Flexible dieting/Tracking Macros

getting the target work for weight loss gives you the perfectness in body shape. so you should try for the best only.

I'm not really sure what that means. It was kind of a vague statement. What do you consider the target work for weightloss?

Twenty years ago this was the Zone Diet.  I remember many people following it and that they lost weight and became fit.  One person that I worked with lost about 100 pounds and is maintaining that 20 years later.

I never tried it back then, but am very interested in this version.  I went to their site, calculated my calories, protein, fat, carbs and fiber.  I changed my goals in myfitnesspal.

I then compared to my entries for this week.  The calories it calculated for me is 1161 and I will be able to hit that easily.  My normal maintenance calories are 1300-1400 and I normally cut that back to 800-900 to lose a pound a week.  IIFYM calculated 1161 and mfp says 1/2 pound a week of loss.  It will be interesting to see the results in one week and to see if I do drop by 1/2 pound.

That's fantastic!!! Yes it's so funny because this is not a new concept. Counting calories. But for some reason this version seems doable. Because you don't have to deprive yourself. I agree he calorie goals are vert doable. In fact I'm still struggling to get all my calories in. It's only been a week and I'm already noticing little changes. I ate a lot less calories before but wasn't losing weight. I really believe it was a factor of 2 things. 1 I wasn't eating enough calories and I would go long stretches without eating which slowed my metabolism and also the calories I was eating were grossly unbalanced. Most of my calories came from fat. Eating more calories more often and having a balanced calorie intake is like some kind of secret weapon. It's working. It's not an overnight thing. It does take time but like my friends say TRust The Process. You can lose weight with just the macros but working out (mainly muscle building) is important because it will ensure you have more muscle and burn fat. My friend told me I have to do full body workouts. Not hours of cardio. But more like circuit training. And that instead of doing te same thing for the same amount if time each day to step of the weight or the number of reps each time. That's how you burn fat because the muscles don't get used to it. Each time you're tearing them and it takes more energy to repair muscles. So between that and counting macros you will see serious results. I'm actually going to buy a pull up bar. I found this workout that you do 1 pull up then 1 squat then one push up then 2 pull ups, 2 squats. 2 push ups and so on till you get to 5 then you go back down decreasing till you get back to 1. Sounds easy but it's not!! But it works your ENTIRE body. And you will get a serious workout. I think you're supposed to up the number once you can complete 5. It's called progressive calisthenics. 

Anyway good luck!!! 

Thank you so much for posting this.  I have now been to iifym and calculated my macros.  Then I changed my goals in myfitnesspal in accordance with the iifym recommendations.  For me it worked out to 1161 calories a day to lose 1/2 pound a week.  That is about what I would have calculated on my own, so am very comfortable with this.

I am working on losing between 3 and 4 pounds by the end of April (my birthday is 4/28).  I always set measurable goals with specific dates.  I plan to follow this and see how it works out. 

I do find this very doable because there are no forbidden foods and I can make choices.  Using with mfp I can also see the results of my choices very quickly.  Thanks again for telling us about this.

you're so welcome!! my calculation came out to 2138 and i cannot reach that many calories daily so my friend told me to go ahead and lower it to 1888 which would be a 500 calorie cut (500 cals under my maintenance calories) and i'm still like 300 cals short each day. i will probably have to up it when i start working out regularly. i'm starting monday. i have been doing this a week and have already lost 1lb. which i'm very happy with :) once i start working out (i plan to do bodyweight workouts to workout my entire body and build muscle/burn fat) the scale won't be very accurate because i'll have more muscle. i'll have to go by pics and measurements to really see the changes.

i think your goal sounds great! smart to set reasonable goals :) i think you'll def be able to reach your goal :)  i will try to update on here as i progress so you guys can see how i'm doing and see the transformation.

oh and i wanted to share this picture. i started doing this a week ago and as you can see my diet was all out of balance. i had no idea. it took me a while to figure it out but now its alot more balanced. my goal is 40% carb 30% fat 30% protein. that last 3 days i've been getting it right. :)

I'm pretty sure I just responded to a random blog on a comment you made. Are you still doing IIFYM? If so how is it going? I'm trying to adopt more of a flexible dieting approach but I'm not having much luck. I'm not having any trouble hitting my macros but I'm not seeing any changes. When I eat more carbs I definitely feel stronger and notice more muscle tone, but I feel squishy. I'll send you a private message too, I think we're already friends on here. Hope you check this (I never do lol). 

Hey!!! Well let me just say I really enjoy IIFYM and I think flexible dieting is great, that being said I don't do it anymore. I started in March and though I did lose weight (albeit slowly) I hit a wall in July. In May things slowed down. By June I was having trouble working out bc of fatigue. By July I had sever fatigue, moodswings, depression, got to the point where I couldn't even work out anymore. It was frightening bc I didn't know what it was. I thought it was something with my thyroid. I went to the doctor and they said my thyroid was fine but I was now once again (for the first time since before WLS) pre diabetic. I was shocked. All those symptoms I was having was my PCOS flaring up big time. I was relieved that it wasn't thyroid stuff bc that's serious. Doc said for me low carb has to be my norm. I felt relief. Low carb is my comfort zone. I did that for yrs after WLS. I'm used to it. IIFYM forced me to add carbs to my diet and it felt weird.

In August i went back to low carb. Within a couple of weeks most of my symptoms went away and I was able to start working out again. Huge change. I felt worlds better. And the lbs and inches started to melt. Then my friend told me I should try doing a low carb high fat ketogenic diet. So I did and I've been doing it ever since. I plan to continue till my TT in March, then I will go back to low carb.

So let me give you a few take always here.

-technically I could still be doing IIFYM and just adjust the macros to 75% fat,20% protein, 5% carbs. But to be honest I just got sick of logging **** I don't count calories anymore.

-IIFYM is solid logic but I def abused it. All my carbs were simple carbs. You're supposed to eat good complex carbs and allow yourself the bad carbs here and there but no all my carbs were bad. That being said, despite everything I never gained. 

-know your needs. I let myself go by other ppl and what they were doing over what my body needed. None of my friends have had WLS and they don't get it. They don't get the PCOS thing. They don't realize I can't handle the carbs. Yes carbs give you energy, yes they swell your muscles but they also make you squishy!

-ever since starting keto I lose and inch a month and despite not having carbs fill up my sucked I'm still getting some definition. Still working out. My body burns fat now instead of carbs bc there aren't enough carbs to burn. The number on the scale isn't going as fast bc I'm putting on muscle at the same time but I am def losing inches and body fat.

i hope this helps.