futuremanda Member

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/819925/the-basics-dont-complicate-it/p1

If your TDEE really is around 4700, and you've been maintaining your current weight, you've been eating about 4700 already. So you can afford to buy 3800 cals of food, as it's actually less than you've been eating. Your body is not less efficient at burning fat. Your body won't shut down or stop your weight loss if you eat…

Try mybodygallery.com

Sure. Sort of. I mean, as an estimate. 52 weeks in a year means that if you have a lot of weight to lose, you could lose 100 lbs, give or take, in a year, healthily. It may go quicker than 2 lbs a week at first if you are overweight enough. But it also will slow down as you get closer to goal. Maybe 1 lb a week once you…

12 calories per 10g according to the package, or according to the entry that comes up when you scan the package?

Is that the same ham as this? http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=268333662 Because then it'd be 70 calories per 50 g, not 60. Not that that is a huge discrepancy, but it's just to show you that you need to *carefully verify* the information you find, even (especially?) in the MFP database. There's nothing…

Even foods like vegetables have sodium in them naturally. People are pointing this out because it signals that the particular entry for your vegetables may be incorrect if it is showing 0g of sodium. And no one is saying the info on the package is wrong (it actually can be off by a % but there's no way for you to do…

Digital with a tare function is good. You may want to consider how it will live in your kitchen -- will you put it in a cupboard when not using, or tilt it on its side to lean against a wall or leave it out all the time (in which case, you're looking at it all the time). That, and how easy it would be to clean, will help…

You WOULD eat them back if you use MFP's calorie goals. MFP gives you the -1000 target without factoring in exercise, that's why it wants you to eat them back after you do exercise and log it (otherwise, if you burn say 500, you're now -1500, which is a lot more than targeted). So when you were doing 1240, eating back…

Just adding: BMR is a largely irrelevant number. You will read a lot of myths about it -- like to never eat below it, or to subtract from it. Ignore. BMR is the number of calories your body would burn if it were in a coma (i.e. keep your heart pumping etc but 0 other movement). It is a number that factors into equations to…

You need a deficit of 1000 calories per day to lose 2 lbs a week. (3500 x 2)/7 If your TDEE is 2657, then that is how much you burn in a day, in total. (Remembering that everything is an estimate, but that's fine -- that's a starting point.) 2657 - 1000 = 1657 per day. Using TDEE, you do NOT eat back exercise calories.…

She wouldn't lose significant muscle mass in a week of not exercising, just like you don't build significant muscle mass in a week of exercising.

^ This. http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1161603/so-you-want-a-nice-stomach/p1

Yep, another vote for saving some. And plan the snack -- this will help you not go over budget. Evening is a time when we relax and often enjoy time with family members, so it's common to save extra calories for a bigger dinner or an evening snack, to make that easier. Another option is to give yourself a reason to skip.…

Oh, packaged stuff can be really wrong. You might want to do a pass of things you eat often and see if anything is off. (Bread especially. I've also heard meat can be way off.) It does sound depressing! But even being lightly active and not exercising at all (so moving more in your day, but no workouts) would bump you to…

Are you using calculators that give set weight loss goals? So here's one I use just to get a ballpark. (There are different calculators that use different formulas, and everyone is a bit different -- but ballpark is good enough to start.) http://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html When I run your numbers, on…

Sorry if I sounded harsh! I didn't intend to impart any "tone" like that at all. I personally find the math behind weight gain/loss/maintenance very empowering. You can have a bad feeling when you step on the scale and see a number you don't like... and your weapon against that is reason. I'm just trying to help give you…

Progress happens incrementally, and whether or not you notice it is partly going to be about how distorted your self-image and thinking are. Big results take months and years though, yeah. Patience: You can get your diet and exercise on point but torture yourself because you're not perfect, or you can get your diet and…

Then you haven't been reading very closely. It takes 3500 calories above your maintenance to put on 1 lb of fat. Have you been eating like 5,000 to 12,000 calories a day? No? Then you didn't put on 1-3 lbs of fat in a couple of days. You put on water. Water comes back off. It goes up and down. It's neither here nor there,…

Nope, sorry. Spot reduction is a myth. Maintain a calorie deficit over time by setting up MFP for weight loss, logging everything every day, and sticking to your calorie target. As fat comes off all over, it will eventually reduce in your belly. A heavy lifting program in combination with fat loss, or if you're already…

Try setting small goals, and committing to those. Like if you've stopped logging, your job for today is to log. That's it. Tomorrow, it's to log, and to eat less than the day before, even if by 1 calorie. Day after, log, and eat to a modest weight loss target, like 0.5 lb a week. Day after, log, keep the target or go…

You won't lose muscle mass or fitness from a few days or even a week of rest. You may feel less strong and have less stamina when you get back into it, but that will be more because you're still recovering, and not because you lost anything. You also won't gain any fat if you're in a deficit or eating around maintenance.

How far in advance? I find the most sustainable and helpful method for me is to create permanent meal plans. They're almost like recipes, or templates for a meal, with all the components and target grams already there. I then plan which meals I'm going to make all week, and what the grocery list needs to look like…

It IS confusing, because when you set it up, it asks you how much you plan to do, then lists it in the summary. But try rerunning it again with 0 exercise planned, and it'll give you the same, because it isn't using it. Which means you can totally eat your exercise calories back. Say you're eating 1500 for a projected loss…

The amount you told MFP you would burn is not factored into anything. You could skip all those workouts and just eat your calorie target and still get your projected loss. And when you do workout, MFP intends you to eat the cals back, effectively negating them in terms of your deficit. So don't stress about calories and…

How many calories are you eating?

I'm not 100% sure I'm reading this right so I'm going to just say: it is straightforward math. 300 + 300 - 300 = 300 300 - 300 = 0 300 + 300 = 600 - 300 - 300 = - 600 And so on. It doesn't matter whether it is 300 you ate, or did not eat, or burned, or did not burn. So yes. If you were 300 over on Monday, and on Tuesday…

You should address your fears head on. They are a problem. They are not acceptable to have and nurture in the interest of losing weight -- you can lose weight without feeling like this. This is no way to live. One good start to going after fears is to realize that often, thoughts and feelings are irrational. It's not your…

Yes, of course. Burning calories means just that. That's like saying if you spend $1000 but were supposed to only spend $700, earning another $300 you wouldn't have otherwise earned somehow wouldn't make up for it. This is also why MFP gives you calories back to eat for exercise. But it's not always the healthiest…

Logging is an excellent first step. If you'd like a helpful tool, get a digital food scale -- takes out the guesswork and the fiddling of figuring out how much of something you ate. (At least for things you're eating at home anyway!) You don't need a food program, I promise. Logging will help you see some changes you can…