2spamagnet Member

Like others have said, calorie restriction! If she has a hard time with smaller portions, then pitch the idea of skipping breakfast when possible, and eat a normal lunch. Coffee may help with hunger in the morning; For example, say she goes to 1200 cal/day. That is 400 cal per meal (pretty small, but manageable). Skipping…

FACT - eating less calories than your burn will tell your body to use stored fat (stored calories) as fuel, and you will lose fat. 3500 calories is about 1 lb of fat. Eat 3500 calories per week more than your body burns and you will store it as 1 lb of new fat. Eat 3500 calories less per week (500 cal/day) and your body…

Skip a meal coming up if you can do it without much effort. I find it easy to skip breakfast and have a normal lunch if I get a little coffee in the morning. Look at the week +/- calories and try to make up for it. Same decisions you will need to make for the rest of your life on maintenance calories. Calories are like…

At nearly 300 lbs, you are not going to screw up your metabolism by eating 900 cal/day. Your body is going to consume (mostly) stored fat (stored excess calories) in order to fuel your body, as it needs it. You won't pass out, as I'm sure you have found out, if you go hungry for a period of the day. Your body converts fat…

You will not hurt yourself. Look into Intermittent fasting (IF), it is something many people do so that they can maintain their weight and eat WTF they want once or twice a week. They are not dropping like flies as some would lead you to believe. Basically you skip breakfast and/or lunch and eat a normal dinner (or make up…

It does not matter WTF he ate - this is the basic Twinkie diet. You eat less calories than you burn, you lose fat. Let's do the math: 3,500 cal per lb of fat (excess or deficit) 37 lbs x 3,500 cal/lb = 129,500 calories of fat burned in 90 days That is 1,440 cal per day less than maintenance. So his maintenance calories, at…

Freakin' awesome!

One of the restaurants I visit weekly now has sweet potato fries! Had them last week for the first time - they are freakin' awesome!

Regarding the "goal" caloric intake per MFP... Unless you have been watching for a while, it might be trial an error. If you can, push to eat even more. When I followed the guidelines for 0.5 lb/week loss, I ended up losing closer to 1.5 lb/week. So, although I track my exercise and work a desk job (sedentary), I am…

Hard to say... Sounds like you want to lose fat and gain muscle. To lose fat, you need to eat less calories than you burn. To gain muscle, you need to do strengthening exercise and get enough protein (0.8 gr to 1.0 gr of protein per lb of body mass - sorry, don't know the metric conversion). If you do those things,…

Are you looking to gain 15 lbs of fat or muscle?

Calories. If you come to a point where you want to do something specific, like gain muscle, then pay more attention to macros. Or if you have a health issue. But to maintain, and otherwise healthy, calories.

The food is not what will make you gain any lost weight back. You can eat any food you want and lose weight. It's eating too much of it that will tell your body to store it as fat. Don't be afraid. Don't live in fear. You understand the basics - eat less calories than you burn off by living and exercising, and your body…

Yeah, fruit is good sugar, and usually comes with fiber. I would ignore any sugar numbers in your diary from whole fruits, and keep an eye on processed sugar from processed foods. Even then, I think the current "recommended" daily max for sugar is 200 gr, which is hard to hit unless you have a bad sugar habit. Start doing…

And do eat back your exercise calories, or at least part of them. Just living you burn about 80 cal/hour (divide your BMR by 24 hours). So while you may burn 500 cal doing 60 min of exercise, really your additional calorie burn is more like 500 - 80 = 420 cal. If you are not feeling hungry after a cardio workout, push off…

Agreed with the above responses. Good ideas. Log everything. There are calories in nearly everything, so be very diligent. Also - Cut more calories. Eating less always works. Don't go so far as 600 cal/day... Get a baseline of good logging of food/quantities, and you should find a balance where you start losing weight. It…

As far as hunger, what has helped me is this thought - every time my stomach says "feed me", that is my body converting stored fat cells into energy until I eat again. So long as you have more than essential body fat (10% to 13% for women), your body easily converts stored fat into the energy/calories it needs to function…

If you are trying to build muscle, which at 19 should be easy to do, you'll have a hard time trying to figure out if you have lost fat by your weight. You could burn 2 lb of fat and build 2 lb of muscle this month and not see the scale move. You are pretty close to being at a low body fat value as it is. I'm 5'-11" and…

Cut more calories. Eating less always works. Reset your Goals under My Home on MFP and set it back another 0.5 lb/week. You can check your current, or your new MFP number here: http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/ Put in your stats, and check your BMR. This is the amount of calories your body needs if you do…

Call whatever you want, but know your facts. It's good you are optimistic, though. 1. Muscle needs about 5 calories/lb to maintain. That is insignificant in your daily routine. You need protein to build muscle, and very few calories/day to maintain it. "Extra calories CAN go towards building muscle" while a technically…

At your height and weight, your BMR is a bit over 1430 if you do nothing all day but survive. Add in an activity factor and exercise calories, you're at least 20% higher than that. If you want to lose weight, and have over 13% body fat (your BMI says you are), if you eat under your BMR your body will use fat stores for…

So, you are having trouble with dealing with hunger (and typically eat more than 1400/day)? If so: Some things are more filling than others - whole grains are one, and protein is another. Try some meals heavier on those items (within your calorie allotment) and see if they help keep the hunger down for longer periods of…

Carbs are not evil. Fat is not evil. Sugar is not evil. Eating foods in excess of the calories you burn is what leads to storage of energy as fat cells. Enjoy carbs any time of the day, within your calorie allotment. An extra 3500 calories (over what you burn) will be stored as 1 lb of fat. It does not matter what those…

Unfortunately, you cannot do anything specific to take fat cells off a specific area of the body (through diet or exercise). Your body takes it off where it wants to take it off. Fortunately, as you lose fat cells, your body will eventually get there and start using those stores for energy. (FYI - typically, fat cells…

Wow... That is incredibly helpful.

Previous posts - great. Sounds like they have a lot of sh** of their own - don't let them make it yours. Either confront them (as others have mentioned) and shame them to STFU, or if you don't like that approach then don't talk to them about your weight loss goals and do it on your own. Good folks here will be there to…

You are very welcome. I hope it helps in dealing with the cookie monster. :-) I want to share another thing I have learned from my weight loss. When I chose my goal weight, I used a BMI calculator and chose 10 lbs over the "underweight" level for my height. There is a BMI calculator here: http://www.bmi-calculator.net/…

Lifting won't burn much calories. Cardio will. Lifting will help you gain muscle, but you still need to get okay with being hungry at times. Unfortunately, that is how you know you are in a caloric deficit. If you eat a surplus of calories over what you burn, and lift weights, you will gain weight in muscle AND fat. No…

Are you getting enough sleep? I see a huge difference in energy when I don't get enough. Carbs - complex carbs are good for you and help fuel your workouts. Carbs are not evil. No foods are evil. It's when we eat way too much of things (more calories than we need) that we put on fat. If you eat more than maintenance, your…

If I understand the question, I don't think it matters (fitness or activity level). BMR is relatively the same between people of the same height, regardless of fitness or activity. Looking at an obese person and a lean person of the same height, organ size is about the same. The difference in weight/apparent body size is…