distinctlybeautiful Member

Thanks! No, it's not rude. I lift, but my calorie goal is set to maintenance, not to gain muscle. I had my metabolism tested the other day, and the tester determined that with a sedentary lifestyle and before exercise I should be eating 2125 to maintain. This was higher than what MFP had been giving me (even when I had my…

The only people who are going to notice are people who are there as much as you are and the gym staff. That doesn't even sound like an unreasonable amount of time to me anyway.

I don't remember when I started seeing changes, but my advice is to take pictures! It's easier to see changes when you have something to compare. I see you've taken before pictures, but what about current ones?

My diary is open. I'm vegetarian and sitting at 142 right now. You're welcome to take a look!

Bulking! I can't wait!

I don't know your height and weight, but I'm a vegetarian too and just had my metabolism tested the other day. I told the tester that I work out probably around 7-8 hours/week, and he told me my maintenance calories are 2550/day and that I'm supposed to eat 2300 calories/day to lose half a pound a week. Again, I don't know…

If you're losing it too quickly you're likely losing muscle mass. Body composition has a lot to do with it.

I'm American but just moved to Germany a couple months ago!

Make sure you know exactly why you're doing it and that you're fully committed to that/those reason/s. I found it was too restrictive to stick to when the only reason was I wanted to try it.

"This means eating little to no dessert would effect our health in a neutral or positive way." No dessert for no effect!? No thanks! Who am I kidding!? I probably wouldn't give it up unless it was somehow necessary to my survival.. Why? Because it's delicious.

I just did it the other day too!

I just had to refrain from eating for five hours for this appointment I had. All I could think about was food.. until I took a nap. So no, fasting isn't for me :)

The best thing you'll find in the gym, in my opinion, are the free weights and the weight machines. Food is key to losing weight, but weight training helps ensure you're losing fat and holding onto muscle.

distinctlybeautiful86

Sriracha.

This is a really interesting point. I guess my first reaction is that statistics are malleable and often difficult to generalize. My second thought is that, no, a lot of people wouldn't invest resources with only a 5% chance of success - unless their desire for the returns outweighs their reasons for throwing in the towel.…

Nope. I've been a vegetarian for sixteen years, and I had excessive body fat for the large majority of those years. I also gained a lot of weight at one point. There are plenty of calorie-dense, non-nutritious vegetarian foods.

I use the calorie count MFP gives me when I enter it as cardio, and it's worked for me so far. It's supposed to be really difficult to determine how much you burn from lifting, but there's this ... http://www.health.harvard.edu/diet-and-weight-loss/calories-burned-in-30-minutes-of-leisure-and-routine-activities

I listened to this while working out, so I was a bit distracted and may have the wrong idea here. This is what I keep coming back to ... "Yeah, but I was determined to not be fat forever. And my worst fear was, what if I am? And then at some point, I just was like, you know, it's fairly likely that I'm going to be fat…

I have a notebook that I write my workouts in, and I just enter them here as strength training under cardio exercises.

Thank you!

I've come to the realization that I've been perpetuating my past by playing the victim. This is a huge insight into my behavior, and I've been able to start breaking some old patterns by reminding myself that I am not a victim of my situation. It feels nice :)

Don't worry about being perfect or setting too many rules. It can be too much to handle. Just do the best you can! Try to stick to your goals, but forgive yourself when you slip up.

I love PB&J, but I don't eat it a ton because it's so calorie-dense. Cottage cheese and fruit or veggies is great and simple. Greek yogurt is good too.. plain with fresh berries is my favorite and easy. I also really like a couple hard boiled eggs mashed up with mustard and a little sriracha.

Now that I've started doing exercises that more specifically target my glutes, like hip thrusts and cable kickbacks and single leg glute bridges, I can feel my glutes working more during back squats. Before that, not so much. When I'm targeting glutes specifically though, I do sumo squats. I do regular back squats on leg…

Napoleon's line at the end of this is one of my favorites ... Pedro: Well, when I came home from school my head started to get really hot. So I drank some cold water, but it didn't do nothing. So I laid in the bathtub for a while, but then I realized that it was my hair that was making my head hot. So I went into my…

San Diego. Carmen Sandiego.

I confess that as soon as I read this I started to contemplate it as reality. Sounds reasonable to me :)

Bridges are done lying on the ground. Hip thrusts are done with a bench. https://youtu.be/A8nFGuY77CE