I really need guidance, I'm so confused
01-10-2010, 04:08 PM
#1
FitDay Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 1
I really need guidance, I'm so confused
Well after breaking my ankle 3 years ago I ballooned up to 250lb from 160lb.........and I'm only 5' 4 and 26 years old, so needless to say I want to lose weight, but I'm confused on how many calories, protein, carbs I'm supposed to be eating everyday, to lose weight and keep it off. I go to the gym 6 days a week and burn around 600 calories between cardio and weight lifting.
2 weeks ago I started to track my eating and I realized that I dont eat very much at all and what I do is terrible. I mean I was eating out 5x a week and it was crap like pasta, ice cream etc.....
January 2 I decided to cut out all the fast food and junk, but the issue is I only average 800-1000 calories a day, and I burn around 600 at the gym....the odd thing is I dont feel tired at all.
I have been thinking about the Atkins diet, but my huge concern about it is, the safety. How safe is this diet? I would like to be down to around 120-140 before my wedding in Oct of 2013, with as little excess skin as possible.
At this point I feel so lost, confused and ugly...............any help would fantastic............I'm open to just about anything at this point.
2 weeks ago I started to track my eating and I realized that I dont eat very much at all and what I do is terrible. I mean I was eating out 5x a week and it was crap like pasta, ice cream etc.....
January 2 I decided to cut out all the fast food and junk, but the issue is I only average 800-1000 calories a day, and I burn around 600 at the gym....the odd thing is I dont feel tired at all.
I have been thinking about the Atkins diet, but my huge concern about it is, the safety. How safe is this diet? I would like to be down to around 120-140 before my wedding in Oct of 2013, with as little excess skin as possible.
At this point I feel so lost, confused and ugly...............any help would fantastic............I'm open to just about anything at this point.
01-10-2010, 05:11 PM
#2
FitDay Member
Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 171
One thing to keep in mind, is if you don't eat enough calories, your body will go into starvation mode....and the weight will not come off.
some of the rules to try and follow:
Eat breakfast, with a protein.
Eat 5 or 6 times a day.
Drink 6 to 8 glasses of water each day.
The high protein, low carb diet is supposed to be good for weight loss but for me, I would have a very hard time giving up the carbs...only you know if you can be so restricted and be successful.
Good luck to you, it is a tough, but rewarding journey. Remember, everytime you put food in your mouth you are eating to live!!
some of the rules to try and follow:
Eat breakfast, with a protein.
Eat 5 or 6 times a day.
Drink 6 to 8 glasses of water each day.
The high protein, low carb diet is supposed to be good for weight loss but for me, I would have a very hard time giving up the carbs...only you know if you can be so restricted and be successful.
Good luck to you, it is a tough, but rewarding journey. Remember, everytime you put food in your mouth you are eating to live!!
01-10-2010, 09:42 PM
#3
FitDay Member
Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 1
The no carbs rule is really silly esp when you are exercising, you need your energy from something - just eat the right type of carbs. I recommend you look at Patrick Holford's GL eating plan - I think this is probably a near perfect diet - you get all the nutrition you need, you eat 5 times a day which is good and you have a balance - it can be a bit daunting to get your head around, but it is easy when you get going.
I tried the Atkins once and it made me so ill I had three weeks off work - all that protein makes your liver work so hard that it is exhausting - don't do it!
I tried the Atkins once and it made me so ill I had three weeks off work - all that protein makes your liver work so hard that it is exhausting - don't do it!
01-11-2010, 09:31 AM
#4
FitDay Member
Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 4
If you are new to tracking, are you sure you are only getting 800-1000 calories?
I recommend starting off by weighing everything for a few days. If you are estimating by sight, some people are very surprised how tricky it is to estimate portion sizes.
Make sure you know what is in everything. For example, some restaurants put oil or butter on vegetables and you don't know it.
Also, make sure you track everything that goes in your mouth. Those little harmless bites here and there can add up! (If that applies to you, of course.)
Just some ideas! Of course, if you are actually eating 800-1000 calories a day and burning 600, I would take the comment about starvation mode to heart and add in some healthy calories.
Good luck!
I recommend starting off by weighing everything for a few days. If you are estimating by sight, some people are very surprised how tricky it is to estimate portion sizes.
Make sure you know what is in everything. For example, some restaurants put oil or butter on vegetables and you don't know it.
Also, make sure you track everything that goes in your mouth. Those little harmless bites here and there can add up! (If that applies to you, of course.)
Just some ideas! Of course, if you are actually eating 800-1000 calories a day and burning 600, I would take the comment about starvation mode to heart and add in some healthy calories.
Good luck!
01-13-2010, 02:15 PM
#5
FitDay Member
Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 13
Hi Loren, sounds like we've had a similar trajectory (minus the broken ankle)! My massive weight gain happened over three or four years of a job with a weird schedule and some presonal stress - I got up to 240, and now I'm down to 200 by tracking my calories and activity here in FitDay. Still a long way to go, but I didn't gain it overnight, right?
The thing that has probably helped me the most is cooking at home. I vegetable garden, and it's really fun to go home after work and find what's ripe in the garden and cook something up with that. Add some protein, and voila! Obviously I can't do that in the winter, though, so I use the frozen vegetable mixes from the store. The stir fry vegetable mixes are great because you get a lot of variety without added fat and can flavor them up any way you want to. And they don't go bad before you can eat it all! The frozen fruit is great, too.
I have a hard time getting enough protein, so I've started using protein shakes as well. Here's one I really like with 24g of protein for only 117 calories. Dymatize Elite Whey | Elite Whey Protein | Dymatize Whey Protein
Getting enough protein helps you stay full and helps build your lean muscle mass if you're working out. Low carb hasn't worked for me in the past because it makes me constipated (sorry to be gross!). Once, after going very low carb and working out hard for several days, I found myself so exhausted, I just had NO energy. After gorging myself on cookies, I felt better than I had in days! Cookies are not the path to weight loss success, though, so now I try to makes sure that I'm getting my carbs! Healthy carbs like oatmeal, brown rice, and whole wheat pasta.
Which brings me to nutrition. Whole grain carbs are very nutritious! I get very motivated by reading up on whole foods and the benefits they bring. A great resource for this is The World's Healthiest Foods website which has a very balanced approch to nutritional health and is written in laymen's terms that are easy to understand. You can look up information by food or essential nutrients. Here's a link to the food list...
WHFoods: The World's Healthiest Foods It's at the top of my bookmark list (under FitDay, of course!) and has inspired me to try new foods. Also, All recipes ? complete resource for recipes and cooking tips is great because you can search recipes by ingredient if there is something new you want to try.
If I have too big of a calorie deficit one day, I have a tendency to binge the next, so I've learned that some days I need to eat a little more than what feels comfortable to prevent myself from overdoing it and making unhealthy choices.
One other thing I do, although I don't know that it's advocated here, is I eat all the "free" non-starchy vegetables I want - in other words, I don't record them on my FitDay log. I only do this for to expidite my food entries. When I did Weight Watchers years ago, they allow you to eat all the non-starchy vegetables you want, so this is just a hold-over from that. It makes it easy for me and encourages me to load up on the healthy stuff. Doing this has not hindered my weight loss, but if you use the frozen vegetable mixes, it would be easy to incude them through the food choices or as a custom food.
Good luck - you're on the right track!!
The thing that has probably helped me the most is cooking at home. I vegetable garden, and it's really fun to go home after work and find what's ripe in the garden and cook something up with that. Add some protein, and voila! Obviously I can't do that in the winter, though, so I use the frozen vegetable mixes from the store. The stir fry vegetable mixes are great because you get a lot of variety without added fat and can flavor them up any way you want to. And they don't go bad before you can eat it all! The frozen fruit is great, too.
I have a hard time getting enough protein, so I've started using protein shakes as well. Here's one I really like with 24g of protein for only 117 calories. Dymatize Elite Whey | Elite Whey Protein | Dymatize Whey Protein
Getting enough protein helps you stay full and helps build your lean muscle mass if you're working out. Low carb hasn't worked for me in the past because it makes me constipated (sorry to be gross!). Once, after going very low carb and working out hard for several days, I found myself so exhausted, I just had NO energy. After gorging myself on cookies, I felt better than I had in days! Cookies are not the path to weight loss success, though, so now I try to makes sure that I'm getting my carbs! Healthy carbs like oatmeal, brown rice, and whole wheat pasta.
Which brings me to nutrition. Whole grain carbs are very nutritious! I get very motivated by reading up on whole foods and the benefits they bring. A great resource for this is The World's Healthiest Foods website which has a very balanced approch to nutritional health and is written in laymen's terms that are easy to understand. You can look up information by food or essential nutrients. Here's a link to the food list...
WHFoods: The World's Healthiest Foods It's at the top of my bookmark list (under FitDay, of course!) and has inspired me to try new foods. Also, All recipes ? complete resource for recipes and cooking tips is great because you can search recipes by ingredient if there is something new you want to try.
If I have too big of a calorie deficit one day, I have a tendency to binge the next, so I've learned that some days I need to eat a little more than what feels comfortable to prevent myself from overdoing it and making unhealthy choices.
One other thing I do, although I don't know that it's advocated here, is I eat all the "free" non-starchy vegetables I want - in other words, I don't record them on my FitDay log. I only do this for to expidite my food entries. When I did Weight Watchers years ago, they allow you to eat all the non-starchy vegetables you want, so this is just a hold-over from that. It makes it easy for me and encourages me to load up on the healthy stuff. Doing this has not hindered my weight loss, but if you use the frozen vegetable mixes, it would be easy to incude them through the food choices or as a custom food.
Good luck - you're on the right track!!
