Posts by kaleena_murphy

1200 calories is the amount that a completely sedentary, very small female should be eating.  If you are doing any activity at all, you're going to need more than that.  Overall, you should aim for a deficit of 500 to 1000 calories each day.  And you should not have a deficit close to 1000 if you are doing any kind of activity.  So, whatever calories burned you get after putting in your activities for the day, subtract 500-600 calories and that's how much you should be eating.

As an example, I'm a very short girl.  And I lift weights and do some moderate biking, and I'm losing weight on 1800 calories a day.

Hello, zoeinrussian.

First off, let me tell you that I am very sorry for what your family is putting you through.  No teenager should have to struggle through body issues without the support of their family.

Second, let me reassure you of one thing, your family is more wrong than they could probably imagine.  I'm an inch shorter than you, and anything less than 115 lbs is underweight for someone of my height.  You are NOT FAT.  You are underweight, and you yourself know that you have struggled with disordered eating.  I can't know what goes on in the heads of your families, but it sounds like they may struggle with body issues of their own.  Maybe they're taking it out on you because you had the courage to tell people something wasn't right.  On the other hand, if they knew you had an eating disorder that put you in danger, that could have scared them.  Sometimes the only way parents know how to react to that fear is to lash out.

Do you have a doctor who knows about the problems you had with restrictive and binge eating?  Not only will a professional be able to help you with your own fears about food, a doctor knows how important it is to have support when going through things like this.  A doctor has the authority to tell your family what they may not listen to when you try to tell them.  And if you can't get help from your family then a doctor can still point you in the right direction towards finding people who will support and encourage you where family has failed.  Coming to CC is also a great place.  Many of the people here are far better informed about health and nutrition than I am, and all of us want nothing more than to support and encourage you with what you're going through.

Please, don't let your family's mean behavior push you down an unhealthy path.  You do not need to lose weight at all.  What you need are friends who will support you, and encourage you to treat your body with respect and to be proud of the--no doubt--beautiful body that you already have.

Good Luck!

Kaleena

So, I had my appointment on Monday, and I feel it went well.  She was easy to talk to and I really felt like she understood and empathized with the issues I was telling her about.  One big aha moment for me was when she pointed out that I seem to be an all or nothing person.  Like I want to immediately jump into being as active and eating as healthy as I used to, or I don't want to do it at all.  I'm not good at easing myself into things.  It was eye opening to realize that about myself.  

I see her again in three weeks, and in the meantime she gave me three goals to work with:

1.  She wants me to start eating 1800 calories a day and focus only on the proportion of carbs, proteins, and fats I'm getting.  This is for two reasons.  First, because me simply trying to drop to 1400 calories just wasn't working.  I would get too hungry and binge, so the goal is to lower my calorie intake gradually.  My focus has been narrowed because trying to keep an obsessive tracking of all 12 of the nutrients CC provides analysis for was driving me crazy.

2.  She wants me to add 20 minutes of biking at the end of my workouts.  I'm a weight lifter, and although I try to bring in some high rep low weight lifts for cardio, she feels that I need more.  The bike was a good compromise because at the moment I'm not capable of running or jogging for sustained amounts of time, and I actually enjoy biking.

3.  She wants me to spend ten minutes right after I get home doing something on my feet.  This is another aspect of my all or nothing attitude.  I know that when I've been getting home from school I plop down in one spot til I go to bed.  I was all ready to force myself to spend the rest of the day being active, so she made it clear that she wants me to start small.

I'll be keeping a log of my food and activities to show her next time.  Overall, I feel like she gave me good advice and I feel better about trying to lose weight now.

=]  Thank you.

I actually have an appointment this Friday to have the Mirena put in for those very reasons.  My doctor also thinks my heavy bleeding my be due to the fact that I'm no ovulating, so he's told me that it's crucial I lose some weight now to start ovulating again.

So, for those of you who posted here, I just thought I'd give you an update.  I've been having extremely heavy periods for the last five months now, and I was finally taken in for blood work, which showed that my heavy periods had caused me to develop anemia.  My gyno gave me some options to manage bleeding, but he also told me that he thinks as long as I have the paragard, I'm going to have to be constantly managing anemia, or taking pills to try to prevent it, so I finally gave in and I'm getting it removed.  Have to discuss with my doctor what form of BC I want instead, but I'm considering going on Lybril, cause I am quite frankly sick of bleeding.  Ever.  It would be nice not to have periods at all.  If I think I can manage the possible side effects then I'm going for no more periods.

starmole, I'm not going to do this new routine.  After a few weeks of doing it, I've hated it so much that I started making excuses every night to make sure I didn't go.  going back to regular weight lifting.  The results will be slower, but at least I'm looking forward to my work outs.

Well let me give you some stats, cause I'm really never sure if I'm getting this right.  I'm a twenty year old female, 5'3'', 180 lbs, recently gave birth to twins (not breastfeeding).  I spend about a half hour every day cleaning my house, plus about an hour every day on my feet in the kitchen cooking.  I'm trying to get back into my workout routine, but when I'm doing it, I do a circuit training routine that's intended to build strength and give cardio at the same time three days a week.  Two days, I try to do a light cardio workout, like riding my bike or leisurely swimming.  I have two days off.  When I'm sticking with my calorie count goals, I'm eating around 1800 to 1900 calories a day, and I eat 8 very small meals of around 240 cal a day at about two hour intervals.  But in between these two hour intervals, I'm hungry by about thirty minutes after I eat (though I think this may be because I got used to eating somewhere in the neighbourhood of 3500 cal a day, sometimes 1000 cal at a whack, after I was put on bed rest.)

My nutrition is generally good.  I don't quite make potassium, and sometimes I'm a little over on sodium, but other than that, I usually make requirements.  Drink 9 glasses of water a day.

I guess this seems a little off topic.  I just want to know if anyone can tell from this info why I'm always hungry and if that will change.

Original Post by alexandrajae:

I can understand how you're feeling.  My family and friends have always thought it was really weird/annoying for my need to know the ingredients in things we ate, etc.  Yes, I definitely think you can stop counting.  I go through long periods of time where I don't count at all.  If I start to feel like my pants are getting tighter, I'll start logging every morsel I eat, just to get back on track again.  I think if you listen to your body, and continue the same eating habits that you had when you were hard-core calorie counting, you can definitely stop!  

That's comforting to hear.  I certainly don't want to spend two hours every week entering recipes into CC to find the calories for the rest of my days.  >.<

Original Post by starmole:

My ultimate fitness goals are % over bodyweight lifts - I probably won't achieve them by the end of this challenge, but these are what I am aiming for. They are all 1RM. I have roughly calculated my bodyweight at 75kg.

 Deadlift     & nbsp;      &nbs p;    112 1/2 kg

Squat      &nbs p;       & nbsp;      94 kg

Bench      &nbs p;       & nbsp;      37 1/2 kg

Overhead press      &nbs p; 25 kg

Edit: I tried to post the percentages, but they came out wrong in the actual post and I can't remove them.

 

 

 

Tis okay.  My workout plan has been changed around completely.  So, I'll give this new circuit training workout a try for the next few weeks and see how I do.  I went shopping for my next round of recipes, and I just had to post, that I think cooking from home is not only the healthiest option for me, but also the most financially wise one.  I'm estimating right now that it's costing me less than 100 dollars a month to feed me and my husband.  Great stuff.  I did my body measurements today, and I've gone down half and inch on my total body measurements.  Not a huge jump, but it's a start!