prokomds Member

Congrats on your successes :) It's hard to not sound judge-y, when you see so many (much taller, larger) women eating way below where they should be. Some people want to jump down your throat as soon as they hear "1200" -- but there's such a huge range of calories that people need depending on their body and their…

I think you're doing fine! You may have more success looking into measuring your body fat percentage, and figuring out where you'd like that to be. Just make sure you obviously look at the numbers for women - guys can have a much lower percentage than girls. Any improvement you see in your measurements is awesome, but…

The only people who should really be eating 1200/day are short, fairly small women who are on the inactive side. If you're in that population (which I think is much smaller than the number of people who THINK they should be eating that little)... then yeah, I think it's fine to bounce over/under by 200ish calories day to…

You probably didn't eat a full extra 7000 calories (2 lbs) on top of your normal calorie needs, so part of that is probably extra water retention from too much sodium... which means it should hopefully disappear in a few days Even if not, don't worry! There are always going to be times when you can't control your food…

My mantra is to never let a "diet" get in the way of life... have fun with your friends :) I'll be eating the calorie-rich food, but also eating some veggies (bring something healthy to go with the unhealthy?). I'll avoid some of the worst offenders (chips? Honestly, I don't even find chips appealing anymore). I'll have a…

First off, definitely up your calories to a recommended range. You're tired and grumpy, you can't exercise because you're exhausted... I think it makes logical sense that that's because you're not properly fueling your body And the second thing is to add some activity into your days. It doesn't have to be anything extreme…

The battery could be dying? Or your scale is broken? If the weights are all within a pound or two of each other, it's probably within the normal error range of digital scales. I'll weigh myself, and basically no matter what, if I weigh myself 5 min later it tells me I've gained half a pound. I just consider it punishment…

This is good advice :) It is HARD as a woman to put on muscle, beyond the sort of "newbie gains" this poster talks about. You have to be eating above your TDEE, you have to be lifting A LOT. Don't be afraid of weights All I can really give is my own experience... at 5'6", in the past 6 months I've gone from 150 lbs and…

Good advice from this guy :) I eat about as much as you do (original poster), and I'm a 5'6" woman. Get your calories in, you'll be way better off in the long run! And don't stress too much over a couple of weeks, intensifying your routine can upset your weight loss, short-term. Your body tends to retain some water when…

That's really low! Some people enjoy eating almost no carbs, but that doesn't work for me. Personally, I've had all my success having my setup be 40% carbs, 30% protein, and 30% fat. I found that even 40% carbs is less than I used to eat. But really, those are just guidelines, the real important number is how many calories…

It's been a week! And two pounds is not a disaster Patience :)

It's easier to give advice if we know your height/weight and maybe you open your diary up :) Are 10 pounds really the thing holding you back? Honestly, if you're that close to your goal, it's the body fat and not the weight that's your issue. I don't know your weight now -- it could be that those extra 10 pounds is…

I would listen to the professional over the advice of the internet :) Really, I'd give it a try for a month or two, and see how you feel. And do some research on the nutritionist you went to -- if you can find some evidence of past successes with other clients, that will go a long way in improving your confidence in his…

Is that your hair? Those colors are awesome :) And congrats on your progress so far! How long have you been going to the gym? I've found that any time I change up my routine, I tend to stall out for a few weeks. It sounds like if you've upped your calories a bit and are eating back at least half of your exercise calories,…

One more thing to add to the mix: how did you calculate your daily calories? What did you set your activity level to? Some people set their activity level as "sedentary" or "lightly active" to reflect their activeness when they're not working out. Then you log your exercise on top of that, and (in my opinion) eat half to…

Is this the beginning of you working out? It's quite normal to have a very large loss in your first couple weeks -- you just can't get too discouraged if you have a few weeks coming up where you might lose nothing at all. I mean, if you lose 10 pounds in 2 weeks, then nothing the next two weeks, you're still averaging over…

Congrats on all your progress! :) My suggestion would be to readjust MFP so you're set to lose about a pound a week (TDEE-500) and maybe consider adding more activity to your day? Sounds like your kid is a major motivation, you could walk/jog with him in stroller, or something? Or start practicing now some of those…

It sounds a bit like you're obsessing unhealthily over your weight? Honestly, I would try to hit your 1600 goal for a few weeks/months and put the scale away for awhile. If you put on a couple pounds, you'll still be at a healthy weight, no question, so why weigh yourself? And realistically, at 5'3", I seriously doubt 1600…

I'm not sure where you see a lot of people losing that much weight? Maybe in their first week or two of a new routine (water weight, etc), but weight loss tends to slow pretty quickly after that Generally, if you have a lot to lose, you can lose 1-2 pounds a week healthily. As you get nearer to your goal, that number gets…

I love the graphs! Congrats on maintaining a pretty awesome rate of weight loss over a long period of time, that's a huge success :) And yeah, being near your goal is rough. I started out in June wanting to lose 15 pounds, and six months later I've lost about 10 of those 15 But realistically, I've really backed off from…

Throwing my hat into the "gaining muscle" ring Two things: One, to gain muscle, you have to be eating at a surplus. That means that in the process of gaining muscle (while strength training), you are going to put on a few pounds. That's normal! And you already said you're underweight, so that's something you have to not…

You've changed your calorie goals twice since Christmas? I think, first of all, you're not giving your body enough time before you call yourself "stalled." I would give a calorie number at least a month before you worry about adjusting it again. I would bet that with your level of exercise, you would continue to lose…

You don't give many specifics about yourself, so it's hard to give solid advice. But I'm a big fan of small improvements over drastic life changes, personally. I wanted to lose in the neighborhood of 15 pounds, fully understanding that losing a small amount of weight close to your goal is quite difficult. I eat just barely…

It took you a long time to get to the weight you are now (years?). I wouldn't be worried about breaking your metabolism over the course of a couple weeks :) Good luck!

Just move on and learn from what you did... you didn't eat all day, and surprise surprise, you made bad choices because of it. Though I have to wonder - did you really eat an entire day's worth of calories and more in potato chips and dip? That leads me to believe that maybe your calorie goal is unrealistically low to…

Congrats on all your success so far! That's super awesome That being said, why wait to weight lift? 180lbs seems arbitrary, weight lifting is great for burning fat, and if you're stuck it seems like a great thing to try. My two cents :)

Weight loss sometimes happens in spurts - you lost 4-5 pounds the first week, and nothing the second week. You're averaging over 2 lbs/week weight loss so far Sorry, that's actually quite normal and still quite a fast rate of weight loss :) But looking at your routine, you aren't really eating enough for how much activity…

Websites like MapMyRun are great for charting out your run/walk and finding how far it is. MFP measures walking calories by your speed, so if you find out how far you walked and how long it took, you can figure out the speed and estimate calories that way. Good luck!

Yeah, I think that if you've budgeted for it, go for it. At the same time, if the person you end up with doesn't really suggest a plan that makes common sense to you, I'd waste no time in finding someone else who fits you better. Sometimes I think these personal trainers come up with way too drastic diet and exercise…

I think there's a very distinct difference between being sore and being hurt. If you're just sore, it's pretty much your body dealing with the huge change in routine. In vague terms, I think soreness is just a general ache when you pull at the muscles, hurt is a sharper pain? I know when I started getting back into shape,…