AnnPT77 Member

It's not really about luck. It's about commitment . . . like in your thread title. You're holding the reins. You can use them to drive where you want to go. Hang in there!

Keep going: The results will be worth it. Think about finding habits you can continue long term, ideally forever. Maybe don't smash a whole pizza, but have a salad and a slice now and then. (There are place you can buy it by the slice.) It can fit in calorie goal. Don't deprive yourself; find those sustainable new habits.…

I'm so sorry you're feeling this way. Nothing changes, though, unless we change it. You can do this. It doesn't need to be a giant revolutionary overhaul of every life detail at once. Make a positive change, any one that sounds easy. Eat more veggies, or try some manageable activity (maybe stretching in the morning to get…

It won't be the perfect approach for everyone (we're all different), but for me calorie counting with MFP was the perfect approach. It let me eat foods I enjoy and find practical and filling, and work on tuning up my nutrition as well as getting my calorie level where it needed to be to reach my weight goals. I'm a data…

I agree with the general philosophy of not giving it much worry, especially on vacation, and especially after heavy exercise. Make a wild guess estimate, log it, and go on with life. That's especially true if this was a one-time meal. One meal, even one day, is a drop in the ocean. Finding a set of daily routine habits,…

The above. Or pay for premium MFP, which has a setting to turn off adding exercise calories. Personally, I wouldn't do that, especially if the calories are coming from a tracker synced to MFP. If you have a tracker synced, MFP is only adding back enough calories to keep you at the weight loss rate you asked for in your MFP…

Was the exercise new? Do you still have monthly cycles? (Rhetorical questions: You don't need to answer in print.) It's common to see a water weight increase when starting new exercise (or increasing total load, or adding new types), especially strength-challenging exercise. Time-wise, you're kind of past the time (4-6…

This is soooOOOOO fabulous, @TheMrWobbly! I've loved seeing your updates, and can hardly wait to hear your race report. You're a great example/role model here!

Not necessarily. Generally, syncing a tracker leads MFP to compare what MFP expected you to burn (based on all your settings including activity level) with what the tracker thinks you burned. If the tracker sees you as more active than MFP expected, MFP will add calories to your daily goal. MFP uses those estimates -…

I lost weight as a vegetarian, but I don't know what to tell you. I don't use meal plans. I eat foods I like that add up to the right number of calories and provide good overall nutrition, including ample good-quality (EAA-complete, relatively bioavailable) protein. That works. It doesn't require some special diet plan.…

It was way, way slower and less efficient than any kind of weight lifting, or other things perceived as official strength training, but my quads got stronger, more muscular, and smaller (tighter) - I guess you'd say toned - from doing truly large amounts of rowing and biking. I row boats when I can (yes, it's a leg sport -…

Maybe think about those night time carb cravings in a different light? As we go through the day, last night's sleep gets more distant in the rear-view mirror. We start to get fatigued. When we're fatigued, our body starts to send us "need energy!" signals (via hunger and appetite hormones). Food is energy. Carbs…

Some of you are clearly in places where Spring is more advanced than it is here. There's a nice woods on one of the paved trails that I bike often, where there are always many Spring wildflowers, a succession of them. Today, the featured item was Cutleaf Toothwort (Carmine concatenata) in masses, but I failed to get a…

Late afternoon med appointment that started late, but I didn't want to waste the remains of a beautiful day (mostly sunny, high 60s F, around 20 C). Therefore, slightly shorter bike ride out on the paved trails, easy pace (except the hills ;) :D ): 15.5 miles, 10mph average moving speed, about half Z2, a little Z3, quite a…

Well . . . if guided setup led to the expected weight loss over the first 6 weeks or so (or first couple of menstrual cycles), then yeah, go back through guided setup. If it didn't lead to the expected weight loss (for someone who followed their goals pretty consistently), then I'd suggest adjusting calorie intake based on…

I lost about 50 pounds in a bit less than a year, when I'd been in menopause for nearly 15 years. (There are quite a few women here who lost weight in menopause; I assume some will comment.) I'm also severely hypothyroid (but medicated for it), which some people think is a barrier, too. (I don't, particularly.) You mention…

Usually fat would be the trigger for that problem in some people without a gallbladder. If you know what range of foods to eat to minimize that problem, then eating a calorie-appropriate amount of those foods would be expected to lead to weight loss. The idea that there are special foods to eat to lose weight is generally…

MFP tracks carbs (not net carbs) by default. In premium MFP, there's a setting that changes things so that it tracks net carbs (not total carbs). If you see net carbs, I'm thinking you must have premium MFP and have somehow turned on that setting? All of this assumes you're choosing database entries that are accurate for…

In one sense - a practical sense - "MFP" doesn't base the percent on anything. Regular users enter the foods in the database. They enter whatever they please. It may've been from an old label, it may've been a typo, it may've been in another country where labeling was different, it may be completely bogus if the person…

My rowing club did another volunteer day at the community garden, which serves a local food pantry among other good causes. Today's "workout" was around 2.5 hours of steadily scuffle-hoeing weeds, digging clumps of grass (which doesn't scuffle-hoe well), putting the weeds in buckets and dumping them in big containers a…

I agree that pharmaceutical companies are profiteers, as a generality. That's really not a very good article, though, IMO. Incomplete facts, just fanning outrage for clickbait. I thought Fortune would know better on some of the technical details. They talk about the cost of the raw materials, and the relative cost of…

I've seen crispy broadbeans, chickpeas or lentils in various places in stores: Some brands are pseudo-international, so in an international foods section. (Saffron Road is one of the brands I've seen in the international section at one of our local big chains, Meijer.) Sometimes in other stores various brands are near…

There's a setting for turning that off, but it's only available in the premium version of MFP. You can un-sync your tracker and accomplish almost the same arithmetic if you don't have premium MFP. Why don't you want the calories adjusted? Fast loss isn't necessarily a good plan, and if you asked for the loss rate you want…

It's been an interesting weekend. I crunched my car (and someone else's) late afternoon Friday, which left me discombobulated. I did do a 60+3' stationary bike ride later in the evening, thinking it would help burn off some of the fight or flight hormones, which did help, but I still got literally zero minutes of sleep…

That sounds like a great plan, @BCLadybug888! Very smart. I feel like sometimes new people here think they need to follow some externally endorsed plan, maybe a named diet of some kind . . . but I think personalizing tactics to our own preferences, strengths, limitations and lifestyle is a key success factor. Fingers…

Hi, Lori, and welcome - from a fellow Michigander, age 68. I admit I don't know much about heart issues, but I admire that you're taking the reins to improve your own health. I'm kind of sub-par on the MFP friend side of things (more of a Community forum gal, I guess). But I wanted to stop by your thread and welcome you to…

Hi, Denise! I second Margaret's suggestion. There's also a 50+ group, only lightly active, but it seems to be picking up a bit lately. You could help it pick up. ;) https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/100593-over-50-group I'm 68, F, too. I lost around 50 pounds using MFP at age 59-60, now hanging around long term…

What are you doing wrong? Possibly nothing . . . except not giving the process enough time to work. Changing our eating patterns and increasing exercise/activity can increase water retention temporarily (for health-promoting reasons) and mask fat loss on the scale. I'd suggest sticking with a starting regimen - eating and…

If fat loss is the goal, reduced calories is the direct route. But 17 days isn't long enough to have a clear picture. When we increase exercise (or even do new types), we tend to retain a little more water in our bodies for muscle repair. That can mask fat loss on the scale for a couple of weeks or more. On top of that,…