MFP doesn't work.

1235789

Replies

  • jpommerening
    jpommerening Posts: 1 Member
    1200 calories is not much food... what kinds of food are you eating? If you are seriously limiting yourself to only 1200 a day and not eating back some of your exercise calories, your body may be storing what it is offered because the body needs certain amounts of food to turn into ATP (energy) to keep the body functioning and to have energy to burn fat. it is is not getting protein rich foods with good fats and good carbs, it is going to hold on to what ever you have to offer it to use for energy to function.

    my advise.... INCREASE your calories to 1600, and eat good proteins and good fats and then see what happens. feed your body energy rich food so it can work with you not against you.

    ALSO... allow your self one day a week to splurge and boil over your calories. It gives you the change to not suppress your cravings, but it also gives your metabolism a boost and tricks your body. Holding at only 1200 calories your body starts to think it is starving itself and by splurging once a week I realizes it is not. And the good thing is, after you eat the craving foods and junk the first couple cheat days... you will see that you don't crave it near as much and it kinda makes you feel bogged down and you don't want it.

    I have a medical background, a fitness and nutrition instructor... so I am not just talking out of my *kitten*... :)
  • Ming1951
    Ming1951 Posts: 514 Member
    bethgirl54 wrote: »
    I am 57 also and weigh about the same. It is difficult to lose weight as you get older and I know how frustrated you are because I am too! On one hand I don"t want to be obsessed with my diet because I do have a life, but on the other hand I don't like being over weight. It's hard for me to lose weight even at 1200 calories per day. I've tried paleo, which I do feel really good on but I actually gained 2 pounds! Just know you're not alone :) I'm not going to quit though and I think you do have to be very patient. There is no way I can eat under 1200 calories a day...I would literally be in jail.

    I'm 65. I've been on mfp since Sept 2016 and have lost 59 lbs to date. Right now its slowed way down but there are also days I just don't exercise at all or do walk but don't work up a sweat. So mfp works. I am also a daily weigher.. who eats 1200 calories a day I see a pattern to my weight loss, there may be times I don't lose, times I gain a pound or two then its gone again. It goes up and down but at some point it stays gone. For instance this week I lost 1.9 lbs then gained it back then lost then gained but I know by next week the drop will happen again only this time it stays gone then the pattern continues. I pretty much eat what I want now I just stay within my calories. Lately I crave pretzels so I have them but they do make me gain or stay the same because of the salt. But I just can't have carrots everyday as my snack, lol. Some days I eat almonds I like the cinnamon roasted but I over eat them because I like the sweetness too much so not buying those anymore. You will lose the weight you have to be diligent about weighing your food. No eyeballing. Good luck and hey if you can't handle this of course go back and do ww. We all must do whatever to help ourselves.
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
    VintageFeline wrote: »
    RuNaRoUnDaFiEld wrote: »
    jpommerening wrote: »
    1200 calories is not much food... what kinds of food are you eating? If you are seriously limiting yourself to only 1200 a day and not eating back some of your exercise calories, your body may be storing what it is offered because the body needs certain amounts of food to turn into ATP (energy) to keep the body functioning and to have energy to burn fat. it is is not getting protein rich foods with good fats and good carbs, it is going to hold on to what ever you have to offer it to use for energy to function.

    my advise.... INCREASE your calories to 1600, and eat good proteins and good fats and then see what happens. feed your body energy rich food so it can work with you not against you.

    ALSO... allow your self one day a week to splurge and boil over your calories. It gives you the change to not suppress your cravings, but it also gives your metabolism a boost and tricks your body. Holding at only 1200 calories your body starts to think it is starving itself and by splurging once a week I realizes it is not. And the good thing is, after you eat the craving foods and junk the first couple cheat days... you will see that you don't crave it near as much and it kinda makes you feel bogged down and you don't want it.

    I have a medical background, a fitness and nutrition instructor... so I am not just talking out of my *kitten*... :)

    Most of this is incorrect so I am very surprised that you are a nutrition instructor.

    I'm not, I have a "nutrition coach" on my FB. She sells Arbonne. 'Nuff said.

    Yeah, I'm not surprised either. But I guess nothing surprises me when it comes to BS diet info anymore.
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
    IWillBeHeatlhy wrote: »
    I think this post was a troll for Weight Watchers. No other interaction and no response. WW is losing people right and left because they are starving them. Their Smart Points (new program) averages about 800-1000 calories a day. Not healthy, not sustainable, not a life-style choice. The "new" plan is a retro diet proven not to work at those low calories because it's not sustainable in the long run and they push things most thinking people know are bad for you: artificial sweeteners, pre-packaged/highly processed food (theirs), diet sodas, etc. They also assign extremely high points values to foods most of us would consider normal and healthy parts of a balanced, clean diet.

    There are a lot of ex-WW people on here who have smartened up about the new program. Likely, MFP is hurting WW because MFP is free and supportive (and even VERY inexpensive if you pay for the premium membership), it's interface and dashboard are a lot friendlier, they keep all your data forever so you can always look back (even with a membership WW's diary info goes away after a couple of months), and it isn't $50 a month plus special foods.

    Wish I hadn't bothered with a response to her. Oh well. Got to read all of YOUR interesting comments! :)

    Ooh, plot twist!
  • CandyLizCaldwell
    CandyLizCaldwell Posts: 9 Member
    It's a tool. A tool depends on how you use it.
  • RuNaRoUnDaFiEld
    RuNaRoUnDaFiEld Posts: 5,864 Member
    VintageFeline wrote: »
    RuNaRoUnDaFiEld wrote: »
    jpommerening wrote: »
    1200 calories is not much food... what kinds of food are you eating? If you are seriously limiting yourself to only 1200 a day and not eating back some of your exercise calories, your body may be storing what it is offered because the body needs certain amounts of food to turn into ATP (energy) to keep the body functioning and to have energy to burn fat. it is is not getting protein rich foods with good fats and good carbs, it is going to hold on to what ever you have to offer it to use for energy to function.

    my advise.... INCREASE your calories to 1600, and eat good proteins and good fats and then see what happens. feed your body energy rich food so it can work with you not against you.

    ALSO... allow your self one day a week to splurge and boil over your calories. It gives you the change to not suppress your cravings, but it also gives your metabolism a boost and tricks your body. Holding at only 1200 calories your body starts to think it is starving itself and by splurging once a week I realizes it is not. And the good thing is, after you eat the craving foods and junk the first couple cheat days... you will see that you don't crave it near as much and it kinda makes you feel bogged down and you don't want it.

    I have a medical background, a fitness and nutrition instructor... so I am not just talking out of my *kitten*... :)

    Most of this is incorrect so I am very surprised that you are a nutrition instructor.

    I'm not, I have a "nutrition coach" on my FB. She sells Arbonne. 'Nuff said.

    Scary!
  • CandyLizCaldwell
    CandyLizCaldwell Posts: 9 Member
    IWillBeHeatlhy wrote: »
    I think this post was a troll for Weight Watchers. No other interaction and no response. WW is losing people right and left because they are starving them. Their Smart Points (new program) averages about 800-1000 calories a day. Not healthy, not sustainable, not a life-style choice. The "new" plan is a retro diet proven not to work at those low calories because it's not sustainable in the long run and they push things most thinking people know are bad for you: artificial sweeteners, pre-packaged/highly processed food (theirs), diet sodas, etc. They also assign extremely high points values to foods most of us would consider normal and healthy parts of a balanced, clean diet.

    There are a lot of ex-WW people on here who have smartened up about the new program. Likely, MFP is hurting WW because MFP is free and supportive (and even VERY inexpensive if you pay for the premium membership), it's interface and dashboard are a lot friendlier, they keep all your data forever so you can always look back (even with a membership WW's diary info goes away after a couple of months), and it isn't $50 a month plus special foods.

    Wish I hadn't bothered with a response to her. Oh well. Got to read all of YOUR interesting comments! :)

    I'm experimenting with WW (it's not for me) but the part about starving isn't correct.

    I plug everything that I eat into WW and I get only about 32 to 40 smart points when my limit is 59.

    Mind you, I eat a 1500 to 1700 calorie diet.
  • Hearts_2015
    Hearts_2015 Posts: 12,031 Member
    PaulaWallaDingDong wrote: »
    cerise_noir wrote: »
    I had thought that... Who complains about wasting time on trying a free app? So weird.

    "...when I could have paid someone to tell me that my diet is dirty and wrong which is why I'll always fail and need to keep paying them to keep giving me help that won't work."

    I had doubts about the original post, but now this has me really thinking...

    That was part of her post? Or is that something you're writing?
  • ActivatedAlm0nds
    ActivatedAlm0nds Posts: 169 Member
    Weight Watchers is 50 a month? That's insane! No wonder people think it's impossible to lose.
  • rosebarnalice
    rosebarnalice Posts: 3,488 Member
    Worked for me! I'm 56 and went from 225 to 170 in about 8 months, and have kept it off for more than a year.
  • Nikion901
    Nikion901 Posts: 2,467 Member
    edited February 2017
    MEBaraszu wrote: »
    I am not going a calorie over. Extremely diligent. Not losing a pound in over 3 weeks. Angry I wasted time on a free program.

    All I can add is ... MFP is an assistive application ... just like when you logged your food into your Weight Watchers paper or online food diary. It is YOU who makes it work, not the other way around. IF you were losing 1 to 1.5 pounds each and every week on WW then you were eating-less/burning-up more about 500- 750 calories a day than your current body size needed to keep it that way. (consisitent calorie deficit is what it takes to lose weight.)

    Here's a suggestion ... Pull out/up one of your WW logs for a week and eat exactly the same, this time logging it as accurately as possible into MFP and see how many calories you are REALLY eating ... Cause that is what I did and it was a real eye opener for me. As a matter of fact, when I find 'the creep' of more food happening to me, I still pull out my old-time WW guidelines for meal plans ... back in the days I was a member it was you had to eat fish two times a week, liver one time a month, fill up on cabbage soup, etc.

  • FitGirl_Running
    FitGirl_Running Posts: 12 Member
    You are right. MFP doesn't work. Oh, you can lose weight using MFP, but your chances of keeping the weight off are slim. I've been on MFP for years. I've had significant weight loss but gained it all back. All my MFP friends have either gained their weight back or are still struggling along trying to lose. Until I realized that diets don't work, and that making weight loss a goal doesn't work, I didn't have any real success. Those of you who want to say that you lost weight on MFP so it does work---it doesn't work unless you keep the weight off, so show me someone who has. I'll bet they are few and far between. Focusing on weight loss, counting calories, and dieting is just a recipe for disaster.

Categories