Submit your health and fitness tips for the chance to be featured in our 2023 New Year’s plan!
Betty
Posts: 8,813 MFP Staff
We want to know your top health and fitness tips, especially when it comes to conquering your goals! What helps you stay consistent, see improvements, and/or reach new personal achievements?
Are you setting your clothes out the night before an early morning workout to make getting out the door a little bit easier?
Do you meal prep every week? What are your favorite, most preppable recipes?!
Trying a new, different workout or way to move your body to stay engaged and excited?
Whatever your ticket to success might be, we’d love to hear it! Share your tips for a chance to have them featured in our upcoming 2023 New Year’s plan!
Please Note: By commenting or replying in this thread, you acknowledge and agree to the use of your name, comments, replies, and/or entries, whether in whole or in part, by MyFitnessPal, including for the purpose of generating and distributing marketing materials to help inspire others. When posting, please follow our community guidelines. Any off-topic comments and disparaging remarks are subject to deletion.
Are you setting your clothes out the night before an early morning workout to make getting out the door a little bit easier?
Do you meal prep every week? What are your favorite, most preppable recipes?!
Trying a new, different workout or way to move your body to stay engaged and excited?
Whatever your ticket to success might be, we’d love to hear it! Share your tips for a chance to have them featured in our upcoming 2023 New Year’s plan!
Please Note: By commenting or replying in this thread, you acknowledge and agree to the use of your name, comments, replies, and/or entries, whether in whole or in part, by MyFitnessPal, including for the purpose of generating and distributing marketing materials to help inspire others. When posting, please follow our community guidelines. Any off-topic comments and disparaging remarks are subject to deletion.
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DO NOT set an end-goal. Your life is a journey, treat it like so. Always look for ways to improve and adjust as you meet obstacles. DO NOT blindly follow advice from self-proclaiming influencers or those that live in the forums for way too long (too obvious to point here). Your only adversary is yourself from yesterday.49
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I love music. The older the music, the more I love it. I sing when I am working around the house and dance while I make meals When I got serious about losing weight, I put my love of music to good use. As I exercise, I can only listen to music on Spotify that corresponds with my weight. When I started, I was 196 - so only listened to music from 1996! Now here I am, months later and listening to The Concert at Woodstock 1969!!! You just gotta do something fun when you exercise or it becomes a chore.34
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What works for each person is very personalized. It is not typical for an individual to be successful long-term on popular diet plans. Find what works for you. After many attempts, I learned that I freak out and binge if I try to completely cut treats out of my overall diet, specifically ice cream and chocolate. So, I save some calories every day for dessert and it helps keep me on track.20
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300!
What can a 300 calorie a day food deficit and 300 calories a day burnt through movement do for you? How about change your life. It did in fact change mine. By knocking off the 300 kcal a day in eating I was able to achieve my daily eating and wasn't starving while doing it. The 300 calories through movement were obtainable because any movement such as a walk all the way up to high intensity interval training is acceptable. So, I chose my excercises and varied them (but hitting 300 kcal each day) I stayed in my small deficit and before I knew it I was buying new clothes and competing (and winning men's physique bodybuilding)! I have kept this training and built upon it. I can say if anyone is willing to yell out "This is Sparta"! Then welcome to the 300👍21 -
Logging the food diary different than a calendar day. I am not the cook in the family and was always frustrated following the traditional food calendar because I would not know what is on the dinner menu when I got home. DH is a great cook and I want to eat what he prepares. At the beginning of August, I tried have a diary day start at each dinner time and cover breakfast and lunch the following day: so 5pm to 5pm each day. That way I log the dinner and then can know what I have left for breakfast and lunch the next day. I am just a week in to this plan, so we will see how it works out. So far so good.20
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I never needed to think about my weight , body size or calories before covid because I was slim, active and healthy. How things have changed! Due to indulgence and inactivity I have gained almost 3 dress sizes in 2 years so for the first time, I am actively working to reduce my body size 😬.
I don't weigh myself so I made a guess for the app. I prefer to focus on fitness, increasing my energy levels and reducing my waist line.
My method is to eat two healthy meals a day (brunch at 10am and dinner 7pm) and exercise for 30 minutes a day. I try to be in calorie deficit 6 days a week and break even on one day but I'm not excessively strict with myself. I figure it took two years to gain the weight so it will take time to lose it.
For the sake of all the lovely people in my life, I refuse to torture myself and I allow my monthly cycle to govern when I indulge a little. Hangry and hormonal is not a good look at any age 😉😅.12 -
Things I've learned throughout my 17 year dieting history:
1. Do your research. Do not follow trendy diets (I gained 70 lbs as a vegan once, thinking I was doing something). Don't eat 1200 calories just because someone said you should. Learn your BMI, BMR, and caloric needs. Learn what your healthy weight should be based on age and gender, don't just pull that number out of thin air. Educate yourself on hunger hormones, fasting, different macro ratios, different types of exercise, as well as glycemic index, processed vs. unprocessed foods etc. There's still a lot we don't know, and even scientists can't agree on what the optimal nutrition looks like. That doesn't mean you should go into your weight loss journey blind.
2.Your diet plan is only as good as your exit strategy. Anyone can lose weight, not everyone can maintain it. If you can't see yourself eating this way for the rest of your life don't use that method to lose the weight. I learned this the hard way, by losing a huge amount of weight 3 times in my life and then gaining it all back. Save yourself the trouble and do it right the first time.
3. There's no single "correct" way of eating. That said, I wouldn't recommend super-low calorie diets, or focusing solely on calories. Satiety and keeping your cravings at bay is far more effective long term than staying at some ridiculous caloric deficit (and then inevitably binging out). Eat closer to your maintenance, especially when you start out. Cut down on sugar and processed foods. Experiment with macro ratios. I found that increasing fat and protein intake, and reducing my carbs, has done wonders for my hunger and sweet cravings.
4. Get enough sleep. I can't stress this enough. Tired people make poor choices. Tired people overeat.
5. Meal prep. We can avoid making poor food choices, if the need to make a choice is taken away. Despite how busy you might be, make sure to find time at least once a week to shop for groceries and prepare healthy meals for yourself. Prioritize protein, experiment with spices, measure out all your servings. Over time you'll discover healthy recipes you enjoy. It makes weight loss so much easier!14 -
Progress is made when you focus on two things.
1. Setting goals about actions you can take not a number on a scale or tape measure. If you focus on taking the correct action you’ll start motivated and keep working towards your goals.
2. Change your habits is key. It’s all about finding things you can do everyday. Find things you can do based off time cues and creating routines. It’s all about making the healthy choices easy and the unhealthy choice difficult. In society, it’s naturally slanted the other way so a little work up front will keep you going the right way1 -
Get on a consistent meal schedule, your body will thank you. If you are sporadic when it comes to eating (skip breakfast, skip meals, eat late at night, eat a single large meal, etc.) you are not doing yourself any favors. If you really want to lose weight, you need to make your relationship with food a top priority. The human body functions optimally when it's on a consistent schedule in terms of eating, sleeping, exercise, and recovery.3
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Consistency tops all, just being consistent will get you to goal more than anything you can do. Focus on getting one habit at a time then trying to do a major overhaul. Find something that you are doing well and work on doing it a little better each day.3
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I’ve been a member for roughly four weeks. My membership was 100% provoked by the upside I felt the food tracker offered me. My opinion is the exercise tracker is in need of upgrade. My activity is rules-based, and now I have a rules-based nutrition plan. My nutrition intake was front of my mind, but I was not tracking it. Tracking food has shown good results. My starting weight was 204 and now stands at 192.2.
In the past four weeks, I have read several member BLOGs and I replied to a few. I notice that most of the inquiries are similar: What should I eat and how should I exercise? One of the problems we have in our society today is this: 50% of what we are taught is wrong. The problem lies that most of us don’t know which 50% it is.
Facts of the average American diet: 60% of all calories come from 3 foods: wheat, corn, and rice. Whether lightly processed or ultra-processed, these three foods are calorically dense, not nutrient dense. They cause internal inflammation. They send levels of blood sugar up and this results in elevated insulin. Insulin is a chief fat-storage hormone AND is turns fat cells into a one-way flow of calories meaning they let calories in, but they do not let them out. Many MyFitnessPal bloggers want to burn fat for weight reduction but we all need to burn fat for fuel. In fact, several internal organs need us to burn fat for their survival. The brain is one of those organs that needs us to burn fat for it to reproduce new cells. Spoiler alert, we need new brain cells to inhibit the onset of dementia and/or Alzheimer’s.
How to get in a low-insulin state? (1) Fasting. We are in a low insulin state when we sleep so why not book-end sleep time with a few hours of fasting. Try partial weekend fasting. (2) Eat nutrient-dense foods. Eat a high ratio of nutrients-to-calories and these include dark leafy greens, kale, and spinach. (3) Other foods to eat: eggs, some quality red meats, fatty fish such as salmon, wild salmon and sardines. Avocados and almonds - both of these are good fruits. Avoid modern, cultivated sweet fruit which has been bred to contain starch and sugar for taste.
Finally, move your body as much as possible. Do as many activities as possible. Do movements from an athletic position, meaning not sitting or lying down. Do push and pull resistance movements from a standing position. Move during commercials by doing sit-ups, push-ups, high knee lifts while walking in place, straight arm body-weight squats. Do something. Move more. The Cooper Institute has documented research showing how much walking one needs to do to lose weight. Look it up.
Fatigue is an emotion created by our brain. Recover, then enjoy it again. Find something you enjoy so that you will do it again tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.
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Find yourself recipes online, change them to meet your taste and save them in MFP. That great chicken you once made can soon become a family favourite.
Don't forget to walk around town to buy your ingredients, an easy few steps and you may find some food gems.3 -
I love the idea of changing my "day" to begin with dinner and then move to breakfast, lunch and snacks the next day. I wish there was a way for me to change my "view" but of course my food diary is tied to a 24 day that ends with dinner. Once I have dinner, which is often created and prepared by my partner, then I know how much I can have for lunch and breakfast - but that is of course the next day.2
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I keep breakfast consistent, sugar-free, high-fibre and healthy so that I don't start the day with sugar making me crave more sugar and so that I don't use up too many calories in case I go out for a meal later. I make steel cut oats in large batches in my pressure cooker, adding some flax seeds for more nutrition and fibre. Then I heat it up in the microwave every morning with some frozen berries thrown in and top it off with pumpkin seeds, goji berries, and cinnamon. I'm vegan so this gives me some needed iron and C vitamins.3
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Find a group of people who seem to incorporate physical activities into the majority of their social life. I am an avid bicyclist and started riding in group rides with a few other area bicyclist. These folks not only bike, they do all sorts of activities that will have you burning calories: Kangoo bounce, pickle ball, weight lifting, sprint triathlon (I'm actually going to try this), indoor cycling....you name it. They have motivated me to try other activities and even drive to organized bike rides across the country. It's been a lot easier for me to get excited about an activity that burns calories, when I know that many of my friends will be doing it with me.1
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Start your day with three positive thoughts. One rule: You're not allowed to use the word "but" or "if" when thinking these thoughts! This might not sound like it's related specifically to weight loss, but I always find that it's easier to stay on track when I start the day in a good headspace. Be good to yourself.4
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I’m two weeks in on a second do-over with MFP.
Starting out at 211 lb exercise is not coming easy. Realizing I’m using the car for everything, even the smallest distances, I bought a rolling utility bag for laundry and groceries. It is helping me to choose walking over car to get things done and simultaneously aid in my exercise, health and fat loss. 💫2 -
Instead of thinking about how to lose weight fast, focus on how to lose weight (relatively) easily.
Losing any meaningful amount of weight is not a quick project with an end date, after which things "go back to normal". That's the recipe for yo-yo dieting. Losing substantial weight will take weeks to months, for some maybe even multiple years. That puts a premium on figuring out reasonably happy new eating and activity patterns that can continue almost on autopilot when life gets complicated . . . because it will.
Then, beyond goal weight, there's the issue of staying at a healthy weight long term, ideally permanently. Figuring out those relatively easy, relatively happy habits during weight loss helps that go smoothly, too.
Personalization is key: Things that work for an individual. We each have different preferences, strengths, limitations. That implies that different activity and eating patterns will work for different people.
Find your personal formula, ways of:
* moving more in daily life, or exercise, that are enjoyable, and let you have good overall life balance - enough time and energy for family, job, home chores, and any other things important to you.
* eating that are enjoyable, practical, let you fit in a social life and the occasional celebration with special foods.
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Don’t give up. You may have to start a number of times, but starting is the east bit. You need to make change a habit. Check out your “streak” for motivation. Keep at it, and you will find that as your streak gets longer, your changes and habits become easier to manage. Baby steps, but keep going. Weight loss is fickle, but don’t give up even if you plateau, keep going. You will do it, and you will progress through those plateaus and you will lose weight again. 3150 days and no resets, but I’m not giving up! If I can do it, so can you!6
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