[jmrothermel]

Hello all! I just wanted to introduce myself, and share some frustrations. Maybe you guys can help guide me in the right direction.

My name is Jacqui. I am 31 years old and a mother of six children. I have five living (14, 12, 11, 7, and 4), and one beautiful baby in heaven who passed of SIDS at 4 months old. Before I had children I was about 135lbs. Then I had many children and didn't lose the weight in between. So each child I ended up weighing more and more and more. I now weigh my heavest - at 305lbs when I am now making the decision to get serious about weight loss. At one point about two years ago I contemplated weight loss surgery, however I chickened out. I am an Registered Nurse, and I work on a surgical floor where we see all the complications of the bariatric surgery. I couldn't take the plunge! So now I am trying to do this, "the old fashioned way".

So, about three weeks ago I started making healthier eating choices and logging all my food. I also have started exercising on the treadmill (20mins the weight loss setting) because that's about as much as I can go. I want to try to raise it a minute every couple days for longevity. As I'm sure you all know, it is tough when you weigh so much

So, what has me frustrated thus far

Week 1 - I lost almost 10lbs. Okay, water weight I know that when you weight 300+ lbs you can fluctuate almost that much daily. So, the second week I weighed in, and I lost 1.8lbs. Not too shabby, I was hoping it would continue. Now, this week I weighed in this morning and I lost .2 lbs . I now feel so frustrated already!

I was using MyFitnessPal to log my calories and it had me at about 1700 calories to which I was sticking too religiously. However, I am wondering if that's not enough calories? I'm not sure. So then I started investigating WW Points Plus and it tells me that I would be alotted 45 points a day. That seems like a HUGE amount of food!

I work night shift most of the time, so I try to eat the same if I'm working nights as I do on days. I eat breakfast (as I know that's important) and then something tiny for lunch, and then I eat dinner. I'm not hungry at all most of the time.

So, any suggestions guys? I know that was REALLY long and thank you if you made it this far. I can't wait to get to meet everyone and have someone who knows what I'm going through!

[tootsieroll81]

Welcome to the forums! I would recommend not worrying about the scale so much as long as there is a downward trend. The scale is annoying. It can plateau out for 3 weeks and then show a 5 pound loss or something. That being said, make sure you have enough water. Your body will retain fluid if you don't, and that may explain that .2 loss there. Also, make sure that you sodium intake is within normal ranges. Excess Sodium causes you to retain fluid as well. 1700 a day sounds fine. I'm not much smaller than you are and for a 1 pound loss per week, my calorie tracker states that I can eat about 1900 calories a day. My BMR(basal metabolic rate) is over 2k right now. I'm eating about 1,000-1,500 calories a day in hopes of losing a little faster. BTW, one should check their calorie intake after about every 5 pounds lost because their BMR will change.

[Minerva78]

Hello, I'm new to the forums as well and around the same weight. I'm on My Fitness Pal as well and my calories are at 1650, so 1700 probably is about right for you. I've done Weight Watchers before, and I really liked it a lot, but I seem to find counting calories in My Fitness Pal a lot easier. But if there is any diet I would recommend (and I've done a ton of them) Weight Watchers would be the one.

I commend you on exercising! I am trying to get my eating habits in a bit better shape before moving on to exercising, but I know I need to start exercising soon to really lose weight. So what you are doing is a great start. My weight fluctuates a lot, and it is so frustrating. I'm trying to keep myself down to weighing myself once a week, I wish I could go longer than that because I stress too much about it. I am going to try to see if I can go longer without getting on the scale, and go by how my body feels and how my clothes fit more. Good luck to you!

[pjvw34]

Hi JM and Minerva

I haven't been back too long myself and am having to ease back into everything. The very first thing I did was to start tracking my foods. This is an important part of the equation for me. It seems that if I track I will stay on top of the game in my "get healthy" efforts. I got all the junk out of my house and am trying to choose healthy foods most of the time. Of course the dreaded donuts showed up at work this week but I only allowed myself a mini cinnamon roll one about the size of half a donut so that I do not feel deprived. I know some people are not able to do that but I can when I want to. I have been staying under 2000 for each day and most days in the 1700-1800 range.

As mentioned in other areas of the forum (300+ monthly chat) I have purchased an UP Move to track my steps and sleep. I don't know how accurate it is with steps but it does keep me wanting to make a few more steps each day. I will make an extra trip up the hall (I am a teacher) during my off period just to get in more steps. It's working in that respect as I can feel the extra steps from the day before in my feet when I get up in the morning and I like that. I am working toward a goal of 10,000+ steps a day and in a little over a week made it up to 6500 yesterday, so I am slowly getting there.

I am happy to meet you both and hope you will join us over in the monthy chat. I enjoy it there and everyone is so welcoming and helpful. I truly wish you the best in your weight loss journey.

[jmrothermel]

Thank you for all the kind words!

I have been averaging about 8-9,000 steps on my Fitbit when I'm working - otherwise it's about 3,000 maybe? I too find it makes me want to walk more steps to get the number up. It also makes me do the steps and skip the elevator.

I fell off the bandwagon today and had some Cheetos and cookie dough. Aweful, I now. Gotta pick myself up and fix it tomorrow. It's the first day I fell off. Ugh.

[the_magpie]

I didn't like MyFitnessPal's estimates, and it looks like I'm not the only one.

That post links to a BMR calculator and tells you how to override MFP's numbers, if you want to. It also says that MFP needs you to log all of your exercise, or else it will undershoot how many calories you're allowed to have.

The wisdom I've always heard is that you shouldn't shoot for more than a 1000 calorie deficit per day, which should map to 2 pounds lost per week. But I've heard of people successfully losing more than that. (And, full disclosure: I'm on one of those medically supervised diets that are supposed to lead to more loss than that per week. I was horrible at calorie-counting; I spent the whole day worrying I wouldn't have enough calories for dinner, which sounds stupid, but, anxious brain... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

[pjvw34]

Originally Posted by jmrothermel

Thank you for all the kind words!

I have been averaging about 8-9,000 steps on my Fitbit when I'm working - otherwise it's about 3,000 maybe? I too find it makes me want to walk more steps to get the number up. It also makes me do the steps and skip the elevator.

I fell off the bandwagon today and had some Cheetos and cookie dough. Aweful, I now. Gotta pick myself up and fix it tomorrow. It's the first day I fell off. Ugh.

My friend has a fitbit and she loves it... she really works hard at getting in those steps too... in fact she inspired me to get the tracker I have... and if I am not conscious about it I only get in a maybe 2000 steps... I have just led too sedentary a life for too long I guess...

I know I fall off from time to time so the most important part for me is getting right back on... in fact last night my aunt brought some fudge and it's so hard to say no to that.. I just counted it as best I could and go on.... I am right back at it this morning.... you can do it too!!!

I hope you have a wonderful day!!!