Any Other High Calorie Low Carbers
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FIT_Goat
Posts: 4,224 Member
Sometimes I feel like I am the only "high" calorie low carb eater around these parts. Am I really the only person with a 2,000 calorie/day floor (that's as low as I go) and a 2,500+ calorie/day average? I know I am probably unique in this aspect because I am teetering on the edge of maintenance (losing 0.25-0.5 lbs a week, if anything). But, come on. You can't all be starving yourselves! 
How many more people here eat plenty of food (or don't track but probably exceed 1800+ calories each day)?
How many more people here eat plenty of food (or don't track but probably exceed 1800+ calories each day)?
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At the moment I'm eating between 2100 and 3000. It's a little embarrassing to admit because I'm so used to feeling like I shouldn't eat over 1500. For the most part I am eating when hungry and within the guidelines of LCHF. I figure if I'm hungry I need to eat. Today we went to a Chinese buffet and while I am most definitely over my calories I mostly stuck to meat and veg. I did eat some fruit and two tiny little cakes however in the past I wouldn't have stopped at two. If I had I would've craved sugar the rest of the day. Today I enjoyed what I had but didn't need or want more. I consider that a NSV.0
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Sorry but you may be unique in more ways than one. I currently aim for 1500 and often struggle to stay within that and hit my macros. I try to walk about 4-5 miles at least twice a week, weather permitting. Since starting LCHF my weight has actually increased but I'm sticking with it for now.0
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At the moment I'm eating between 2100 and 3000. It's a little embarrassing to admit because I'm so used to feeling like I shouldn't eat over 1500. For the most part I am eating when hungry and within the guidelines of LCHF. I figure if I'm hungry I need to eat.
This is pretty much how I see it. Eat as much as your body feels like having, stick to the guidelines of LCHF, and let your body sort out what it needs. It pains me that people (and I assure you that you're not the only one) have learned to feel guilty for eating normal levels of calories. It helps to remember that the USDA recommends 1,800-2,200 calories a day for a fairly active woman (one who doesn't sit around all day) and 2,200-2,800 calories a day for a fairly active man. The 2,000 calorie a day recommendation (on food labels) is for women. The 2,500 number is the male number.
Of course, the smaller and less active you are, the fewer calories you get. But even the women's number doesn't go below 1,600 and the men's 2,000. Get in some extra activity and you get even more calories. Plus, I think some of the calorie math under-estimates things. I am not very active, but I lose weight averaging 2500-2600 calories a day. For my height, age, gender, activity level and weight, I should be gaining weight at those amounts. I have my MFP here set to the maintenance amount it says I need to maintain my weight (2,220 calories a day).
Anyway, buffet days tend to be higher calorie days for me. How is the eating plan working out? Most importantly, how are you feeling? Healthy and strong?
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robert65ferguson wrote: »Sorry but you may be unique in more ways than one. I currently aim for 1500 and often struggle to stay within that and hit my macros. I try to walk about 4-5 miles at least twice a week, weather permitting. Since starting LCHF my weight has actually increased but I'm sticking with it for now.
Yeah, I know I am a weirdo. That's a really low calorie goal for a man. You'd have to be really old, short, and thin to truly need to eat that level to lose any weight. Not that I don't believe you. If you have a history of very low calorie dieting, it very well could be that you need to eat that much to lose weight. After doing 1,300-1,400 calories a day for almost a year (to lose weight), I ended up at a higher weight than I am right now but was gaining weight eating 1,700-1,800 calories a day. After a few months of LCHF, you may notice your ability to eat more without gaining increases.
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My calorie goal is set at 1950... I try to stay in that range, without going much over.0
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I hope that is what happens for me.....I am afraid to up my calories any, but some days 1360 just doesn't feel like enough! (Those tend to be days I work out) I DO sit on my butt all day at work though. Which is why I am scared to eat more.0
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Lrdoflamancha wrote: »My calorie goal is set at 1950... I try to stay in that range, without going much over.
Close enough to be in the high-calorie club.
IamUndrCnstruction wrote: »I hope that is what happens for me.....I am afraid to up my calories any, but some days 1360 just doesn't feel like enough! (Those tend to be days I work out) I DO sit on my butt all day at work though. Which is why I am scared to eat more.
I hope it happens for you too. I do believe that metabolisms will heal and recover over time. My advice, which you are free to ignore and dismiss, would be to trust your body on those days it doesn't feel like enough. Have a little more. It doesn't need to be much. Maybe give yourself 200-300 calories extra. What's the worst that can happen? Your weight loss will slow down by 0.25 lbs a week? Is that the end of the world? Besides, my general experience has been that the weight loss never slows down quite as much as it should according to the calorie calculations.0 -
I may try that. And I may try eating just a little more at one time. Usually this is hard for me, as I have explained, but I am finding that LCHF does not cause the same feeling when I eat that the regular SAD (such irony) diet did.0
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Not weird , Fit. Young. Yes, you are young and your metabolism is young . I am old, and my metabolism is old. Therefore Y (outh) +C (calories) = dumb lucky.
You wait. You too will be old someday with the metabolism of a snail.
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NjAt the moment I'm eating between 2100 and 3000. It's a little embarrassing to admit because I'm so used to feeling like I shouldn't eat over 1500. For the most part I am eating when hungry and within the guidelines of LCHF. I figure if I'm hungry I need to eat.
This is pretty much how I see it. Eat as much as your body feels like having, stick to the guidelines of LCHF, and let your body sort out what it needs. It pains me that people (and I assure you that you're not the only one) have learned to feel guilty for eating normal levels of calories. It helps to remember that the USDA recommends 1,800-2,200 calories a day for a fairly active woman (one who doesn't sit around all day) and 2,200-2,800 calories a day for a fairly active man. The 2,000 calorie a day recommendation (on food labels) is for women. The 2,500 number is the male number.
Of course, the smaller and less active you are, the fewer calories you get. But even the women's number doesn't go below 1,600 and the men's 2,000. Get in some extra activity and you get even more calories. Plus, I think some of the calorie math under-estimates things. I am not very active, but I lose weight averaging 2500-2600 calories a day. For my height, age, gender, activity level and weight, I should be gaining weight at those amounts. I have my MFP here set to the maintenance amount it says I need to maintain my weight (2,220 calories a day).
Anyway, buffet days tend to be higher calorie days for me. How is the eating plan working out? Most importantly, how are you feeling? Healthy and strong?
I'm also reading along with EM2WL so even though the higher calories are a bit embarrassing they keep me motivated. If I had a dollar for every time I wished I could eat less and feel satisfied since having kids, lol. The only thing is I haven't been that active lately inspite of recently joining a gym. Mainly because of all the ice we're getting this year. According to the gals at The Eat More group increased appetite is a sign your metabolism is picking up. We shall see.
I do feel much stronger and apart from the dawn effect my sugar is stable and I've cut my meds in half because the AM dose was making things too low. I have more energy most of the time and the candy bowl/chip table hasn't bothered me much. My weight is all over the place so far but I'm waiting to see if it levels off.
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IamUndrCnstruction wrote: »I hope that is what happens for me.....I am afraid to up my calories any, but some days 1360 just doesn't feel like enough! (Those tend to be days I work out) I DO sit on my butt all day at work though. Which is why I am scared to eat more.
Maybe raise your calories for a week or two and see what happens? You can always lower them again. One good thing about having such a hard te losing weight is I can be a little more flexible.
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I've been doing this for a very long time. I have gained and lost on it. Currently, I have somewhere between 60 and 100 lbs to lose. That went on doing lc, despite being nearly bed-ridden and dealing with other health problems. If I was eating at maintenance, I'd be somewhere close to where you are, but this is hardly a weight I want to maintain.
To my mind, weight loss and keto are two different things that happen to intersect. I do keto so I won't die. I lose weight for multiple reasons (not dying is on the list, but it's not the whole list). Keto is what I eat, weight loss is how much of it I eat.0 -
annieboomboom wrote: »Not weird , Fit. Young. Yes, you are young and your metabolism is young . I am old, and my metabolism is old. Therefore Y (outh) +C (calories) = dumb lucky.
You wait. You too will be old someday with the metabolism of a snail.
Eat right, eat plenty, and your metabolism will rise to fit the need. At most, you'll find an amount where you're not hungry and have plenty of energy to do everything you want. Maybe that will be only 1600 or 1700 calories and not 2600, because of age and gender differences but you don't need to starve yourself.
Edit: I changed the tone of this a little. I am serious that you shouldn't be hungry all the time. If you feel deprived, that's a clue that you're doing something incorrectly. It has nothing to do with gender or age. The absolute amount of food you need to not feel deprived may be under 2000 calories a day (it probably is). That's fine. It does mean you aren't a higher calorie eater though.0 -
Me, maybe....they are kind of high for a woman who is still trying to lose weight. I have been eating 1500 (goal) average per day since I started this in June. Since that time, I've lost over 40 lbs. I have not adjusted my calorie goal downward as I've lost, and in fact, have come closer to eating all of those 1500 and gone over sometimes, the closer I've gotten to goal.
I am going to be entering maintenance soon enough, so I will methodically increase my calories until I stop losing weight, but I'm teetering on the idea of dropping 5 more lbs, so if I choose to do that, I won't increase them until I get to that goal, which could take awhile, since I'm down to about 145 lbs and I'm 5'6", have a sedentary job, and exercise 3-5 times per week, except for recently because my neck has been bad, and now I'm sick with a cold.
My deficit is pretty small right now at 1500 cals.
You may also consider that women don't need nearly as much as men, and men have a hormonal advantage plus more muscle mass/metabolically active tissue (generally speaking). I'd say the majority of the regular posters in this group are women, and therefore, are automatically going to have lower calorie requirements. Consider yourself blessed that you can eat so much!0 -
Over half of my days are over 1800 calories which was a random number I set because it asked me to.0
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My goals are set at 2050 calories/day. I'm 6'4" and currently around 250. I have absolutely allowed my weight loss to stall/go a bit slower at times when I'm not counting calories by being willing to go over that amount frequently. I've been adding exercise, working on posture, gotten a standing desk and am sitting on a stability ball for core strength/posture improvement a few times a day, and find myself frequently WAY hungrier than I should be given the calories I'm burning. Most of the time I tend to just let myself eat til full and once I adjust to all those changes weight loss will kick back in. Sometimes I get frustrated that the scale isn't moving as fast as it once did
Interesting thing...
2424 kcal Daily Calorie Intake
25 g Carbohydrates (4%, 100 kcal)
120 g Protein (20%, 480 kcal)
205 g Fat (76%, 1844 kcal)
At 220 that's what the keto calc gives me for maintenance calories even with sedentary selected. I'll probably want to end up a little below 220, but its the first goal weight I have set. Will adjust depending on how much I'm lifting. I'm not the type that's ever going aim to be marathon runner lean though.0 -
sljohnson1207 wrote: »You may also consider that women don't need nearly as much as men, and men have a hormonal advantage plus more muscle mass/metabolically active tissue (generally speaking). I'd say the majority of the regular posters in this group are women, and therefore, are automatically going to have lower calorie requirements. Consider yourself blessed that you can eat so much!
Except that the 2,000 calories number is the woman's number of recommended calories. I get that women need fewer calories. I get that older and smaller women may even need less than the amounts I listed above. I also understand that this number is maintenance for women, so most women here will be aiming below that. That's fine. It precludes them from being what I consider a high-calorie eaters, but that's fine. I'm not a tall person. If someone posted asking who else was 6' tall or taller, I wouldn't feel offended that it will never happen for me. It's just nice to know there are some people here who aren't eating nearly half as much as I do.
I do believe that you should eat as much as possible while still losing at an acceptable rate. I do believe that no one should feel hungry or deprived all the time. If you're eating enough food, you'll feel satisfied with that amount, even if it's 1700 calories and not 2000.0 -
I've been doing this for a very long time. I have gained and lost on it. Currently, I have somewhere between 60 and 100 lbs to lose. That went on doing lc, despite being nearly bed-ridden and dealing with other health problems. If I was eating at maintenance, I'd be somewhere close to where you are, but this is hardly a weight I want to maintain.
To my mind, weight loss and keto are two different things that happen to intersect. I do keto so I won't die. I lose weight for multiple reasons (not dying is on the list, but it's not the whole list). Keto is what I eat, weight loss is how much of it I eat.
That's understandable. I eat LC for health first, the amount I eat is based on what my goals are. When I was losing weight, I was much more careful to eat only until I was satisfied and not until I felt "full." Now, I am more likely to eat until I feel full, because I intend to lose little to no more weight.
So, I get the eating for health first part. I also understand eating under 2,000 calories because you are aiming to lose weight. It is what it is.0 -
I'm glad that you have found you're not alone after all Goat.
Speaking as a post-menopausal woman with a history of sugar and carb addiction I don't think that eating all I want (within LCHF) will work for me but, once I'm on maintenance (or at least not a blob any more) I will surely give it a go and find out what happens.0 -
annieboomboom wrote: »Not weird , Fit. Young. Yes, you are young and your metabolism is young . I am old, and my metabolism is old. Therefore Y (outh) +C (calories) = dumb lucky.
You wait. You too will be old someday with the metabolism of a snail.
^^^^^^^what she said!!!!
If i eat over 1700 calories a day i will not lose... Period.0
