hungry hungry ... will my body adjust?

4leighbee

I've been back on MFP for almost two weeks.

I'm a nibble all day long kind of person. I have about 100 calories every few hours, and I run (hard) at noon. I am purposefully staying just at my 1200 or under my 1200+(run calories) so I can lose about 20 pounds to make running less stressful on my knees/hips/back. All that said, I am hungry which is distracting and taunts me - I want to eat easy junk food when I'm hungry. Will my body adjust to this? I'm not one to go overboard on this sort of thing - I can't set up a situation that isn't sustainable.

Thanks very much for your insight.

sugaraddict4321

Your body is telling you it needs more fuel. If you only have 20 pounds to lose, setting your goals to 2 pounds per week might be too aggressive. Figure out your TDEE and eat at 80% of that. Odds are it's way more than 1200/day. You don't need to starve in order to lose weight.

BeTheChange352

are you staying properly hydrated? if so and if you're consistently hungry I would really consider upping your calories, maybe set your goal to lose 1 pound a week if you're currently at 2, or perhaps cut back on how often or how long you run. there's no reason to stay miserable.

Amanda4change

Where did you get the 1200 calorie goal? From MFP? They use a very generic number for everyone. When I started that's what they have me as well and I not only was hungry all the time the quality of my workouts suffered. Using a TDEE calculator gave me a higher daily goal of 1654 (plus I eat 25%) of my exercise calories. I'm losing more weight now on the higher calories than I was losing on 1200. I believe this change is because my workout quality is higher because I have adequate fuel for it.

4leighbee

okay, thank you! I will look up TDEE - I see lots of people talking about that. Don't know what it is yet.

4leighbee

holy cow - it says I should eat 2490 calories a day.

0somuchbetter0

I like this site for figuring out TDEE: scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

4leighbee

Okay - no, I think more like 1990 to lose basically one pound a week, given my activity level. That's a lot more calories. Now ... if I do this, can I adjust MFP so I don't always feel like I'm screwing up?
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4leighbee

when the calculator tells me 1990, then do I get back more calories when I work out? It seemed like it already took into consideration my workouts when it came up with that number. Thanks for all of your help!

0somuchbetter0

Yes you can manually adjust it. I do. I hate getting red numbers. The TDEE method builds in the exercise calories, MFP does not. When I use the Scooby calculator above I put in "desk job" and then try to figure out my exercise calories on my own, usually with my Fitbit if I'm running or using MFP's database for other stuff. I try to eat back only half my exercise calories because Fitbit and MFP are not very accurate. Sorry it's all so vague!

4leighbee

It is a bit, but I don't think that's you! Or ... actually for some people it's so scientific that I am left with a blank look on my face. Either way ... I will try TDEE ... at 43, I don't want to risk another stress fracture from running because I'm low on nutrients (which was a contributing factor the first time). My body tells me I'm hungry - then I should probably eat. Thanks, y'all!