Goal Weight & Process To Get There!

Welcome!

I basically follow CICO (most of us here do) and eat less calories than my body needs to maintain its current weight.
I eat what I like (Yes, have my treats) but stay within my daily calories as there are no such thing as bad/fattening foods or macros. I eat an equal-ish % of fats carbs an protein. The biggest most successful tool in my weight loss has been the food scale. Everything that is solid or semi solid gets weighed, so I only use cup measurements for true liquids. The scale ensures I have the most accurate calorie count for the foods that I weigh (I also match the nutrition info of the food packaging to the database entries here on MFP...)beware of fake BS entries, there are a lot.) Cups and spoons for solids and semi solids (even butter, peanut butter, etc) are notoriously inaccurate and can easily add an extra 100-200 calories since most semi solid foods are very high calorie...so use the food scale.

So weight loss boils down to eating less calories than your maintenance calories.

Set up your MFP fitness/diet profile accurately and eat those calories. If you happen to add exercise calories, eat back 50% of those added calories (the exercise calories here are very, very (read: waaaaay to generous). MFP is designed so that you can eat your exercise calories.

TL;DR Eat what you like, weigh your food, stay at the calories that MFP has set you.

Considering you have only 30ish lbs to lose, chose to lose .5-1lb per week to prevent burnout and hangriness.

Congrats on your new baby!

I'm 5'4" 46 yo female. Starting weight was 183, cw is 158, goal weight keeps changing. I am doing 10% body weight loss at a time. It is less intimidating. So I reached my first goal, now on my 2nd goal which is 145. That will get me in the upper end of healthy BMI range as well as being the 2nd 10% loss. I will go for 10% again after 145#.

I exercise between 3 and 5 times a week. If I mow the lawn or go crazy house cleaning I count that as aerobic activity. For activities not listed on MFP might want to try www.acaloirecalculator.com/calories-burned/calculator/ Sorry, don't know how to hyperlink that. Like the previous poster mentioned, it is pretty generous with calories burned. I do alternate days doing aerobic and bodyweight excercises.

Log everything. It was really hard for me to be honest with that. LOL, when I first started it took me 5 days to enter the 2 glazed donuts I ate. Logging gets easier. Follow the calorie goal. Make small changes, don't try to change everything at once, it is way too overwhelming and you will set yourself up for failure. You aren't dieting, you are converting to a more healthy lifestyle, just in time to be an example to your new addition!

Read MFP success stories and tips in Community. Super inspiring.

Good luck!

Rebekah_Washington wrote: »

cerise_noir wrote: »

Welcome!

I basically follow CICO (most of us here do) and eat less calories than my body needs to maintain its current weight.
I eat what I like (Yes, have my treats) but stay within my daily calories as there are no such thing as bad/fattening foods or macros. I eat an equal-ish % of fats carbs an protein. The biggest most successful tool in my weight loss has been the food scale. Everything that is solid or semi solid gets weighed, so I only use cup measurements for true liquids. The scale ensures I have the most accurate calorie count for the foods that I weigh (I also match the nutrition info of the food packaging to the database entries here on MFP...)beware of fake BS entries, there are a lot.) Cups and spoons for solids and semi solids (even butter, peanut butter, etc) are notoriously inaccurate and can easily add an extra 100-200 calories since most semi solid foods are very high calorie...so use the food scale.

So weight loss boils down to eating less calories than your maintenance calories.

Set up your MFP fitness/diet profile accurately and eat those calories. If you happen to add exercise calories, eat back 50% of those added calories (the exercise calories here are very, very (read: waaaaay to generous). MFP is designed so that you can eat your exercise calories.

TL;DR Eat what you like, weigh your food, stay at the calories that MFP has set you.

Considering you have only 30ish lbs to lose, chose to lose .5-1lb per week to prevent burnout and hangriness.

I'm so confused on the weighing food part. I actually put the food on a food scale? Or weighing as in calories? I actually just thought to eat healthy (salads, less salad dressing, no bread or heavy carbs, and try to stay away from sweets) and exercise would guarantee weight loss.

As @cerise_noir said above, you can eat anything, it is how much you eat that matters. Put your info into MFP with how much you wish to lose. Under 50 lbs .5-1 lbs a week, over 50 lbs 1.5-2 lbs a week, roughly.
Buy yourself a digital food scale and weigh everything. Nutritionally high foods will keep you satiated longer, but make gradual changes to your diet so you don't get overwhelmed.

As far as exercise, walking is the best way to start. Up your speed and distance then maybe look at doing one of the couch to 5km programmes offered on line. YouTube has lots of exercise videos you can follow at home too.

It is worth noting. A calorie deficit is all you need to lose weight. Exercise is mainly for health, but can contribute towards weight loss.

Cheers, h.

Rebekah_Washington wrote: »

cerise_noir wrote: »

Welcome!

I basically follow CICO (most of us here do) and eat less calories than my body needs to maintain its current weight.
I eat what I like (Yes, have my treats) but stay within my daily calories as there are no such thing as bad/fattening foods or macros. I eat an equal-ish % of fats carbs an protein. The biggest most successful tool in my weight loss has been the food scale. Everything that is solid or semi solid gets weighed, so I only use cup measurements for true liquids. The scale ensures I have the most accurate calorie count for the foods that I weigh (I also match the nutrition info of the food packaging to the database entries here on MFP...)beware of fake BS entries, there are a lot.) Cups and spoons for solids and semi solids (even butter, peanut butter, etc) are notoriously inaccurate and can easily add an extra 100-200 calories since most semi solid foods are very high calorie...so use the food scale.

So weight loss boils down to eating less calories than your maintenance calories.

Set up your MFP fitness/diet profile accurately and eat those calories. If you happen to add exercise calories, eat back 50% of those added calories (the exercise calories here are very, very (read: waaaaay to generous). MFP is designed so that you can eat your exercise calories.

TL;DR Eat what you like, weigh your food, stay at the calories that MFP has set you.

Considering you have only 30ish lbs to lose, chose to lose .5-1lb per week to prevent burnout and hangriness.

I'm so confused on the weighing food part. I actually put the food on a food scale? Or weighing as in calories? I actually just thought to eat healthy (salads, less salad dressing, no bread or heavy carbs, and try to stay away from sweets) and exercise would guarantee weight loss.

@Rebekah_Washington
Yes, you put the food amount that you want to eat on the food scale, then search the food database for that food and enter the exact amount of grams. The database should tell you how many calories, fat, carbs, protein (as well as vitamins and minerals) that particular amount of food has.

By the way, scanning food products does not ensure accuracy. All scanning does is take you directly to an added food in the database, and even those can be very inaccurate. Weigh your foods, considering you have so little to lose. Anyone with less than 50lbs to lose MUST weigh food without a doubt to ensure accurate calorie counting and weight loss.


No need to cut foods out... restricting SUCKS!! Restricting always made me fail time and time again in the past. Just to give you an idea, I haven't cut any food out and I've lost over 80lbs. I ate sweets...anything I like, however, I make sure to hit my protein and fat goalls. When I ate 'healthy' 'clean' vegetarian diet, I gained a LOT of weight and didn't lose even half a pound. So no, eating clean and healthy does not equal weight loss. Here is my personal proof that you don't need to eat healthy/clean http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10390604/84lbs-down-more-than-half-way-there A calorie is a calorie is a calorie... it's science. Calorie is a measurement of energy and food is energy. There are no bad foods, seriously. Most will tell you that here, and those are the ones that have been successful. I'm not trying to lie to you...I really did lose over 80lbs including sugar in my diet. Serious. Don't listen to anyone that tells you that you HAVE to absolutely without a doubt eat healthy to lose weight. It's BS. I would have given up 70lbs ago if I had to restrict so much.

I also weigh bread slices, tortillas and eggs on the scale as not all eggs/slices are the exact same weight so they vary in calories.

I forgot to answer your exercise question. Exercise isn't necessary for weight loss. I do it for cardiovascular health and general well being. I do a combination of couch2 5k, kickboxing, strongcurves and DDP yoga.

Congrats on the new baby, Momma!! I am 5'1 SW 148 CW 135 GW 112? I'm short and small end of medium on bone structure, but I have never been that small as an adult so I may reassess when I get there;) I am eating around 1200 calories in an intermittent fasting window of 2p-8p most days (I drink chai tea with one creamer a few times during my fasted mornings which usually are 30-40 calories), ride my exercise bike for 45-60min most days and eat whatever I want within my cals:)