Weddingbee boards

My doctor told me that the ONE tried and true method is to count calories!! It is true that carbs hold a lot of calories, so reducing carbs (NOT cutting out entirely) may help to reduce your calorie count. The number of calories that you need to eat depends on your lifestyle, etc. Some say that if you don't eat at least 1,200 calories a day, that your body will go into starvation mode. My doctor told me to eat 1,000 calories. 

Also, exercise. Start small, like taking the stairs and parking further away so that you have to walk. But MAKE time for it, even if it's just 10 minutes a day. 

MyFitnessPal is a website that several bees (myself included) use to track our calories and exercise, and you can add people on there and have friends who help to keep you accountable.  There are Apple and Android apps for it as well.  

Hope that helps!!! 

My favorite website is Sparkpeople.com it is completely free. You can choose to follow meal plans, or make your own. It has a nutrition tracker, fitness tracker, and a huge community. The program tells you how much to eat, workout, and how many calories you need to burn. They even have stages of fitness for you to go through. They will literally hold your hand, and if you get lost there are great people on the message boards.

i run a lot and do yoga, i don't count calories, but i eat when i'm hungry and stop when i'm full.  its not just cals in/ cals out- if i eat a lot of junk, i get flabbier...if i don't, i get leaner.  i don't lift weights because it bores me and isn't sustainable.  

do a form of fitness that you LIKE, because you will stick with it- doing something you hate will make you give up and not see any results.  with regards to weight, figure out what you eat now, and then reduce the amounts somewhat, eat a little bit of everything and not a lot of anything. 

i know that sounds ambitious and annoying- but it works.  diets don't work.  if they did, our entire country would be thin and all the new diet gurus would be out of business because the old ones would have came and conquered.

IMO it comes down to what works for you. I tried many plans and programs,a nd what has worked best for me so far is calorie counting, but keeping a mindful eye on fat and carb intake too. I use myfitnesspal on my iphone because it;s always handy. I've lost 11lbs so far and I've enjoyed the process.

I think the make and break here is to like or enjoy what your doing. I've tried WW, Atkins, Paleo etc. but I wasn't happy about it. Once I started calorie counting I was still eating healthy, but in a way that gave me control. I could have carbs and dairy if I wanted and wasn't on a diet that told me I couldn't have those things.

It takes awhile to figure out what works for. My tried and true motto is, "What works for others, may not work for you". Everyone has different preferences, foods they like etc. I took me awhile to finally try calorie counting, but it's worked for me. Try some different plans out or, check out the specs to each one. If you love carbs and dairy then Atkins won't be for you, but WW or CC might. Read up on all of them and see which one meshs with your lifestyle the best.

Let me start off by saying what works for me will not necessarily work for you.  You will have to try out a few different things to see what works.  I am also very type a so I like to have plans in place for eveything in my life.  I soon found out that weight loss is not linear or expected.

It's true that a pound is 3,500 calories.  1 gram of protein or carb is equal to 4 calories and 1 gram of fat is equal to 9 calories.  I have the food nutrition background but I have a tendency to get lured in by fads.  The Dukan Diet book is sitting on table but I couldn't follow it because it's not right for me.  I know that just because I ate a 300 hundred calorie slice of chocolate cake doesn't mean i ruined my diet and just because the scale went up 5 pounds doens't mean I really gained it because I know there's no way I ate 17,500 calories.

This is what I did and I've lost over 20 pounds since the middle of October. (I managed to lose weight during the holidays! yay!)  I was not obese but just slightly overweight.  Now I'm within the BMI normal weight range.  I started off by identifying my weakness (bread, desserts, sweets, and pretty much all empty refined sugars and carbs).  I forced myself to cut it out by loosely following the south beach diet to cut my cravings for sugar.  i've done this several times before for several reasons and it gets easier each time. i also tracked my calories. (i used loseit and then fitbit after i got the fitbit activity monitor.)

i kept myself a few hundred calories under my bmr.  i used an online calculator to calculate my bmr so that i knew how many calories i burned if i was pretty sendetary.  any activity resulting in burning additional calories was a plus.

because i ate mainly proteins, the calories i consumed each day dramatically decreased.  i then added in only good grains.  i cut fruit out the first week only so i still a good amount of carbs.  i didn't do low carb -- only good carb.

i switched from honey to agave nectar for my greek yogurt.  i haven't bought sugar in ages.  it was a good two months before i started eating any white flour or sugar and even now, it's in moderation.  i'll have a container of fruit flavored fage or chobani yogurt instead of getting just the plain and sweetening it with agav nectar. 

i don't eat red meat so eating protein is difficult.  i eat a lot of eggs (i don't have cholesterol issues), chicken, nuts, fish, low fat cheese, greek yogurt, nut butters...

i find that by eating mostly protein, i am full without eating too many calories.  i don't want to say anything bad about fad no or low carb diets because it works for many people.  just remember that when you cut out the carbs, the first ten pounds you lose during that week is mostly water.  i am also not a fad of no fat.  your body needs fat so the key is eating good fat.  i never toss egg yolks or say no to an avocado. 

good luck.  you still have some time.  just keep focus and don't come up with a plan that is too diffult to follow.

Is it possible that subconciously you are using this as an excuse not to get back on track? If you don't want to be a bodybuilder or fitness model and all you want is to be healthy and fit, all this info you are researching is just holding you back. Put down the books and get into the gym. Lift proper weights where you can do about 10 reps per set with perfect form. Do some cardio. Break up your days into different muscle groups. Have rest days when you can recover. Eat clean. This means: made by people=bad vs made by nature=good. You will get results.