You folks scare me...

mbminx wrote: »

Everyone here seems so gung-ho about everything. Weighing and measuring down to the last crumb of food, working out for hours - it's all too much!

Yes, I want to make changes. Yes, I want to lose weight. Yes, I (eventually) want to start exercising. But I don't want to lose my mind over it all!

I'm prone to obsession, and a few times have found myself on the edge of an eating disorder. I really have concerns that if I start weighing every single drop of everything, I am going to tip over into something really unhealthy. I'm happy to work with my measuring cups and spoons, but taking everything to the gram is just a bit much to me.

Is there any hope for me? I'm keeping the food diary, and I am measuring ingredients and portions. Some days succeeding better than others, but holding a decent average. I'm more interested in healthy balanced eating than in micromanaging down to the last calorie. Any improvement is a big change.

But seriously - is anyone here NOT viciously rigid, but still having success? I've just been lurking, but I don't see a lot of people who take a more relaxed view - there's a lot of pressure to be all in.

I know that community can be helpful when making huge lifestyle changes... I just can't decide if I should try to fit in here.

Any advice, suggestions, similar experiences?
Thank you.

Haven't read the thread yet, so apologies if this has been addressed but here's my n=1 experience:

When I started on MFP, I was more relaxed. I used measuring cups for solids, my major contribution to exercise was getting away from the computer and out for a walk for at least 25 minutes every day. The one day a week when I did grocery shopping (2 hours on foot round-trip and I'd been doing it at my heaviest, too) I committed to not wiping out the calories burned by 'rewarding' myself with an ice cream treat or something from the bakery. I didn't care about hitting my macros, I just focused on being within my calories and mostly used my scale for recipes that called for "8 oz of carrots, 2 lbs of potatoes, etc).

And the weight came off.

Little by little, I took more on. I started focusing on hitting protein. I got some blood-work results that showed my iron at borderline low so started focusing on my iron RDA.

I'd probably been doing MFP for a good 4-6 months before I started weighing most solid foods.

And I found I had more energy and s-l-o-w-l-y increased the length of my walks and added some strength training. To this day, I don't lift heavy. I don't belong to a gym and don't have a reliable spotter. But I've been increasing the weights of my dumbbells. Just put in an order yesterday for a pair of 17.5lb-ers.

When you have a lot to lose, precision isn't as important. It becomes more important as you get closer to goal. Back when I was using measuring cups more, I said that if my weight-loss hit a stall, using the scale to tighten up my logging would be the first fix I'd try. What actually happened was that out of curiosity, I stuck my cup of seedless grapes on the scale and realized that the weight of "grapes, 1 cup" in the MFP database was just slightly over half the weight on my scale. Got me wondering how many other inaccuracies were creeping in. At first, I just weighed my fruits and veggies as I cobbled together meals. Eventually, I started doing it for recipes, too. I'm usually googling "How many grams to one cup dry couscous?" But that was after I'd been on MFP for months.

Start small. Figure out what you can handle and add more when you're ready. And for now, think of the rest as 'advanced stuff, to re-examine if your loss slows/stalls'.

It's amazing how writing down what you have eaten psychologically keeps you focused on weight maintenance! I can't explain it: it just works!

I approach it like a video game. It is sort of fun keeping track and using the reports graphs available... I also weight every morning to make sure I am not gaining... I guess that could be a tad rigid.