"Just Fit it in to your Daily Allowance"

LAWoman72

Eudoxy wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

CurvyToFit wrote: »

Just got off the 1200 cal limit and jumped up to 1500 because it was impossible for me to live like that!! I work a desk job and seriously I was still always hungry and didn't have enough cals leftover when I got off work for a snack - very frustrating to live like that. I also try to eat as much fresh produce as possible and still couldn't keep my calories down. Now I have room for a night snack and it's not as stressful to try to cram everything into a 1200 cal budget.

lemurcat12 wrote: »

As for fresh food, I don't eat spoiled food, of course, but I'm always confused how people think they have fresh produce available in all seasons unless they just are lucky in where they live. I live in Chicago, so if I ate only fresh local produce I wouldn't be able to eat fruit or veggies much of the year. Also luckily for me I don't think that I have to be so limited in my thinking to care about nutrition, and so while I enjoy fresh and local I also eat canned tomatoes and frozen veggies and various things carted in from elsewhere.

@lemurcat Marino's has amazing produce, cheap and always fresh, good sales. There's also a CSA through Genesis Growers that is always rated high plus tons of pick up spots in Chicago area.

But that's not fresh local produce. Not in January and largely not even now.

I have a CSA (the one with the longest delivery season I could find, which happens to be Genesis -- they do have winter delivery, but you don't get produce, really), and I've been to Mariano's, of course.

Not sure how that's responsive, though, as Genesis only just started up the spring season and has limited produce at the moment (can't blame them, it's a function of seasons and all!). Many local CSAs haven't started yet. The various local green markets also have limited produce at the moment (asparagus showed up at mine for the first time this past weekend), including the huge one in Lincoln Park. And Mariano's, like every other grocery store in town (include WF), has no more fresh local produce than really exists. So when I buy my zucchini or broccoli or brussels sprouts there or from my perfectly adequate local Jewel or WF or TJ or Treasure Island or whatever, it's still not really fresh in the way I mean. It's from quite far away. (Tastes fine, IMO, if not as good as the local stuff will in the summer.)

Do people not realize this or are we talking past each other?

My point is that if not for the whole big agricultural system that people like to slam those of us in northern cities would be stuck with home canned produce, dried beans and grains,and cellared root veggies/potatoes, apples, and meat during the winter. It's that it can be frozen, commercially canned (not my preference, but for tomatoes), or carted in from far away that allows us to buy fruits and veggies much of the year. If we were to focus on what's "natural" or what we'd have in our great grandparents' day or the like, we would not have much in the way of produce in January, and our options would be quite limited even now in early May.

And of course we wouldn't have bananas or mangos or oranges any time.

Enjoy that produce while it's coming!! I'm out in California (which supplies a sizable majority of fruits, veggies and nuts for the country), the farmers use 80% of the water. One more year of this drought and and something will have to give (we're bone dry, it's bad).

Yuppers. Better chow down now, folks.

MercuryBlue

kelziemba wrote: »

Hi,

I've been using MFP for a couple weeks now. I find the forum really interesting and helpful. I'm really curious about a statement that I read quite a lot; "eat whatever you want as long as it fits within your allowance".

I'm on 1200 calories a day, so realistically I don't have a lot of calories to play around with. Even with making my meals better 'value for calories', I just have not got spare calories kicking around to treat myself to an indulgent dessert or a full takeaway or a bag of sweets or a bowl of coco pops at the end of the day.

I'm eating well and don't feel hungry for the most part so that's all good. I just know I'm on this weight loss journey for the long haul and at some point I'm going to want to have 'treats' without having to sacrifice a meal.

So I guess I'm wondering how people on 1200 calories do it?

Well, I've been on and off MFP for YEARS. My first few approaches basically involved me aiming for 1200 calories per day and then doing as much cardio as I could in order to earn more calories because I was STARVING. I was successful, lost a boatload of weight- but also couldn't really sustain that forever. Life happened and I put on weight. Came back, tried to cut back to 1200 calories again, and it just wasn't happening. I work with children and youths on the autism spectrum. My job can get physical sometimes (usually in a good way: riding bikes, hop scotch, etc; however, sometimes my clients can get violent and I need to use Mandt training to ensure their safety). The reality is that, for my job, I can't be lethargic from hunger. It's not an option; I need to constantly be on my toes. I also need strength.

So over the past couple of months, I've completely changed the way that I look at food. I now aim for a MINIMUM of 1500 calories per day, though I'm usually closer to 1700 or 1800. I'm paying much closer attention to my macros than I used to, getting lots of protein in my diet. I'm lifting weights, and really putting my focus on getting stronger over making the number on the scale go down. My clothing is fitting better, and I'm losing inches. I feel great, and I'm almost never hungry (quite the contrary, actually; I frequently have a hard time eating as much as I should because the protein keeps me so full for so long). I'm making real progress, not just in fat loss (because I'm still eating at a deficit, I know I'm not building much- if any- muscle mass) but in terms of my clothes fitting better and everything being a bit tighter. My goal is to continue strength training while also trying to cut some of the fat from my body. Eventually, I would like to start eating enough to actually build muscle so I can have a strong, firm figure.

I've digressed a bit. My point is that I'm having a huge amount of success right now from strength training and a smaller caloric deficit. The scale's not going down as quickly as it used to, but I'm also not constantly starving. I feel strong and everything feels a bit more "tight". This is my personal approach- and it allow allows me to treat myself once in a while.

People consuming only 1200 calories per day getting a lot of treats, though? You're not the only one wondering how they're doing it. Not only that, if you're only consuming 1200 calories, you're going to make sure that they're as nutritionally dense as possible. You need to make those 1200 calories go a long way. Someone might eat 1200 cals per day just with donuts, but essentially is taking away space and calories that could go to more nutritious (and filling) stuff.

taentea

MercuryBlue wrote: »

...
I've digressed a bit. My point is that I'm having a huge amount of success right now from strength training and a smaller caloric deficit. The scale's not going down as quickly as it used to, but I'm also not constantly starving. I feel strong and everything feels a bit more "tight". This is my personal approach- and it allow allows me to treat myself once in a while.

People consuming only 1200 calories per day getting a lot of treats, though? You're not the only one wondering how they're doing it. Not only that, if you're only consuming 1200 calories, you're going to make sure that they're as nutritionally dense as possible. You need to make those 1200 calories go a long way. Someone might eat 1200 cals per day just with donuts, but essentially is taking away space and calories that could go to more nutritious (and filling) stuff.

We all have different life situations and needs these situations dictate. If I had an active job and under 30lbs to lose, I'd quite likely follow an eating pattern pretty similar to yours. I'd be fine if getting to my ideal weight would take me a year or so.

But my job is sedentary. I don't even need to walk to my office since it's right here in my house. And my current health crisis not only limits my movement but also makes me take tranquilizers, that make me even less lively than I originally am. I have a lot to lose. Setting my goal for 0.5lb a week would get me there in 6 years. All this time I'd not only be unhappy with how I look, I'd keep suffering from other health issues my weight causes. It just makes sense for me to take a more aggressive approach and set my calories lower as I can't compensate them with a lot of physical activity. And I can 'afford' it currently as my job doesn't require me to be physically strong and my appetite is somewhat low. But even 2lb a week goal means a year and a half long journey for me. That's a marathon, not a sprint. I don't want to be miserable for this long. I need a diet that's sustainable mentally. So I'm fine with 100-250 cals out of 1200 being spent on things that feed my happiness, as I found that the remaining 950-1100 feed my stomach just fine. It works for me right now. Once my situation changes, my diet will change too most likely.

This is just my story. And every poster in this thread has theirs. There can't be any perfect number that would fit us all. And neither of us here knows OP enough to guess a perfect number for her, so there's little point in arguing. We can share our personal experiences of what works and doesn't work for us though. I'm sure OP is intelligent enough to extract information that's useful for her personally from all of that.

fr3smyl

[/quote]

I just ran your numbers through freedieting's calculator (one I used during my weight loss phase, before I found MFP), and for little/no exercise, to lose weight it gives you 1,904 calories a day. http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm
I'd up those calories [/quote]

That is a helpful site. I am 36, 176lbs, and 5'2". MFP gives me 1200cals/day for 1lb/week loss, the above link gives 1450cals/day for 1lb/week.
I kept wondering what people did on maintenance if they loss on 1200 or less cals/day. Stepping down from there would be hard.

RGv2

tatho2014 wrote: »

I'm on a 1900 cal regime and still manage to cut back to 1300. Eat lots of fruit and nuts. Keeps u fuller for longer.

1300 cals at 22....as a male?

The sadz....I just got it.

fr3smyl

christinev297 wrote: »

unsuspectingfish wrote: »

I know different things work for different people, but I said "screw it" to MFP's recommendations for daily calories, figured out what my maintenance calories would be for my goal weight, rounded down to the nearest hundred, and changed my daily goal to that. I'm eating 2,100 a day and still losing, and I've already figured out what I can eat while maintaining, so that's a bonus.

That's exactly what I did!!

Hehe, I've been playing with my caloric intake as well and kinda ignoring MFP guidelines. I felt a little guilty at first but I'm learning as long as I'm still losing its okay.