Help me Please!

WilliamVE
WilliamVE Posts: 31 Member
edited November 24 in Motivation and Support
Hey guys ihave 7 months to lose weight and I need your help. Currently I weigh 186.5lbs and am around 5 foot. My ideal goal is to lose 20 pounds. My whole family is fat and they are constantly eating junk food. I am trying to help change but they don't want a change. When I try and eat healthy I eat a lot of rice. I know rice isn't that healthy but I just think to myself that it's better then chips. So what I need help with is a diet and maybe a better workout plan. We have a home gym downstairs with a Smith machine and everything so weights and cardio isn't a problem I have access to them. I can also access most foods. I have attempted to lose weight before and lost 15lbs but later after I thought that it would stay off I gained about 25lbs back. I need motivation. I want to know what it feels like to be skinny :(.

I just wanna be normal.

-William

Replies

  • Marilyn0924
    Marilyn0924 Posts: 797 Member
    There is nothing wrong with eating rice.

    The key to losing weight is to eat less than your body burns. Strength training helps maintain muscle mass, and also aids in burning fat.

    Take a peek at the stickied posts in the forum for great advice on getting started.
    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10300331/most-helpful-posts-getting-started-must-reads#latest
  • colingrace08
    colingrace08 Posts: 11 Member
    To echo the last comment. Eating rice is not unhealthy. You want to eat in a calorie deficit. Focus on eating around 2050 calories a day with a strength workout plan and you should see weight loss. Hope this helps.
  • WilliamVE
    WilliamVE Posts: 31 Member
    Marilyn0924 wrote: »
    There is nothing wrong with eating rice.

    The key to losing weight is to eat less than your body burns. Strength training helps maintain muscle mass, and also aids in burning fat.

    Take a peek at the stickied posts in the forum for great advice on getting started.
    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10300331/most-helpful-posts-getting-started-must-reads#latest

    I just need help making a diet plan like what to eat. And a workout plan.
  • Marilyn0924
    Marilyn0924 Posts: 797 Member
    Eat what you like, just keeping it within your daily allotment of calories. You don't need to overthink it.
    Use a digital food scale for solids/semi-solids, measure all liquids...use accurate entries in the MFP database.
    As for exercise, if you want to start a strength training program, try a program such as stronglifts.
    Read the sticky posts I mentioned. It outlines more of this in detail.
    Ultimately, this will come down to what works best for you and not what someone else tells you to do.
  • alicebhsia
    alicebhsia Posts: 178 Member
    Someone on here wrote about their success with the DASH diet so I got a copy of the book and am trying it. Doing good so far. Maybe you could look into it. There is definitely room for rice on it. There's some sample menus online if you look it up.
  • jennifer_417
    jennifer_417 Posts: 12,344 Member
    WilliamVE wrote: »
    Marilyn0924 wrote: »
    There is nothing wrong with eating rice.

    The key to losing weight is to eat less than your body burns. Strength training helps maintain muscle mass, and also aids in burning fat.

    Take a peek at the stickied posts in the forum for great advice on getting started.
    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10300331/most-helpful-posts-getting-started-must-reads#latest

    I just need help making a diet plan like what to eat. And a workout plan.

    The thing with calorie restriction is that you can eat literally anything you want, as long as you don't go over your calorie goal. Nothing is off the menu.
    As for working out, try different things until you find something you enjoy...that'll make you roughly a billion percent more likely to stick with it.
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    You have the rest of your life to keep the weight off, so why a deadline to lose it? What happens if you don't make it? You can't control your weight directly. But you can control your food intake, and if you consistently eat less, you lose weight. You can eat what you want. You can only eat less for the rest of your life, if you eat what you like. What do you want to eat? Surely you don't want to just eat rice or chips? You don't need motivation - not as it's used, like a buzzword - not a diet plan, or exercise plan, you need to eat a varied and balanced diet, and move more.

    I really struggle to believe anyone can be so helpless and confused. But I've seen it many times before. Sometimes people are just too scared to think straight, sometimes they've been raised on fast food, sometimes it's just a need for good taste and convenience that has turned into bad habits. We can help if we get some more background information, it's no good making things more complicated than they have to be, or give advice that is impossible to follow. So, what have you been eating growing up? What does normal food mean to you? Do you have any concept of proper meals? Can you cook?
  • macniak
    macniak Posts: 1 Member
    I’m just beginning my journey as well even though I’m already at a healthy weight, I’m just trying to be healthier. I also started using the Strong Lifts app. I do Strong Lifts every other day and 30 minutes of cardio the other days.

    Like to comments above, losing weight is all about calories in vs. calories put. You can literally lose weight eating nothing but junk as long as you have a calorie deficit at the end of the day (http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html). But your body’s composition depends on the type of calories you put into it. I look at other MFP user’s daily logs to get ideas for foods to try that are healthy and have a good macro ratio, when I need ideas.

    It will be really hard since your family doesn’t share the same lifestyle change but stick to it. Don’t look at it as a diet with an end date but a new way of living and eating for life. Like the others said, it’s all about your calorie intake so find a meal plan and schedule that works for YOUR life and YOU. if you prefer a bunch of small meals throughout the day then break your meals down like that. If not you can eat a couple large ones. There are some great books you can ready that are really well written, easy to follow, and help breakdown how your body works and how it processes food. I’m reading “Bigger, leaner, stronger. The simple science of building the ultimate male body” by Michael Mathews right now.
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  • WilliamVE
    WilliamVE Posts: 31 Member
    kommodevaran wrote: »
    You have the rest of your life to keep the weight off, so why a deadline to lose it? What happens if you don't make it? You can't control your weight directly. But you can control your food intake, and if you consistently eat less, you lose weight. You can eat what you want. You can only eat less for the rest of your life, if you eat what you like. What do you want to eat? Surely you don't want to just eat rice or chips? You don't need motivation - not as it's used, like a buzzword - not a diet plan, or exercise plan, you need to eat a varied and balanced diet, and move more.

    I really struggle to believe anyone can be so helpless and confused. But I've seen it many times before. Sometimes people are just too scared to think straight, sometimes they've been raised on fast food, sometimes it's just a need for good taste and convenience that has turned into bad habits. We can help if we get some more background information, it's no good making things more complicated than they have to be, or give advice that is impossible to follow. So, what have you been eating growing up? What does normal food mean to you? Do you have any concept of proper meals? Can you cook?

    Growing up my parents would usually get fast food. Normal food to me is rice and meat. Proper meal would be mostly greens some carbs and some meat. Yeah I can cook
  • franklin5280
    franklin5280 Posts: 80 Member
    Unfortunately we live in a society that does not teach the basics of healthy living. Your comments tell me you have body image issues, support structure challenges, and a need to understand some basic nutrition principles.

    All food is one of three things. 1) Protein 2) Carb 3) Fat. Nutritional Value is what value besides calories does a food item bring to the party? Rice is a Carb, Carbs are not inherently evil, but the nutritional value of white rice
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    WilliamVE wrote: »
    kommodevaran wrote: »
    You have the rest of your life to keep the weight off, so why a deadline to lose it? What happens if you don't make it? You can't control your weight directly. But you can control your food intake, and if you consistently eat less, you lose weight. You can eat what you want. You can only eat less for the rest of your life, if you eat what you like. What do you want to eat? Surely you don't want to just eat rice or chips? You don't need motivation - not as it's used, like a buzzword - not a diet plan, or exercise plan, you need to eat a varied and balanced diet, and move more.

    I really struggle to believe anyone can be so helpless and confused. But I've seen it many times before. Sometimes people are just too scared to think straight, sometimes they've been raised on fast food, sometimes it's just a need for good taste and convenience that has turned into bad habits. We can help if we get some more background information, it's no good making things more complicated than they have to be, or give advice that is impossible to follow. So, what have you been eating growing up? What does normal food mean to you? Do you have any concept of proper meals? Can you cook?

    Growing up my parents would usually get fast food.
    Ok, that's not the best start. But let's move on:
    Normal food to me is rice and meat.
    This is great. Rice and meat is normal food to me too.
    Proper meal would be mostly greens some carbs and some meat.
    This is a proper dieting meal - so you know the basics.
    Yeah I can cook
    Great!

    Now you just need to expand your repertoire, and eat proper portions. To lose weight, technically, you just need to eat proper portions, but to be able to do it in practice, for more than a short while, you need variety and balance.

    Greens can be lot of things, so can carbs, and so can meat. If you eat not just rice, but potatoes, pasta, sweet potatoes, corn, that is variety. Carrots, lettuce, cucumber, peas, beans, asparagus, spinach - that's variety. Pork, beef, chicken, turkey, salmon, cod, tuna, is variety. You could rotate these foods eternally and have a healthy diet.

    It's probably not going to be an appealing diet, though. You can eat fruit, bread, yogurt, nuts, eggs, wraps, soups, smoothies, anything.

    Then there is the question of how much. If you set up MFP to weightloss, it tells you how many calories to eat. If you weigh your food and log it, it tracks your intake for you. If you hit your calorie target, consistently, you'll be eating properly, and if you keep doing it, you will lose weight, over time.
  • Momepro
    Momepro Posts: 1,509 Member
    Twenty pounds in 7 months isn't an impossible goal, but you will definitely need a few new habits to make it work and stick.It can all be very overwhelming, and trying to do it all at once is a recipe for failure.
    I suggest logging for a while, even before making any serious changes to your diet.
    Weigh (with a scale is best) everything you eat, and write why you are eating it (i.e, lunchtime, hungry, kind of bored, out with friends, watching tv) and how you are feeling right before, right after and an hour after (hungry, comfortable, normal, full, very full bloated, drowsy).
    This gives you a baseline pattern for your normal habits and routine. From there, it's just a matter of experimenting. Are you very full after dinner? Cut back on a few things. Does lunch leave you bloated and gassy after an hour, try less or no mayo, and see if there's something you don't mind dropping each meal (fries, or cheese, or maybe only 2 tacos instead of 3).It's amazing how quickly these small and easily sustainable changes will add up to big calorie cuts. Only cut one or two things at a time, until they become habit instead if trying to do everything at once. That way they become individual habits instead of one big "diet". So when you backslide you won't drop everything at once, just one or two habits, that you can fix again more wasily.
  • WilliamVE
    WilliamVE Posts: 31 Member
    kommodevaran wrote: »
    WilliamVE wrote: »
    kommodevaran wrote: »
    You have the rest of your life to keep the weight off, so why a deadline to lose it? What happens if you don't make it? You can't control your weight directly. But you can control your food intake, and if you consistently eat less, you lose weight. You can eat what you want. You can only eat less for the rest of your life, if you eat what you like. What do you want to eat? Surely you don't want to just eat rice or chips? You don't need motivation - not as it's used, like a buzzword - not a diet plan, or exercise plan, you need to eat a varied and balanced diet, and move more.

    I really struggle to believe anyone can be so helpless and confused. But I've seen it many times before. Sometimes people are just too scared to think straight, sometimes they've been raised on fast food, sometimes it's just a need for good taste and convenience that has turned into bad habits. We can help if we get some more background information, it's no good making things more complicated than they have to be, or give advice that is impossible to follow. So, what have you been eating growing up? What does normal food mean to you? Do you have any concept of proper meals? Can you cook?

    Growing up my parents would usually get fast food.
    Ok, that's not the best start. But let's move on:
    Normal food to me is rice and meat.
    This is great. Rice and meat is normal food to me too.
    Proper meal would be mostly greens some carbs and some meat.
    This is a proper dieting meal - so you know the basics.
    Yeah I can cook
    Great!

    Now you just need to expand your repertoire, and eat proper portions. To lose weight, technically, you just need to eat proper portions, but to be able to do it in practice, for more than a short while, you need variety and balance.

    Greens can be lot of things, so can carbs, and so can meat. If you eat not just rice, but potatoes, pasta, sweet potatoes, corn, that is variety. Carrots, lettuce, cucumber, peas, beans, asparagus, spinach - that's variety. Pork, beef, chicken, turkey, salmon, cod, tuna, is variety. You could rotate these foods eternally and have a healthy diet.

    It's probably not going to be an appealing diet, though. You can eat fruit, bread, yogurt, nuts, eggs, wraps, soups, smoothies, anything.

    Then there is the question of how much. If you set up MFP to weightloss, it tells you how many calories to eat. If you weigh your food and log it, it tracks your intake for you. If you hit your calorie target, consistently, you'll be eating properly, and if you keep doing it, you will lose weight, over time.

    Thankyou everybody I think I have the right idea.
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