm not sure it's right either):
Carbs: 78 Fat: 118 Protein: 58

My gut instinct would be to switch around the carbs and protein (making your formula Carbs: 58, Fat: 118, Protein: 78).

That would be grams, not percentages. With my calories set to 1500, my numbers are Carbs: 75, Fat: 100, Protein: 75.

However, I don't fret if my carbs are under 75 (I'm happy when they're between 30-50) or my fat goes above 100.

The things I used to set these numbers: Mark Sisson's carbohydrate chart (see his website*), and a lean body mass calculator somewhere on the web. I read somewhere a long time ago (might have been Robb Wolf's book, or Mark Sisson's) that your protein intake should equal your lean body mass times a number between .8 and 1 -- I don't remember the exact formula now, but it's as important to get enough protein as it is not to get too much.

I'm pretty sedentary due to joint and ligament pain, so I use the lower number (using .8 as the multiplier in the lean body mass/recommended protein intake formula, works out to 75g). So I set my protein first, according to that calculation, and then I picked "75g" (for carbs) out of the air because it's right in the middle of Mark Sisson's carbohydrate range for steady ("effortless") weight loss (50-100g), and then made up the rest with fat. I think it works out to 15-20% carbs, 60-65% fat, and 20% protein. But it's been awhile since I did the math.

Hope this helps. I must emphasize that this is the formula that works for me. Everyone's body works its own way.

*http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-primal-carbohydrate-continuum/#axzz3QqGz0440

Good article, punchgut. It reflects my experience. I lost ten pounds the first two weeks on low-carb paleo, and after that had a pretty steady two pounds a week loss, until I stalled because I was following MFP's recommendations (and MFP kept reducing my calories, all the way down to 1200).

After I upped my calories to 1500, I started losing again. However, a season of travel, followed by selling our house, packing up to move, moving (no kitchen for two weeks), and then unpacking, followed by the holidays... well, let's just say I got off track until recently.

However, it has not been hard to get back on track. I know what to do, I know how to do it, and it's a lifestyle I can easily sustain. The food is satisfying, and I can eat as much of it as I want (as it turns out, the food is so satisfying, I don't really pig out the way I did before when I ate lots of carbs in the form of grains and potatoes and sugar).

And I feel so good when I eat this way, that I don't want to eat stuff that makes me tired and foggy and unable to sleep and experiencing pain that constrains my activities.

For me, the weight loss is simply a side effect of eating for minimal pain and maximum energy.

Yeah, you said it. People who follow MFP recommendations must be eating a ruinous amount of carbs, from what I recall, before I chose the custom option and set them myself. Sheesh.

Hi All-- rejoining the party here on MFP after nearly 3 years (?) of going it on my own. Fell off the paleo wagon midway through last year mainly due to stress and being robbed of time. Back to it, just did a 21 Day Sugar Detox last month -- about 95% successful -- to jumpstart me back into the land of healthy eating!

LuckyStar813 wrote: »

Hi I am new to MFP and to Paleo/Primal. I have been reading up on it for a couple of years and make slow changes.

I'd like to hear from you, "snappy36"