Just signed up at 'My Fitness Pal'. Any advice, experience, or desire to join me?

[worriermum]

I read about the website, myfitnesspal.com on MN. Am truly desperate to stop the ever rising weight gain - I have just topped my full term pregnancy weight. I've never really been a dieter, or even believed in diets, but I Have To Do Something. Would love to do it with some other Mumsnetters - anyone interested in joining me?

All the weight loss threads seem so bloated, if you'll pardon the metaphor. I'm intimidated by 537 messages, or 219 messages. Feel I cant be arsed to read through all that and I will never be part of the club if I dont read the history. Advice please?

Well obviously, but I've been losing weight since last summer so it's normal to me now. And even before that it's what people would have seen me eating - it was the emotional face stuffing when no-one else was around along with PCOS that caused me to gain weight.

Exactly chicksalina, I went to my doctor 6 months ago suffering from dizziness and fainting and asked him about not losing any weight. When I described what I ate in a day he said the same thing to me. It's the damage from previous binge eating coming back to haunt me.

Forever we are exactly the same height - oh dear, I was hoping I would have an excuse to aim higher (or would that be lower :) ) than you. Interesting that we both entered a target of 60kg.

I have a medium build if that helps!

worriermum Will also add that the original target was 60kg, only now that weight still coming off easily and that I am enjoying my diet that I changed the target. Leave it at 60kg and see how you feel when you get there.

gilbonzo and chick - plan your carbs carefully.... I eat them only if they are low GI eg veggies, fruit (but not bananas and only 1 or 2 pieces per day), oatcakes, milk & dairy (yes contains a lot of carbs), oatbran. See how that goes for 2-3 weeks - an alternative is v low carbs, but IME/IMO low GI/low GL with MFP calorie limit much more sensible.

My friend is a GP and also on MFP - she said that she did a piece in a newspaper about an ex-pop star who had yo-yo dieted, and the conclusion she said after research is that the "damage" is not permanent.

My food diary is public so you can see my breakfasts, generally 2 eggs, greek yoghurt mixed with an activia fruit yoghurt and oatbran.

gilbonzo and chick, i too have done the same no eating, not losing weight thing. it is not good. But as forever says, the damage isnt permanent. I think the thing is you have to keep your metabolism going, so eating little and often tends to work better. Dont skip meals as this adds to the problem and make sure you do eat over 1000 cals.

Ive lost 2lbs a week for a month and this includes a whole blow out day on mothers day of crossiants and chocolates and a large 3 course meal and lots and lots of cake and then a bit more choclate and then a hefty amount of bread and cheese and then next day i had quite a few slices of pizza and yet more chocolate.

The friday before that i had double helpings of shepards pie and then again, because i thought id fallen off the wagon, a large amount of chocolate. But ive still lost 2lbs that week. Lord knows how... as i know in the past ive hardly eaten anything a day, maybe 500 cals and lost only 0.5lbs or something. You do need to eat to lose.

Im at my mothers for tea tonight and shes doing my favourtite, homemade meatballs with pasta. Ive told her i shall only have 4.. and made sure i ate under goal yesterday and have worked out what im eating today.. and ill slightly go over 1200 today but im not going to worry about it too much.

I think the not eating thing is a bit of a mindset you get yourself into as well. you eat hardly anything and see no weight loss and then beat yourself up because you are hardly eating and nothing is happening... and you wonder how other people can eat and still lose while you are living on air... so, after a while you think sod it, and give up ( because noone can survive on such a limited diet for so long) and go back to eating lots.. while your body, that has been being starved grabs hold of everything and you pile the weight on.

Then the thought of dieting, which to you means living off air becomes so horrible that its really hard to start up again.....

MFP is good. it tracks your food for you. you need to eat 1200 just to get by day to day. It will tell you if you are under... so then you go eat something else.

Stick at it and im sure you will lose.

and forever - my target is 140lbs too.... ive been 9stone a few times and never been able to subtain it for more than a few weeks, or without it seriously effecting my life, ie the decication to keeping that size was huge!
ive set 140 because i think that might be a more realistic goal for me.
BUT - when iget there.. and i will. i will see how i feel....

I have adjusted my carb/pro/fat ratio and added in the option of seeing sugar and sodium.

Greek yoghurt and Raspberries for breakfast, got a long, up hill walk planned this morning. I have never done the low carb thing but I'm going to give it a go, just cutting back rather than cutting them out.

I have made lots of low carb snacks for my picnic today, mini gherkins wrapped in parma ham, cocktail sausages, cubes of cheese and some cucumber and celery sticks, pickled onions.

Need to read all of this but will come back later

excellent breakfast :)

Ive been only having white/processed carbs ( ignoring those that occur in carrots or veg or fruit) once a day.. and this seems to be working quite well.

But later today i shall be having probably a larger white carb portion that ive had for a while... so i shall have noone tomorrow to balance it out.

You lunch maybe sounds a little bit too high in fat? ive made the mistake before of thinking low carb = lots of meat and cheese, but you need to not eat too much of them else they wont help with the weight loss.. because you have parma ham there.. and sausages... and cheese. The ham,sausage and the cheese will be high in both fat and sodium. I would say have just one of those and then bulk it out with some salad leaves.

Picnic is cancelled now because it is raining.

I was only going to have very tiny portions of each of those things took and by tiny I mean 2 sausages, 1 gherkin with parma ham, 2 tiny cubes of cheese, sort of like a buffet and then lots of veggies.

Not sure what I'm going to have now I'm craving Bacon....

bacon - grilled.
with salad?

or make like a wrap out of lettuce leaves... little gem works well. grill bacon.. break it up.. maybe add some tomatoes in there too.. or even muhrooms and then use the lettuce leave like a wrap.

:)

I have put in what I plan to eat today although obvs haven't had lunch or dinner. My calories and protein are still really low, can someone have a look at my diary and suggest what I can add to bring the levels up? (I went for bacon and eggs!)

for lunch you could add some tomatoes or mushrooms to lunch or even a slice of rye bread or something... and then some kind of desert.. youghurt or fruit.

for dinner, maybe more veg as well. 1 carrot is really tiny so is the amount of asparagus, double it up? add another veg?
what about some kind of sauce? or a small amount of rice? or baby new potatoes?

and then you still have cals left, why not have a bit of chocolate? or something you want?

or have two pork steaks and doube the veg?
you could do that AND still have some kind of dessert ( fruit or yougurt) AND have some small amount of chocolate.

ill make my diary visiable......

have just updated my cheat days... !!! ( rather embarassing)
Also just realised there are still a fair few biscuits and chocolates on there..
but im losing weight with them there and will only stop eating them when it stalls.
( but a little bit of what you fancy is never a bad thing... and im tryiing to do this as a lifestyle change and there is no way im ever going to avoid or would want to avoid those things forever).
Im just making sure they are accountable in my diet.
( though im sure when ive dropped a stone or two they wont be able to be there)

I have added the extra Pork steak and some Broccoli, I have also added some Baked Beans to my lunch and it is looking better. :)

Thanks! :o

yay - thats looking loads better AND you still have another 200 cals should you fancy something else later.

cheat meals once a week are important for 2 reasons:

a) you never really crave something, if you want it, save it for your cheat day (cheat meal)

b) it tricks your metabolism, telling it that there isn't actually a famine.

don't feel guilty. if you have one cheat day a week you will still loose.

2lbs a week is great weight loss, don't want more than that...

friday was my cheat day this week. and ive just about managed to keep the meatballs ( tonight) within my 1200.
next week my dad is taking me and my DD to pizza hut at lunchtime.. yep. that will be a HUGE cheat :)

im not going to feel guilty about a cheat meal, its just a bit embarassing for others to see what you have scoffed from the food tracker thing! lol

but yep, dont want more than 2lbs a week off.

Planned my day out already food wise.

Steak for dinner! yum!

Eating the picnic food from yesterday for lunch, have logged it and plated up a certain amount so I don't eat the whole bloody lot, It has come out fairly ok.

Still seems like such a huge amount of food to me, but I am down 3lbs today! (However this may be because last time I weighed at the end of the day and usually I weigh first thing in the morning!)

I generally find 1.5-2 lbs difference between morning and evening. I also like logging food before I eat it, helps make good choices.

Had celebrationary haagen dazs yesterday (first day at 9 stone exactly) - only 40g though, mainly as it was rock hard!

Now challenge is to maintain - going on holiday on Sunday, so sticking with diet until holiday and no doubt after I am back to sort out gains. Then have to gradually increase calories go be on maintenance diet (slight panic as DS1 came out in chicken pox last night.....)

most likely due to difference in timings of weighing....:)
im sure its best not to weight yourself everyday, as weight can go up and down over things like water retention etc...
but well done for eating more and well done on planning what you are going to eat too. thats what i do. log it first thing in the morning, then im accountable and its set what im going to have.

yesterday i came in at about 1500 i think, but was under the day before and will be under today.. so hopefully it should adverage out ok.

Im not sure if you will lost much weight the first week.. might take a few for your body to get used to eating more cals before it realises its not being starved and then lets the weight go. but just be patient and stick with it.

CONGRATS FOREVER!!!! that is a huge achievement :)
BLOODY WELL DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!

i think ive managed to hold be 9 stone for all of about 5 days in the last ten years. mostly becuse ive then gone ' woohooo' im 9 stone, lets have a pizza' and then just carried on eating... not good.

the maintance thing on mfp looks good, and then hopefully after a while of doing that it will become second nature and you wont need it.

have a fab holiday and i hope ds1 recovers quickly..