Hello everyone! I wanted to introduce myself. My name is Lisa, I am 32 years old and have 3 kids. My oldest girl is 12, my middle girl is 3 and my baby boy just turned 1 last week. Thats it for me!

Now I would like to get my body in shape and lose this last stubborn 20 pounds that I cannot seem to lose. I tried Body for life and weight watchers but I was horrible on both. Whenever I am on a strict diet plan I ALWAYS mess up then I feel like a failure then I start over etc.... etc.... This time I figured I am going to do my own darn thing and count my calories on fitday and of course exercise. I really like doing it this way because you can pretty much eat what you want as long as you stay within your calorie limit.

I was wondering if anyone can explain this calorie deficit thing to me. How do you know you have a deficit and how much of one do you need per day to lose 1-2 lbs per week. I gave myself a 20 pound goal to lose by my birthday which is 11/23 so fitday told me I needed to lose 1.25 pounds per week to meet my goal which seems very attainable to me.

Well, I am sorry for rambling on so long. I am looking forward to getting to know everyone, this seems like a really good message board group!
Lisa

Theoretically ... one pound = 3500 calories. In order to lose 1.25 pounds per week, you need to use (gets out calculator) 4375 more calories than you eat. You need to have a deficit of 4375 calories.
There's a couple of difficulties involved.
1. It's really hard to know how many calories you are using. UNLESS ... unless ... you have been staying the same weight AND can figure out how many cals you have been eating. There's an interesting phenomenon among new dieters, once they decide to eat less, suddenly they can't remember what they ate yesterday.
2. It would be wonderful if when you've eaten 3500 cals less than usual, one pound would magically drop off. But they don't. Water, heat, hormones ... It's an unpredictable pattern.

But all in all, calorie counting works. We'll help you!

Hi everyone!!! Hows everyone doing??

I havent been on here for a while just busy with work and school.

How are you suzanne?

Happy to report Im only 1 pound away from my mini goal of 199!

Hi (soon to be nurse) Dee! I've been doing quite a bit of that lately. Although it burns good calories ... it seriously interferes with my life

I can relate to that ..lol
I see your almost at your goal.That is so good. You inspire me so much.

Thanks Dee. You'll be close too, before ya know it.
I have a deficit of about 700 for yesterday. I fell for the being too tired to cook thing and went out for chinese but I didn't have rice

Thats really good. The rice makes it good but not necessary .

Tommorrow I start my spinning class so wish me luck

There seems to be lots of folks here who take spinning classes and love them. Let us know how it goes.

my goal for this month is to lose 10 pounds...!!!!

okay, like lisa up there, i am a little (alright more than a little) confused about the whole deficit thing. can someone help?!
i want to lose 2 pounds a week and i eat 1200 cals a day. please help! i know i may be dumb, but i just can't figure this out, lol!!!
gabrielbeth

Morning,

WARNING - I might be holding a pity party in the next couple of paragraphs, read at your own risk!

Weekend was blah. I rebelled against my calorie counting due to the scales telling me I had gained a little weight last week. Sometimes, you just get sick of it, you know? Tired of the counting, the eating good and working out. Or in my case getting up at 4.45 am (4.15am for when I do spinning!!!!) to go to the gym every morning before work, eating clean and SEEING THE SCALES GO UP! Sometimes I could just .

So. I rebelled over the weekend, didn't eat awfully just didn't eat as clean as I usually do. There was cheese. There were cookies. I'm over it.

This morning though I've been good so far. Oatmeal for breakfast, carrots and tomatoes for snack, lunch I have veg and pasta soup.

Ddran, I do spinning once a week. So far I like it. Some advice though: get yourself a gel cushioned seat for the bike, your butt will like you in the morning for it! I got mine at Target for the princely sum of $9.99. I'm also getting me a heart rate monitor. The bikes we use don't have one built in like some elliptical and treadmill machines do and our instructor who takes the class gauges how hard we are working by our heart rate. Just something else to think about.

Gabrielbeth, Susan made a good post a few posts above yours giving the theoretical formula for losing weight. To recap - if you use up 3500 calories you will burn 1lb of fat. Therefore to burn 2lbs of fat you need to use up 7000 calories. Like Susan says though, other factors such as water retention, hormones, heat, alignment of the sun, black cats crossing your path (alright not the last two, haha) can affect this. Eating 1200 calories per day sounds low enough to me (I am currently aiming to eat 1200 a day), however, are you counting your calories? Do you use fitday? Are you moving (exercising) each day to burn more calories?

yes, i workout every morning, except on sat and sundays. and yes, i go on fit day EVERYDAY and count my cals, etc... so, if i need 7000 cals burned up a week to lose 2 lbs, i need to work off 1400 cals a day? is that how it works? if it is, that is obsurd! i can't do that!!!
if i am not right, i guess i am just the stupidest person on the planet cause i just don't get it. i actually NEED someone to tell me what to do. i feel lost if i am wrong. i know susan did have a good post, but i didn't understand it. i just don't understand!!!
gabrielbeth

Lynn do you find that spinning helps your Hips and thighs? I always lose in arms and waist but Im having a hard time getting my thighs and butt in shape.I think tae bo is pretty good and see a little results in my hips but big improvement in my waist and arms.

Good luck with the spinning ladies.

Dee whenever I lose weight it is always every where on my body except my stomach where I need it....seems to just hold on there until the very end!!

Phyllis