Help with Nutrition PLEASE!

My advice would be: don't rush. Put in your stats to lose .5 lb/week. That will give you a good amount of calories to work with, and you can earn more with exercise.

You can continue to eat all of the foods that you enjoy - just stay at/under your calorie goal. Eat a wide variety of foods - you don't need to stay away from anything (barring any medical conditions.)

Losing weight is not a complicated process. But it does require staying with it. There will be ups & downs, minor weight fluctuations, motivation will wane -- but stay with it. Slow & steady = success.

edean331 wrote: »

ELIMINATE SUGAR, as much as you can
Definitely no soda! Also, try not to eat bread or pasta. If you usually have eaten a lot of these 3 items and you cut them out (or way down) you should see changes very quickly! What's your big food weakness???

No. There is absolutely no reason to eliminate foods, unless you have a medical condition.

In fact, restricting foods can backfire. Please, OP, continue to eat what you enjoy and watch the bottom line - which is your calorie goal.

Once you start to log your food, you will learn what foods you eat have more calories than they're worth. By that I mean they take up a fair amount of your daily calories and you don't enjoy them that much. Personally, I find that juice is not worth it to me. It has a lot of calories and I don't mind drinking water instead.

But other than that there isn't anything in particular you need to stay away from as long as you stay under your calories.

lynn_glenmont wrote: »

I thought you had to fill out a profile with your height, weight, gender, activity level, and goals (e.g., lose 1 lb per week) before you got an MFP account? It should have given you a calorie goal to shoot for every day when you did that.

This. The MFP goal is before exercise (you get more calories when you exercise, and that tends to make it more like the other calculators which include it). It's really the simplest approach and a good starting point for calories and macros if you don't have a pre-set idea of what you want. Then work from there to see if you want to adjust it after trying it for a while. No special macros (and certainly not cutting out sugar and pasta) are necessary to lose weight.

If you are interested in nutrition for health, that's really common sense -- eat your vegetables and some protein, get enough fiber (fiber and protein are often filling, too, which is nice if on a lower calorie goal). Good site for general nutrition information (far better than some of the woo you get on MFP or can find all over the internet on dieting sites) is: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/. Extremely credible.

One tip I have is that increasing protein can often be both filling AND protect against losing more muscle mass than you need, especially if you do exercise (ideally some strength stuff) too. A good protein goal is at least .65-.85 grams per lb of goal weight.

Also related to preserving muscle mass is that you don't want to have an overly aggressive goal. 2 lb/week can work for someone with lots to lose or a bigger person, but if you don't have that much to lose (and you don't, based on your goal) or are smaller, 1 lb/week is better.

lemurcat12 wrote: »

If you are interested in nutrition for health, that's really common sense -- eat your vegetables and some protein, get enough fiber (fiber and protein are often filling, too, which is nice if on a lower calorie goal). Good site for general nutrition information (far better than some of the woo you get on MFP or can find all over the internet on dieting sites) is: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/. Extremely credible.

Someone beat me to it. Harvard's NutritionSource is your friend. Start with incorporating easy guideline of the Health Eating Plate into what your usual daily intake is and you will be starting from the base of a healthy diet.

Michael190lbs wrote: »

edean331 wrote: »

ELIMINATE SUGAR, as much as you can
Definitely no soda! Also, try not to eat bread or pasta. If you usually have eaten a lot of these 3 items and you cut them out (or way down) you should see changes very quickly! What's your big food weakness???

Its funny that I know none of this makes any sense but when I cut its exactly what I do..lol.. I'm in incredible shape too.. We are truly crazy the way we make things work..

Yes I know its calories but not eating bread with my red meat patty kills 200 calories from the meal and wow I lost weight plus filled macro's goal with Fat and Protein..

But that's the point -- it makes plenty of sense if you understand it is calories, and not some universal rule about weight loss (as edean incorrectly suggested). As people are different, everyone needs to figure out for themselves where they can easily cut calories without sacrificing their happiness with their diet, satiety, or nutrients. For me, like you, part of that is ditching the bun more often than not if I make ground beef at home, as well as almost never ordering a burger at a restaurant (I tend to like the ones I make just as well, for far fewer calories -- if I'm splurging at a restaurant I want something that is more exciting, although there are always exceptions). But others could feel completely differently and continue to eat the bun (and the cheese, which I never add either), and make cuts elsewhere, of course.

Lovee_Dove7 wrote: »

arditarose wrote: »

edean331 wrote: »

ELIMINATE SUGAR, as much as you can
Definitely no soda! Also, try not to eat bread or pasta. If you usually have eaten a lot of these 3 items and you cut them out (or way down) you should see changes very quickly! What's your big food weakness???

What? That is ridiculous. Foods have calories. Count them and stay in a deficit. Just because you take out a slice of bread you were eating doesn't mean you're going to create a deficit large enough to lose weight. And if you do cut out all of these foods it is not a sustainable way to live. And you still have learned nothing about weight management.

Our metabolisms respond to the types of nutrients we put in; it's not as simple as calories in, calories out. At 30years old, as you are, it may work for you, if your metabolism can absorb the challenge of higher carbs. Age can and will change this! Limiting carbs is not an extreme thing to do, and you still get them from veggies, legumes, nuts.
Bottom line is, as long as your body's metabolism is handling the carbs, it's not a problem.
Logging food intake (accurately), and measuring yourself, waist, hips, weight, bodyfat% tells you if your program is working! And then you can tweak things if needed.

there are a lot of very nutritious sources of carbohydrates...

@xoxogreta - NEAT, BMR, and TDEE calculators are all estimates of our energy expenditures. There are, I believe, 4 commonly used variations to the mathematical formula (Harris Benedict, Mifflin-St Jeor, Katch-McArdle, and Cunningham), along with various multipliers to reflect average levels of daily activity.

Rather than drive yourself to distraction, simply use the MFP calculation. It's a decent estimation for a good majority of people. It automatically sets the calorie deficit goal and the daily macros goals.

Calories are calories, so as long as you eat a deficit you will lose weight. Now, having said that, there might be certain foods with which you have personal difficulty controlling portions. I have a lot of personal trouble limiting my intake of candies and sweets. It's not the sweets or sugar that makes me gain weight, but the amount of calories I over consume with those types of foods. Maybe you have trouble with Pringles because "once you pop [the top] you just can't stop".

As for getting started, start simple. Log your food for a week. Get used to logging accurately and correctly. Then start trying to hit your calorie deficit goal.

If you find you're having difficulty hitting your calorie deficit goal after a couple of weeks, then look at adjusting what you are eating. Again a personal example: I find protein and fat for breakfast really helps me with appetite control and eating 4-5 times a day keeps me on track. Other people eat 2 times a day a do just fine.

Find what works best for you.