First Day

Hi all! This is my first day at C-C. I'm 15 years old (birthday was on the 29th!) and I weigh a whopping 170 lbs! Regardless of whether you interpret that as sarcasm (hehe) I want to shed that extra baggage and work my way down to 135, and once I've reached that, possibly lose another 10 - I just wanted to set a reasonable goal that I can reach by January 1st, 2007, so I went with 135.

I'm on a 1200 calorie a day diet, and although I was raised on junk food by dear ol' mum (thanks mom! hehe) I'm learning to give that stuff up and turn to food choices that are healthier and more vitalizing. Although I'm only halfway through the day, I have a nutrition grade of B. Is that good for the first day?

I'm a newbie to dieting, I always stayed FAR away from that crap that the diet industry tries to sell you, because 99% of the time it's just false. I hardly ever weighed myself, because my mom is anti-scale - I have a scale now, but I think the lack of one is what led to my weight becoming out of control - I don't look too incredibly fat but the weight is there and I want to get rid of it!

Anyways - I'm wondering how you all did on your first day! If you ate a lot of junk food, did you go cold-turkey on the junk food or did you give it up over time? What nutritional grade did you get? Also, I'm wondering what other people's diet plans are like. What are your daily calorie restrictions and how many pounds per month do you plan on losing?

I'm wondering how hard it will be to stay motivated for the months to come. I'm sure that cravings or whatever will spring up at the most inopportune times, and the fact that I'm going to Ireland for three weeks doesn't help, as it will be harder to log and control what I eat! So - any motivational stories/information you have to share, about your journey from the first day until now, I'd like to hear them!

Welcome!

You are not dieting -- you are learning to eat healthfully for the rest of your life, right? So start making the changes you can easily live with, and when you have those under your (now looser) belt, make a few more.

I love junk food. I still eat it, too, but not as much. In fact, I build a dessert (or two!) into every day's food plan, because if I don't, I am not as successful in sticking to my plan.

And if I don't do well (so far, so good today, though), I get to start over... one second after I have not done well.

Get your body moving by finding something that you enjoy doing. For me, it's biking. I've also now built some walking into my regular day. (At my thinnest, I wasn't trying to lose weight at all; it just happened, and that was because I walked a lot. My life at the time demanded it, and I could eat whatever I wanted, and did, and stayed slim. Those days are over!) For you, perhaps it's Dance Dance Revolution (DDR); there are a number of fans of DDR here.

Good luck!

I don't think the grading system is very fair.  It seems to be just an average of the individual food grades.  If I eat one pat of butter I register an F for that food and it drags down the whole average, but it was only 35 of my 1400 calories that day!  Does anyone know how that average is calculated?

I also save my last 200-300 calories of each day for a treat like ice cream or cookies.  Knowing I can have that keeps me going.   Good advice, athena_tavener.  Where can I do DDR without an audience?  I love it, but the ones I know about are in public places.

You got a Playstation 2, mooresci? Or a Gamecube? or even a PC?

I play DDR on my PS2 at home :) It's quiet and no one but my gf ever watches :)

the grading system is bats. I think I'm getting As partly because of all the coffee I drink (well, coffee does have some nice micronutrients). And I put skim milk in the coffee so I must be *really* healthy - you see?

well how I started out was at first by logging everything I ate normally, but it sounds like you're already doing that (and hey a B is a good grade!) Once you see what your eating patterns are like, you can see what foods you can cut out or find a better substitute for. I started by trying to substitute a new thing every 2 days or so. Now I'm on about 1400 cal per day, which is workin' for me.

Yeah. And never ever listen to the diet industry. You're right. It is crap.

I don't have a Playstation, but I was thinking of borrowing one from a neighbor who doesn't use it much.  I went on eBay and found DDR for $9.99, but the shipping was almost $30!  I also found it on Amazon, with shipping at $3.50, but that one cost about $30.  Perhaps I'll make the investment.  It is fun, and great exercise.

Mooresci, definitely make the investment, DDR is a lot of fun and I wish I had one myself!

Anyways, here's the thing: I'm actually finding it hard to keep my calorie count up. I know that it's stupid to eat below 1200 calories a day, but I'm only at 1000 right now, and I haven't gotten enough protein or fat. I'm a picky eater, but I read an article on this site that says that if you eat something you don't like for long enough, you will develop a taste for it, so I'm going to try that with healthier foods.

By the way - I'm wondering, has that proven true for any of you? I truly am excited to be able to learn to eat and love healthier foods, and ditch most of the unhealthy stuff, but it's hard because I'm not used to it and usually don't like it at first.

The hype about learning to like healthier foods is definitely true!  Now, if I'm stuck in a situation where I didn't pack my own food and the only possible place I can eat is a fast food restaurant, I actually get grumpy.... you know, like a kid that can't have a candy bar, but for me, it's because I can't have my fresh fruits and vegetables.  You learn to love food for what it is naturally, and your tastebuds actually become more sensitive when you cut out the super-refined foods with high sugar and bad fats that overwhelm your tongue.

To easily raise your daily calorie count and your protein and good fats, just eat a handful of nuts.  One oz of raw unroasted almonds (24 almonds) is just under 200 calories, and full of good fats and some protein.  You can also try nut butters, like peanut or almond butter.  If you like dairy, try a cube of lowfat cheese, a nonfat yogurt cup, or a glass of skim milk; these are all around 100 calories depending on what brand you have, and they all have protein.  Adding 200 healthy calories onto your day is easier than you think!

It's great that you're willing and enthusiastic - have fun with it.  Try weird foods that you might have ignored before.  For example, have you ever had jicama?  Lots of people haven't, but it's great!  Learn to try new healthy natural foods.  You'll be bound to find some new favourites in no time.

~I'm wondering how you all did on your first day! If you ate a lot of junk food, did you go cold-turkey on the junk food or did you give it up over time? What nutritional grade did you get? Also, I'm wondering what other people's diet plans are like. What are your daily calorie restrictions and how many pounds per month do you plan on losing?~


Woh!  A load of questions!  But I love to type!  And talk!  So here goes.

Well, my first day was pretty swell.  I always start things with a strong resolution to do nearly perfectly.  So I stuck to my regimen pretty well that day.

As for junk food, I got over most of the junk food obstacle when I was in sixth to eighth grade, thanks to my health-conscious mom who banned most of it from our kitchen.  (Thnx mom!)

My first day nutritional grade, I'm assuming is what you mean, was an A- I believe.

Basically my personal goal is to eat more raw, whole, complete foods, and the calorie goal c-c gave me was 1500 a day.

I don't know how many pounds a month I plan on losing.  My body may not respond as quickly or well as I hope.  Bodies are unpredictable.  However, I don't doubt that after several months I should be enjoying a much healthier me.

I'm 17 btw, and there are a lot of other teens on this site (I haven't read the replies so I'm not sure how many you met yet), which is always nice.  You've come to a great place!  And swell job in taking this step to becoming healthier!  You will feel so much better, and maybe mum will follow suit?

Good luck to you. I'm just starting out too and it's been hard getting started. My problem parent was my dad. My mom is pretty healthy and she's not big on any kind of junk food, but my dad's really bad. Or at least he was when I was younger, haven't lived with him since I was 4. But he set me up pretty young, he would take me and my brothers out every afternoon and buy us all this junk food. On my first day I got a B+ for my grade, since then I fluctuated between A and C.

Just remember that at 15, your body is still growing. 1200 calories may be too few for you because of that. Aim for a slightly lower calorie deficit than the "traditional" 500--maybe a 200 or 250-calorie deficit--because you burn more calories than those of us who have finished growing do. Eat healthily, try not to *gain* any weght (so stay within your maintenance cals) and as your body builds itself up, it will start to use the calories in your stored fat to give you bigger, stronger bones, more muscle, etc--all those things you're packing onto your frame at your age.

For the record, I lost 10 lbs in the year I was 15--not from healthy eating, just from growing.

lessee...first day....


I actually swore to give up junk food completely, at least for that week. Actually haven't touch a soda since, to my great sadness XP.

I've still had dessert every now and then- love sweets too much to give them up completely, but I always drink a bottle of water first to fill me up a little. Also, I take a look at that picture of fat somebody has floating around here- most of the time I end up only munching on a small piece of brownie or something.

I'm trying to work on the sugar input, though- still having some issues with that, unfortunately.

Oo Thanks for the tips of teenagers; I never realized that at all! As I'm still growing myself, I might want to get some more calories ^^;;

Just a comment about the grading system.  They're grading the nutritional value of the food, not you.  The F from a teaspoon of olive oil is easily offset by a few A foods like broccoli. 

Hey mogwai, I just wanted to say that I love your name.  I was a BIG mogwai fan.

pastmyburdens, I'm a big fan of implementing small, sustainable changes over time. I've learned that, sure, I can go gung-ho into something and change everything all at once, but ..... those types of changes ultimately go by the wayside for me. So now I aim for small steps, taken consistently and without much, or any, pain. I find that small successes often fuel me to bigger successes.

One of my small changes was giving up my lunchtime caloric beverage. I decided one day that I should switch to something with no calories. This was a couple of years ago. That was a relatively easy and painless change. After a while, I gave up the diet soda and went to just water (which is free, saving me the $1.20/day, and better for me, too!); another small change, and easy to make because I'd already successfully made one small change that worked.

Another thing that helps is keeping in mind that at first, something can be difficult and it takes a while to reach a comfort zone with it, but after a while, yeah, it's not so difficult. I gave up driving to work every day, mainly to save money, and yeah, it was a pain to start taking the subway at least three times a week, but I knew over time, it wouldn't be quite such a pain.

And since I take the subway... I park in a huge parking lot. It takes me six minutes to walk from my car to the front of the station, and I walk fast. That's 12 minutes of fast walking at least three times a week more than I was doing before. Hmmm.... another small change! I always walk up or down the escalators; I don't just stand there waiting for them to move me. I take the steps sometimes. Small changes, but burning more calories.

After I got used to taking the subway, I decided I should walk the distance between work and the station at least once a week; that's a good 15 minute at a fast pace. Once I got used to that, I started doing it twice a week. And that's where I am now with it. Maybe someday I'll decided to add one more instance of that distance, but for now, two is easy to do.

I admire those who can decide to change everything all at once and stick to it. That doesn't work for most people, though, and definitely doesn't work for me. Small changes for me are reaping benefits, though, whether it's on the financial, caloric, fitness, or housework front. (Okay, maybe not on the housework front yet, but I'll get there, I'll get there!) Bit by bit, I'll get it done, and build the change into a permanent way of life for me.