Day 4 of the 200 lbs journey

mdouhan · February 2018

Feel like crap today, I just want to go get a bag of crisps and get drunk on beer, my left foot hurts so cannot really go walking like planned, didn’t weigh in yet since I started school nice I am dead scared of no results

Anyone felt like this ?

PAV8888 · February 2018

Here's the good news. Results or not tomorrow is a new day and hopefully you will be here to enjoy it and try again to meet all your targets!

HOWEVER

By the sounds of it you have 200lbs to go, right?

You're not going to get there tomorrow, and, to be honest, nor should you WANT to get there tomorrow.

You want to spend a lot of time over the next 2-3 years coming up with long term solutions and "perfecting' your life at maintenance. Losing the weight is a NECESSARY step. But it just buys you a ticket for the big game which is called maintenance. You want to win the big game, right?

So.

I did have a quick look at your diary... and... having done silly things like that before... you ain't going to accumulate a loss of 200lbs by eating less than 1K cal a day.

You GOAL as set by MFP sounds reasonable. ~2500 Cal is an average amount of calories for a mythical average male and if you truly stick to them over the next couple of years while at the same time increasing your general activity level as you start to feel lighter and stronger, you WILL LOSE WEIGHT and quite fast at that.

But do yourself a favour and try not to use random people's recipe entries (not unless you entered them yourself).

There are a lot of sticky threads referenced in the first posts of each section of the forums. Have a read through them.

In the meanwhile aim to eat your whole allotment of calories.

In terms of activity don't over-complicate things in the beginning! Even something as simple as getting up and moving for 3 minutes every hour (250+ steps) is more than enough to make a difference when you're starting out. Of course longer walks or swimming or anything else and in particular strength training are excellent ideas too!

Now for a quick overload of information:

25% deficit off TDEE while having fat levels associated with being correctly classified as obese would be max.
20% deficit off TDEE when you slip below that.
0.5% to 1% of bodyweight lost per week is your double check. You could go as high as 1.5% while obese; but, long term I would think it very hard to keep up with that.

Staying the course long term is much more important than any single day's success or failure.

You can pick any percentage of macros to aim for or none.
But I would personally aim for ending up eating the following minimums:

Protein: 150g (0.8g to 1g per lb of bodyweight you would be at BMI of 25)
Fats: 0.35g per lb of weight you would be at a BMI of 25. By preference mostly poly and mono unsaturated fats.
Fiber, as a male, 38g of fiber per day minimum
Carbs: however many you want subject to meeting the above minimums and remaining as satiated as you can.

I would gradually increase my activity but would try to make sure that I don't sustain joint injuries especially while heavier.

Don't try to do everything at once. Fill your log as best as you can. Then review. Then evaluate whether certain foods were worth it. Then modify your eating to match your goals of satiation, satisfaction, and keeping to your caloric budget. Then optimize. (your log, the way you weigh your food, your choices, your exercise, everything, but again... you have the time to do all that).

Oh: grab a trending weight app (Libra/Happy Scale) or start using a web site such as trendweight.com or weightgrapher.com <-- it is very interesting to see how water weight changes on a daily basis and how the underlying weight level can be seen over time.

Over a period of a few weeks evaluate whether what you logs predict and what your trending weight results say are making sense and make adjustments as needed.

If you setup the preconditions for the results to roll in.... they WILL

Vonny198334 · February 2018

Ahh, I'm sorry you're having a rubbish day.

It can be hard in the beginning (or at any point!) as you get used to your new choices. There's no point of reference for whether it's "working" & you wonder if feeling this way is even worth it.

I'm far from an expert but am down 54lbs so far (still the same to go) & all I can offer is what's helped me so far.

Finding substitutes for the things I loved saved me. For example, instead of eating a huge bag of crisps, I'd eat a portion of pop chips. However, even a whole bag of those is only 300ish compared to nearly 1000 in a lot of crisps if I wanted to eat them all. Really helpful for me as I'm definitely a volume eater! "Filling up on veggies" at dinner sounds so boring! But you get so much bang for your buck & it really can be tasty. Spices, herbs or chilli sauces can be a game changer with these things.

Losing half my body weight seemed a completely pie in the sky idea initially & very overwhelming. Very quickly into this thing I stopped thinking of it that way...it just hurt my brain! I decided to just get up and "do" for a month. Weighing/measuring food, logging everything & staying within(or close to) the calorie limit. After that I'd reassess, I told myself. But in the space of a month you can find all sorts of ways to eat healthier things that satisfy you & here I still am 195 days later, still learning!

Exercise is very beneficial for the mind & does have body benefits of course, but weight loss is all about what you eat. My knees hurt an awful lot when I began my dance fitness. I had to strap up with kino tape & I only did 10-20mins initially. I was able to build myself up as the weight came off & before I knew it I didn't need tape anymore. But it's a process....my body needed time to adjust to what I was doing. Doing what you can, when your body allows you to is absolutely fine.

I know it's difficult, but if you eat within the range MFP sets you, you will lose weight. Small changes at a pace to suit you is the only way forward, really. It's just a case of getting out of bed & trying your best every day. Even if it's one sugar less in your coffee, resisting a chocolate bar once or finding a low cal food you love. Trying every day is what leads to results & it doesn't have to be a complete overhaul of your life from day one.

The other option of course is to give up & eat /drink what you want, but in a month's time... will you regret that decision?

This quote always resonates with me:
"The time passes anyway. You can either spend it creating the life you want or living a life you don't want. You choose."

The time really does fly in & though you're having a bad day, it doesn't always feel this hard - promise! In time, most days will just feel normal. Of course there are periods where it gets sticky, but for me even the most difficult days don't compare to how difficult LIFE was being morbidly obese.

Wishing you all the luck & cheering you on from the sidelines

88olds · February 2018

No results? Today? Day 4?

I urge you not to go down this road. You are not going to lose every day. This will make you crazy and soon.

Keep your food diary. Make that your goal. Do it no matter what. Save your life.

Day 4 of the 200 lbs journey

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