So basically it's creating a defecit? Is that not what dieting is about period? When it coems down to it, you have to make sure you burn more calories than you intake otherwise the body stores it.

Yes, but it tells you what your healthy numbers are. So, for example: I'm 168 lbs, 5'4", 35 years old. Using those stats, my BMR is 1442 calories (otherwise, what my body needs just to survive.. when laying down in bed all day).

You're supposed to eat up to 100 cals over your BMR for "losing weight purposes" and creating a deficit, but no less than 1442.

I've chosen to eat a flat 1500 calories each day.

I take my BMR x (times) 1.3 (for light activity level) and come up with 1909 for "maintenance" calories (which pertains to myfitnesspal.com).

Then, using the calculation 1442+1000-1874= 332 I've determined that when exercising, if I earn LESS than 332 calories thru exercise, I DON'T have to eat the exercise cals back... if I eat MORE than 332, I only eat the difference. So, if I worked out and earned 200 calories, I don't eat them back, and only eat my 1500. If I worked out and earned 500 calories, then (500-332=168) I only eat 168 calories ON TOP of my 1500.

There's a bit more that pertains to myfitnesspal.com and those maintenance cals up above, that helps you visually see your deficit- but I'll only explain those, if needed.

I lost 4 lbs the first week, 2 the next, and can't wait to see the numbers continue dropping. I was stuck between 172 and 178 for MONTHS, losing my hair, and constantly hungry .. now I get some extra calories to enjoy, and I'm finally in my 160's! It seems complicated, but I promise it gets easier to understand the more you work with it, and I'm totally willing to walk people through it until it makes sense.

I'm going to try this, I'm slightly confused by it but I'm sure it's not that complicated

You're on my friends list at MFP (chitanoni)- if you want help with the numbers I def don't mind helping out. There's a cool feature re: the maintenance cals that I can explain in more detail (you plug it into your "goals" instead of the MFP generated number).

Ok. This is starting to drive me mad. I ate yogurt, fibre cereal and drank a litre of water and still NOTHING. ugh

Losing weight happens over a period of time...not just over night. I wouldn't weigh yourself so much. If you are going up and down in a 1 or 2 day span, its likely due to water weight changes and not real fat. I have lost 55+ lbs and I only weighed myself once a month or less. I consistently went down as long as I stuck to my plan. Now I slowed because I am very close to my goal weight, so I weigh more often, but I wouldn't expect changes to happen in one day or in a few hours.

I know I post this chart a lot, but maybe it'll put things in perspective for you. This is my weight loss chart from May 2011 to December 2011. My weight was actually 10lb lower than on the chart because my scale was borked, but you get the idea.

I weighed in every day:



There's a general downward trend, but day to day my weight was all over the place! Stop looking at the day to day and worry about your overall trend

I love that! Look at all the plateaus, and gains following a plateau and then losses and ups and downs. I'm searing that into my memory!

Thank you sooooooooooo much for the visual!

What did do your chart on?

I'm glad it helped! Making that chart really helped me during my journey. There were times when my weight loss felt like it was taking forever. I just pulled up the chart and it really put things into perspective.

Microsoft Excel 2008 I kept a log in a spreadsheet and from there turned it into a graph whenever I wanted.

I second that the graph by sontaikle is just so helpful.

I keep reading that daily weigh-ins are the way to go, but I've always been afraid of them because my weight fluctuates so much, and I get discouraged.

sontaikle thank you so much for posting that graph. It really did make me look at the "big picture" - it's the downward trend that really matters.

That said, what are the advantages of weighing daily vs. once a week like I do, if we are mainly interested in the downward trend?

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

For me, the advantage of daily weighing is that it allows me to reverse small gains before they become larger ones. If I've eaten on plan for the past few days and the scale shows a gain, I don't worry about it or make any adjustments as I'm confident the number reflects just random fluctuations. However, if I've overeaten and the scale shows a gain, I can take compensatory steps that very day, rather than living in denial until my next weekly weigh-in.

F.

For me, one of the advantages of daily weighing is that I can better see the longer trend. If I'm the same or up a bit on my weekly weigh in, I won't know whether that's a temporary, one day blip or something that's been happening all week. Plus there's less/no disappointment when I'm the same today as I was yesterday. I don't expect to lose overnight. If I'm up, I know why (late night meal, hormones, salty meal, off plan meal, whatever) day to day. I'd be more discouraged to feel like I'm doing well all week only to see the same number as the week before, when it really could be temporary water weight masking a 1-2lb loss, that I would see if I'd stepped on the scale the day before or the day after.

I completely agree. I also find it holds me more accountable to what I am actually doing daily. I can't cheat today, because tomorrow I will know about it versus Monday.