How do I stop eating 6,000 calories??

1530 is very manageable. I agree with the others you might want to wean yourself off of the sweets, start cutting them back. Eat small meals every 3-4 hours to stave off hunger. Fill your meals with whole grains, veggies, lean protein and healthy fat. The fat will help satiate you and you won't feel like you are so deprived. If you need more food, exercise and eat back those calories or make your weight loss goals less ambitious. You didn't mention them but I would assume it is currently 1.5-2 pounds a week.

If every meal including breakfast is well over 1000 calories, then I guess that would be that many in a day!

I would start by cutting down to something like 2000-2500 calories a day, to start, and work your way down to the lower goal from there. The reality is, now that you've done "the crime" for so long, you must do "the time". It's not easy to watch what you eat and actively try to lose weight, but that's what we all get for overindulging and gaining more than we ought to, instead of being reasonable to begin with. It's going from one extreme to a bit of another.

You are going to need to seriously crack down on a lot of the cheese, the bacon, the fried things, the whole eggs, the white bread, the alcohol, the mayonnaise and other full-fat condiments, and the sugar, to name a few. You can still have a little bit of some of these, occasionally, but not much if you want to lose the weight. Stock up on a variety of colourful vegetables, some fruit (not too much fruit, it's still high in sugars and therefore calories), lean proteins (fin fish, shrimp, skinless chicken, lean pork chops, lean ground meats, lentils, beans), healthy fats (olive oil used sparingly. PAM spray, avocados, nuts, NATURAL peanut butter), low-fat dairy (skim or 1% milk, or dairy alternatives), and whole grains (brown rice, sprouted grain breads, quinoa, to name a few). Try to reduce the quantity of foods you eat that have a laundry list of ingredients. Most of the ingredients that you can't pronounce or identify probably aren't good for you, and you should at least relegate to less than 20% of your daily caloric intake, if we are being reasonable.

There is a "Recipes" section in the forums, I would suggest you peruse it for ideas. Do some web research to learn how to "cook light". If you're really stuck on how to cook something to get a desired result, feel free to ask me. My culinary arts certificate should get at least SOME use, for all the money I owe in student loans!

One of the biggest things I learned to do was to read the labels BEFORE I ate the food. I have hot dogs all the time- did you know there are hot dogs that are 300 calories for one hot dog and there are hot dogs that are 90 calories a hot dog. Big difference in the long run.

Not to say you always have to chose the low-cal version. Sometimes it's just about realizing what's in the food you're eating.

Specifically from your diary- switch brands of bacon to a lower cal version. Two slices for over 300 cals is pretty high. I would avoid the turkey bacon out there as it tends to be higher in sodium. Have cookies- but avoid the super high cal ones like the Tim Hortons- opt for that Lemon Cake instead- 160 cals for a cake is rather good.

Look at the big players in numbers in your diary- then find lower cal versions of them.

I wouldn't jump down too fast in calories either- take your time and just pick one thing a week to try and get lower. It's a marathon- not a sprint.

good on you for logging what you usually eat - that is a really helpful starting point!

looking at your diary, i am actually surprised it came to 5000cals.

I wouldn't go as low as 1500 to start off with, i would work toward a goal of <2000cals over a period of time that is comfortable. (maybe two weeks? maybe longer, just give yourself a goal date.)

then I would add in a walk every day so that i could eat more than 1500, because i am a bit more comfortable eating a bit more than that.

good luck!

Hello,

I am new to this. I put it in most of what I ate today and it is around 5,744 (I cannot remember everything) but this program says my goal should be 1,530.

Is this right? I know I eat more than some other people but is 1,530 really manageable? I am not very active but now I think I should start! Please feel free to send me any advice.

Well if I was you, i'd cut out about 2,000 calories and start there. Jumping that low makes no sense from your starting point. Over time decrease them as you lose weight.

Good advice.
6000 to 1500 is just asking for failure, it's too much of a drop and you won't stick to it.
Reducing by 2000 is a 14000 calorie a week deficit, so you should lose 4-5 lbs a week even on that.
As you get use to choosing healthier foods, it will be easier to reduce your cals more.
My diary is open if you want any ideas of the right sort of foods to eat. Choose things like lean meat (chicken, turkey, lean beef etc), fish, whole grain bread / pasta / rice, at least 5 a day fruits & veggies, dairy (choose naturally lower cal cheeses like mozzarella, feta, goats cheese, halloumi rather than cheddar), skimmed or 2% milk, plain Greek yogurt and add your own fruit.
Junk food is not banned, but limit it to 1 meal a week and try to have a sensible portion.

OP this is exactly where i started. my advice is to start by gradually decreasing your calories and meal size.

for instance i used to eat a LOT of take out, 3 meals a day (plus snacks ).

what i'd do is split what used to be a 2K lunch into 2 and save the other half for the next days lunch. i started off doing that for 1 meal and then 2 then 3. eventually you'll get down to half your intake then you can focus on gradually getting each meal down to where it should be to fit in with the 1500 calorie goal.

i'd say in all it took me around 6 weeks to do that and that's included bad days when i'd slip and have super high calories again and eat an entire large pizza and hot wings for dinner :laugh:

going from 6K->1500 all at once will be too much and you'll be very likely to give up

good luck!!! you can do this!

I would start by cutting down to something like 2000-2500 calories a day, to start, and work your way down to the lower goal from there. The reality is, now that you've done "the crime" for so long, you must do "the time". It's not easy to watch what you eat and actively try to lose weight, but that's what we all get for overindulging and gaining more than we ought to, instead of being reasonable to begin with. It's going from one extreme to a bit of another.

You are going to need to seriously crack down on a lot of the cheese, the bacon, the fried things, the whole eggs, the white bread, the alcohol, the mayonnaise and other full-fat condiments, and the sugar, to name a few. You can still have a little bit of some of these, occasionally, but not much if you want to lose the weight. Stock up on a variety of colourful vegetables, some fruit (not too much fruit, it's still high in sugars and therefore calories), lean proteins (fin fish, shrimp, skinless chicken, lean pork chops, lean ground meats, lentils, beans), healthy fats (olive oil used sparingly. PAM spray, avocados, nuts, NATURAL peanut butter), low-fat dairy (skim or 1% milk, or dairy alternatives), and whole grains (brown rice, sprouted grain breads, quinoa, to name a few). Try to reduce the quantity of foods you eat that have a laundry list of ingredients. Most of the ingredients that you can't pronounce or identify probably aren't good for you, and you should at least relegate to less than 20% of your daily caloric intake, if we are being reasonable.

There is a "Recipes" section in the forums, I would suggest you peruse it for ideas. Do some web research to learn how to "cook light". If you're really stuck on how to cook something to get a desired result, feel free to ask me. My culinary arts certificate should get at least SOME use, for all the money I owe in student loans!

This is very good advice.

As uncomfortable as it may be, logging everything is really going to help you - A LOT.

When you are starting to get a feel for the caloric and nutritional content of food, this will get much easier. Most of us have been where you are now, so trust me when I say it gets a lot easier, but you need some willpower to get through the initial phase of denying yourself some things.

I'd also suggest trying to log foods before you eat them. It will then bring it back to a conscious decision YOU get to make about whether you eat/drink it... or if YOU decide it's not worth it.

Good luck, and please ask as many questions on here as you want/need to.

Well 1500 is very doable but it will be hard at first since you were use to eating so many calories but doable. If it seems to low or seems to hard try 2000 as others have said. I looked through your diary and you can make a lot of cuts that will lower your intake of calories. You have a lot of high calorie snakes in large portions so i would start by cutting portions. Eat snacks that you like (like m&ms) but eat the serving size and only once a day, or cutting bacon to only one meal a day, pasta is high in calories so add more meat less pasta and cut the portion of bread (i know i love garlic bread but its high in calories so cut the portion) , the cake and stuff you can keep but i would cut those out and get lower calorie snacks (fiber one brownies are delicious and only 90 calories!), drink lots of water, these are just somethings you can do but portion control is needed! I wont lie this will be hard at first but you can do it!! Being your first day logging its ok too see how many calories you eat!! It is a huge wake up call and really shows you how much you eat. These changes will really help you! Good luck!!!