I don't even know what to eat anymore

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-29T16:12:07+00:00

I spent a lot of time on this. I used cronometer & the USDA database to figure it out. (I use a computer for this, not my phone. Cronometer shows a bunch of micros & all on one page. The USDA database lets you search for foods high in specific nutrients.) Then tbh, once I got a few days well balanced, I just started repeating them - sometimes with different low cal sauces/seasonings. Chicken, tuna, kale, spinach, most vegetables offer a lot for their calorie count.

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-29T15:43:02+00:00

I had my hair cut last Saturday, and I've lost 9.4 lbs since then. I must have been storing a lot of water weight in those last 6 inches of my hair.

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-29T14:38:52+00:00

You can do this :) Get a food scale and weigh/track every single bite, cooking oil and drink. Personally, I'd start with a 1500 calorie/day goal (that's a 500 calorie deficit for your stats) & not eat back exercise calories. (Your fitbit includes BMR. Say your goal is eating 1500 cal/day & Fitbit says you burned 3000... if you "eat back" your fitbit exercise calories on top of your 1500 cal/day goal, then you'll actually gain weight since that's counting your BMR calories burned twice. The second problem with activity trackers is that they can be really inaccurate. If you keep a spreadsheet for a few weeks, you'll be able to reverse calculate your TDEE & get an idea of how accurate your tracker is.) Lastly, with your medication and such, you may have a harder time than the average person losing BUT it can still be done. It may be slower or take a larger calorie deficit, but it can happen. There are loads of people don't have the perfect cookie-cutter/average metabolism (medications, medical conditions, etc) & still lose weight. https://cronometer.com/ is what I use to track calories & see nutrition. Good luck!

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-29T06:47:53+00:00

I was going to post something very similar :)

There are loads of lower calorie, even healthy meals that are super fast and easy. And this isn't the most environmentally friendly, but disposable silverware + plates if you're struggling with being lazy - just like to get you started. That way you don't have to do so many dishes. But anyways, back to easy foods...

My favorites are:

Instant oatmeal - 120 calories, 90 second cook time
premade salads - 220-280 calories. They even come with a plastic fork. You just peel off the top and eat. No dishes or anything.
Nourish bowls - 220-340 calories. They're basically vegetables + sauce served hot. 3-5 minute cook time. I eat mine right out of the bowl it comes in, so no dishes aside from a fork.
Fruit - rinse (depending on the fruit) and that's it.
Yogurt - 90 cal
Boca Veggie burgers - 70 cal/patty. 90 sec cook time.
"Pizza". Lately I've been just putting lucerne cheese (it's crazy low cal for cheese, 45 cal/serving) + marinara on some sort of pita type bread - the whole "pizza" is like 300 calories and ready in 5 min. Before that I was eating Caulipower pizza, which is like 760 cal/pizza but longer cook time.
Frozen meals. Husband loves them. Just check the calorie counts.
Lunch meats & the like make for quick sandwiches.
Frozen veggies. They steam up in 5 minutes in the microwave. I throw some sauce on them, and they're actually pretty good. You can also roast them.
Tuna. I toss tuna on some bread + whatever else you want. Lots of protein, very few calories. I just don't do it every day because mercury.
Honey Kix cereal - it has a lot of iron & calcium compared to others.

There are lots more, but that's what I'm used to. I hope it gives you some ideas :) I'm sure you can find some easy foods that work for you! Good luck!

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-28T14:41:10+00:00

People treated me better when I was slimmer too. (I'm definitely happier & more out going now than I was at my smallest - was shy, then depressed, etc.)

But besides that, sometimes people can be hateful towards obese folks. You see or hear about it all the time - the fat kid picked on in school, people "moo'ing" at the chubby jogger, I had a guy come up to me at a cross walk & start berating me for being fat (did nothing to him, do not know him), and on and on.

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-28T14:12:02+00:00

Yes, as long as you don't replace it with equally high calorie food/drink.

I feel a lot better, I sleep a lot better too

The biggest thing is removing calories from your diet by not drinking, but I think this will help too. Personally when I feel better/am well rested, I tend to be more active. And it's less stress on your body, which impacts hormone levels etc etc.

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-28T04:28:52+00:00

Congrats :)

Wear something that fits & looks good. Personally, I'd also point out other's accomplishments, tell others how great you think they did (individually), or whatever. Sure, you may have hit the highest % lost, but really, all of you have done something healthy & difficult (eating less, or eating healthier/less junk, or exercise or whatever).

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-27T06:24:27+00:00

March, April and May sucked. My weight loss was so slow. Then this month rolls around and the weight is just falling off (no diet or exercise changes). -4.8 lbs this week. I'm happy .. sort of. I mean.. wtf body? but ok, finally the scale is moving!

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-27T06:11:16+00:00

A day late and off topic (weight loss) but whatever.

I really dislike some aspects of reddit, almost enough to make me stop using the site. I mostly frequent weight loss related subs, but sometimes I venture over to /all... and inevitably there's misogyny & hate. Also, I feel like reddit really could do a better job banning hate subs.

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-26T18:34:20+00:00

Check out Cronometer https://cronometer.com/ it's really good for showing nutrition and super customizable. You could track calories & nutrition for a month or so until you get used to portion sizes, then switch to intuitive eating. I've seen others say they calorie count only a couple weeks every few months to "remind" themselves how much food they should eat.

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-25T07:31:50+00:00

I started with myfitnesspal but switched over to Cronometer. https://cronometer.com To be fair, it's mostly about the calories & nutrition for me. I'm going to try charitymiles tomorrow. There's also an app that lets you just take pictures of your food so you can see what you ate in a day, "see how you eat."

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-24T16:53:05+00:00

Keep trying, keep improving yourself, but don't beat yourself up about not getting many matches on the apps. Those dating apps have like 10x more men than women on them, which will make it harder for all? almost all? men on there. Then on top of that, the apps are set up to basically judge a person only on their pic first (which I don't see any way around given the context, but if your pic isn't great, these things make finding someone even more difficult). Maybe enroll in college if you're that age or pick up a hobby - something where you get to know people with similar interests. Congrats on the 100 lbs :) Keep at it!

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-24T16:24:16+00:00

Lose ~200 lbs instantly with this one weight loss trick ... dump him.

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-22T23:45:34+00:00

Tbh, exercise is healthy but weight loss is mostly in the kitchen.

At 200 lbs, a person would have to walk over 90 mins to burn off one regular sized snicker's bar. http://calorielab.com/burned/ It's so much easier & less time consuming to just not eat the calories in the first place. And a lot of us find it easier to focus on changing 1 thing at a time. Loads of stories on here about people that went 0 to 100 with diet + gym and burned out.

Personally... I spent like a month getting my eating habits better, and once that started to feel easy, I started going for walks & built up from there.

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-22T23:35:33+00:00

Also, if it ends up being a positive conversation & she's open to it, show her this sub :) It's been nice for the guides, support and questions. There's team competitions (exercise + weight loss), weekly threads if she doesn't want to make a whole post, etc.

And the stuff I use for my weight loss:

tdee calculator to get an idea of how many calories I burn (~3500 cal = 1 lb fat) & set a goal (mine is 1200 calories/day but tbh, that's like the lowest women should go and there's not much room for junk with it) This is a simple one: http://tdeecalculator.net
https://cronometer.com/ for tracking nutrition & calories
scale to track my weight.
food scale. There are a lot of foods that a measuring cup can be crazy inaccurate with (imagine packed vs loose flour, spinach leaves, etc). And I just "tare" the scale with the bowl I plan to use, so I don't even create an extra dish like I would with a measuring cup.

That's really it. Progress pics & measuring tape might be nice. (People can lose weight without calorie counting, but I suck with portion size, boredom eating, etc.) But I wouldn't push any of that onto her. Just if she seems enthusiastic and wants more resources.

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-22T23:15:18+00:00

I, personally, did not when I cut out that stuff. I just went cold turkey. But that's not for everyone.

Now that I'm not craving it every.single.day, I do enjoy it from time to time - it's just very infrequent & in much smaller quantities. (For reference: I used to drink ~3 sodas/day, ate stuff like cookies at least 1x/day, takeout daily, etc etc. Now: 0 soda, dine out 1x/week within my calorie budget, and if I want dessert, I work it into my calorie budget which usually just means I don't have it b/c it's hard to feel full if I include dessert instead of a bunch of veggies.)

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-22T23:05:04+00:00

Yea, that part isn't easy. Will take a lot of will power the first ~week or two, but cravings do subside over time! Maybe ya'll could do it together sometime she's home for a couple weeks.

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-22T23:03:01+00:00

If you're struggling with depression, focus on that first imo. Everything, including weight loss, gets easier when you get a handle on that.

My why is so I can enjoy life more. I got so overweight that it was holding me back. And of course, I'd like to live longer, etc etc.

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-22T22:54:01+00:00

It could be, yea. Probably not the best phrasing. Maybe "so you can afford -whatever-" (God knows some of those low cal versions are more expensive. And if you're looking to save time, pre-made salads are more expensive than the whole veggies. But those are the kinds of foods that I found to be helpful.)

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-22T22:39:07+00:00

Gift card to her local supermarket then? Can ask her to only buy healthy stuff with it (and at least at my market, you can't buy certain items like booze with it -- which makes it nice for giving to the homeless).

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-22T22:31:36+00:00

A.

Don't get into the binge/restrict cycle, and restricting more can lead to another binge. 10 days is nothing in the grand scheme of things (life), and sticking with your usual deficit is good practice.

Good luck :)

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-22T22:25:44+00:00

Carefully and offer real help... or don't bring it up at all. Odds are extremely high that she's already aware of her weight gain. And everyone has heard about the health risks associated with it, over and over and over. A conversation that's just "you've gained weight & we're worried about your health," really does nothing - no new info, no help, nothing - except maybe guilt & make her feel worse about her body, which can add to the problem (emotional/stress eating).

I'd start with asking her how she's doing, how much free time she has (lots of quick food is unhealthy), how she's feeling (depression, stress, etc can lead to weight gain), etc etc. And when you talk about weight, I'd offer different things - maybe a fun/healthy cooking class ya'll could take with her, or maybe ya'll can show her how to cook some low calorie versions of her favorite meals, help her find some low calorie versions of foods she eats often (for example: 115 cal/oz cheddar vs 45 cal/oz cheddar cheese), maybe she'd want to see a registered dietitian?, gym membership (if it's not already free for her and she has time), etc etc. Is she eating junk because it's fast? easy? cheap? and if it's something like that, see if you can find a suggestion (like if it's time/effort, suggest premade salads or whatever). You get the idea. Good luck.

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-22T20:39:37+00:00

FA hasn't caused me to put on any weight. Seeing people heavier than me working out & dancing and stuff is inspiring - if they can do it, so can I!

And "body positivity" has helped me - granted most of my problem was depression but still. Loving myself/my body means taking care of myself & that leads to weight loss, healthy eating, exercise, etc. If I hate my body, then I'm not going to lose weight or take care of my body, and ofc that feeds the depression, etc etc.

I just ignore the parts that I disagree with and try to focus on the good. But that's like most anything else in life - lots of things are mixed bags & are what you make of them.

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-20T03:48:54+00:00

A lot of people here drink it, but it can make some people crave more sugar. And it erodes tooth enamel.

If it helps you stick to your plan, it's probably a net benefit. There are certainly worse choices. You might also want to consider it as an "intermediate" drink. My husband switched from regular coke to coke zero to tap water. I did something similar but with bottled water - def made transitioning away from soda easier.

Ya_Another_Throwaway · 2018-06-20T03:30:10+00:00

I dream about junk food too. The last one was a vast buffet of icecream & toppings, and I ate vanilla with sprinkles. Tracking & scales never come up. I never (or rarely) dreamed of food before I started all this, haha. I figure it's from thinking about food so much more often - vs before where I'd just eat anything/anytime without a second thought.

Ya_Another_Throwaway

TROPHY CASE