Please Look At mY Food Journal And Tell me Whats Wrong

i started at 211lbs and my profile was set to 2 pounds per week which put me at 1350 calories. i still worked out 90 minutes a day and lost a lot of weight at first in the beginning.

then i hit a plateau at about 185lbs which i was stuck at for 3 months, next at the begining of march i upped my caloric intake to 1510 and lost 5 pounds in a week. since then ive been stuck at 180lbs

i usually eat the cheetos and cookies at work because thats all they have there

i work in a call center, we have nothing in the break room but a snack machine full of bad choices - i say pack your lunch every day, or stop on your way to work and pick up some healthy options. you may want to change your excercise routine - what do you do for excercise now??

you should ALWAYS eat a high protein snack before your workout, grab a protein bar and some all natural OJ, dont workout on an empty belly.

In the study they did that of which you were referring to both groups were given 3 meals a day. One of those groups were given the 3 meals a day plus 3 snacks where as the other group was still eating 3 meals a day. My post (which I should have been more clearer on) was more or less referring to how she ate mostly at breakfast and lunch and nothing at dinner. The test subjects were still given 3 meals a day. For her it would be better (in my opinion) to have 3 meals a day verses just pilling up on breakfast and lunch alone. If you look at her diary from march 11th until now (on some of the days she has actually logged in) I have counted 6 days there was nothing logged in for dinner at all. That is why I said what I said

Someone posted these suggestions a while back maybe they will help you!


WAYS TO AVOID/BREAK PLATEAUING
You’ll see tons of people posting topics about how they’ve plateaud
for weeks/months and they need help on ways to break it. Well here is
a sum of things you can do, and if you do them chances are you’ll
never plateau. If you are doing the same things over and over again,
your body "knows" what to expect so you have to mix it up!
Plateauing can occur for numerous reasons, most of the time it’s
because your body has gotten too “used” to your routine, so you have
to do things to “surprise” it to keep your body constantly guessing.

HERE WE GO!


ZIG-ZAG YOUR DIET
Zig-zagging, or calorie cycling is the process of varying daily
calorie intake, while maintaining the same weekly intake. Instead of
consuming (for example) precisely 1200 calories each day - you can mix
it up. Eat 1200 calories one day, and 1600 calories the next. In the
end when you add up your weekly calorie consumption and than average
it by 7 days it should equal to your daily calorie goal.

Ex. Monday: 1200cals
Tuesday: 1600cals
Wendsday: 1400cals
Thursday: 1200cals
Friday: 1600cals
Saturday: 1200cals
Sunday: 1400cals

Total Weekly Calories: 9,600/week divide by 7= 1371 cals/day

Now let’s say my daily goal is 1200cals and not 1371, so right now
it’s set with excess of 171 cals, so all I would have to do is deduct
171 calories from each daily goal in order to meet my weekly goals and
still zig-zag my diet.

Or you can leave daily calories goals at 1371. You can either burn off
171 by exercising, or instead take 171 cals and multiply by 7, the
number it comes out with is amount of calories you would have to burn
by exercising that week in order to meet your weekly goals which
zig-zaging diet.

Ex. 171x7=1197 calories you would have to burn that week.




SWITCH UP YOUR DIET

If you eat a lot of the same things day after day, switch it up, add
some new food that you don’t typically eat. Switch up between eating
the usual and the new every other day.

Ex. I like to eat same subways sandwich I always do for lunch, I like
to have my usual chicken burrito after work for dinner. So I will do
that 4 days of the week and the other 3 days I throw in
“unusual”/”new” things.

On my “new” days I eat soups, different types of sandwiches, salads,
new fruit or veggies, etc. These days are good for going out because
restaurant have large variety of foods and full of new things to try.
You can eat whatever you want as long as it’s different from your
normal foods.

Monday/Wendsday/Friday/Sunday: Eat my “usual” foods
Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday: I eat something new and different




SWITCH UP YOUR EXERCISE ROUTINE
So you go walking a lot? Then try jogging, or swimming, or cycling --
anything that will change the way your body is working. If you are
doing low intensity cardio work, then try some high intensity
exercise.

Monday/Wendsday/Friday/Sunday: Do my usual exercise routine
Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday: Add something new to my usual routine or
try something new completely.




HAVE A HIGH CALORIE MEAL
Another way to “Surprise” your body is by throwing in a high calorie
meal couple times a week. If your meals are typically 300-500 than
have a high calorie meal of 600-1000. If you throw in a high calorie
meal couple times a week it will keep surprising your metabolism,
which is good for avoiding/breaking the pleateau.



REDUCE CARBS
Try reducing your carb intake to 50-100 grams per day to reduce
insulin production and fire up your fat metabolism. Make sure that
you’re eating enough protein for your weight .
If you have a carbohydrate snack every day at morning tea time -
change it to a protein snack. Whatever you are doing consistently -
try mixing it up a bit.




CHANGE MEAL FREQUECY
If you are eating three square meals a day - start adding snacks in
between (which may mean reducing the portion size of the main meals).
Eating small portions throughout the day will help keep your
metabolism going. This is an extremely useful tactic in breaking your
weight-loss plateau.




STRENGTH TRAINING
If you’re not doing this already than it’s time to start. Working your
muscles will help to strengthen bone tissue, increase lean mass, and
ultimately boost metabolic rate. Weight training doesn’t mean you have
to become “buff”, you can still build muscle and tone.


THINGS TO DO TO MAKE SURE YOU'RE DOING EVERYTHING RIGHT


SETTING PROPER DAILY CALORIE GOALS (MFP or WW)
When you set your MFP daily calorie goals, it asks your activity
level. If you choose any other activity level than sedentary it will
give you higher calorie goal because it’s assuming you will exercise
that week and burn those calories off; if you do not exercise than you
will obviously gain weight. Also if your exercise calories are
calculated into your daily goals than whatever calories burned
exercising that you log you can’t technically use (eat back) because
it’s already calculated into your daily goal.
If you like to eat your calories back than do the following:

Set your activity level to “sedentary”, than whatever exercise
calories you log you can eat back. Make sure you know exactly how many
calories you burned by using HRM, if you follow MFP calories you may
end up gaining instead. If you do it this way you treat your calories
like a bank. You can save for the weekend so you don’t end up cheating
or use them as you please daily.



INVEST IN A HRM
MFP overestimates calories burned by as much as 200-400cals per hour
of working out, it overestimated my calories burned walking by 50%!
Thank God I wasn’t eating calories back when I first started because I
would have gained weight instead of loosing-if that happened I would
have gotten discouraged and given up. It’s CRUCIAL to know the right
amount of calories burned.
So invest in HRM that comes with a chest strap, amazon does free 5-8
day shipping.

I highly recommend the Polar brands (Polar FT4, FT7, or FT60). If you
want a cheap version cause you don’t have much money, than get this
Timex Easy Trainer HRM, it’s only $37. If you get this Timex than use
below link to calculate calories burned.

TIMEX HRM LINK:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000F5WB66/ref=oh_o05_s00_i00_details

CALCULATOR LINK:
Note: put down 35 for VO2 Max if you do not know yours, do not put 0
or it will overestimate your calories. Scroll down past the ads to use
the calculator.

http://www.triathlontrainingblog.com/calculators/calories-burned-calculator-based-on-average-heart-rate/




LOG ALL YOUR FOOD/EXERCISE
It’s crucial to log everything so you know how much you’re eating,
also it’s important so that you can make sure you get enough protein
and fiber in your diet.

FIBER: If you find yourself always hungry you most likely need more
fiber, fiber helps you stay fuller longer.

PROTEIN: Make sure you meet your protein daily goals or better,
otherwise your body will eat your muscle tissue, and you will lose
muscle mass-no bueno!

WATER: You have to make sure you get enough water too, otherwise you
will have a lot of “I gained this week and I feel discouraged”
moments. My body sometimes holds as much 5 lbs of water, so you may
thing your gaining but you’re not, you’re just not getting enough
water. If this happens take a look at your sodium, you’re probably
having too much. Teas, coffe, sodas, etc do not count as water
sources, they actually dehydrate you.

Make sure to log all your foods, if you ever plateau it will help you
determine what you need to change up and point out the things that no
longer work for you.




AS YOU LOOSE WEIGHT ADJUST CALORIE GOAL
You know how when you first start off you loose a lot of weight and
than it slows, and slows, and slows more down? Well that’s because
your body is carrying less weight so it needs less and less energy, so
the calorie deficit you started off with is much lower now.

For example:
At 200 lbs my BMR was approximately 1750
At 170 lbs my BMR is approximately 1550
The difference in daily calorie burn is 200 calories, multiply that by
7 and it’s 1400 calories each week, that’s almost half a pound! So
instead of loosing 2lbs a week like you used to- you now lose 1.6lbs

Now let’s say you want to keep loosing 2lbs like you used to, well you
now need to create a deficit of 200 calories each day.
A lot of times MFP has you already set at your lowest amount of
1200cals, and you should never eat less than that. So you’ve to
exercise and burn off that 200 calories each day.

Easy way to calculate the deficit is go to BMR calculator, put in your
info at your highest weight, write down your BMR; than plug in your
current weight and write down the BMR. Take the difference between the
calories and that’s how much you need burn exercising in order to keep
loosing same weight as before!

NOTE: the closer and close you get to your goal weight, the harder it
will become to make that deficit, and the biggest the deficit the less
nutrition your body is getting so make sure you take multi-vitamin or
dietary supplements so that you get enough nutrition for your body. If
you don’t your body could eventually go into “starvation mode”.





STRENGTH TRAINING
As I mentioned below you can break plateaus by doing strength
training. Strength training is as important as cardio, it helps speed
up the amount of calories you burn resting- the more muscle you have
the more you burn while resting. Do strength training every other day,
do not do it everyday because your muscles need to rest in order to
grow. Strength training does not mean you will become “buff”, you can
simply “tone”.




EATING CLEAN+VITAMINS
If your daily calorie goals are low in numbers or if you don’t eat as
“clean” as other people do than you need take a multi-vitamin to make
sure your body is getting proper nutrition. If your body doesn’t get
what it needs it may start eating your muscle tissue, or you may
become tired, weak, etc. Also make sure you get

5'7 , 180

goal is 150

i workout 90 minutes a day and eat 1530 calories a day

I'm 5 ft 7 and now 173 lbs and my BMR is around 1436, I try to eat 1803 calories a day and am losing weight.

now im confused

for instance if my BmR is 1436 like urs and i eat 1500 calories a day wouldnt my net be 100, isnt that bad? and if i add the workouts wouldnt that put me at a negative net?