Confused and Frustrated--how much to eat?
Options
jessidarklighter
Posts: 10 Member
So here's some background. A little over a year ago through some very hard work, I finally made it under 200 pounds. Then my mother and sister tried to take my children from me and disowned me when they failed, so I got out of the habit of really monitoring my weight.
A little over three weeks ago I went to see a doctor about breathing problems and discovered that I now weigh 247 pounds. Testing of my A1c showed that while I'm not diabetic yet, I will get there soon if I don't lose weight, NOW. So I freaked out. I had one final high fat meal and the next day went on an all vegetable diet. I ate once a day and basically had a plate full of whatever vegetables my husband cooked up. I also started walking at least 3 miles a day. The first week was great. I lost 8 pounds
The second week I worried about the whole too low calorie count thing, and added in a couple of protein shakes. Half way through the week, cranky, hungry, tired, and impatient, I broke one of the rules and weighed myself again. I had gained 5 pounds! Upset and worried about what that meant, I stopped drinking the protein shakes and felt a little better when I lost 2 pounds back.
Confused by the up and down, I wasn't sure what I should be eating. After a day where I counted calories but didn't manage to eat more then 600 calories in the day, I finally gave in and called the doctors office for an appointment with the registered nutritionist.
After I'd been in there a few minutes, she'd asked me some specific questions about what I was currently eating. I pulled out my Iphone to check, and when she realized I was looking at MyFitnessPal, she asked me what I needed her for, and told me to follow the instructions as MyFitnessPal had created for me. She then went on to say that even if I didn't eat the said calorie count, I definitely couldn't eat less than 1200 and lose weight. When asked about the weight loss itself, she told me to expect no more than a quarter or half a pound of weight a week.
At a need to lose around 100 pounds, that's about 4 years.
After they kicked my now crying hysterically fat *kitten* out the door, I went out and got some fast food. I know, I know, bad me. But at this point I don't know what to do. MyFitnessPal wants me to eat 1500 calories, and I doubt I would lose weight at that much food. And of course there is the inevitable gain that comes from going from a really low calorie count to a higher calorie count. What if I just keep gaining? What if I never lose weight again? The thought of counting calories and sweating my butt off everyday for the next 4 years makes me want to curl up in a little ball and die. Will someone please help me? Be my friend, help me get through the next few weigh ins. Please tell me that doing this isn't going to make me gain yet more weight. I mean, whats the point of never eating what you want and dealing with blistered feet and pulled tendons in the neck and strained muscles in the shoulders if you don't get any results?
Help!
A little over three weeks ago I went to see a doctor about breathing problems and discovered that I now weigh 247 pounds. Testing of my A1c showed that while I'm not diabetic yet, I will get there soon if I don't lose weight, NOW. So I freaked out. I had one final high fat meal and the next day went on an all vegetable diet. I ate once a day and basically had a plate full of whatever vegetables my husband cooked up. I also started walking at least 3 miles a day. The first week was great. I lost 8 pounds
The second week I worried about the whole too low calorie count thing, and added in a couple of protein shakes. Half way through the week, cranky, hungry, tired, and impatient, I broke one of the rules and weighed myself again. I had gained 5 pounds! Upset and worried about what that meant, I stopped drinking the protein shakes and felt a little better when I lost 2 pounds back.
Confused by the up and down, I wasn't sure what I should be eating. After a day where I counted calories but didn't manage to eat more then 600 calories in the day, I finally gave in and called the doctors office for an appointment with the registered nutritionist.
After I'd been in there a few minutes, she'd asked me some specific questions about what I was currently eating. I pulled out my Iphone to check, and when she realized I was looking at MyFitnessPal, she asked me what I needed her for, and told me to follow the instructions as MyFitnessPal had created for me. She then went on to say that even if I didn't eat the said calorie count, I definitely couldn't eat less than 1200 and lose weight. When asked about the weight loss itself, she told me to expect no more than a quarter or half a pound of weight a week.
At a need to lose around 100 pounds, that's about 4 years.
After they kicked my now crying hysterically fat *kitten* out the door, I went out and got some fast food. I know, I know, bad me. But at this point I don't know what to do. MyFitnessPal wants me to eat 1500 calories, and I doubt I would lose weight at that much food. And of course there is the inevitable gain that comes from going from a really low calorie count to a higher calorie count. What if I just keep gaining? What if I never lose weight again? The thought of counting calories and sweating my butt off everyday for the next 4 years makes me want to curl up in a little ball and die. Will someone please help me? Be my friend, help me get through the next few weigh ins. Please tell me that doing this isn't going to make me gain yet more weight. I mean, whats the point of never eating what you want and dealing with blistered feet and pulled tendons in the neck and strained muscles in the shoulders if you don't get any results?
Help!
0
Replies
-
You would lose weight at 1500 calories, its not what you eat, as it is how much you eat! If you feel you aren't losing then start exercising to create more of a deficit0
-
I started at 231, ate my 1500 calories a day and lost down to 181 now in a year ish. You won't gain weight from not eating enough. That's impossible. Cardio for extra calories throughout the day and to work your heart and lungs, lift heavy for your muscle and bones. Blance protein, carbs and fat.0
-
I'm exercising everyday and gaining weight at about 2 pounds a week.0
-
Let's go over what could be happening.
1. You're retaining water because you're not fueling your body enough for the work outs.
2. You're eating more than you think
3. You're burning less than you think
Either way, you're not being honest with yourself. I promise you're not hat special snowflake that defies all science. CICO
Give it time0 -
Take a deep breath.
I started at 240, so I want you to understand there's many of us who've been there. People here are very helpful if you listen. They're going to give you a lot of great links to other threads and resources. Whether you eat 1200 or 1500 calories per day, when you have 100 lbs to lose the most important thing is sticking to it and not giving up even when you fall off the wagon momentarily. The important thing is to eat at a deficit. You burn about 2200-2300 at least just living your life. Anything you eat below that will be a loss (eventually, if you stick to it). It might take 4 years. That's ok.
If there's one piece of advice I wanted to give you was this: From what I'm reading, you are feeding your problems, and you need to stop it. Here's what you've said:
-Problem: "mother and sister tried to take my children from me". Your answer/coping mechanism? Eat.
-Problem: "Testing of my A1c showed that while I'm not diabetic yet, I will get there soon if I don't lose weight, NOW". Your answer/coping mechanism? Eat.
-Problem: "she told me to expect no more than a quarter or half a pound of weight a week". Your answer/coping mechanism? Eat.
Eating is not the solution to your problems/emotions. I and everyone here applauds your wake up call to lose weight, but you will have greater long term success if you can break the connection you have in your emotions/brains that the "answer" to whatever is causing you stress is "eat."0 -
Losing weight sucks. It's nowhere near as fun, easy, or tasty as gaining weight is. It's hard word, dedication, effort, will power. It's also painfully slow, and depressing, and aggravating. But it's also worth it. Worth all of it.
So you want to lose 100 pounds? You have to count to 20 before you reach 100, right? Make smaller goals for yourself. Focus on the first 20 pounds so you see the progress you are making. And buy a food scale. Seriously. Those little suckers make a tremendous difference in what you think you are eating and what you really are eating.
Keep at it, sign on to here. Express frustration and celebrate victories (scale and non-scale alike) with everyone else. This is a journey of progress, not one of perfection. Good luck!0 -
There is some excellent advice above. I just want to put your mind at ease. If you eat at 1500, you will lose weight! You will burn more than 1500 calories in a day, even just doing normal, daily things, so if you eat 1500, then you will lose weight. With exercise, I can eat 2,000 and lose a pound a week. Without exercise, if i eat around 1500, I can lose about the same (I recently hurt my foot and couldn't do much, so I know this for sure). If MFP said to eat around 1500, then do it, and enjoy the weight loss!
I'd also suggest that you see someone to deal with the emotional issues, or work on some self-help as you will struggle to stick with this long term if you aren't in the right space. Good luck! You got this.
0 -
jessidarklighter wrote: »...Confused by the up and down, I wasn't sure what I should be eating. After a day where I counted calories but didn't manage to eat more then 600 calories in the day, I finally gave in and called the doctors office for an appointment with the registered nutritionist.
After I'd been in there a few minutes, she'd asked me some specific questions about what I was currently eating. I pulled out my Iphone to check, and when she realized I was looking at MyFitnessPal, she asked me what I needed her for, and told me to follow the instructions as MyFitnessPal had created for me. She then went on to say that even if I didn't eat the said calorie count, I definitely couldn't eat less than 1200 and lose weight. When asked about the weight loss itself, she told me to expect no more than a quarter or half a pound of weight a week.
At a need to lose around 100 pounds, that's about 4 years.
Since you have 100 pounds to lose, you can set your goals to lose 2 pounds per week initially. Do eat all the calories MFP gives you. Exercise, and since exercise burns tend to be high, only eat back about 50% of the calories you earn from exercising.
Once you only need to lose 25 pounds, THEN change your goals to lose 0.5 pound per week. http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided
0 -
0
-
You WILL lose weight at 1500 calories. For someone who is very overweight, the deficit should not be too large as your body requires more food to sustain itself. My calories started at around 1900-2000 when I first started (228 lbs, 5'7").
After losing about 25-30 lbs, it shrunk down to around 1700-1800.
Now after losing 65+ lbs, its even smaller, being at about 1450-1600 (I eat 1800 and exercise to get down to those numbers).
I'm still losing weight at a good pace, .5-1 lb per week.
And don't go cold turkey into this new lifestyle. It's not a change you can do overnight. I first started out just eating fast food (panda express was my favorite at the time), but less of it. Instead of a plate that could go up to a whopping 1500 calories, I would get a bowl that would be around 600-800 calories. Instead of normal soda, switched to diet.
Slowly the changes became bigger and I started to cook at home and weaned myself off of soda (I'll still have 1-2 per week, but I don't CRAVE it like before). Fast food doesn't seem so appealing after you begin to start feeling and looking better. Eat the foods your comfortable eating, just cut back on how much of it you eat. Measure your food accurately with a food scale so that you can know you are not over (or under) eating.
I'd say try eating about 1500-1800 calories for one week and just increase your activity levels. Walking 3 miles a day may or may not be excessive for you, but if you can keep this up then try it out. If you experience any type of pain, cut back and see what your body is comfortable with.
I know the struggle is overwhelming, but if someone like me can beat it, then you can too!0 -
you are eating more than you think you are.0
-
trust me, I know exactly how much I'm eating.0
-
jessidarklighter wrote: »trust me, I know exactly how much I'm eating.
okie dokie then...........
open your diary.
0 -
jessidarklighter wrote: »trust me, I know exactly how much I'm eating.
It seems like you are being too impatient. Share your diary, make some friends - eat healthy and **exercise**.
Try following the My fitness Pal recommendations for calorie intake and log it all. Be consistent AND patient. Eat healthy and clean... lower carbs and higher protein.
There are certain rules of the universe and you are not exempt. Eat less calories than you use and you will lose weight - you don't want to eat too little though, as your body will go into starvation mode and it will be tough to exercise.
R
0 -
Great advice above. The other thing you are going to have to make peace with and commit to if you want to be successful is that this is going to have to be a lifelong change and with that in mind, if it takes you 1, 2, 3 or 4 years to lose the weight you still have a lifetime of health ahead of you.
1500 is not too much, it's how much I eat give or take and I started at 220+ and I am steadily losing. It's a marathon not a sprint. I also had to break my emotional attachment to eating and it will be an ongoing process.
You can do this but you have to do it the right way, do a lot of learning and with a lot of commitment.0 -
Don't feel bad I started at 259 lbs and have MS. It wasn't till I ended up in the hospital that gave me a wake up call. I was told that I was to heavy to have a surgery the normal way so I ended up being open up and have the surgery. MFP tells me to eat 1300 a day which I use that as my highest amount to eat I normally eat about 1100 but honestly I just go with if I am hungry. One of my biggest challenge is eating at night. So I have learn to eat 5 meals a day breakfast, lunch, dinner, and 2 snacks. So I save one of my snack for night. As for exercising I started with simple walks (since that I could do at the time) and then just gradually started adding other stuff. Feel free to add me if you like.0
-
No one's posted this yet, so I will. This link gives GREAT advice.
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1175494-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants0 -
OP, you don't need to never eat the foods you love again. You don't need to exercise until it hurts.
- Get a food scale, weigh all solids, log everything. Be careful of choosing correct entries in the database - many were entered by users incorrectly.
- Move every day. Eat back half of your exercise calories - this allows for the fact that MFP's exercise burns seem high to many of us.
- Don't try to change too much all at once - you will burn out, and it's not necessary. MFP is full of people who have lost substantial weight eating everything they used to, just a bit less.
- Find another way to deal with negative emotions other than eating. Take a walk. Call an old friend. Watch a cat video. Hit a punching bag. Start a diary.
- Patience, patience, patience. You will gain weight some weeks, lose it others. You will have good days and bad days. No one is perfect. It doesn't have to take you 4 years to lose 100 lbs, but even if it did, isn't that better than giving up and not losing at all?
And this:madhatter2013 wrote: »Let's go over what could be happening.
1. You're retaining water because you're not fueling your body enough for the work outs.
2. You're eating more than you think
3. You're burning less than you think
There are plenty of people here who have lost 100 lbs or more, it's all about calories in/calories out. You can do it!0 -
Take a deep breath.
I started at 240, so I want you to understand there's many of us who've been there. People here are very helpful if you listen. They're going to give you a lot of great links to other threads and resources. Whether you eat 1200 or 1500 calories per day, when you have 100 lbs to lose the most important thing is sticking to it and not giving up even when you fall off the wagon momentarily. The important thing is to eat at a deficit. You burn about 2200-2300 at least just living your life. Anything you eat below that will be a loss (eventually, if you stick to it). It might take 4 years. That's ok.
If there's one piece of advice I wanted to give you was this: From what I'm reading, you are feeding your problems, and you need to stop it. Here's what you've said:
-Problem: "mother and sister tried to take my children from me". Your answer/coping mechanism? Eat.
-Problem: "Testing of my A1c showed that while I'm not diabetic yet, I will get there soon if I don't lose weight, NOW". Your answer/coping mechanism? Eat.
-Problem: "she told me to expect no more than a quarter or half a pound of weight a week". Your answer/coping mechanism? Eat.
Eating is not the solution to your problems/emotions. I and everyone here applauds your wake up call to lose weight, but you will have greater long term success if you can break the connection you have in your emotions/brains that the "answer" to whatever is causing you stress is "eat."
This is great advice! To add to this, I'm reading a book called If You Eat At the Refrigerator, Pull Up A Chair, by Geneen Roth. I had to finally come to grips with the fact that I'm an emotional eater. She has other books too. I'm really enjoying it and learning a lot about myself and it was just .01 at Amazon.0 -
Weighing your food is definitely one of the big things that people don't do that screws them up. A lot of people just use the 'one serving' or maybe just a cup of something, and that's not as accurate as you think. To get the best picture, you need to weigh everything. Even if you've been training yourself for years, you're never going to be exact by estimating. If you can't find what you're eating on MFP, enter it into the recipe calculator. That thing has been super helpful for me! Also, if you're entering your exercise on MFP, it will probably be off. MFP is notorious for over-estimating calories burned, so you'll need to adjust yourself. Another thing to keep in mind is that you don't want to eat too few calories. You have a lot to lose, so your daily calorie goal will be higher. As an example, when I was 200 lbs, I had it set to lose 2lbs a week and sedentary, and my daily goal was around 1600. As I lost weight, when I reassessed, that number would go down.
What I did was start with a couple of weeks of JUST logging. Not cutting anything out, just seeing what my eating habits were. By doing that, I got a baseline and could start adjusting. I started slow, just one thing at a time, and gave myself a few days to a week to adjust to the changes. Yes, this is slow. But that's the way it needs to be for the weight loss to be permanent. Remember, you're not on a diet. You're changing your eating habits to sustain you for the rest of your life. To do this in a healthy way, you're going to need to lose weight slowly and let your mind and body get used to the changes. Don't weigh yourself every day, either. Once a week, on the same day at the same time. Your body weight will fluctuate over the course of the day, never mind the week, so you only need to monitor the TREND. And remember, weight also fluctuates with your hormones, so if one week you've gained despite careful logging, don't despair. You may just be on a hormone change that's causing it.
As for exercise, something I learned? It's NOT NECESSARY FOR WEIGHT LOSS. Seriously. It's not. It's good for you in other ways, but you can lose weight just with calorie adjustments. Pretty much all of the weight I lost was just with food, no exercise. I've started walking to get my heart into shape and try and take control of my asthma, but it's not for weight loss. Yes, I add it to my daily goal and eat the calories back for it, but my setting for my daily calorie goal is set WITHOUT taking that into account. Exercise is optional and extra.0
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 391.9K Introduce Yourself
- 43.5K Getting Started
- 259.8K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.7K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 398 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.8K Motivation and Support
- 7.9K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.4K MyFitnessPal Information
- 23 News and Announcements
- 977 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.4K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions