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 :(

Thanks for the guidance, I have done my BMR and my TDEE calculations and shifted my goals to reflect that.

I will see how things go and keep an eye on it - but right now I am feeling hungry, so I may need this change, although that can also be a symptom of the diabetes, so I am not sure.

Tigerfeet, it is all so confusing. It is also embarrassing that my first thought was "Great, now I can have a HUGE glass of wine every night to make up the calorie deficit".
Think I will stay as I am for now.

I have a degree in biochemistry and I still can't always get my head round it all

Hmm ok so i have done my BMR & TDEE and says i should be eating 1927 calories wtf ? surley not ?

All this BMR & TDEE confuses me i think i will just stick to my 1430 per day as i am happy on that, i think anything over is gonna impact on any loses.

Weighed myself this morning and 2lbs off so far, obviously water but hey the numbers are lower !!

I just wanna say we are all in this together (cringe how cheesey ?? but i have to get a fix of cheese somewhere) i am finding with all this support i am 100 times more confident that this time i can teach myself how to lose weight and maintaine this time round so thankyou to everyone who is posting good or bad its helping me !!

Ive added quite a few of you lovely ladies on MFP but anyone else wants to add me im saucysezie.

I have a quick Q, what running/fitness shoes should I get?

I have limited funds but there is an Addidas and Nike outlet near me. TIA xx

Ok, so I've now calculated my TDEE which comes out as just over 2000 (thanks for the linky). My BMR which I worked out last night is just over 1400 calories.

So I need to eat a net amount (adjusted for exercise) of between 1400 and 2000 calories a day, in order to lose weight without messing up my metabolism.

Is that right?

Thanks for helping me!

I've been MFPing since April 2012 and lost a lb a week, every week and maintained over evil bastard Christmas.

I can't low-carb, I'd just never stick to it. Not eating peas? No chance. Just 1280 calories, every day, and I'm well on my way to 3st loss. On the 11th May I plan to be 9st7 for the first time since I was about 12.

Some things I do:

Eat my exercise calories. So if I do 300 cals of exercise, I eat 1580 cals (or thereabouts) that day.

Eat an inverted calorie triangle so I have the most calories for breakfast, then fewer for lunch, then fewest for 'dinner'.

Cut out all alcohol Except a glass on Friday and Saturdays of diet wine. Tastes like satan's piss the first couple of times but your palette soon acclimatises. I recommend First Cape Light sauvignon blanc.

PUMP Every moment of a body pump class is truly loathsome, but it bloody works. I've upped it to two classes a week for 2013.

Buy Fancy pants workout gear You're not going to be buying any clothes for a while, so treat yourself to some day-glo 80's Nike garms.

hevak I got really confused with all that TDEE stuff (regardless how many times I read on here that it's simple) I just try and stick to the calories MFP gives me based on my data and make sure I eat my exercise calories. It's worked for me.

Thanks Vivi Once our kitchen is finished, hopefully this weekend I will find the scales and weigh myself so I can put accurate figures in MFP.

Oh and another thing I do that helps:

Weigh myself every friday morning I don't do any exercise classes at the weekend and usually have slightly less saintly food, so Friday is always the best time to weigh in, after a 5 days of classes and eating steadily.

Just realised that ^ made it sound like I'm going to weigh myself on kitchen scales! no I am not Thumbelina

Our kitchen is being redone at the moment and all the stuff that should be in the kitchen is in our spare room, blocking my access to our bathroom scales. It's also the reason I haven't been eating any home made food. I have a microwave but no oven or hob at the moment!

Randallpinkfloyd your freezers and food cupboards sound like mine. And I can't afford to waste it either.
nilbyname did you used to live in Japan? So did I.
I confess to being rather devastated to discover I was underestimating my weight by quite a lot. Consequently my calorie goal has also gone up quite a bit and I need to eat more today which is just as well as I am HUNGRY, and I don't eat something soon this laptop isn't even going to be safe, nor the table it's sitting on.

doublemum Yes I lived there for 4 years, and I was elfin. Bloody elfin! I ate Japanese food, commuted every day and worked hard. Twas heavenly! I was in Niigata initially then off to Tokyo.

How about you?

Hello, been lurking for ages, very entertaining and interesting thread. Hope you don't mind me butting in, but I hopefully have something useful to say about the calories/BMR/TDE stuff.

The numbers can be baffling but i think what helps is that it is an indication of what your body actually needs and some people find it useful as a way of getting back in tune with that. Various comments upthread about eating 'empty' calories, scarfing leftovers, grazing without thinking and so on. And also about total change in attitude to food in a sustainable way rather than starvation.

Knowing when you feel full, what makes you feel full, what gives you energy without crashing (i.e. slow release stuff, complex carbs rather than Haribo) and so on is all part of it.

One of the challenges is to recognise and respond to feeling full. I really struggled with this during and after 15 years of bulimia. I also struggled with recognising trigger foods i.e. things that would tip me into a binge and out of control. The nutritional info on MFP is great for this and also the food diary aspect - if you log absolutely everything, you can see the patterns of your eating behaviours and spot the triggers. e.g.:

Sensible eating all day, then a glass of wine (small, sensible, within calorie allowance etc etc) and bang, craving salty snacks, then another drink and so on

e.g. sensible eating all day, get home starving after long commute, can't resist a piece of toast, which becomes 5, then you think, what the hell, I'll have chinese takeaway for dinner.

And so on

Anyway, apologies for the very long post, I hope some of it makes sense.

Use the stats and tools to understand your nutritional needs and the lifestyle change will follow

nilbyname I lived in Shizuoka-ken for 3 yrs, on the JET programme. I wasn't elfin, but I was considerably less of a bloater than I am now. I'd eat Japanese food all the time now if I could.

That's really helpful clinking.

So what foods should you have when your feeling low and need an energy boost?

My problem is what to do when I have that slump. When you feel you need a sugar hit. Whats the best thing to have then?

Great tip about the low fat wine, thanks ViviPru

I have a gunt. May I join?

Just completed my MFP profile- same name as here. Will go through and add you all. Was inspired reading this thread in the night and have had a good day today. Have ordered the virtual gastric band too, in hope that I am hypnotised into getting maybe too thin.

Holiday on 17 February- how much can I realistically lose by then? 3st? I am dreading the waterparks...

I wonder how many calories a dumpling has. It's not going to be good is it? No dumplings for me.
But suggestions for a fast snack when about to eat the kitchen table you're so hungry would be good. I have jelly in the pantry so I'll make some just in case.

Has anyone here used the virtual gastric band app?

thanks Carrie, I didn't want to go all serious or sound like I think I am an expert. But so many of the eating behaviours people on this thread have are things I recognise.

I find that fruits/nuts/seeds work for me, or fresh fruit - none is a trigger for me to eat more than a small amount. I go for unsalted nuts that have 'good' fats in them, and these days I worry a lot less about the actual calories if that makes sense? Some of the psychological side is that, if you are ravenous and need a quick fix, almost anything will do, doesn't need to be sugary (I know dried fruit has sugar in it, but at least there's fibre too!).

So try a small amount of something that just stops you feeling so hungry in that moment, then think calmly about what else might have caused the slump. For e.g., temptation to snack mid-afternoon when I work from home and have been sitting at my desk endlessly, can be as much about needing to go for a quick walk round the block to get some fresh air. I then make myself a cuppa and then I think, ok so now am I actually that hungry?

And the thing is, it is 5 or 6 years since i was bulimic and now all this is second nature, habits that i don't conciously think about, i just do it, so I have made that sustained change.

So it can be done. I spent too long throwing up and bingeing! If I can change, it can be done

That's interesting clinking and I agree it's all about changing habits.
A lightbulb moment came for me when I realised I didn't need the same amount of food on my plate as 6'4" muscly DH. Sounds obvious, but until then, I had been been making sure I had exactly as much as him, especially when I was doing slimming world and eating "free" food.
DoubleMum step back from the dumpling, you know you'll only regret it afterwards

Can we do a round up of people's MFP usernames?? I would but I am supposed to be working...

Atalune is mfp name

I'm HappyKite.
Just friend requested you nilbyname aka atalune.

Wise I've just made enough for DH and the DCs, so I can't have any Evil Dumplings of Satan.
And I can report the Good Food cauliflower soup upthread can be made perfectly well with a bag of frozen cauliflower, and tasted so good before I put the cheese in that I didn't actually put it in.
Have just had 3 of the fruit/berry ryvitas and they are sooo scrummy! Who knew?!
I'm the same user name on MFP.