Please help..overwhelmed
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vivmom2014 wrote: »You will lose weight without having to count calories. I have a calorie "goal" that shows up in MFP because of my goal weight, but I just don't pay attention to it.
This isn't good advice. Weight loss happens for one reason and one reason only: a calorie deficit.
While going super low carb may click with some people, it is not necessary for weight loss.
And your body doesn't need to "detox" from carbs.
Wow. Well glad to know that my success and the success of SO many people I know is so anecdotal for you. You keep on believing that and I will keep on keeping on. I only know that I average around 1600-1800 calories per day and have lost 42 pounds since July by following this "bad" advice. MFP tells me my calories should be at 1200 so obviously a "calorie deficit" isn't what is helping. A little research on a ketogenic diet will show you that it is used by doctors to control epilepsy and is being used to help with early onset Alzheimer's. It isn't some "fad" that just popped up.
It's not possible to lose weight WITHOUT a calorie deficit. Period. That's the core of EVERY diet fad out there, no matter what they tell you to eat. It's usually masked by the eating plan you're given, but that's why you lose weight on it.
Now, HOW you achieve that deficit varies from person to person. Ketogenic works for you, and that's great. If it's something you're comfortable with staying on the rest of your life, more power to you. But it needs to be a change you're willing to stay with. The problem with diet plans is that they're temporary. When a person loses the weight, they go back to eating as they were before and hey, whadda know, the weight comes back! To keep it off requires a full adjustment of eating habits, which is really hard and very overwhelming to beginners. That's why I advise to start slow and build. Makes the adjustments easier to get used to, which makes the process more comfortable. If someone wants to try different eating plans, that can be very beneficial. But even with a new eating plan, like going low-carb or all protein or whatever, you're still going to have to have a calorie deficit to lose weight.
If you were losing weight eating 1600-1800 calories a day, then you were at a deficit. It wasn't as much of one as MFP said, but you were at a deficit. And for you, it's a comfortable deficit, which is very helpful! Congrats on your weight loss, and I'm glad you found what works for you.0 -
vivmom2014 wrote: »You will lose weight without having to count calories. I have a calorie "goal" that shows up in MFP because of my goal weight, but I just don't pay attention to it.
This isn't good advice. Weight loss happens for one reason and one reason only: a calorie deficit.
While going super low carb may click with some people, it is not necessary for weight loss.
And your body doesn't need to "detox" from carbs.
Wow. Well glad to know that my success and the success of SO many people I know is so anecdotal for you. You keep on believing that and I will keep on keeping on. I only know that I average around 1600-1800 calories per day and have lost 42 pounds since July by following this "bad" advice. MFP tells me my calories should be at 1200 so obviously a "calorie deficit" isn't what is helping. A little research on a ketogenic diet will show you that it is used by doctors to control epilepsy and is being used to help with early onset Alzheimer's. It isn't some "fad" that just popped up.
No need to feel injured and defensive. I never said ketogenic diet is "some fad" - you extrapolated that.
I will certainly keep on believing that weight loss is achieved through a calorie deficit. To advise anyone who wants to lose weight that ignoring calories is a viable way to go isn't good advice. It's just that simple.
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I can't claim to know for sure, but I noticed that I lost weight on whole 30 even though I was stuffing myself with allowed foods, and I do mean stuffing myself. I lost 6 pounds in 18 days, and it's hard to imagine I was at much of a deficit on all those sweet potatoes with clarified butter plus plenty of meat. I've regained 5 of those 6 pounds since whole 30 ended and am now logging my calories.0
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2snakeswoman wrote: »I can't claim to know for sure, but I noticed that I lost weight on whole 30 even though I was stuffing myself with allowed foods, and I do mean stuffing myself. I lost 6 pounds in 18 days, and it's hard to imagine I was at much of a deficit on all those sweet potatoes with clarified butter plus plenty of meat. I've regained 5 of those 6 pounds since whole 30 ended and am now logging my calories.
If you lost weight, you were eating in a caloric deficit.
Also this would suggest that Whole30 is an unnatural, restrictive way of eating that isn't sustainable.
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I struggle to eat even 1200 a day. My problem is that I under eat and my metabolism is messed upI agree with what others have said about 1200 cals. I think that's way too low. I've been on mfp for a while and I find the odd 1200 day a struggle, so if you're new to dieting, I think it will be too much of a shock.
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I'm 5'5amusedmonkey wrote: »vivmom2014 wrote: »You will lose weight without having to count calories. I have a calorie "goal" that shows up in MFP because of my goal weight, but I just don't pay attention to it.
This isn't good advice. Weight loss happens for one reason and one reason only: a calorie deficit.
While going super low carb may click with some people, it is not necessary for weight loss.
And your body doesn't need to "detox" from carbs.
Another one for this camp. I works for some people, but it's not necessary and doesn't work for everyone. It didn't work for me at all.
I believe keeping things as simple as possible is the way to go, especially for a beginner. For a start all you need to do is find your personal comfortable calorie level. How tall are you by the way?
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I am 28, 5'5 and 205. Id like to lose at least 2lbs per day. I am not able to be very active at the moment vecsuse of several ankle surgeries. My biggest issue is that I do not eat enough. It is a struggle for me to hit even 1200 cal per day. So I am overweight because my metabolism is so messed up from not being fueled.OP, the one thing no one asked from glancing over the posts was for your stats. Height, Weight, Age, how many pounds you want to loose each week preferably to get down 50 lbs, etc..
We can do a quick calculation to work with you on this..
Also, you can read through this.. the links above do not really provide a direct link to start you out..
http://fit101.org/the-step-by-step-guide-to-losing-weight-with-myfitnesspal/
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Congrats on deciding to start. My advice is to start simply. Just enter all your stats into the app, and choose the sedentary or lightly active setting to compute your calories. Log every bite, and get a food scale so that you can do it accurately. Eyeballing and guesstimating will not be accurate. A safe weight-loss goal of 1-1.5 pounds a week is easier to stick with for the long run. Good luck!0
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A basic start:
- Chose a calorie number and start eating it. (1200, 1900, or anywhere in between sounds like a good start since you will be customizing it anyway as you see what happens.)
- Weigh yourself every morning.
- Average your weight over four days (because averages will help offset the natural heavier and lighter days).
- Compare your averages to see what is happening with your weight.
- Adjust your calories accordingly - lower them if you aren't losing enough, raise them if you are losing too fast.
- Shoot to lose 3-4 lbs a week, up to 5 lbs.
You weight loss will only work as well as you do to ensure you maintain caloric consistency. If you vary greatly on calories each day then you cannot accurately adjust your dietary goals.- 1) good advice
- 2) unnecessary but if you wish to weigh daily and don't pin your mood for the day on what the scale says, go for it. I personally weigh daily but it doesn't work well for a lot of people; many find once a week to be sufficient.
- averaging your weight is a good idea, and an app or site like Happy Scale or TrendWeight will do it for you
- 3) Spot on
- 4) Also spot on
- 5) darn, you were doing so well... DON'T shoot to lose 3-5 lbs a week, that's well past the upper limit of what is advisable and safe - to lose that much per week you will be losing a lot more than fat, you'll be losing muscle mass. Which will end you up as a smaller version of your fat self (commonly referred to as "skinny fat" where you're still soft and undefined, you just weigh less)
2. If you are trying to find a good caloric goal, I don't know how you would get accurate readings once a week. Weight can naturally fluctuate ~3 lbs each day. If you are shooting to lose even 1-2 lbs a week and weigh yourself on a naturally heavier day for the week then you would believe you lost nothing based off a single reading for the week when really you are making progress. This is why averages and daily readings will offer the most accurate tale.
5. Nice sarcasm. Notice I said "a basic start". For the person starting out, they will initially shed weight faster, especially the further away they are from their natural weight. 3-5 lbs a week is fine for the start of a weight loss diet for a person starting out. The closer you get to your ideal weight the slower the weight will come off anyway.
We could argue this all day, and you will find studies on both sides of the issue, so further discussion is likely futile on this point. She can chose what path she wants to take.
To aim for a weight loss of 5lbs a week one would need a 17500 calorie deficit! Seeing as most people eat about 2000 a day you can see this wouldn't be a great idea. That's a 7 day fast with 3500 calories of exercise. About 7 hours of running.
I think you meant that people should aim for a 1-2lb loss a week, and if they are quite overweight they will see a water, food in system and glycogen weight drop which will taper off after a week or two
That's quite a different thing.
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I struggle to eat even 1200 a day. My problem is that I under eat and my metabolism is messed upI agree with what others have said about 1200 cals. I think that's way too low. I've been on mfp for a while and I find the odd 1200 day a struggle, so if you're new to dieting, I think it will be too much of a shock.
You likely don't have a messed up metabolism. If you suspect that you do, you need to see a doctor for some hormone level tests which would clear things up and hopefully put you at ease. Even if you did, hypothyroidism is only responsible for about 15-20 or so extra pounds. The rest is from overeating.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA9AdlhB18o
Now struggling to hit 1200 is likely caused you switched from a high calorie low volume food to a low calorie high volume food. 250 calories of salad, for example, take up much more space in your stomach than a candy bar for the same calories. The way to remedy that is by introducing more low volume calories, like adding more oil to said salad, snacking on nuts, or even re-introducing some of you usual high calorie low volume foods into your diet.
Now there is also the possibility that you aren't logging things correctly. When you eyeball portions, or even when you use cups for measurements instead of a food scale, it has a very high margin of error and you could be eating more than you think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjKPIcI51lU&feature=youtu.be
Now if you are doing everything correctly but find that you aren't losing weight, or the weight lost is not what you expected, it's likely water fluctuations are holding you back. The body tends to retain water when you eat too much sodium, start a new exercise plan, eat a lot of carbs, or simply because your hormones feel like it. This water weight sometimes masks the actual loss. Here is my weight, recorded daily, for a couple of weeks.
Notice how my weight has a mind of its own and it goes up or down as it please. If I weighed myself once a week, and I chose Tuesdays as my weigh in days every week I would think that I somehow lost 2.5 kilos in one week (5.5 pounds) which is simply not physically possible. Now if Thursdays were my weigh in days, it would look as if I only lost 0.5 a kilo. My current week actually came out at slightly over a 2 pound loss worth of deficit because I was sick. If I believed that I only lost half a kilo I would start questioning why my metabolism isn't working and why my calculations are wrong.0 -
ElizabethOakes2 wrote: »I found once I started logging, it was a lot easier for me to see where my wasted calories were coming from and cut them out. Did I really need a half a cup of peanut butter in my oatmeal, etc. I treated it almost like a video game (still do, actually). What happens to my numbers if eat a an apple for an afternoon snack instead of a cookie? What happens if I eat half a cup of rice and an extra serving of salmon for dinner?
You can do this!
I'm new so I don't have expertise yet, but have found logging to be a huge help. I realize now that the problem was not what kind of foods I was eating--healthy foods, no junk--but I was waaayyy overdoing the portion sizes.
Anyway welcome to MFP. It's a great tool and a very supportive community.0 -
Don't overthink it. If you have entered your details into MFP and it gives you a number to aim for a day, just aim for that number. If you are 100 cals over or under a day it's no big deal. You don't need to weigh yourself everyday either. Just budget your eating to the MFP set target and you will lose weight.0
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amusedmonkey wrote: »vivmom2014 wrote: »You will lose weight without having to count calories. I have a calorie "goal" that shows up in MFP because of my goal weight, but I just don't pay attention to it.
This isn't good advice. Weight loss happens for one reason and one reason only: a calorie deficit.
While going super low carb may click with some people, it is not necessary for weight loss.
And your body doesn't need to "detox" from carbs.
Wow. Well glad to know that my success and the success of SO many people I know is so anecdotal for you. You keep on believing that and I will keep on keeping on. I only know that I average around 1600-1800 calories per day and have lost 42 pounds since July by following this "bad" advice. MFP tells me my calories should be at 1200 so obviously a "calorie deficit" isn't what is helping. A little research on a ketogenic diet will show you that it is used by doctors to control epilepsy and is being used to help with early onset Alzheimer's. It isn't some "fad" that just popped up.
Understand that you are not being attacked. Your diet is not being attacked. You have done so well on it, so obviously it's really working for you and that's a good thing. You have done well for yourself and worked hard to achieve your goals, so congratulations. 1600-1800 is still a calorie deficit. The 1200 MFP gives you is based on the goal you chose, so if you pick a less aggressive goal you would get a higher calorie allowance, plus additional calories for exercise.
What is being said that although this is a valid option that works beautifully for some people, it's not necessary for weight loss. For a beginner, the idea of giving up a wide array of foods may feel overwhelming, and the idea of being able to eat whatever you want as long as you successfully manage your calories could be liberating. When I first tried a ketogenic diet I did horribly on it. I felt deprived and miserable. Had I not turned to calorie counting I'm not sure where I would be today.
If later down the line, after gaining some confidence in her ability to stick to a diet, she decides to experiment with other dieting approaches and fine-tune her weight loss strategies, why not?
Well said. It seems like "Ketos" do get attacked a lot around here so I understand her defensiveness. I didn't read your post as an attack in any way though. Keto works for a lot of people, it wasn't good for me. We are individuals and we each have to find our own way. It makes me happy when we can share info, especially with newcomers, without the arguments and the "my way is the only way". There are a lot of ways to get there but calorie deficit is the basic premise.0 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »If I were you I would keep it simple. No hard rules. Just eat reasonable portions for a few days while logging as accurately as you can. Make sure you aren't too hungry or feeling like you are restricting too much. See what your calories end up at and judge your comfort level. It's not set in stone. Just pick a number based on your experience during these days and it will be a good comfortable number for you to follow as long as it's higher than 1200 and lower than 1800 or 1900.
My personal sweet spot is around 1450-1600, a level where I can comfortably eat but still lose weight. Keep in mind, the higher the calories the lower the loss, but it's your comfort level that matters. Even if you end up only losing 0.5 a pound a week you would still be at a much better place than attempting something too low and stressful with quicker loss then quit prematurely out of frustration and deprivation.
Great advice. I never thought of that. I am doing something similar to see what amount of food I can eat to lose the weight I want to lose without starving myself. That is a great way of putting it like you did.0 -
hey everyone first of all thank you for taking a look at my post. I am wanting to make a lifestyle change to lose some much-needed weight however I am feeling so overwhelmed I can't comprehend on where to get started. I currently weigh 205 and my goal is to drop to at least 150. My fitness pal says I should eat 1200 cal a day but someone mentioned to me that maybe I should be eating 1900 c per day. I'm nervous I'll make a mistake. Is there anyone that would be willing to take me under their wing for the first week or so while I get started?
Thank you
Whitney
Hi Whitney!- Start with your goal as 1 lb per week. This will make for an easier transition.
- Remember that MFP expects you to log your exercise and eat back the calories! I would suggest eating back half of them, as MFP can overestimate them.
- You don't have to eat anything specific, or avoid eating anything specific. That is all personal preference, which you will learn as you go. Lots of people are going to tell you what the magic diet is to lose weight, but there really is no "one right way" to eat. The people in this forum are proof of that!
- Start out just eating what you normally would and logging it for a few days. This will help you see where all your calories are going, and where you can tweak to get the most bang for your buck.
- This is not a race, and not a pass/fail test. If you eat more than you should have one day - no big deal - it happens to everyone. Just do better tomorrow.
- If you don't have one, get a food scale, and use it as often as possible. It's especially important in the beginning when your idea of a serving might not be accurate.
Good luck :drinker:
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Springfield1970 wrote: »To aim for a weight loss of 5lbs a week one would need a 17500 calorie deficit! Seeing as most people eat about 2000 a day you can see this wouldn't be a great idea. That's a 7 day fast with 3500 calories of exercise. About 7 hours of running.
I think you meant that people should aim for a 1-2lb loss a week, and if they are quite overweight they will see a water, food in system and glycogen weight drop which will taper off after a week or two
That's quite a different thing.
@Springfield1970 - That's why I say weight loss, not fat loss. The average heavy person can initially see 5 lbs a week of weight loss for the first several weeks. 1-3 lbs of that is fat loss each week.0 -
I just jumped back on, and I ran OP's stats. 28 years old female, 5'5" at 205.
BMR = 1801 (approx.), TDEE = 2162 (this is for sedentary/desk job), To Loose 4.2 pounds a month the calories came to 1621 calories a day.. which is a deficit of 25%, at 20% the calories are 1729.
OP can you elaborate by your last post to me regarding the struggling to eat the 1200 calories due to metabolic issues?
MFP may have given you 1200 to loose 2 pounds a week. So this would be inline with your goal.
However you do not have to loose it too aggressively if you do not want to, and if you are struggling with metabolic issues, then this may warrant a check up at the doctors office... Maybe a thyroid, insulin resistant, etc..or something else may be going on.
Walking, getting a bit more active, somehow will help rev up your metabolism and also learning to eat the caloric needs you need everyday to meet your daily nutrition, Metabolic syndrome or issues in general are things that must be addressed by a physician and looked for an underlying cause.
One more question, how do you know you are not meeting the 1200 calories per day? Have you been calculating caloric intake using an other method?
Can you come back and give some back story on this so I can further look at it..0
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