AliceDark Member

I only shared my experience to illustrate that doctors can sometimes/often make dietary recommendations based on little information. My doctor's recommendation was unsupported by the literature and was of no help to me; if I didn't already know that it was useless advice I would've absolutely asked follow-up questions. I…

I have an autoimmune condition that causes inflammation in just one of my eyes. My eye doctor told me to go paleo. Never mind that "paleo" isn't universally-defined, or that there aren't studies that clearly support dietary interventions in gene-related uveitis (except for people who have also been diagnosed as celiac).…

Don't think of it in terms of you taking a break from working on your fitness -- you're very actively healing, and you need to give your body the building blocks it needs in order to do that. Plus, the best case scenario is that you heal quickly and completely, and can jump back into training soon. The other side of that…

This is a thread I started awhile back that talks about commonly-seen reasons for gains or stalls on the scale: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634529/why-did-the-number-on-the-scale-go-up-this-week-heres-why/p1 It's okay to be freaked out by stalls. Most people aren't necessarily aware that their weight…

Every calculator, tracker, and calorie estimator just gives you an estimate. And even the best logger in the world is only capturing an estimate of their intake. So you're really just getting a fuzzy picture of your calories in, and trying to compare it to a fuzzy picture of your calories out. Your actual real-world…

As an adult male weighing 323 pounds, unless you're under a doctor's instructions, there's no reason for you to be restricting to 1400 calories. That's unreasonably low, and you can lose weight efficiently and effectively without needing to be so extreme. I'd highly encourage you to plug your stats into MFP and follow the…

This is spot-on. Losing much more weight isn't going to help if you don't have the underlying muscle mass; you'll end up looking frail. If you haven't really lifted before, you have a fantastic opportunity to recomp. If it were me, I'd focus on lifting and eating enough to maintain my weight for 4-6 months, and then see…

Hi everyone, it seems like this topic may be better suited to the General Health and Fitness forum. I'm going to move it there. Thanks! AliceDark MFP Moderator

If that's your authentic answer -- and it's not "I really do want to, but I'm not sure I can, or I'm intimidated/confused/whatever" -- then you should listen to it. Maybe down the line, you WILL want to, and forcing yourself to be unhappy now will make that harder later on.

The main difference between the MFP method and other calculators is that MFP has you adding back in your exercise calories, whereas other calculators spread them evenly between each day. They're both getting you to the same answer in the end, but they go about it differently; it's like MFP is having you add 1+3 and the…

Would you be able to swim?

Honestly, I hadn't read the OP's prior thread. Sometimes, it takes people more than once hearing new information before they believe it. It can take hearing the same thing from different people so that it feels like a consensus rather than just new information from a smaller sample group of strangers on the internet. And…

You're doing a lot of unnecessary things that are making you miserable, and I'm assuming that you're doing them because you think you have to be miserable to lose weight. Stop doing them. #1: Why in the world are you trying to eat only 1700 calories per day? That's the biggest one. You selected "lose 2 pounds per week"…

O. M. G. Mind. Blown.

It's very easy to construct an overall diet that is unbalanced. Your OP is an excellent example of an unbalanced diet -- you were lacking protein, fiber and micronutrients. But saying "you should eat a varied diet that provides adequate macro and micronutrients" is not at all the same as saying "you shouldn't incorporate…

Being 80% accurate over a long period of time is far better than trying to be 100% accurate (which is impossible, btw) for a very short period of time, then quitting and being 0% accurate.

I've been mixing in some cinnamon and raisins or chopped dates lately. It has a very rice pudding-ish vibe.

That looks wonderful, but it also looks very high-fiber and low-fat. I could be wrong, but especially given the calorie count you provided, I suspect that you didn't add any fats to the veggies or the rice, and it looks like you're using some kind of margarine or spread on the bread. Fats are an easy way to bump up the…

I respectfully disagree with the bolded part. Weighing food isn't necessary to create a deficit and lose weight. It's a helpful method for some people, but it's not the only method that works. I think the insistence that you HAVE to weigh your food can be really discouraging for people for whom weighing food isn't a good…

It's a better idea to weigh higher-calorie foods than lower-calorie foods, because potential inaccuracies will have a larger impact on your deficit. So, if you eat more peanut butter than you intend, it has a bigger impact than if you eat more lettuce than you intend. With that said, I don't weigh things when it comes as a…

I'm a firm believer (to the point that I'm probably annoying about it) in the idea that "health" isn't just about the physical. It's okay, even good, to prioritize our mental health, and anything that causes joy is good (at least in moderation, if necessary). When I'm sick, I want god-awful, nutritionally-deficient white…

If you don't want to keep scales at home, use a measuring tape to take your measurements instead of relying solely on two articles of clothing that just fit at your waist and lower body. Your body takes fat from wherever it pleases, so you might be losing inches in lots of other places that aren't reflected in how one pair…

Stevia makes my mouth burn and my tongue go numb. (True story: the first and only time I tried powdered Stevia in my coffee, I thought that the cleaning people had used some kind of cleanser in the coffee pot and forgotten to rinse it out afterward. I thought I was drinking coffee + industrial cleanser). I haven't visited…

Absolutely not. If you follow that logic, you're saying that high-calorie foods are normal foods and low-calorie foods are not. You're still holding onto the idea that high-calorie foods are the norm and you're deviating from the norm when you choose a lower-calorie option, and I think that's an unhealthy way to think…

And also...bodies are just weird sometimes. You can't really say anything for sure based on a single weigh-in. Maybe your body let go of more water weight than expected immediately before the weigh-in. Maybe you're burning more than you think, or not quite tracking as well as you think. Unless this shows a pattern across…

It can be really helpful to go at a slower time for your first few sessions, so the feeling of being surrounded by people (or having to rush because other people also want the equipment) isn't so intense. The people at the front desk can tell you when it's quieter and when it's packed. Even if you can't completely change…

Start planning (and buying) your high-protein snacks. Things like canned tuna or chicken, jerky, greek yogurt or cottage cheese can be easy ways to get in protein during the day without interfering with their planned meals.

Great work!

Would you be able to provide more information about how you set your goals (weight, activity, desired rate of loss) and open your diary for a short period of time? I'll bet people can figure out exactly what's going on if they have some more information.

Gotcha. For some reason, I wasn't thinking about "at the office" solutions. It sounds like your workday is going to present two challenges: making sure you have enough available foods that work for you, and figuring out a way to trigger yourself to try them sooner rather than later. Does that sound right? So, we're looking…