Is it best to eat as much as you can?

AngelinaB_ · August 2017

teags84mfp wrote: »

Thank you sak20011. I agree, a huge part of my dilemma is learning to love myself and feel deserving of good nourishment and just taking good care of my body.

Ive always had a poor body image. I think getting some help from a professional will help. I think its going to take a lot of self love to go forward with this and get to a good place mentally and emotionally. I have to love myself at any weight. It really is a big mental hurdle for me. I realise that I need to fix my way of thinking, and then hopefully a healthy life will follow. I have been punishing myself unecessarily and hurting my self for too long.

Don't beat yourself too much about this. It is very common situation in our society and most of all suffer from bad relationships with food, poor body image etc. including yours truly. My advice to you is that to take it easy, and start baby steps at a time. You don't need to be perfect to lose weight, if anyone did, nobody in the history of men would have lost a grm lol. Neither the diet has to be perfect. You will have some days better than others. And that's perfectly fine.

Why don't you start slow... I like the idea that was suggested to start with a maintenance weight goal, seems easy enough. And also, identify "trigger" foods, for example, mine is white bread, breads in general, so I limit them almost to zero. How I do that, well, I limit myself the time when it's ok to eat it. I try not to eat snacks, have two small meals a day and one more substantial. I eat chocolates and what not, as long as they fit into my daily calorie goal, and do it only at one meal, not everyday etc... those little rules that you set yourself, tiny rules, could be anything, will drive you to bigger victories. For example, I have found out that eating very little several times a day doesn't work for me because I am always hungry and thinking about food obsessively. So I eat 3 reg meals no snacking. I do eat less the time of the day I am less hungry and save the calories for when I know I get more hungry. You have to be studious of yourself, your habits, your working schedule, what foods you like, what you eat too much that you should avoid, what time of the day you get hungrier... and then when you have that ball rolling, if you want concentrate on yor macros. I personally find it hard to stick to the macros level, but I try. It's the most I can do. I concentrate most on stay on my daily calories. 1000 cals is too little you have to set a much more doable number. The trick is too do this for a number of years so your weigh sets on lower ranges. It works, but stay on that habit change for years is the challenge. Totally doable tho. Good luck, this forum and this app helps.

Short answer: Is best to eat as much as you can? Yes, it is, within range and moderation...

__TMac__ · August 2017

teags84mfp wrote: »

yirara wrote: »

Have you looked at reverse dieting? Maybe that's a way for you to stay on track... You enter your goal weight into MFP and set it to maintain weight. MFP then gives you the calories you could eat once you've reached your goal weight. Of course you'll lose weight as you're eating less than your body needs at this moment. The advantage is that you won't see the 5 week projection at the end. Well, it's still there but it will always give you the same weight if you eat all your calories.

And yes, do go to your GP and talk about this!

Thank you for the suggestion. So just to clarify, plug in to maintain my current weight? That leaves me with 2130cals. Wow, can I really lose weight eating that amount? How much can I expect to lose a week eating at maintenace calories with being slightly active?

I think what this poster was saying was to plug your GOAL weight in and then choose maintenance. Then, if you want to track your weight progress in the app, switch back to your current weight and edit your calories to match that first number. It'll give you slightly fewer calories than you need right now, so you'll lose. It will be slow, but it'll be your forever calorie goal, which can be comforting. That'll be your baseline. Any exercise you do will earn you additional calories each day or, if you choose, week.

Good luck!

fiercefit76 · August 2017

Your story sounds a lot like mine, although I've been yoyo dieting for 15 years. My approach this go round is, I set my calories on my fitness pal to maintenance and my activity to sedentary. I exercise about 30-45 minutes a day by walking or lifting weights. But I do not eat my exercise calories, just my maintenance calories. Doing this my average deficit is about 400-500 calories. My body is responding well to this and although I'm hungry I'm not as hungry as I would be if I was eating 1200. Right now I'm eating 1720 cals, and I finally feel like this is something I can do long term. Every 12 weeks I plan on taking a diet break for 2 weeks where I eat my maintenance cals (including exercise cals) back just to give my body a rest. Im finally feeling like I'm doing the right thing for my body and treating it with the kindness it deserves and it feels like I'm in control again. Don't be afraid to eat more calories. Give it a try, what have you got to lose?!

I want to add I have my weight set at what it is now. I'm 4'10, 174 and mfp gives me 1720. I think with every 5 lbs lost, it'll go down by 30 cals. But even at my lowest weight I still will never eat less than like 1300. It's working though! I started out at 187.

Need2Exerc1se · August 2017

teags84mfp wrote: »

Hello all

So this is my first post here. I have been reading up a lot on these forums for a few weeks and I must say, I am really learning so much about the mechanics of weight loss and more importantly keeping it off.

So long story short, I lost 32 kgs last year which took me only 7 months. I was not calorie counting but developed a rather bad relationship with food. I was really motivated by the huge amounts I was losing each day, but eating very very little to sustain the loss. Basically when I look at my diet at my lowest weight, I was eating far below 1000 cals for sure. I knew it wasnt right and my health suffered-huge amount of hair loss and feeling faint and dizzy.

One day I went on an ultimate binge, which triggered a non stop binge/restrict cycle, that i have been in for nearly a year now. I have gained back 15kgs and I am so sad. My body was screaming for me to eat and I did-too much. I have tried to get back to it, losing a few kgs only to gain them back again by being too restrictive. I am in a very self desructive pattern that I cant seem to escape and am scared I will never get a grip on this.

I want to lose this weight fast, but the smart part of my brain is saying "no, this has to take time, you need to eat more while losing weight so that you can keep it off forever". I dont want to eat low carb- been there done that and it works while I am losing weight but obviously does not work for me long term. Since i was 18 i have lost and gained 20kgs plus about 5 times. This time I want it to be forever.

My question is, is the trick for permanent weight loss really as simple to eat just 500 cals under my TEED, eat whatever i want, without fear of carbs, feel full and lose weight at a slower rate? And my cals will drop as I lose weight, but not so far so that when i reach maintenance I am barely able to eat anything without putting on weight, is that correct?

I am 83kgs, female and 163cms. I would like to get to 68 kgs like i was last year- high end of healthy BMI. I have worked out that i need to eat about 1700cals plus exercise on top of that to lose 500gms a week, so 1500 cals after exercise- I hope this is right My apologies for people not familiar with the metric system.

Thank you all to those who have read my first post. I am just wanting reassurance that I am going about this the right and sensible way xx

Yes, it really is as easy as the bolded section above.

Is it best to eat as much as you can?

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