Tell me it gets easier!

arnnanz
arnnanz Posts: 34 Member
edited November 2024 in Motivation and Support
This is going to sound bad, but it’s my third time on MFP and I think this is probably the first time I’ve managed to stay under my calories for two days in a row. I’ve spent months on here before without seriously losing much weight and just watching that bar go into the red every day.( what a waste). I am just struggling so much! 36 F with 30lb to use. 1480 a day. Eating all my exercise calories back. Does it get easier?? How did you develop this discipline?

Replies

  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    Prelog what you plan to eat and see if you go into the red, if you do then tweak your portions or swap sone food for lower cal alternatives.

    Also check your rate of loss. You should be aiming for 1lb per week given your stats.
  • arnnanz
    arnnanz Posts: 34 Member
    edited January 2018
    TavistockToad wrote: »
    Prelog what you plan to eat and see if you go into the red, if you do then tweak your portions or swap sone food for lower cal alternatives.

    Also check your rate of loss. You should be aiming for 1lb per week given your stats.

    I love this idea and sometimes do it, but always ignore it and go with “what I feel like” in the moment instead. I’m so obsessed with cooking and food! And way too impulsive...

    I do have a rate of 1lb a week thanks :)
  • SDpanda619
    SDpanda619 Posts: 41 Member
    What’s you’re training routine looking like? I’m 41 and for the last 5 years or so my diet is not enough
  • pamfgil
    pamfgil Posts: 449 Member
    You need to figure out what works for you, do you do better in higher protein, what happens to your appetite when you eat sugar, start experimenting with recipes that help you meet your calorie goal, do you have room to up your veggies intake etc.
  • RuNaRoUnDaFiEld
    RuNaRoUnDaFiEld Posts: 5,864 Member
    What makes you choose something different from what you have logged?

  • amc2509
    amc2509 Posts: 219 Member
    Machka9 wrote: »
    arnnanz wrote: »
    This is going to sound bad, but it’s my third time on MFP and I think this is probably the first time I’ve managed to stay under my calories for two days in a row.

    I made it my mission to stay under my calories every single day for 16 weeks. There was nothing that was going to make me go over.

    A few things that helped ...

    I spent some time browsing through grocery stores to find low calorie but tasty food.
    I ate pretty much the same thing every weekday until dinner ... dinners were different.
    So, of course, I prelogged what I planned to eat ... except dinner, dinners depended on what I felt like eating and how many calories I had.

    Exercise did give me more calories. I ate about 50% of my exercise calories back if I were just doing something pretty light, like an hour's walk. I ate about 75% of my exercise calories back if I were doing something moderate, like a 3-hour bicycle ride. I ate about 95% of my exercise calories back if I were doing a lot of exercise, like a 6 hour bicycle ride.

    That helped because I did a lot of exercise on the weekends so we could get pizza or fish and chips or go out for Indian food or something.

    Any time I felt the urge to eat something "special", I told myself it could wait till the weekend ... and often the weekend would come and by then I would have forgotten about it. Sometimes I really did want it, and so I fit it into my calories.

    It was kind of like a game of strategy. :grin:

    I really like this! So I am making a promise to myself to do this for the next 4 weeks! Hopefully by then it will be a habit and I will continue!
  • fuzzy_l0gic
    fuzzy_l0gic Posts: 69 Member
    I do something similar to @Machka9 with food. I have the same breakfast and lunch everyday. That gives me a little more freedom come dinner time. I’ll do that for 4 weeks, then change things up so I don’t get bored.
    For example, right now my breakfast is 2 packs of Maple Brown Sugar oatmeal and my lunch is 1 peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Obviously, I have different calorie requirements, I’m a guy. But just wanted to give you an idea.
  • 88olds
    88olds Posts: 4,543 Member
    It does get easier. I was another person prowling the grocery store looking for new things to fit in. Trying to get more volume, modify my high calorie favorites, or treats that wouldn’t break the calorie bank. It was gamelike, a puzzle.

    Just keep tracking.

    And beware of this. There’s a huge difference between not losing and not losing much. When you lose zero for about a month, it’s time to face the music and cut some calories.

    But not losing much is a judgment about how you’re doing. I read this board a lot. And everyday people here wreck their own efforts over the time it takes to lose weight and keep it off. Is that you? Not recognizing our own success is a fatal WL flaw. A program that isn’t working and a program that isn’t working as well as hoped or expected are not the same.
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