Any advice for weight loss to a beginner like me?

[elainey300]

Hi All! What would you suggest me to do on issues like keeping track of what to eat, exercising and motivation during the weight loss? I would be happy to hear some advice - and some tips from your own experiences, like what to avoid or what is the hardest thing to do. Thank you in advance.

[RickRobb]

Walk. Drink lots of water. Walk. Avoid refined flours and sugars. Ditch any and all "diet" foods. Walk. Drink water. Eat all the non-starchy vegetables you want. Avoid restaurants as much as possible. Walk.

BTW, water should be half your body weight in ounces. For instance right now I weigh 200lbs. So I drink 100 oz of water a day. Seems like a lot, right? But this is recommended by experts. It will help your digestion, complexion, and help keep you a little more 'full' feeling.

Give it a week or so of walking before tracking food, but when you do, tracking your food will seem like a pain at first, but you'll find it gets easier because you eat a lot of the same foods all the time, so it's already there. (I WOULD suggestusing MyFitnessPal in conjunction with FitBit because their foodtracker is way better -- almost anything I've ever entered has been in their database.) After you've been tracking for a while you can look at patterns. What happened on that day when your weight went up? Whet had you eaten the day before? Did you not walk as much? When you find those patterns (Look for successful ones too!) you can then begin to make better choices.

Finally, weighing yourself every day is something many caution against. I say Hooey! Do it and know that you WILL go up and down. On the days when I go up, I make a conscious effort to not make the same mistakes the next day. Think of it as a game in which you are competing against the app.

Also, if I didn't mention it, Walk and drink water.

Good luck! I've lost 23lbs in the past 6 months, half of that since I began using my fitbit at the end of August. You can do it.

[HelenaFitbit]

Hello @elainey300 and welcome to the Fitbit Family! I'm on a weight loss journey myself and so far I've lost 35 pounds. 

Best advise I can give is weigh in your food, it may be tiresome at first, but then you'll get used to it, avoid measuring since even measure cups can be altered and portions may not be the ones as described on a product's package. 

Second, meal prepping. It is super important to have an idea and plan ahead for your meals of the day or week, this way you'll prevent any temptations and have room to play with your caloric budget for the day (plus, it will save you a ton of money in the long run, trust me!). 

Third, enjoy it! Dance it out, go for a walk, rock out your cookbook! It will take time and effort, so don't beat yourself up if you did not walk as much or if you had an unplanned treat, you'll make up for it! 

PS: I'm against restricting foods, since you are most likely to binge on them when they are near you (nutella I am watching you) enjoy them with moderation and fit them in creative ways within your caloric budget. 

[Heybales]

To add to this good advice.

Have a reasonable deficit, and stick to it.

Just because 2 lbs weekly is an option, doesn't mean it's reasonable. Over 60 lbs to lose, sure.

Unreasonable easily leads to a body that is going to fight you and get stressed out, and you won't lose that much anyway. Better to do it purposely slow than the body forcing that on you anyway.

And you don't get max benefit from any exercise you do with stressed out body.

And then stick to eating goals, with accurate logging as mentioned above.

And then since eating goal is deficit from what you burn - correct Fitbit for exercise it is badly underestimating - like swimming, biking, rowing, lifting, elliptical.

And while step goals are great to keep your daily life active - don't pass up on a more productive workout with limited time just to get more steps in walking. Full body resistance training will give you more benefit for say 30-45 min than walking would as purely exercise. Because walking won't help retain upper body muscle mass while dieting, strength training will.

[elainey300]

Thank you, friends! These are great advices. It's good to know that I'm not alone and great to hear from your real experiences.