Hello everyone! I'm new-ish to calorie counting too (as in the actual counting) but I've been thinking about it seriously for about a year, and have dabbled somewhat here and there. I had been doing SW on and off for more than a decade...nothing wrong with the plan - sometimes I lost, sometimes I didn't, but I decided to take a different approach to my new healthier lifestyle and dust off my MFP account and bite the bullet. I knew I wanted to start slow, so I set my goal to 1lb a week and was allocated 3,190 calories per day. At first, I was like "what the-?", but then I found a group on MFP called "eat more to weigh less" and found it interesting, so I thought, I'll try it for a month - I mean really try - and see where it leads.
I started by just reducing my portions, so my diary isn't an instant change (i.e. not very 'clean' food wise + no exercise just yet). My initial goal was to stay under or right on my daily calorie goal. In the last 5 weeks, I haven't deprived myself of a single thing, and I have allowed myself a treat day (Sundays). I've lost 20lbs so far, averaging 4lbs a week. I'm re-learning what a portion is supposed to look like, focussing on bulking up my food choices with veggies and drinking more water. I think that because I'm starting at such a high weight, my deficit is actually greater than what I (or the MFP calculator) realised (i.e. I ate wayyyy more than 3,000 calories daily), hence the big losses each week (that and water weight).
I know it will taper off eventually and I will need to update my calorie goal as I go. But for now, I am pleasantly surprised. And I too have begun to relax about food. I've put off calorie counting for so long because I believed that people my size would always need to go very low calorie for it to work. I've got a long way to go, so starting below 2,000 calories is not something that appeals to me. I use FitnessFrog to work out my BMR/TDEE, I watch YouTube videos on meal prepping, strength training and IIFYM (if it fits your macros) which has helped me understand a lot more than the standard 'calories in-calories out'.
I have found that just knowing I can have what I want, when I want it (albeit in smaller portions) means that most days I am under my calories by 400-600 calories and satisfied, so by the time I have my treat day, it's actually been cancelled out for the week. So far so good. I must say that seeing people who have lost as much as you Tracy motivates me no end!
xx
