When you dropped from ab 3000 cals a day to 1200, I think the weight came off because you "shocked" your body with a sudden and extreme deficit. I think upping your calories was a good idea once you began working out, but considering your height/weight and depending on how hard you are exercising, 1500 might not be enough for you (now that you body is used to getting much less than 3000 cals a day). Why not TRY to eat 2000-ish calories a day for a while while also continuing your exercise routine and eating healthy. You might actually start losing again. In any event, if you workout and eat "clean" it's not like you'll regain all you lost in two weeks, so don't worry about sabotaging yourself by experimenting with the calories.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Here we go again
I have a question... I find this all very interesting!
Let's us me for an example. I was eating anywhere from 2,500- 3,500 + cal/ day. I starting eating 1,200/ day and lost 19 pounds in a month. Everyone told me I was not eating enough for me. I'm 5'11. I also started exercising 3 times/ week. I upped my calories to 1,500 and have not love anything in 10 days. Is my body storing my additional calories? I don't understand my body. If I did the actual calories that health people recommend. I would be eating 2,000- 2,500 cal, which obviously would not work. Any suggestions to what is going on?
I can tell that I'm toning up, but I measure myself at Curves once a month and that's still not for two weeks. She shall see then.
I'm really scared to eat 2,000 cal/ day. I don't even know what to eat healthy and get that much! I'm not eating a lot of carbs really just from veggies. I'm really fighting the urge to go back to 1,200 cals and shock my body again. I actually feel like my stomach as gotten bigger since I've upped my calories.
I don't know if the science of weight loss will be well understood in our lifetimes. That leaves most of us stuck with trial and error.
Some people have luck with changing where there calories come from, and I do notice (from my food journals) that I lose weight on a significantly higher number of calories if I eliminate refined carbs, and control healthy carbs (reducing, but not eliminating foods high in starches and sugars). I had always thought that "low carb" dieting was unhealthy, and I think the extreme ones still can be, at least for some people, but a couple doctors I respected suggested that a "controlled-carb" approach could be a help to me, and it has been (Sticking to it, is sometimes another matter).
There's more and more evidence that for many people a calorie isn't just a calorie. Some foods may reduce appetite and/or stoke or conversely hamper metabolism, at least in some people.
I think a food journal is truly a priceless tool in finding out what works for you. As long as you remember that it can take months to see patterns emerging.
That's really good Kap. I use the daily plate and I'm so glad that I do. It truly is amazing how complicated our bodies are. I know this is kinda of personal, but I notice when I have refined sugar or flour it makes me gassy. I never knew that before I limited it. I'm learning that my body does speak to me, I wish in some things it would speak louder. I know that trial and error is a part of us losing weight. I just wish I learned faster.
I'm going home to Arkansas for Christmas and I really was to have lost 50 pounds by then. By that time it will be a year that I haven't seen them and I don't know when the next time I'll be able to. I need to learn not to focus on the scale but on what I'm eating and the inches. But sometimes it's so hard! The point is I'm impatient and I want results now, you know instant gratification. I have to keep focusing on the positive. Does everyone go through this?
I realize what is said about not starving yourself/& the metab/slow down etc. However, I dieted some yrs. ago,and lost 47lbs.and kept it off for 20yrs. So I think it's a valid question...When your younger a person can do more unhealthy things to the body,not necessarily smart,and have the ability to bounce back..not so as middle age takes over.
I definitely lost weight a lot faster when I was younger, and some of it I contribute to aging and the health problems I've developed (I was a LOT more active), and yet I wonder how much of it is because of all the damage that successive crash dietings cause. If I had never dieted, would I have reached 394 lbs (I rather doubt it), and even if I had and were just now dieting for the first time ever, would it be this difficult (I think probably not).
But alot of this is just guessing. I do know that I can't stress how much value a journal can be. Even though I kept diet journals and diaries on and off since I was probably 9, I didn't really appreciate the value until a doctor told me to keep a symptoms journal when I was just diagnosed with the fibromyalgia (I bought the MemoryMinder from ebay). The journal had me record things like weather, how much sleep I'd had, and where and how badly I hurt (a little picture of a person and you circled what hurt and gave it a number value from 1 to 5 I think).
It was how I learned that I had a weather connection to my fibro. I have a painful flare, not just during bad weather (which I knew), but it actually started the day or several hours before the weather changed (disproving that it was a psychological response to the weather, as one doctor suggested).
It gave me the idea though, that I really could learn about what worked for me. I had to become scientist and lab rat (and sometimes I feel like Dr. Jekyl as a result of it), but it gave me a true sense of control over this whole process that I never had before.
Kaplods...that is very interesting. I have fibromyalgia also and notice a weather connection...I think I am barometrically controlled. I really do though. Do you get a lot of use out of the journal that you purchased. How has this helped you with your diet and seeing associations etc...
On the amazon.com website you can "search inside this book" (right under the photo of the book." You can see the journal pages (two pages, one has a sketch of a body, back and front).
The weather connection I suspected, but one that I wasn't really expecting was the sleep one. How many hours of sleep I had, if I had insomnia, and whether or not I had a nap, all played into flares and not only their severity, but how well I was able to deal with the flare or how long the flare lasted.
___________________
I did get a lot of use out of it. Not only in finding connections between symptoms, but also as evidence in my disability claim. I considered buying a second copy when I filled the first, but I just used the basic format as inspiration for my own version of the journal. When I'm flaring, writing small is hard, so I made several modification and created a document and print them out as needed. I have two sizes saved one for 8 x 11 and one half that size for my Day Planner (now, I can use the Day Planner, except for major flares).
The modifications I made were the amount of space allowed for each category of symptoms. And the MemoryMinder has a column for "today's diet," but it's way too small (or maybe just the way I write - or eat). Besides, I use an exchange plan - so I made a separate diet log page with exchange boxes and room to write what I ate and when (and even notes about how I'm feeling, etc).
The guy who wrote the MemoryMinder has three journals
MemoryMinder Personal Health Journal (A Wellness Diary & Symptoms Log)
DietMinder Personal Food & Fitness Journal (A Food and Exercise Diary)
BodyMinder Workout and Exercise Journal (A Fitness Diary)
and you can use the search inside function on all of them to see if the journals would fit your needs, or whether you'd be better off designing your own (and can give you a couple ideas as to what you'd want your own to look like).
____________________
Seeing the weather connection was pretty obvious. For diet, I kept a record of my exchanges, and for a while, I switched to a format in which I could use "flexible exchanges" eating protein or starch (each about 60 - 80 calories an exchange) but I would put an S in the box if it was a starch and a P if it was a protein. And I went back over the logs and saw that on about 1800 calories daily, I tended to lose more weight (even sticking to the 1800 calories) when I ate more protein than starch exchanges. Now I wasn't precise enough to call this an empirical experiement, but the difference was dramatic enough for me to be pretty confident in my results.
The thing is with journaling, though is that just the act of journaling changes your behavior. If you're going to write it down right before or right after you eat it, you do tend to consider your choices a little more carefully.
Compliance is a big issue for me. I let everyday life interfere with what I know works, and yet I'm still having great success doing it more often than not, haphazardly. I used to let that bother me - giving up because I couldn't keep all those "balls" of expectations I set for myself in the air. But, my newest motto "progress, not perfection," is really keeping me going. Nothing is "failure" anymore - except not trying. So, really even if I remember to journal four days out of seven, I still can often see the benefits. I used to go in spurts, a few weeks of "perfect" documentation and then when my enthusiasm fizzled - Nothing! Now, I'm a lot more committed to doing what I can, when I can, and forgiving myself when I have off days. Off days are just part of the package, especially since the fibromyalgia diagnosis.
_____________
I would recommend any of the journals, in that they're probably the best prepackaged journals on the subjects I've ever found. But, they're nothing you can't design for yourself either.
I was eating anywhere from 2,500- 3,500 + cal/ day. I starting eating 1,200/ day and lost 19 pounds in a month. Everyone told me I was not eating enough for me. I'm 5'11. I also started exercising 3 times/ week. I upped my calories to 1,500 and have not love anything in 10 days. Is my body storing my additional calories? I don't understand my body. If I did the actual calories that health people recommend. I would be eating 2,000- 2,500 cal, which obviously would not work. Any suggestions to what is going on?
I really do though. Do you get a lot of use out of the journal that you purchased. How has this helped you with your diet and seeing associations etc...