Aa
dieting
Im 21 yrs old im 5ft tall and weigh 230. I know its a lot i started gaing weight after a miscarriage about 7 months ago. Im trying out hydroxyCut and crunches for 30mins a day. I had (1) raisen bagel with jelly,milk and (1) banana and calculated the calories and its seems really high 458 calories is that right? Anyone have some input?
COMMUNITY LEADER
You didn't eat nearly enough calories, but what you did eat was the wrong kind of calories. You ate mostly sugar and refined carbs; you need to add more protein and lots of veggies.
In order to maintain your current weight, you'd need to eat 2100 calories/day, so to lose weight you have to subtract calories, by either eating less or exercising more; it's easier if you do both.
Safe weight loss is 1-2 pounds/week, therefore, if you want to lose 1 lb/week, you'd need to drop about 500 calories from that, making it 1600 that you'd be eating. It's easier to drop 250 calories from the food and burn an extra 250 with exercise.
Not eating enough calories causes your metabolism to slow down.
Make sure you get protein with every single meal. That can be in the form meat, chicken, fish, eggs, dairy (milk, yogurt, cheese, etc), nuts, seeds, beans.
Once you'd decided on your protein, add veggies. Almost all veggies, except starchy ones, like white potatoes, corn, peas, are considered "free", because they have so few calories that you can eat as much as you want. Of course, you have to make sure that you don't put creamy, cheesy sauces on them, because that increases the calories, so the veggies are no longer "diet" food.
Fruits are good for you, but should be limited to 1-2 servings/day because they have a lot of sugar, which spikes your blood sugar, which in turn spikes insulin levels. Insulin causes the sugary, high carb food we eat, but don't burn for energy, to be stored as fat.
Switch to whole grains for breads, pastas, etc. Eat brown rice, instead of white, sweet potatoes instead of white.
A good breakfast might be a 2 egg omelette, with fresh spinach, tomatoes, mushrooms and onion, with a slice of whole grain fruit and a serving of fruit. Or you could have a serving of whole grain cereal, with low/no fat milk, a cup of Greek yogurt and a serving of fruit. A good snack could be yogurt -protein. Or an apple, with peanut butter, with peanut butter being the protein. Go easy on nut butters, though, because, while they are good sources of protein, they also have a lot of fat.
As for exercise, try walking for 30 min/day, yoga, zumba or some other "whole body" exercise. If your ab workout burns 166 calories, and you're taking in, even 1000 calories, you can see that you won't lose weight.
Keep a food diary and log everything you eat/drink. After you've done that for a while, you'll be able to see where you need to cut down, whether it's simple carbs, fat, etc. MedHelp has an excellent food diary, with a data base, containing a lot of the common foods we eat. You can even enter your own recipes and their nutritional data.
Hope this helps you get started. As I said before, don't try to change everything all at once - just make simple, small changes that you can stick with. Eventually, they become habit and you can change something else.
It can be a slow process and gets frustrating, at times, but if we stick with it, we can succeed. We're here to help you...
In order to maintain your current weight, you'd need to eat 2100 calories/day, so to lose weight you have to subtract calories, by either eating less or exercising more; it's easier if you do both.
Safe weight loss is 1-2 pounds/week, therefore, if you want to lose 1 lb/week, you'd need to drop about 500 calories from that, making it 1600 that you'd be eating. It's easier to drop 250 calories from the food and burn an extra 250 with exercise.
Not eating enough calories causes your metabolism to slow down.
Make sure you get protein with every single meal. That can be in the form meat, chicken, fish, eggs, dairy (milk, yogurt, cheese, etc), nuts, seeds, beans.
Once you'd decided on your protein, add veggies. Almost all veggies, except starchy ones, like white potatoes, corn, peas, are considered "free", because they have so few calories that you can eat as much as you want. Of course, you have to make sure that you don't put creamy, cheesy sauces on them, because that increases the calories, so the veggies are no longer "diet" food.
Fruits are good for you, but should be limited to 1-2 servings/day because they have a lot of sugar, which spikes your blood sugar, which in turn spikes insulin levels. Insulin causes the sugary, high carb food we eat, but don't burn for energy, to be stored as fat.
Switch to whole grains for breads, pastas, etc. Eat brown rice, instead of white, sweet potatoes instead of white.
A good breakfast might be a 2 egg omelette, with fresh spinach, tomatoes, mushrooms and onion, with a slice of whole grain fruit and a serving of fruit. Or you could have a serving of whole grain cereal, with low/no fat milk, a cup of Greek yogurt and a serving of fruit. A good snack could be yogurt -protein. Or an apple, with peanut butter, with peanut butter being the protein. Go easy on nut butters, though, because, while they are good sources of protein, they also have a lot of fat.
As for exercise, try walking for 30 min/day, yoga, zumba or some other "whole body" exercise. If your ab workout burns 166 calories, and you're taking in, even 1000 calories, you can see that you won't lose weight.
Keep a food diary and log everything you eat/drink. After you've done that for a while, you'll be able to see where you need to cut down, whether it's simple carbs, fat, etc. MedHelp has an excellent food diary, with a data base, containing a lot of the common foods we eat. You can even enter your own recipes and their nutritional data.
Hope this helps you get started. As I said before, don't try to change everything all at once - just make simple, small changes that you can stick with. Eventually, they become habit and you can change something else.
It can be a slow process and gets frustrating, at times, but if we stick with it, we can succeed. We're here to help you...
My total calorie count to day is 1071 that i ate today and 8 cups of water and i did 30 of ab work out the calculation of the calorie burn was 166.
Im 21 i weigh 235 and im 5ft.
Im 21 i weigh 235 and im 5ft.
COMMUNITY LEADER
First off, have you had your thyroid checked to make sure it's functioning properly? Hypothyroidism not only causes weight gain, it can cause miscarriage, difficulty conceiving and a lot of other symptoms.. Ask your doctor to test TSH, Free T3 and Free T4.
I do have some input, but you probably won't like it.
Was the bagel with jelly, milk and banana for one meal? If so, actually, your calorie count on it seems rather low, but that would depend on what kind of jelly you had, and what kind of milk you had (low/no fat, 2% or whole milk).
If you don't mind a quick explanation? First off the bagel is loaded with, both refined flour (unless it was whole grain-doubtful) and sugar, so it's a lot more simple carbs than you should have in a single meal. Secondly, the jelly is mostly sugar. Between the bagel and jelly, your blood sugar probably spiked pretty high, then you added the banana, which is also loaded with sugar, even though it's a different kind of sugar... it's still sugar and still spikes blood sugar. The milk is your only saving grace, because of the protein, calcium, vitamin B12, etc, but depending on the type of milk, those benefits could be wiped out. That meal was probably almost 1/3 of your daily caloric needs and it was almost all simple carbs that go straight to fat, if not used right away for energy.
That same meal could actually have had a larger volume of food, for much less calories, by having a veggie stuffed omlette or something similar. .
But before we go there, we need to figure out how many calories/day you should be eating. This is determined by your height, weight, age and activity level, so if you want to let me know those, I can help you calculate that.
It definitely looks like you need to change your diet, but it's best to work on small changes that you can stick with, for the long haul than trying to "go on a diet".
For instance, if you drink sodas, you should switch to water (even if you drink diet sodas), but you don't even have to do that all at once... Suppose you drink 4 sodas/day - switch out one of them for water. Do this for a week, then switch out another for water; do that for a week, the switch out another for water, until eventually, you don't drink sodas, but you drink a lot of water (you can also do unsweetened tea, coffee, etc... they all count as water.
So let's start with calculating your calorie needs and go from there.
Do you do any exercise? If so, how much, how often? What type? Even a daily walk around the block is better than nothing.
I do have some input, but you probably won't like it.
Was the bagel with jelly, milk and banana for one meal? If so, actually, your calorie count on it seems rather low, but that would depend on what kind of jelly you had, and what kind of milk you had (low/no fat, 2% or whole milk).
If you don't mind a quick explanation? First off the bagel is loaded with, both refined flour (unless it was whole grain-doubtful) and sugar, so it's a lot more simple carbs than you should have in a single meal. Secondly, the jelly is mostly sugar. Between the bagel and jelly, your blood sugar probably spiked pretty high, then you added the banana, which is also loaded with sugar, even though it's a different kind of sugar... it's still sugar and still spikes blood sugar. The milk is your only saving grace, because of the protein, calcium, vitamin B12, etc, but depending on the type of milk, those benefits could be wiped out. That meal was probably almost 1/3 of your daily caloric needs and it was almost all simple carbs that go straight to fat, if not used right away for energy.
That same meal could actually have had a larger volume of food, for much less calories, by having a veggie stuffed omlette or something similar. .
But before we go there, we need to figure out how many calories/day you should be eating. This is determined by your height, weight, age and activity level, so if you want to let me know those, I can help you calculate that.
It definitely looks like you need to change your diet, but it's best to work on small changes that you can stick with, for the long haul than trying to "go on a diet".
For instance, if you drink sodas, you should switch to water (even if you drink diet sodas), but you don't even have to do that all at once... Suppose you drink 4 sodas/day - switch out one of them for water. Do this for a week, then switch out another for water; do that for a week, the switch out another for water, until eventually, you don't drink sodas, but you drink a lot of water (you can also do unsweetened tea, coffee, etc... they all count as water.
So let's start with calculating your calorie needs and go from there.
Do you do any exercise? If so, how much, how often? What type? Even a daily walk around the block is better than nothing.
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