Bloody f**king nora. Just weighed myself and I want to die.

[BaublesAndCuntingCarolSingers]

I can't even bring myself to type in my weight because I am so ashamed :(

I need to lose 3.5 stone before the end of May (going on holiday with a thin friend) I am doing My Fitness Pal (calorie counting) and I am going to do 1200 calories a day. It's brutal I know but then so was the reading on my scales this morning.

Effing Nora :(

I'm not adding my exercise onto mfp as I don't want to blow all the hard work on extra calories. Is that wrong?

That's true! This evening I shall use my shiney new iPad to follow that link to work out that bmr thingy. (If I'm totally honest I don't even know what bmr means.)

I have tons of food in the house though, that's my problem. Since being skint I've had a bit of a paranoia about not being able to afford food. Turns out that whilst I am skint, I'm not as skint as I thought I'd be and buying food for one adult and one 18 month old really doesn't cost very much.

I've become rather addicted to the whoops counter and consequently have a bursting freezer plus enough dried goods to get me through a fairly lengthy siege!

I am struggling with the MFP thing. I just ate a M&S Nectacot (nope, me neither) and strangely M&S Nectasoddingcots aren't listed.

However, joy of joys, Morrison's Nectacots are but then it starts asking me how many servings of 100g I have consumed of Nectacot. How much Nectacot is that?? My head is spinning. The Nectacots are going in the bin.

I just don't seem to compute this.

Why do I hate to eat between 1500 and 1800 cals? When I'm full on 1200. 1500 = BMR, 1800 = TDEE

:( V frustrated and fed up. It's so fecking complicated.

Pinot, just do what I do. Set your goal at 1400 and if you're stuffe, you're stuffed.

SHINEY WHERE ARE YOU??????

Snap been to ww this am, binged on Xmas choc when I got back, can't seem to switch diet butti. On in head. I'm just agreedy cow at the minute, there's is a healthy person in here somewhere.

Scoffs at 3.5

winefairy- can you weigh a nectacot to see how many make up 100g?

When I was on ww I used to eat my extra points - blow them on a curly wurly or whatever and I lost loads.

So although I'm tempted to stop when I'm full (as I preach to the dc) maybe eating more calories is somehow good for you?

I don't get that TDEE/BMR thingy either, just don't.

Stick with the plan as you were Pinot, as Bups says. We don't have to understand it, just log and smile as the scales go down. We'll worry about the other stuff if we plateau, yes?

Perhaps you were full because you ate more protein? Or wholegrains??

I think we must not get too bogged down in the numbers and instead we should all link arms and have a little sing song, traa la lalalalala!

WTAF is a Nectacote?

Your BMR is the amount of calories your body needs if you were in a coma, so breathing, pumping blood around your body that sort of thing.

If you eat below your BMR for an extended period of time your body will try and protect theses basic functions by hanging on to whatever it can, if you then go back to eating over BMR it will still do this and you will be more prone to gaining weight very quickly, and shedding it very slowly. Basically, you will screw up your metabolism (fixable but hard work). 1200cals is kind of an arbitrary number used by MFP below which you will struggle to get the micronutrients (vitamins, minerals etc) that you will need.

Can you really see yourself eating below 1200 calories for the rest of your life?

I'm guessing a cross between a nectarine and an apricot

I can only eat 1200 a day Well this is going to be interesting

Talk more, ItsAll...please!

Remember also, although MFP gives an illusion of precise calorie counting its really just a quite sophisticated guesstimate.

Scales and tape measure are your friend, and you can adjust your calories depending on what they tell you.

Just remember that whatever you choose to do needs to be sustainable for the rest of your life.

I think I fucked myself that up by joining ww ItsAllGoingToBeFine

So I need to eat above my BMR but below my TDEE.

Do I need to add the exercise on MFP?

Do I need to use up all my spare calories or it ok to have a deficit?

I am in no way an expert, have just spent a lot of time lurking on the MFP forums, so please feel free to ignore me, I could be completely wrong.

Nooo, I'm listening! Lots of us are! :)

I think you make absolute sense.

Basically I need to change the way I eat forever and not just cut down to a ridicously low amount of calories for the short term as that isn't sustainable.

Worked out my BMR and TDEE and it must be wrong.

Today is Cake Wednesday. Going to a friend's house shortly, the children will play, we shall eat cake. Do not read my diary if you are of a hungry disposition, mmm'kay.

Thanks for the welcome Bups. I like the idea of not being a Chief.
About BMRs,I think it's sensible eating to eat above your BMR.
Certainly, if you eat below it for a prolonged period, your body goes into starvation mode.
Of course, as you lose weight, your BMR will go down, so you'll have to cut down more.
I'm aiming to eat about my BMR. I log my exercise into MFP because it makes me feel good but don't intend to use those calories.

BMR - the amount of energy you need to keep your heart beating, innards working, brain ticking over etc etc

TDEE - the amount of energy you actually burn off in a normal day ie BMR + all the walking, sitting, exercise etc etc that you do.

I'm not a massive fan of calories tbh, as the type of calorie you eat (ie sugar, protein, wholegrain) etc etc has a huge impact on how much energy it takes to actually digest the food in the first place and how full you'll feel for how long.

Ok, I get that.
But then, why does MFP say 1200 and why do we all log the calories? And how much exercise we are doing?
Should we all be adjusting our calorie allowance to our BMR? Eating to that whatever exercise we do?

Is that right?

Another MFP devotee here. When i threw last years calendar out, I saw I'd written my weight on it this time last year. I was 13.11. I lost a couple of pounds then lost interest as normal but on 17 May i joined MFP and calorie counted 1200 a day with half hour walk each morning - have lost dead on 3 stone. You can do it, honestly

Have friended a few of you on mfp, great to see lots of losers on here for inspiration.

I inadvertently obliterated 2/3 of my days calories by 11am - I didn't think I was being that bad, but mfp disagreed - bastard lattes.

Thanks to the following the gurus advice on here I have increased my calories between BMR and TDEE and now can eat something more than dust for the rest of the day

This is why I think it's actually a load of bollocks Lizzylou, I think it should be more about what we eat than how much.

Loads of people eat less than 1500 (or whatever) calories a day and don't lose weight. It isn't as simple as that. Calorie counting is fine as part of weight loss but it isn't the be all and end all. If you ate 1500 calories of lard your body would need more energy to digest that than 1500 calories of sugar.

I'm on MFP to keep an eye on what I eat rather than counting the calories per se. I need to log my food to avoid mainlining cake.