Tryna get "swole" in the right ways

[dasbear]

Hi there, rebels! I'm a long-time reader, and I wanted to make a proper introduction.

 

I'm 22, 5'9", and I currently hover around 180 lbs. In high school I peaked at 250 lbs. Over a couple years I started losing weight, and I plateaued around 180, and through the first few years of college I drifted between 200 and 180.

 

A year and a half ago I resolved to "finish the job" and lose the rest of the weight. I started doing StrongLifts, capped my daily calories to 1600, and pretty much ate the same food everyday. My results were awesome after a few months. I dropped to just under 160, I could fit in size small shirts (I was wearing XXL as a kid), and I felt great.

 

Then my thesis hit in the spring of 2015, and I stopped counting calories and going to the gym consistently for a few weeks. After returning to school from spring break, I was horrified to discover I had gained back 10+ lbs. I wasn't able to return to the same discipline I had before. After graduating and starting a new job, I still had the same struggle. Despite my best efforts to control my diet and exercise, my weight jumped back up to 180-185.

 

That job ended, and now I'm scrambling to get my weight down again. I've moved to the ICF 3x5 routine to get some more variety in my workouts, and I'm planning to incorporate some HIIT on my off days starting this week. I'm trying to hustle to lose the weight again because more clothes are getting tight... I'm in a tough place, but hopefully with some diligence and time I'll get the results I want.

 

My biggest challenge right now is calorie counting. I moved back home, so I don't cook all my meals anymore, so it's much harder to accurately measure meals to plug in to MFP. It was super easy when I was making simple stir fries for dinner every night. I'm trying to get better at it though, because I think my poor estimations are what's holding me back. 

 

This is an awesome community for inspiration! Thanks for reading!

[Ballad]

"Get swole". Love it, haha. Welcome to the NF community! I'm glad you took the plunge into these forums after being a long-time reader.

 

Do you have ideas about what your strategy will be to get better at calorie counting?

[Doaheem]

Welcome to the Rebellion!

 

You know your goal, you know what you want and what you need to do to get there. I know the struggle of moving back home and losing autonomy over what gets cooked. It sucks and all I can really do is to limit my window of consumption (I currently try to eat between noon and 8 pm and nothing before or after) and then to try to control portions of what is being eaten. You get questioned a lot by family that assumes something must be wrong if you're not stuffing your face but damn it we want to look good! lol

 

Best of luck in your pursuit

 

For the Rebellion!

Douglas

[Br0din]

Welcome Bro!

 

 

 

My biggest challenge right now is calorie counting. I moved back home, so I don't cook all my meals anymore, so it's much harder to accurately measure meals to plug in to MFP. It was super easy when I was making simple stir fries for dinner every night. I'm trying to get better at it though, because I think my poor estimations are what's holding me back. 

 

 

 

I completely understand your frustration.  You have to get involved in meal prep.  There are no 2 ways about it.  For repeated meals, I enter the recipe into MFP and then say it serves 4.  I then guestimate 1/4 of the meal as my base.  I may be off a little, but its not over 100 cals, unless your family is making foods with lots of high calories items like oils or butter.  

 

This has relieved my anal retentive nature to count all things and my wife's nature to give 0 cares.  

 

And if you are having something like tacos, then you can just measure out individual ingredients as you put them together.  

 

Now go forth and lift heavy.