hmmmmmm

Subway does have some lower calorie options. Most stores have a list and they are 6" subs. You can also go on their website and check out calorie counts before you go. Most chain restaurants have nutritional information on the internet. If I'm going out I try to check before I go and have idea of what I'm going to choose. I've found some salads are really high so that is not always a safe bet. Drinks can really pack on the calories as well, they can really sneak up on you.

Don't bash the Subs guys ... The 6 inch chicken breast on nine grain , no cheese, no sauce of any kind, is *the* go-to option for me for satiety on the go... They claim it's 320 cals, but if you check their website, they give 0 cals to the vegies so I always log a small serving of salad I didn't actually have to account for the veggies I get with it and for any inaccuracies in their info.

Nothing much wrong with Subway, but may be a couple of lessons learned about portion sizes, and reading all the nutritional info very carefully - i.e. Does it include cheese? Sauce? Etc.

OP, I started at 240lb a month ago with the same goal as you. I also have a family to cook for. It's all very doable but only if you approach it with the right information. What folks have been saying here is all true. Yes, your Sub was more than 640 cals, yes, your calorie burn was overestimated. That doesn't have to get you down, treat it as precious knowledge gained. Don't log daily activities, even if it's the hardest stint of house cleaning you ever did, becuase you did those while you were gaining weight too! Read carefully nutritional info, log with absolute honesty, weigh your food with a food scale (it's wildly different from what the producer says it weighs 80% of the time! So measuring cups won't cut it except for liquids.) Do those things consistently and you'll probably start seeing results on the scale very soon.

You can do it, it just takes time, information, and realistic expectations i.e. about how much you can afford to eat and still lose.

P.S. about kids - my daughter knows her nutrition groups. She won't touch cooked veggies of almost any kind with a barge pole but gets plenty of fresh ones. Our rule is, she tries one bite of everything on the plate and if she doesn't like it, she can fix herself a healthy sandwitch and veggies. That happens more and more rarely and she requests now (9yo) to try things she knows she hated before, just in case.

Dthomas1979 wrote: »

ok thanks everyone and my apologies..... and that does make sense.... i was not trying to make it seem like i didn't want people to post things in here.. im sorry people took it that way.... and everyone is right i have to accept the positive and the correcting my mistakes in my logs again i am sorry and i understand what people are saying... i know more often then not people don't like to hear they make mistakes but its ok i just want the best out come of this.... so again thanks everyone and i will be careful on how i log my calories...

It's a learning curve and we ALL did this. I now pre-log everything so I can avoid it as much as possible, but it still happens on occasion.
As far as the kids, they'll eat what you cook.
Remember, all that's required to lose, is the deficit. You've got this!

Do not feel bad about it at all - you did very well to post this, if you hadn't, you wouldn't have learned anything new. It's great that you question things and look for better information.

The links GiveMeCoffee posted are really good, they are totally worth a thorough read-through and a lot of us even go back to them for a refresher from time to time. Weight loss is like any other learning experience - you get better with time and practice. You can totally do this!

Two points based on what you've said too. I don't know how much you are planning to eat every day or what your MFP calorie goal is but 640 calories is about the amount I eat for my main meal every day.

I am eating around 1275 calories per day maximum at the moment, and I'm NOT eating exercise calories back although I am exercising every day for 40minutes to 1 hour and a half. By doing that I am losing around 1.2 lbs per week, so I am not losing that quickly.

Therefore if I ate a 6" sub as others have said which is more likely to have that calorie count, that would be my meal for the day. Other than that I would only have things like protein shakes (to help get my protein count up) and possibly a homemade soup for dinner with a couple of low calorie snacks like a 0% fat yogurt or a small quantity of nuts as a snack.

The other point is that as others have said you shouldn't log housework. Until a few weeks ago I was logging all my workouts as well as housework but you end up trying to get as much 'activity' done every day so you can eat more.

In my case, I found I was becoming obsessed with the calorie burn number every day and how much extra it would let me eat in terms of calories. In the end I was losing weight, but I think it encourages bad habits. The other problem is you don't know how accurate calorie burns really are, so it's best to work off a weekly calorie burn amount which is most likely lower than the actual burn you're getting and then eat the correct amount to give you enough of a deficit to be able to lose weight.

For example, my maintenance calories based on being sedentary are around 1550 per day. I found a spreadsheet recommended to me on here where you can log more or less the workouts you do every day and how active you are in your normal life. In my case I do short workouts of 40 minutes each approximately, some with weights, some pure cardio as well as other things like Yoga from time to time and dog walks etc. In addition I work from home so I am not very active other than my workouts. The spreadsheet told me that my daily maintenance calories taking into account the above activities is only just under 1800 calories. This figure is MUCH lower than MFP and other online calculators have given me based on the workouts I said I did, ie. 3-5 times a week.

What this means in reality is that in order to lose at least 1lb per week I can't eat any more than 1300 calories per day and that is taking into account exercise already, so that means I can't eat ANY exercise calories back.

I've now changed my MFP settings to reflect this, set my calorie goal every day to net 1275 calories maximum and I am now logging my workouts as 1 calorie.

This way I know that I won't be tempted to eat more because I feel that I've 'earned' those extra calories based on the exercise I did that day as the figures are based on weekly averages. It also means that as long as I do the amount of exercise I've planned on doing each week (or more) then I will lose a minimum of 1lb per week.

The way I'm looking at it now is that if I do more exercise than I've planned such as an extra walk, a shopping trip, spring cleaning, a trip to the mountains etc. then my reward will be additional weight loss that week, not additional food.

It can be hard from time to time knowing that I can only eat to 1275 calories maximum, but I now pre-log most of my daily meals so that I don't go over on calories. If I know I'll be out of the house I'll try and eat very little until I go out so I have more calories for when I am out. If I'm planning to have dinner or lunch out and I know where I'm going in advance, I'll also try and pre-log what I am going to eat and that way I also stick within my allowances.

Hang in there! You've gotten some great advice!
My 2cts would be to start cooking for yourself rather than eating out. Grilling or baking 5 lbs of chicken breast at a time will feed you and your children in lots of good healthy ways for a few days!
I also fully support the idea of putting veggies out for them before dinner. If I put a tray of cut up red peppers, celery and carrot sticks about 2 hours before I get dinner on the table they disappear and then I can be less of a veg tyrant at the dinner table.

Just saw your comment about smoothies. Be really careful because most commercial smoothies contain a lot of sugar, and even homemade smoothies can be very calorific due to the fruit/sugar content.

I used to have smoothies a lot for breakfast made with things like banana and strawberries with milk and honey but the calorie count is now far too high for me. I am also trying not to eat more than 120 grams of carbohydrates per day so smoothies are now out of the equation.

Having said that, you can still make healthy smoothies which are lower in calorie or sugar content if you use other things like vegetable juices too. I used to make a nice smoothie with apple and pineapple juice along with spinach, cucumber, ginger and lime juice. I added avocado to make it creamier and to add bulk. Many people say that you need to keep the fibre in the drink too, so try to use who fruits and veg if you can, rather than just juice because then the fibre is taken out and that's where the goodness is.

What I normally do now instead of having smoothies is I'll have a protein shake which is about 160 calories if made with skimmed milk, and I'll add a banana or some peanut butter to it to make it a bit more filling. The total calorie count is around 250 if you do that but it is a good meal replacement and helps to get more protein into your diet.

Dthomas1979 wrote: »

I was wondering if anyone knew any good smoothie ideas i know that or i have been told that smoothies are a good thing to have when your dieting....

I try never to drink my calories-I want food! Remember, they add up quickly.

Dthomas1979 wrote: »

I was wondering if anyone knew any good smoothie ideas i know that or i have been told that smoothies are a good thing to have when your dieting....

It depends on what you mean by good. There is nothing magical about them and they may not fill you up so they could trigger overeating but if you use them as nutrient-rich snacks they can be beneficial.

4bettermenow wrote: »

Three or four days a week I have a smoothie in place of a meal. I use spinach/kale, berries, a banana, chia seeds and almond milk. Its usually in the evening because sometimes I am not that hungry, but I want something sweet and nutritionally sound.

Banana 120, chia seeds 1 tbs 60, almond milk 1 c. 60, spinach 20, kale 35, berries 70 =365