maillemaker Member

No.

But I used "sedentary" for both calculators, so neither one should be taking exercise into account. Both should be only taking normal daily activity into account, right?

Everything. A standard meal at a fast food joint consumed 90% of the calories I should eat every day. It's why America is overweight. No one pays attention to calories and if you eat "normal" food based on hungry/not hungry cues you will almost certainly be eating a surplus, and it only takes a few years to be overweight.…

I don't know what you are talking about. From your pictures, you are young and beautiful. You have great hips - those are what make women look sexy. You've got a very very tiny tummy but you also have very clear and obvious muscle definition making that V under it. I haven't been as low a body fat as you since high school.…

The time of day you eat has no impact on weight loss, so there is no reason not to eat past 8pm. Myself, especially when starting a diet, my problem is that I run out of calories for the day at dinner time, and the 4-5 hours following I don't have any calories left for the day so I'm hungry. Sometimes I go to bed early to…

That is very good - that's nearly 2 pounds a week which is better than I have ever sustained.

Well I set up both for sedentary so neither one should be including exercise calories. This is just your base amount of calories needed. If you go under Goals on MFP they call it: Calories Burned From Normal Daily Activity 2,740 cal/day Is this not the same thing as TDEE?

I'm skeptical of MFP numbers. When I ride the exercise bike in the gym for 30 minutes, it says I burned like 120 calories. But MFP says that 20 minutes of light bicycle riding burns like 250 calories. It feels like the gym exercise is harder (you can't coast on an exercise bike) so I am skeptical.

My mother smoked for 30 or so years and quit using Chantix.

great post newmeadow.

To me, having MFP friends who are watching is what motivates me. So get active friends lined up to support you!

Yes, reduced activity certainly plays a role also. However, most people in the United States are overweight. There may be a few "special snowflakes" with faster metabolisms, but most people don't, and that's why most people are overweight. Most people simply eat when they are hungry and stop when they are not hungry, and…

The fact is, our bodies evolved during times of food scarcity, and they evolved to store energy as fat when food was plentiful. They also evolved to protect those energy stores. Now, in an era of cheap, tasty, calorie-dense food, it is trivial to become overweight, and that is why most Americans are overweight. Humans do…

Nice legs, oregonzoo. :)

Yup. They say the thing about most addictions is you can put the addiction away and not get into that environment. But people with food addictions take their addiction out three times a day and play with it. If you can get away with eating one meal a day, go for it. But I personally find my willpower buckles when I reach a…

I've let my old gym membership expire. I'm signing up to Planet Fitness. You just can't beat $10 a month. I've always been self-conscious at the gym so I'm not going to be grunting or otherwise making noises while working out anyway. I don't think I'll ever be in great shape so I'm not worried about looking like I'm "too…

I'm in the same boat. Basically, you've got a food addiction. You eat for pleasure without regard to caloric intake. I've been the same way most of my life. I wish there was an easy answer, but there isn't. The reality is once you get fat and try to lose the fat your body cuts back the metabolism and amps up hunger…

This is my take on it also. I think it should be quite understandable why sugar has become a boogey man. It's just like in old times when they thought night air caused fevers. It wasn't the night air, it was the mosquitoes that came with it. They just made the correlation but misunderstood the causation. Foods with high…

If MFP is altering your calorie limit and you have not entered any weight data to cause a recalculation you are experiencing a bug and should post in tech support.

I find when I lose weight that in the first week to two weeks I easily drop 5 pounds or so. Then my metabolism slows down and I start feeling cold and it takes about 4 weeks before the body "gives up" and starts burning fat again. I can see it in my weight loss charts every time I start a diet. I just started again Monday…

It comes down to do you want quantity or quality? Or do you even have the calorie allotment to indulge in the quality?

Great post. This is what low-carb diets do for you: It usually remove a common source of tempting, calorie-dense foods from the diet. The higher protein intake can help with hunger. Both of these things can help maintain a calorie deficit. But they do not guarantee it. You can eat a calorie surplus even when eating a…

I see the same thing when I eat a high protein diet. Eat more veggies.

Diet composition has little impact on body mass: http://i.imgur.com/fmbprDA.jpg From: http://videocast.nih.gov/summary.asp?live=2993&bhcp=20 Eating a diet high in protein can help with hunger feelings. It's generally harder, but very much not impossible, to eat a calorie surplus when you cut carbs out of your diet, because…

There really isn't a diet that is "sustainable for the long haul" for most people. Depending on which study you read, between 80% and 97% of people who attempt weight loss through behavioral modification fail to keep the weight off long-term. They just can't sustain it. It's not the diet so much as your body's reaction to…

My understanding is that these things are basically just digital step trackers, right? They don't do anything for tracking exercise like weightlifting or swimming?

Ultimately, you gotta do what you gotta do to get the calorie deficit. If you can do that by eating one Oreo cookie instead of 10 low-calorie cookies, more power to you. I think everyone agrees that for the most part, low-calorie versions of high-calorie foods almost never taste as good as the real thing. If they did,…

Diet composition has very little to do with weight loss. http://i.imgur.com/AQhBq1Z.jpg From: http://videocast.nih.gov/summary.asp?live=2993&bhcp=20 If "clean eating" involves eating less calorie dense foods, it may make it easier to stick to a diet, but there is nothing magical about the food composition.

Exactly. It's amazing how many of you folks have blown off these professors as quacks. Dr. Liebel is a professor at Columbia University Medical Center. I strongly suggest you Dr. Liebel's lecture. What the research is showing is that people who were once obese who lose fat to match the body composition of people who have…

See, this is what all the "just eat it!" crowd don't understand. It's a hard enough willpower battle to stick to a calorie deficit, let alone tempting yourself with small morsels of what you really want to eat. It's like telling an alcoholic it's OK to just drink in moderation. The whole problem is the inability to…