Lotus's Diary [2011]

L

lL0tus

New member
My name is Shazeena but I go by the name of Lotus, hence the username. I am 21 years old and currently weigh 148lbs. My aim is to be at 110-115lbs. I've been struggling with my weight for years now, ever since I was young weight gain has been an issue for me. So this year I really decided that I needed to make a change to myself. I want to feel good about myself and my body. I love myself and would want to love my body as well. I feel that I do not have much to lose but these couple pounds are annoying so with support and these forums I hope to achieve my goals.

Monthly Mini Goals:

May 31: 140-143lbs.
June 16-24 [when I visit my boyfriend in Buffalo]: 137-140lbs.
June 30: 130-133lbs.
July 31: 125-128lbs.
August 31: 120-123lbs.
September 30: 115-118lbs.
October 31: 110-113lbs.


At the moment I do not have a gym routine but I am enrolled in a gym so within the coming weeks I should be going 3-5 days a week. As for my diet I really just am trying to watch what I ingest and to give an example of my normal day:

May 09, 2011

Breakfast: Potato Casserole [85 calories]
Snack: Sugar Coated Peanuts [350 calories]---I know, I know this isn't a healthy snack. But it was in my bag and I hadn't any lunch so...yeah.
Dinner: Subway Clubs with Mustard & Red Wine Vinegar [330 calories]
Drinks: Water & Pomegranate Drink [140 calories]

Total Calorie Intake for the Day: 905-1,100 calories [I added 195 calories extra because I may be wrong with the drinks and the casserole.]

But as you can see my diet isn't the best...yet.
 
lL0tus said:
My name is Shazeena but I go by the name of Lotus, hence the username. I am 21 years old and currently weigh 148lbs. My aim is to be at 110-115lbs. I've been struggling with my weight for years now, ever since I was young weight gain has been an issue for me. So this year I really decided that I needed to make a change to myself. I want to feel good about myself and my body. I love myself and would want to love my body as well. I feel that I do not have much to lose but these couple pounds are annoying so with support and these forums I hope to achieve my goals.

Monthly Mini Goals:

May 31: 140-143lbs.
June 16-24 [when I visit my boyfriend in Buffalo]: 137-140lbs.
June 30: 130-133lbs.
July 31: 125-128lbs.
August 31: 120-123lbs.
September 30: 115-118lbs.
October 31: 110-113lbs.


At the moment I do not have a gym routine but I am enrolled in a gym so within the coming weeks I should be going 3-5 days a week. As for my diet I really just am trying to watch what I ingest and to give an example of my normal day:

May 09, 2011

Breakfast: Potato Casserole [85 calories]
Snack: Sugar Coated Peanuts [350 calories]---I know, I know this isn't a healthy snack. But it was in my bag and I hadn't any lunch so...yeah.
Dinner: Subway Clubs with Mustard & Red Wine Vinegar [330 calories]
Drinks: Water & Pomegranate Drink [140 calories]

Total Calorie Intake for the Day: 905-1,100 calories [I added 195 calories extra because I may be wrong with the drinks and the casserole.]

But as you can see my diet isn't the best...yet.
Click to expand...

Welcome to the diary section.

Without the beverages you've only eaten 905 calories.
As a women it isn't recommended that you go below 1200 since your body starts to decline.
Also, working out 3-5 days a week on 905 calories a day is especially bad.

Try to get more calories in the day hun. At least 1200.

Also...what's your height?

 
Well 905 calories failed since I had another meal around 10pm, which was about 400-450 calories. I am 5'1 in height.
 
Hi lotus

Your BMR is 1350 and not doing any exercise your maintenance calories are 1650. If you want to lose weight in a healthy way so it doesn't bugger up your metabolism try to eat about 1350 per day. You should be able to lose nearly a kilo per week on that but maybe only half. I don't know whether it is bad to go below this but certainly not less than 1200 as that seems to be the minimum recommended for women.



If you try to work out a healthy meal plan, there's no reason to go hungry if you choose good quality - low calorie, low fat, low sugar, and low salt foods.
 
I'll second what was said above. 900-1000 calories a day is completely insufficient for any adult. I'll add to what fortyfour has said above and say that if your activity is low (light exercise 1-3 days a week), your maintenance is 1856 calories and you should aim for 1356 calories, and if your activity is moderate (moderate exercise 3-5 days a week), your maintenance is 2093 calories a day and so you should aim for 1593 calories (in either case I've reduced by 500 calories for a loss of 1lb a week, because any further reductions than that leave you with insufficient calories to run your body. 1200 calories is the absolute minimum- if you have to cut further, cut to 1200, but no further)

What do you plan to eat when your diet improves? Are you following nutritional guidelines?
 
Well today went pretty well for the most part. I still haven't fully changed my diet as of yet but that will take some days if not weeks. I started the day off well I believe with breakfast being a large scrambled egg fried with fat free oil spray, a slice of whole wheat toast and a glass of orange as well as water. Not sure how much calories that counts for but I'll average it to be about 290-300. Next up...lunch (argh I failed) a piece of baked chicken [leg piece] and about half a plate of vegetable fried rice from a halal restaurant, this must be around 620 calories. Then dinner was even worst because even though I still felt full from from my lunch I went ahead to 7-eleven and bought a buffalo stick, an Italian sub, and a mozzarella stick. That would be another 430-450 calories. So my estimated total calories for the day would be 1,340...hm, not as bad as I initially thought but still the food choices could have been a lot better. Now as for exercise, I went to the gym around 10:00pm and burned a total of 340 calories there from using an elliptical and treadmill. Then I walked home which is a 20 minute walk, so...75-80 calories? Totaling to 415-420 calories for my entire gym trip for the night bringing my calories for the day to...1,340-415= 925. Not too shabby. =]

Note to amy1985: What do you mean by nutritional guidelines? And I plan on just eating normally but making better health choices...i.e; instead of having a snack of say...chips [which I never do anyway...don't like chips] I would have almonds [which I do love]. Any other health tips would be great. As in what foods I probably should add to my diet.

Note to fourtyfour: Thanks for the info. regarding the calorie intake. I knew they said 1200 was standard but I never thought that going below that number was actually that bad. I use to go days with just 900 calories in my day. I'm grateful for the information. Very much appreciated.
 
In general going below the 1200 calories is not good unless you are supervised by a nutritionist or your doctor.
 
Well this morning started off...so so, not sure if having too much of a heavy breakfast is a good thing since I didn't have what would be called "breakfast food" I had about 10 spoons of fried rice and a piece of rotisserie chicken leg of which I didn't even eat the entire thing [skinless by the way]. So with my cup of green tea and an orange that would bring my breakfast totals to about 435-450 in calories for breakfast. Damn, that sounds like a lunch -_-. Is there any negative effects to taking such a "lunch" type meal for breakfast?
 
I don't think so, as long as your calories and nutrition are right. I think "breakfast food/ lunch food" are more cultural things than anything else. The calories seem a little high though, and may leave you with less to eat for the rest of the day, so see how you go with that and whether you can comfortably get your calories in for the rest of the day.
 
It sure is cultural. I was horrified to learn that italians (some) eat cake for breakfast. I was only 15 at the time.

More recently in india, breakfast foods are very similar to foods eaten at other meals of the day. Though they are usually less spicy.

Amongst Palestinians, hummus with pita bread is common.

In India, in Orissa, an Eastern state, they eat rice bubbles with a vegetable curry and in the afternoon around 5-6pm. Again i was shocked but also thrilled to find rice bubbles at all. I could then have some sort of europeanised breakfast on my travels. When travelling i'm happy to try all the local foods but habits are deeply ingrained and its hard to eat the local way for long periods of time sometimes.
 
Well I feel had my "lunch" which I felt wasn't much of a lunch since it is so small but packs on those calories. If you aren't West-Indian you'll have no idea what I am talking about but I had doubles for lunch. Doubles can pack up to 400 calories, so adding 400 to my previous 450 in the morning that brings me to a total of 850 calories thus far. For dinner I plan on having a little curry and roti so that will bring in another 420-450 calories totaling to 1270-1300 calories for the day. As for activity, I've done some driving, sleeping [obviously], and cleaning at my job as well as walking [not much but still some], which I calculated to be a total of 430 calories burned. Next up, tonight at the gym! Hoping to burn off 600 calories, which will bring me to [1300-1030=270]. Now let's see if I can burn 600 calories at the gym tonight or if I'll chicken out. :cry:
 
Well I have lost a total of 2lbs thus far and it's been a week! So I guess I am off to a great start. For breakfast today [brunch technically] I am kind of treating myself because I am making baked french fries. So I'll have about...15-20 pieces which will bring me to about 240 calories [24 pieces]. I'll be having a cup of green tea and that's all for my morning/afternoon. For lunch I am planning to make some spicy rice and a piece of jerk chicken, leftovers from yesterday. I haven't written much for a few days because things have been hectic for me. I am no longer working because the woman I was working with recovered [health wise] so she needed me no longer. =[ Now waiting for another case to pop up. For those wondering I am a HHA worker, doing that part-time to get some money since I am a college student and most jobs are as flexible.

Well that's all for now. Dinner? Not sure what I'll be having.
 
So I went out dancing last night and just wanted to know...how much calories is burned on an average when dancing? Per hour that is. Thanks! :)
 
Hi Lotus.

A few things. We are not all americans so we don't all understand some of the cultural concepts or names of food you mean but we interested in understanding what you write about so could you clarify things so that its richer for all of us reading, which in turn makes it easier to support you.

For example, what is doubles?

And what is HHA? i imagine its some sort of caring role but HHA actually means nothing to me.

About counting calories for exercise. I personally think this is a bit of a mistake since its not an objective number. There could be so much difference in how many calories two people who go running would burn up, depending on height, weight, muscle mass, body fat, speed of running, over all fitness. So you see its only a very rough guess and really not worth the bother to think about.

The best way to think about exercise is to time it and describe it.

Walking 30 minutes a day, or 1 hour at the gym doing weight training. Or 1.5 hours of yoga. This way you can compare your progress in fitness from one session to hte next if you are trying to increase your fitness. If you are doing gym, then you might want to list the numbers of repetitions or whatever. And comment on the intensity.

Or walk 8km (this is what i do). I am gradually transitioning from 8km walking to 8km running. Sometimes i do more kms, sometimes less. its all a way of keeping tabs on myself and assessing the increase in my fitness. I don't try to calculate precisely what this means for my weight loss but i know its helping.

This is much more meaningful.

The other danger with calories for exercise that i see is people might be tempted to say well i am supposed to eat 1500 calories and i exercise 600 calories which is 200 more than normal so i can so i can afford to eat that big cheese burger that is worth 200 calories. I think it might sound good in theory but I believe its a road to failure.

I have known people who end up in desperate straits trying to exercise off every bit of extra food they eat and they end up on desperate race to exercise more and more which makes them hungrier and hungrier and so on.

So its really not a good way to go.
 
Well for one an HHA is a home health aide, and doubles is chick peas cooked in curry like form and put in between two roti-like things that is flour fried. & in reference to counting how many calories I burn I know it doesn't give you an accurate number but it helps me in terms of drive. But thanks for the tips!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top