60 yrs and up

@ridiculous59 Thanks so much for the welcome and you were really very helpful! I do have weight to lose, have high blood pressure, and am pre-diabetic and I do have weight to lose but I'm more concerned about eating healthy and keeping track of what I eat. I find if I focus on the weight I get manic LOL. I'm mostly concerned about sodium and sugar and seem to have those under control in my food diary. Maybe I'm looking too much at the numbers. For instance, today I was trying to figure out what to eat to get more calories in. My percentages are 40% carbs, 30% protein, and 30% fats and because the carbs were too high I ended up eating 916 calories rather than 1,200. I'm not hungry but I don't think that is enough to eat. The two things that tossed my carbs over the edge were a banana and a container of vanilla low fat yogurt and everything else is healthy (a lot of vegetables). I've only been doing this about a week so I guess I will figure it out! Thanks for your help though! I really appreciate it!

@Pdc654 Thank you for your welcome. It is sure good to talk to someone who knows how awful it feels to be held back by asthma and Covid. I'm glad you are starting to exercise again. I sure wish I could find a place that had water aerobics by me after work but they seem to schedule those classes during the day. I'm just trying to walk more each day right now. If I wasn't pre-diabetic I think I wouldn't be as anxious about the carbs. I'm going to do some more research to see if I can find more foods to eat with protein. I'm always under on protein. But I am a work in progress. I'm hoping to get this all figured out so I can feel healthy and get back to my normal self! I wish you the best in your journey as well.

Welcome Marci!

mtaratoot wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

momzilla11 wrote: »

(snip lots of really excellent, insightful advice)
I recommend using the green-checked entries in MFP's foods database, as I understand these are verified.
(snip)

"Verified" means that a small number of other MFP-ers (I think it's 5?) have clicked that the entry is correct. Personally, I don't trust the green-checked entries lots more than others.

I was pretty sure someone would point this out. The other thing that makes the green checks problematic, is once an item has one, it cannot be edited. Sometimes product labels change, and the green checked one that was accurate in the past no longer is. You can make edits for an unchecked item, but you can't change any of the data on checked ones. I wish they'd get rid of the green check since it's almost as likely to be incorrect as some of the others. I try to fix entries if I see errors because... I think I might be one of those meticulous people.....

I've done the same thing, making corrections. And never knew you couldn't edit the green checkmark ones. Now I understand why it wouldn't then edit them. Thanks for the education.

marci320 wrote: »

@AnnPT77 @trekkie123 @Pdc654 @ridiculous59 @BCLadybug888 @swimmom_1 @mtaratoot I had a horrible time finding this thread again! Thank you so much for the welcomes, information, advice, and encouragement. You made my journey so much easier. I'm still playing with food plans and doing a little better but it takes me FOREVER to make a plan and try to get all the nutrients I need. Ran into a few hiccups as well. On Fridays my boss brings donuts to the office. He knows which ones we like and puts them on our desks. He kept walking by and asking me when I was going to eat the donut and I had no backbone so I didn't eat the lunch I prepared and just ate that stinkin' donut for lunch and tracked it. I felt awful the rest of the day. Then my birthday is 3/20 so everything started a little early. Went out to both lunch and dinner on Saturday and when I tracked my food it was a sea of red numbers I'd gone over. Seriously over. At the bottom of the diary it said if I kept eating like that day I would gain 5 pounds in 5 weeks. The next day I was scared to death when I weighed in but I lost 6 pounds, even though I probably lost a lot of water weight. And I went right back on track with my food the next day. However, more birthday celebrations are coming up. Why do they always have to involve food??? But, rather than giving up eating healthy until my birthday is over, I'm going to be in control of where we go and what I eat. I will be back once my birthday celebrations die down but I didn't want to go another day without thanking you all.

In my understanding, we don't need to be exactly exact on every nutrient every single day. Pretty close, on average, over a small number of days - that should be fine. If something's a little over one day one day, a little under another day, but it averages out where you want it , that should be fine. Humans are adaptive omnivores. "Close, on average" is fine.

You can also start out kind of close, and fine-tune your routine habits and patterns over time to get even closer. If you didn't start out with some major diagnosed deficiency, close and improving is OK for a while, too.

As far as over days, please try not to stress out too much. There again, averages matter.

I don't advise people to "make up for" an over-goal day on subsequent days, because that doesn't work for me. (It can set up a restrict/binge cycle for me - not good.)

But for a planned event where I know there will be special yumminess, I'll eat a little (not lots) lower in calories for a few days before - like probably no more than 100 calories per day. Then, on the big day, I'd probably eat lighter other meals, maybe get a little extra activity in if it was convenient, and spend those saved-up extra calories on the special meal. For me, that isn't risky: The saving up of calories is a restriction, but the special meal stands in for the risky binge, and balances the books for going forward.

That may or may not be a psychologically good strategy for you, but it works for me. Certainly, if it averages out to the calorie goal over a few days, it's going to get you to about the same place in body weight. Bodies don't reset at midnight, even if MFP does. (There may be a water weight blip up on the scale right after the bigger day, but that'll drop off, too.)

Another useful thing to do is to figure out what calorie level is estimated to maintain your current weight. Now, I know that's not your goal! But with the knowledge, sometimes if you go somewhat over your regular calorie goal, but you're at or under the maintenance calories, you know you haven't gained weight. In fact, if you were over goal but under maintenance, you've likely lost, just a little slower than your plan. Knowing where you are, in that sense, can be calming. Weight loss is stressful enough, without stressing over a day where we ate a little over, so are going to reach goal weight 6 hours later than if we'd been perfect, y'know? (Literally, sometimes is is just a few hours!)

It's all about averages over short time periods (few days), in my experience - being reasonable, consistent, but not obsessed or compulsive to the point of over-stressing. Life balance!

P.S. I agree with Mtaratoot that it's good to ignore that "in 5 weeks" thing. It's not helpful, IMO. But if on that one day it said you'd gain 5 pounds in 5 weeks if you ate that way every day, that means it thinks you ate about 500 calories over your current maintenance calories on that one day. If you're set up in MFP to lose a pound a week, that means you'll get to goal weight about 2 days later than you would've if you hadn't had that over-goal day. Now, that's maybe regrettable, but it's not exactly a full bore disaster, if it isn't repeated very often. It's the majority of our days that determine the majority of our results, not that one rare day.

Losing any meaningful total amount of weight is going to take quite a long time. It's good to be disciplined and consistent, but in my view it's also important to roll with the waves a little bit (not capsize!), and try to keep any "learning experiences" in perspective. Over those weeks or months, some days here and there won't work out perfectly. If we learn from that, fine tune our plans, that's OK. It's not a failure . . . like I said, it's a learning experience. You'll be on top of these details in no time, as long as you hang in there and stick with it.

Oh, and Happy (upcoming) Birthday!

@marci320 everyone is giving you great advice. Enjoy your birthday and don't stress being a few calories over. Then get right back on track when the celebration is over. It is a learning experience as Ann said, and she's right, it's what you do the majority of the time that counts!