jakemg

I'm a 31 year old male from Chicago, so we're not all women. :) Good luck. It's definitely worked for me.

We have Jewel here in Chicago, but everywhere else it's just called Safeway.

Depends on how you phrase it. If you sound judgmental, then that's always going to be a problem. If you're constructive, then it's okay. Example: Whoa, someone had a calorie fest today! Hope you plan to work out tomorrow! <-Bad Good job tracking everything today. I'll bet you're going to be under tomorrow! <-Good I…

Holy cow. You're like a completely different person. Hardly recognizable visually. Way to go. You must've really worked your *kitten* off. :)

Try using imgur. Once you upload, link to the i.imgur link (the one labeled "direct link"). I've never had issues with them. Just make sure there aren't any spaces between your [ img ]and [ /img ] tags. That is, no spaces within the tag and the tags should touch the beginning and end of your link. Here's a test: Edit:…

Thanks. I'm absolutely going to bookmark this. :D

Definitely a go on the changing the milk from skim. I always buy fruit, but rarely eat it. I was getting sick of the Special K bars anyway, but I do love Special K as cereal, so maybe I'll just eat a little more than a cup. Good idea, too, on the yogurt. The light stuff is full of fake sugar/splenda, which I try to avoid.

I already do this. :( Maybe two protein shakes? Or maybe stop using skim milk and switch over to 2%? The big problem is that I'm super comfortable with what I'm eating now. I'm actually upset that I need to eat so much more now.

Yeah, holy s**t. Huge difference. You look great. Sadly, I neglected to take a before picture. :( I've lost about 15 pounds, went from a 34-ish waist to a 31, and added tons of muscle. I might put an "after" pic up at some point.

As everyone is saying, go for a walk, then do a little exercise (cardio) so you can earn some calories. Or, have a light dinner (300-400 calories), then burn it off later today by walking, riding a bike, etc. Just earn some more calories. Crisis averted.

Now I have to rate you. I'll give you a 6. Only reason is you're wearing a mask in your profile pic and that would get you a 2. But you're also from Chicago (me, too) so I'm adding 4 points for that.

Salt and vinegar chips. I love love love them, but there is just so much sodium and I already have trouble containing my sodium intake...

Where is My Mind, but not the original version by The Pixies. The PeteBox's version is awesome. Everyone should hear it and listen all the way to the end because it gets really awesome at the end. He did the whole thing in one take and did it all with a loop machine, some pedals, and a guitar.…

Salsa is actually pretty low in calories. I try to get more salsa on each chip and keep track of how many chips I eat. Our town has the world's best Mexican restaurant. I always just order my normal (a giant steak burrito), but I only eat half. This keeps the calories down pretty well (and TBH, that giant burrito really is…

I weigh in every Saturday morning on the same scale. Even if it's off by a pound or two, using the same scale, placed in the exact same position on the floor will still accurately reflect the correct number of pounds lost...

I've posted on here a few times, but mostly in response to others' questions. I've actually had a few people just friend me based on a couple of posts I made and they've been ridiculously supportive (considering they're total strangers). I mean the kind of thing where they say "Great Job!" on my posts when I'm under…

I actually feel the same way because I just want to stay under every day. It's nice to have the Android (or iPhone) app because you can kind of check throughout the day and keep snacking and meals in check. I don't think going over a little bit is a huge deal. If I do, I just go hit the exercise bike for a half hour and…

It's a movie rating that's one worse than "R." ;) I kind of agree, but I'm also not complaining. Congrats on the big loss. You look fantastic.

I disagree that it's harder, but you do have to be patient. I wanted to lose 11 pounds and the first 3-4 weeks, I was kind of standing still. Then I started upping the tempo and frequency of workouts along with tracking my food. Now I've dropped 8 pounds in about 6 weeks (after that 4 weeks of nothing). I think my body…

Also, bump is used in internet forums to "bump" the topic to the top of the list. This works in forums like this where the most recently commented on topics appear first in the list. You are effectively bumping it up to the top.

Yep. She/he would just enter starting weight and then a goal weight that is just going to be higher. Then his/her challenge will be to eat all the calories listed as opposed to trying to stay under the calories listed. At least that's how I think it would work.

This is the greatest post I've ever read. I hear all these excuses from people I send here. Seriously, you can log from your phone. If you don't have a smartphone, you can write it down and log at the end of the day. And I've only come up on two things that weren't in the database. I just took the three minutes to enter…

Oh god, this. I'm thin, and have a good physique (lean muscle), but I keep track of my food and want to lose just a little more fat that I know about. So I track food, visit MFP regularly, and workout every day (sometimes 2x a day). I still get the "You're so thin, you're in shape, why are you drinking diet coke and eating…

Once a week, every Saturday after my shower. This week, my birthday's on Saturday. I'd love my birthday gift to be another pound lost. It's really tough to not weigh more often. To me, it's tougher to weigh once a week than it is to eat healthily.

I'd recommend once a week, no more than that. Otherwise you will get discouraged throughout the day/week and maybe slip from tracking things. For side dishes, I like yogurt, celery, certain nuts. I actually just eat whatever I want as long as I'm under my calories. I tend to just use portion control. After a while of…

I log my multivitamin so I can feel better about meeting certain nutritional requirements. That goddamn potassium is tough for me to hit.

I'm sure the iPhone app has the barcode scanner, too (I have the Android app). That blows people away. They see me scanning parts of my lunch in the breakroom and then ask why I don't just read the label. "Because it just automatically adds it to my log." This wows them. I've got a few people to grab MFP based on that…

Good call. This is the kind of response I was hoping for. I wasn't sure what to say. This will work perfectly. :D

This has been a good strategy for me. If we're going out to eat, I get my hands on the menu beforehand, pick out what I'm going to eat, then put it in. Then I have more self-control over not eating too much.

I do this, too, because after tracking for so long, I can tell you that a single gummi bear has 10 calories and a large stalk of celery is less than that, etc.