Hi, I am new!

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BiancaMaria

New member
Hello,

I am new here. I have recently worked with a coach but can't afford it anymore. Also, due to emotional eating I gained a lot of weight back. I hope to find support here and get back in shape and finally reach my goal weight.

I have no plan right now. Absolutely none besides knowing that I have to eat less and workout.

Should I track calories? macros? Weight myself every day?

I am also super confused about what is the right diet. I watched so many youtube videos and read so many posts and books and there is so much contradiction everywhere. I have tried so many different diets and always gained the weight back and sometimes more.

My big issue is emotional eating and I also used to binge eat a lot. I am getting better on that but it is still an issue.

Any advice is VERY welcome as I feel really lost after I quit my nutritionist and coach.
 
Their are many diet methods that ll work, but they are not all suited to everybody.

Eating less is not always the answer, especially if you are already eating super low calories, however tracking nutrients is difficult for some.

A lot depend on your current situation

While exercise is important, you will not exercise away a poor diet, and gain the exercise chose will often depend on personal circumstances.

A little more info is usually needed to give you more precise advice, otherwise all anyone can do is offer generic help

Helpful Information Needed
 
Hi Trusylver,

Thanks a lot for pointing me to it. You are right, I did not give any stats.
I am 33 year years old and female.
I weighted (last Tuesday) 132lbs and I am 5'8'' tall.
Don't know my bodyfat %.

I am not overweight but I came to the US about 3 years ago with 122lbs. At this weight I felt really comfortable and I want to get back to it. I used to weight that for a long time consistently. But moving and life happened and I gained about 15 pounds and lost 10 pounds last year and regained 5 pounds again. So, I am on the upwards spiral and decided that it must stop and that I want to go back to where I was about 3 years ago.

I eat healthy most of the times. I started going back to a good diet and consistent training beginning of this year. I lost 10 pounds in the first 6 month. I am very slow on that but I did not starve myself and worked out, had my weekly treat meals and that went fine.
I started being more loose on my diet and had several binges since summer and therefore I am back to 132 lbs. It went very quick and I am scared that it might continue.

My diet on a regular day:
5 meals and sth before and after my workouts
I eat veggies, meat, nuts, whey protein, yoghurt, oats, fruit, and sparsley potatoes and spaghetti/rice

My workouts:
Some cardio (between 20 and 40 minutes- exercise bike or running or youtube videos(not very often))
WeightTraining (about 30min-1hour) mostly with DB and bodyweight (I try to lift heavy)

My biggest culprit is eating out and eating with my BF. He loves to cook and after not eating together for about half a year we got into fights and I decided to have lunch and sometimes dinner together. He tries to cook healthy and what I want but that is not always the case. So, I have to find a way to work around that and make it part of my weightloss journey but I do not know how!
Any advice here?

Thanks a lot!!
 
Firstly your goal is only barely above under weight in the BMI scale, while it is not a great measure it is all I have to go on without bodyfat%, If you are in any way muscular then this is not a reasonable target however If you are of Asian Descent then it is a more reasonable target due to several factors including lighter bone structure although the Asian chart still has underweight beginning at 18.5 BMI and your target is 18.55

with 5 meals per day you are not allowing insulin levels to drop which can be problem as insulin is a fat storing hormone, lots of small meals a day for weight loss is a myth, otherwise your diet content looks ok for a standard diet.

What does your cardio consist of ? is it 20-40 minutes steady cardio or is some of it HIIT When dropping fat while at a lower bodyweight it becomes harder to maintain healthy lean muscle mass, High intensity intervals will have a higher and longer lasting calorie burn while also maintaining muscle.

I would need to know more about your lifting routine to comment.

Being active on the forum, logging food and exercise in you diary/journal will attract moral support and suggestions from other members which will also keep you on track towards your goals.
 
Oh wow, that is great advice!!

I am not of Asian Descent and I am not too worried about hitting that exact number. I just know that this is what I weighted without any further effort back in Europe. I worked out and ate healthy. AND I had only 3 meals a day...
I had my treats and went out dining and drinking and I also had binges then but it did not "hurt" me.
When I came to the US my diet changed and I also had binges almost every other day for several month with estimated 4000-5000kcal. No wonder I gained weight. I am rather surprised that it was not more than that.

So, I decided to take action beginning start of this year and hired a nutritionist/coach. I followed a meal plan and workout routine. I started eating 5 meals + meals before/after workout. I got used to that. Now, if I do not eat for 3 hours I feel like I am starving. I also did not feel satisfied anymore. I ate almost every day over 2000kcal and sometimes 2500kcal (when I tracked them). I also had a treat day every week and I am sure my kcal were above 3000kcal on those days. Shorty put, I do not think my metabolism is slow as I still lost a bit of weight over a very long time..
Lately, I got much more hungry and had episodes of overeating and I would almost call it binges besides they were not as bad as they used to be. I gained some weight back and do not feel good.

So, my question is:
- How much meals should I be having? How much time should pass?
- What should my meals consist of so that I make it without snacks and still loose weight?
- Should I have sth before/after my workouts? If yes, what is best?

For my exercise routine:
I have knee problems. Sometimes I cannot even go for a run which I really frustrating. All the HIIT that I know contain a lot of jumping and therefore I felt unable to do them even though I know they are helpful.

For the weight routine I do about 6-8 different exercises of 4 sets with a range of 10-12 reps. Mostly until failure. I rest at least a minute between those sets.

I feel a bit lost now in regard how to continue as what I have been doing (having lots of meals) turns out was not a good advice.

I really appreciate that I found this forum and hope that with all your help, I can finally free of all those food issues I have.
 
Meal Timing

to get a better idea of meal timing it helps to understand insulin

As we eat, blood sugars go up and we release insulin. When we eat a meal, we are ingesting much more food energy than we can use immediately. Insulin tells our body to move this flood of glucose out of the bloodstream and into storage for use later on. One of the ways our body can store this sugar is glycogen in the liver. Our body can convert glucose to glycogen to glucose and back again quite easily.

But there is a limited amount of glycogen that can be stored in the liver. After that, any excess carbohydrates will be turned into fat. Fat is harder to access but in unlimited supply. In effect, insulin is one of the prime hormones promoting fat storage.

After you have finished digesting the meal, then blood sugars start to drop and insulin levels also drop. This is the absense of eating or ‘fasting’. This signals the body to start releasing the stored sugar (glycogen in the liver) into the bloodstream for use by muscle, brain and other organs.

This fat storage process now happens in the reverse. That is normal, since we have not eaten and insulin is only released when eating. Stored sugar is taken from the liver and sent out to the body to be used for energy. Fat is burned to release energy and sent out to the body if there is not enough stored sugar.

View attachment 26485

Meal timing turns out to play a very important role in the development of obesity. In the above example, we are eating 3 meals per day with no snacks. But that is increasing rare. More and more, people are being told to eat 6 times a day.

In this situation, we are constantly stimulating insulin. Insulin is the hormone of eating, so our sugar storage and fat storage machinery is revved up. While the peaks of insulin are not as high, we have more persistent stimulation of insulin. We have lost the balance between the fed state (insulin dominant) and the fasted state (insulin deficient).
 
Protein helps to keep you full for longer and does not trigger the same levels of insulin as a high carb meal, but there will always be some level of insulin response.

A small snack after a workout is fine, about 20 gram max, or for those of us that maintain a very low carb diet a small snack just before training if the training session will be intense.

HIIT does not need to include any sort of high impact exercise. HIIT is High Intensity Interval Training. Eg. today I completed HIIT on the rower at the gym, with no strain on my joints (I have had past knee surgeries and have Arthritis) it is the intensity that counts.


For your weights, I would suggest dropping the reps down to 8-10 with the appropriate increase in weight. There is no need to go to failure, failure leads to injury. When you finish your last rep with good form it should feel like you could not do another rep while still maintaining good form.


There a a lot of members here who do Intermittent fasting, there are different versions but it is a good way to help with the fat loss.
 
Great, I am getting a better picture now.

I have heard about insulin before but I relied on my nutritionist on that part. I can see that it is more beneficial. Also, I hate to keep bothering how and when to get in my snacks during working days. I will simply combine my breakfast and first snack/lunch/ dinner and last snack and see how I do.

I am eating plenty of protein. I love meat:) I am concerned that it might be too much. It is about 150g per day, my carbs are mostly also around 150-200g and my fat is high as well- today it is 90g

I know, that is probably way too much. Thing is, I am still hungry now after having eaten about 2300kcal (I had pizza with my BF which I usually do not have). I did 1 hour weights and 45 minutes of running (up a small mountain- so quite intense).

How is it possible that I am hungry after consuming so many calories???
How will I be able to loose any weight if that continues? I know some hunger is normal and expected.

Thanks also for the tips with the HIIT. So, I can do HIIT on my exercise bike as well which would be really great. How long should the intervals be and the heart rate?
I will adjust my weight training as you said!

I have tried fasting for 3 days and for 6 days a couple of times to reset my eating habits. I have also tried IF but it was really hard not to overeat when I could eat. I probably did not do it long enough...
 
There are many ways to lose a lot of weight fast.
However, most of them will make you hungry and unsatisfied.
If you don't have iron willpower, then hunger will cause you to give up on these plans quickly.

The most important part is to cut back on sugars and starches (carbs).
When you do that, your hunger levels go down and you end up eating much fewer calories.
Now instead of burning carbs for energy, your body starts feeding off of stored fat.
Another benefit of cutting carbs is that it lowers insulin levels, causing your kidneys to shed excess sodium and water out of your body. This reduces bloat and unnecessary water weight.
It is not uncommon to lose up to 10 pounds (sometimes more) in the first week of eating this way, both body fat and water weight.
 
Hi CovertFowl,

Thanks for that. Yes, I know its not a long term fix. I think about going back to eating. Not sure though. I will see how I feel. I measured my ketone blood levels and it looks like I am getting into ketosis which would be a good start to cut back in carbs and try to stay there and eat more protein, fat an veggies rather than carbs. I will see how I do. I won't loose much weight as I am already normal weight but I wont' to loose about 5 pounds in sum (I have reduced the number to be more realistic). So, I should be able to do it through normal dieting. I tried so but my weight did not get off and lately it got back up.

Thanks for the tip. You know, most of all that is a mind thing. Even though I am currently not eating- I do not feel unwell. I only start feeling bad if I start keep thinking of it. If I am busy- I am actually quite energetic. Got a lot of work done today.

For me, the mind is the biggest problem.
 
Trusylver said:
Meal Timing

...

View attachment 26485

Meal timing turns out to play a very important role in the development of obesity. In the above example, we are eating 3 meals per day with no snacks. But that is increasing rare. More and more, people are being told to eat 6 times a day. ...
Click to expand...

of course there are a lot of variables such as the amount of "insulin stimulation". aka ingestion of sugars/ carbs, that will vary this chart, but i take a bit of exception on the very generous recovery times. given average American meals for Breakfast at 6-7, Lunch at noon-1 and Dinner from 5-6 gives your digestive system little to no time (depending on exercise) to enter a fat burning state. from everything i have read or listened to, 12-14 hours seems to be the minimum time it takes your body to deplete its stores of glycogen and enter a state of ketosis (fat burning). again exercise can decrease this time, but i believe your best bet is to extend your evening "fast" get dinner over with early, DO NOT touch food for the rest of the evening and have a late breakfast or skip breakfast. throw in some exercise before your first meal of the day and you will see results.
 
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