Aa
help needed.
I struggle a lot with my weight due to PCOS witch makes it almost impossible to lose weight due to hormone imbalance. Anybody have the same struggle but is more successful and can guide me through in low calorie meal preping? Its hard to do so as I'm hypoglycemic and I feel like I'm dying when restricting my diet. I try to eat less than 800-1000 per day because of the weight I carry and I want to lose. Also I'd turn to more exercise but I'm a full time student and a part time worker. Left time is for homework and responsibilities. Can anyone help?
If you cut out fat, sugar, salt, ( a lifestyle change) you won't need to count calories to lose weight. This lifestyle change will be all that you need to promote your ideal body weight. It helps me greatly to be able to have a program to follow, and for me , being able to read up and fully encompass what's going on inside our bodies while eating healthy versus unhealthy habits. is essential. In fact, as i'm getting used to eating a plant based diet, it helps me a great deal to read (I'm using the Nutritarian diet) "Fasting and Eating for Health" "The End of Diabetes) WHILE I'M EATING. It really helps to keep me motivated (to saying no to fat sugar and salt)., and essentially getting used to whole foods, (healthy fat/sugar) instead of processed foods. ie. olives instead of extracted oils. The only processed foods i eat are Life Smart dessert snacks. Basically there are about 6 different applesauce fruit snacks and 7 of them use more than apples. The ones I like the best is the carrot/apple/pear(?) and apple/peach/mango. These snacks are a life saver for me, as there are enough different blends so that i don't get bored eating the same thing (applesauce only) and often you can find these snacks at 2 4 the price of one.
Hypoglycemia is often the result of Diabetes so the diet contained in The End of Diabetes, will provide you with the specific diet that will help you to manage your low blood sugar.
I commend you for going to school as well as working part time while being concerned with health issues. Meal preparation, while Eating a plant based is a simple endeavor, a lot more simple than you might , at first, imagine. Best wishes for your weight loss goals.
Oh! Over the coming months, you should re-calculator your BMR perhaps every month. It will decrease as your weight decreases (eg. if you were 240 lbs, it would be 1905 cal/day).
And, I like to think in terms of interim goals, an approach you might consider, and typically the next 20 pounds weight loss is what I aim for (perhaps managed in three months if I've no setbacks) and just put out of mind any concern about going further, until I've reached that interim point. I have more success if I can keep my nervous tension at a minimum and contemplating a total weight loss that is large would tend to make me nervous.
And, I like to think in terms of interim goals, an approach you might consider, and typically the next 20 pounds weight loss is what I aim for (perhaps managed in three months if I've no setbacks) and just put out of mind any concern about going further, until I've reached that interim point. I have more success if I can keep my nervous tension at a minimum and contemplating a total weight loss that is large would tend to make me nervous.
Guessing your age is 25, and using bmr-calculator.net, your BMR is 1992.8 (say, 2,000 calories). If your age is much different, please visit that site and plug in your correct age.
Whatever approach you use, it needs to be sustainable (even better, enjoyable). If it's not, you're at very high risk of relapsing back into old habits (some people take decades of trying again and again, so I believe when do it right the first time and you can save yourself a lot of grief).
I think of calorie counting as serious work in itself, so if I doing this, I'd let myself have the first couple of weeks as a free period where I was just figuring out and getting used to counting 2,000 calories/day worth of (healthy) food choices, and would not even try to reduce that by 500 calories/day until week 3.
Whatever approach you use, it needs to be sustainable (even better, enjoyable). If it's not, you're at very high risk of relapsing back into old habits (some people take decades of trying again and again, so I believe when do it right the first time and you can save yourself a lot of grief).
I think of calorie counting as serious work in itself, so if I doing this, I'd let myself have the first couple of weeks as a free period where I was just figuring out and getting used to counting 2,000 calories/day worth of (healthy) food choices, and would not even try to reduce that by 500 calories/day until week 3.
Thank you all so much for the feedback. I'm a female,5'9 that weights 260. But I honestly don't know how to calculate BmR. However,your comments where truly eye opening. Thank you!
COMMUNITY LEADER
I agree that 800-1000 calories is too few... your body needs so many calories/day just to survive and that's not going to be enough, though you can't just pick an arbitrary number and decide that's the number of calories you'll eat. You need to calculate your daily needs, based on your current age, weight and height in order to get BMR or Basic Metabolic Rate (what you need for the involuntary body processes, such as heart rate, brain function, digestion, kidney, liver and other body functions that you can't control). Once you have that, you can go from there, typically, subtracting 500 calories/day to get the number of calories you can eat and still lose weight.
In order to prevent hypoglycemia, you need to eat foods that keep the blood sugar more stable, such as whole grains, veggies, nuts, seeds, healthy fats, etc. What happens, all too often, is that some becomes hypoglycemic and they eat something sugary like fruit or candy to bring their blood sugar up quickly, but that also spikes insulin levels, so before you know it, the insulin has shuttled all that sugar into your fat cells and there's none left in your blood, so the bottom drops out and you have to eat more in order to bring to it back up... this becomes a vicious cycle over the course of the day... With food like whole grains, protein, vegetables and healthy fats (all in reasonable portions), your blood sugar doesn't spike, so your insulin levels don't spike and you break the cycle...
10 minutes of exercise even once/day is better than no exercise at all.
In order to prevent hypoglycemia, you need to eat foods that keep the blood sugar more stable, such as whole grains, veggies, nuts, seeds, healthy fats, etc. What happens, all too often, is that some becomes hypoglycemic and they eat something sugary like fruit or candy to bring their blood sugar up quickly, but that also spikes insulin levels, so before you know it, the insulin has shuttled all that sugar into your fat cells and there's none left in your blood, so the bottom drops out and you have to eat more in order to bring to it back up... this becomes a vicious cycle over the course of the day... With food like whole grains, protein, vegetables and healthy fats (all in reasonable portions), your blood sugar doesn't spike, so your insulin levels don't spike and you break the cycle...
10 minutes of exercise even once/day is better than no exercise at all.
I think less than 800-1,000 cal/day is far, far too low to be of positive long term benefit (at such a low intake you risk triggering your body's famine mode, something in our genes that's helped us survive these past millions of years).
Even if you're a small person (I gather you're not), I think 1,500 cal/day should be seen as the bare minimum consumption, but perhaps 1,800 cal/day is more appropriate for a sustainable, slow but steady weight loss program.
Lose slow, lose forever (as you're creating lifestyle habits). Lose fast, and gain it all back (& then some), also known as the yo yo dieting syndrome.
Even if you're a small person (I gather you're not), I think 1,500 cal/day should be seen as the bare minimum consumption, but perhaps 1,800 cal/day is more appropriate for a sustainable, slow but steady weight loss program.
Lose slow, lose forever (as you're creating lifestyle habits). Lose fast, and gain it all back (& then some), also known as the yo yo dieting syndrome.
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