AliceDark Member

My partner and I are never on the same losing/gaining/maintaining schedule, so we make a lot of meals where one person can easily add calories without impacting the base meal. A main-course salad is a great example: you can have the base salad with all the good veggies and tofu (or whatever), and he can add a high-calorie…

I assume that weight-by-grams is for the edible portion only, and I always add "raw USDA" when I search for fruits/vegetables. When I'm prepping food at home and can, I'll slice stone fruit to remove the pit and weigh the edible portion, but if I'm prepping food to take with me to work and don't want to do that, I'll just…

I have some kind of dessert every single day. Sometimes it's cookies a cupcake, other days it's fruit or Greek yogurt that I put in the freezer so it kind of feels like ice cream, and sometimes if I'm super low on fat I have a spoonful of PB and call it dessert. I like ending each day with something that I'm eating…

I don't think there's anything wrong with pausing to reset before each rep; it's a good way to make sure your form is perfect on every rep and that you're not bouncing the bar off the floor. If you're needing to take actual rest breaks, though, that's a different story. Based on your last update, you might've just been…

Search for "{whatever food item} Raw USDA" and you'll typically get very accurate entries. (If there are other food regulatory entities outside of the US, you could probably do a similar search with their initials and also get good results.)

I ate all of the salt and all of the carbs yesterday, and I'm up about 2.5 pounds today. Totally worth it.

Nobody logs 100% accurately. Everyone has inaccuracies. That doesn't mean that we're cheating or stupid or doing anything purposefully wrong; it just means that we can't track our intake to that degree of accuracy. Even with our best efforts, we're still just hitting a ballpark (not an actual calorie target). I think the…

Plus, virtually all scales will show you a different number if you step on them multiple times. However, most of the newer ones are programmed to show you the same number if you weigh a few times in quick succession. A new scale is going to keep doing the same thing, it just might not tell you about it. At a certain point,…

So, it’s normal to gain a couple of pounds very quickly when you go from being in a deficit to being at maintenance. Lots of people lose to a few pounds below their goal weight for exactly that reason.

Oh, sweetie, you sound so stressed. I had to pause while reading your OP to take deep breaths, so I can't imagine how it must feel to be in that mental space all the time. Our bodies tend to have some lag time in their reactions. Occasionally we see the immediate effects of a change (if I have a super-high sodium day, I…

Welcome! The first thing to do is to pick a beginner program. The link above lists a TON of good programs, but it's also a little intimidating trying to sort through all of them. Three that we recommend all the time are Starting Strength, Stronglifts and Strong Curves (so I'd personally start by looking at those three,…

FWIW, I’m ovo/lacto veg and average 125g of protein per day, which is appropriately high for me based on my weight and goals. But, I have to work at it. I prioritize getting in my protein and often make food choices based on what I need to hit my macros (and that sometimes means not eating what I’d prefer to eat). It would…

Time of the month.

Lol, I totally needed to be reminded of these things this week! I'm trying to gain at a controlled rate, and the scale fluctuations are making me slightly insane. Knowing this stuff and REALLY trusting this stuff are two different things :smirk:

Aww, heck yeah! I'm happy to hear that things are working so well for you! (I love my food scale for the exact same reason. I was hesitant to get one until I realized that tare = no more washing measuring cups and spoons every day!)

Everyone has logging inaccuracies, in their food or exercise tracking (usually both). Nobody tracks 100% accurately. The goal is to keep getting better at it. Your job when you're not getting the results you expect is to try to track down as many sources of inaccuracy as you can and address them. It's a better idea to…

MFP is configured so that it won't give you a calorie goal below 1200. That means that if you're plugging in inputs that would cause it to drop below 1200, it automatically spits out 1200. Theoretically, you could tell it you want to lose 3 or 5 or 8 pounds per week, and every time, it would tell you to eat 1200. That…

Are you lifting like this because you're limited by the weights available (i.e., does your gym have a limited setup or are you working out with weights you have at home)? Either way, that combination of weights and exercises probably isn't optimal for what you want to achieve. For example, most women get to the point where…

You're still a newbie lifter, so you're in the perfect place to see some amazing results with a recomp or even in a small deficit. Pick a program (use the list that stanman posted above if you're not sure where to look for one). Eat either at maintenance or in a small deficit if you'd really like to lose a couple of…

Satiety is SUPER individual, so what makes me feel full isn't necessarily what makes you feel full. Some people are volume eaters, and feel fuller when they incorporate foods that are bulky but relatively low in calories (salad greens, raw vegetables, popcorn, etc.) Other people find protein and/or fat satiating, so a huge…

Welcome! Why do you feel stuck? Without knowing more, there is a ton of information in the links in this post that may be helpful: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10300319/most-helpful-posts-general-health-fitness-and-diet-must-reads#latest

It doesn't really matter which method you try -- logging "wrong" or only eating back a portion of your exercise calories -- as long as you're consistent with it. You're really only playing with estimates anyway, so you'll have to rely on your observed results to tell you whether your method works. I took a peek at your…

I still find that having 1lb and 1.25lb plates is really helpful. I struggled for a long time with being able to do, say, 5-6 reps at a certain weight but only being able to do 1 or 2 reps when I went up by 5lbs. My microplates just gave me a lot more flexibility.

But, what makes it a better method? Doesn't that depend on what works best for the individual? The MFP method says that 1+3=4. More traditional TDEE methods say that 2+2=4. They're both getting you to the same calorie target across a week, but they break it out differently. Whether YOU do better eating back your exercise…

I do this too. I have my weekly goal broken out so that I have five lower-than-expected calorie days, and put the extra calories on the weekends.

I have the same kind of issue - my body just chooses to pull fat from my upper body, so I have a tendency to develop very visible ribs and sternum when I drop fat. Bench, bench, bench. Depending on your program, it probably wouldn't hurt to do several variants over the course of the week (Smith, barbell, dumbbell, etc.)…

I've had two Mirena IUDs in the last seven years or so. I've never had any difficulty losing weight.

If you go cold turkey, it might be a good idea to take caffeine pills while you switch and then wean yourself off of them, unless you're dying for one heck of a headache.

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Also, does your scale "live" in one stationary place on a hard/flat surface, or do you need to bring it out to use it? Moving it every time or using a scale that is not on a hard/flat surface introduces inaccuracy. Fluctuations are normal, but seeing 11-pound fluctuations is less normal -- it suggests you have introduced…