Eating Too little

at00015

This past August I have moved away from home as I am attending college. Doing this has allowed me to stock my cupboards with only healthy foods. In addition to 3 meals per day, I eat when I feel hungry, but I'll eat something like 2 scrambled eggs, 2 hard boiled egg whites, 1/4 cup of almonds, cheesestick, a rice cake, or a sugar free jello. I am trying to do a low carb diet and so far have been successful with it, losing 24 pounds since moving out. I am never hungry in the morning but always force myself to eat a greek yogurt. Lunch is typically 3 egg whites, almonds, cheesestick, and some grapes. Dinner is usually soup and a veggie/fruit shake.

Today I logged my daily foods on this site and have figured out that I am way under-eating as I am only consuming about 600 calories per day and I have been doing this for weeks! In addition to that I have been doing cardio and weight exercises 5+ times per week. How do I go about getting my calorie count up when I am not hungry and by eating healthy? I could easily eat ice cream or chips but it is hard for me to consume large amounts of healthy foods! Help!

jgnatca

Pick calorie-dense foods. For instance, double up on the almonds you are eating. Put peanut butter on the rice cakes. Also, you might be eating more than you think. Weigh those almonds!

I'd also add a hefty amount of protein for dinner. Soup is not enough. Are you going vegetarian (allowing eggs and dairy) on purpose? If so, you might try adding a Boca burger or something like that. If meat is OK, add a chicken breast. As a student you can buy pre-cooked and add to a salad, easy-peasy.

tigersword

Get the entire flawed "healthy vs unhealthy food" idea out of your head. There's nothing wrong with ice cream, for starters. Why not eat whole eggs instead of egg whites, which are pretty useless nutritionally speaking? Are you vegetarian, I don't see any meat on your list?

Two other points:
1. Eating only 600 calories a day isn't "eating healthy," by any definition. The amount you eat is just as important for health as individual food choices.
2. Feeling hungry is a trained hormonal response to eating habits. You don't feel hungry because your body has resigned itself to starvation. When you increase your intake, you will start to feel hungry again as your body readjusts to a normal intake.

Sabine_Stroehm

Congrats on trying to eat healthier. Well done. Healthy eating will pay off in the long run, never fear. It's very important.
You're going to need to ask yourself though: is low carb for you if you're never hungry and are essentially starving yourself (which, well, isn't healthy). Low carb dieters often report not being hungry. If you can do low carb and eat enough to fuel your body, go for it. If not, then how can you be healthy if you're unhealthy?

Eat full fat foods. Don't throw away the best part of the hard boiled egg. Low carb should NOT be low fat. You don't get to be both.
Eat lots of leafy green vegetables (because they are good for you and part of a healthy low carb diet).
If you're a vegetarian, then again I'd say: are you sure you can get enough food, and specifically fat and protein.
Eat peanut butter!
Eat full fat foods.
Eat more. Over double what you're eating now. If you can't because you're not hungry, you're gonna need another approach.

Best of luck.

dawnna76

i wonder if your math may be off on the amount of calories. 1/4 cup almonds has around 180-200 calories. a egg has 70ish, soup even light soup is 100 cal a cup, veggies and fruits can range from 50-100 or more depending on the fruit. a banana average size is over 100. make sure you are weighing your foods and measuring your liquids to get a real honest picture. also add more good fats, dairy, egg yolks, nut butters etc. and if you like veggies eat more, lots more! they will fill you up and you wont be hungry.

at00015

Thank you for all your responses. No I am not a vegetarian, I like meat but being a college student it is expensive and takes time to cook. I tend to just grab whatever is quick and easy. And quite honestly I have just recently started incorporating vegetables into my diet (within the last year) with the help of a nutribullet. I was so picky for the first 21 years of my life and would not even touch a food if it had a vegetable in it. Now I have transitioned from getting vegetables from shakes only to also getting them from soups and roasted. I have not reached the "salad" level yet. I would love to be able to eat salad but for me it just seems so unnatural to just start eating "leaves."

Yes I am measuring my foods, and I input them in this website for the calories as well as verify that they match what the label is telling me. The reason I don't eat the yolk of a hard boiled egg is because I don't like the texture. I definitely eat whole scrambled eggs though.

Thank you all again I appreciate you guys taking the time to help me. I will start to eat more and log my food more often so that I can make sure I am doing so! Will I start gaining weight though because my body is in starvation mode and now I will be eating more food than normal?

Sabine_Stroehm

If you're using the nutribullet regularly: add a tablespoon of coconut oil, or flax seeds, or a handful of almonds...Just eat enough, please.

tigersword

There's no such thing as "starvation mode" per se. While it's true your metabolism slows during calorie deficit, that's something that happens no matter what. The real danger to eating so little is the loss of muscle mass. Losing weight is always a combination of fat and lean mass, but more extreme deficits cause more of that loss to come from lean mass instead of fat (it's a survival mechanism, you can live longer with more fat and less muscle than the opposite.) So to be honest, some weight gain is normal and preferable when coming out of a huge deficit like the one you've unwittingly created, as your body refills it's glycogen stores and repairs any damage from lost muscle, bone density, and other tissue loss (skin, hair,organs, etc.)

Kalikel

It's very difficult to take in enough calories without adding some Not 100% Healthy food. Damn near impossible.

I don't know if this is self-imposed or you're on some special diet or what, so I'm just thinking off the top of my head here...

Add full fat dairy. Yogurt with fruit in it. Melt some full-fat cheese on those rice cakes. Add a little diced tomato (some chicken if you eat meat, maybe Quorn crumbles if you don't) and you've got yourself a faux-pizza.

Have more nuts. Can you add some peanut butter? If you can add peanut butter (even the low sodium or reduced fat versions), it will be easy to increase those calories.

Some dried fruits have a good amount of calories. Dried cherries are so yummy, have a good amount of calories and go really well with peanuts! Raisins are another healthy way to add calories.

Don't skip the egg yolks. They have protein, too!

Meat (duh, I know.) If you don't eat meat, try veggie burgers! I like the Morning Star ones best.

Juice is helpful, calories-wise and won't make you feel stuffed.

Breakfast cereals, even the healthier ones, have a decent amount of calories. Add full-fat milk and you're whomping the calories without going all the way into Unhealthy.

Good luck!

misskarihari

Mayonaise, butter, cream, full fat milk, nuts, cheese, eggs. Ate all of that every day I was on Low Carb. Bacon! Gotta love bacon - Cook it in the oven and not in the pan and you save a lot of mess and time. (You can do other things while the bacon cooks).

bswith22

I'm assuming that by a fruit/veggie shake, you mean something like a smoothie, so get some high cal protein powder and blend it in, you can also cook your eggs in olive oil when you scramble them.

segacs

The truth is, if you've only been eating 600 calories for ages without noticing, then one of two things is true:
1. You have an eating disorder.
2. (More likely) you are actually eating more than 600 calories but logging incorrectly.

Before looking for ways to add way more food into your diet, invest in a food scale ($10-$15 on Amazon) and start weighing everything and logging as accurately as you can. Have a read of this thread. Spend a few weeks logging in as much detail as you can.

Then, if you find you're still eating only 600 calories, come back and see us for more advice. But I think you'll find you're probably eating far in excess of that.

Mr_Knight

at00015 wrote: »

Yes I am measuring my foods...

There is a world of difference between measuring almonds on a scale versus in a measuring cup.

I'm confident you're eating more than you think you are. Which is fine, but before you go about making big changes, it might be helpful to figure out exactly what you are actually eating, and how much.

RodaRose

Do your diary for a week or two. (Weigh those almonds!)
Then, if you need to adjust, you can buy some canned salmon for the rice cakes, whole fat yogurt, nut butters, avocados.
Also some potatoes to bake and top with salsa or anything else.

scottacular

As soon as someone starts talking about food as either being 'healthy' or 'unhealthy' I feel bad for them and hope someone can educate them. I had a big bowl of ice cream and M&Ms last week, just lost another 0.6 kg. Eating 'unhealthy' food and losing weight, say whhhhaaaattttttt? You need to ease the self imposed restrictions you've put on yourself or you'll go crazy and probably kill your diet. No decent trainer/nutritionist would demand such over the top discipline from you if you were their client. They'd let you have some treats to look forward to to keep your focus. Be good to yourself, you don't deserve to be punished here.

By the way, canned salmon is just awful and comes with unedible bits. Salmon fillets though are amazing. Grill one for 20 minutes with some butter.