Difficulties hitting my recomended daily calories

darkorical

I think you should stop drinking the shakes and replace them with food you have to cook at home or pick up from some other place. I think replacing your energy drink with a different energy drink you like that has calories could help. If you do not want to do that it may help if you start drinking fruit juices or tomato juice. Calories can come from drinks not just food. Drinking milk can also help with the calories and help with some vitamins. Good luck.

Ironically I drank the energy drinks before because I like them... and I have never drank them for energy boost. so it just turned out a happy coincidence that they became something I did not have to remove from my diet.

stephreed11

No, that's not enough for you. Let me ask you this, "Can you realistically follow that the rest of your life?" If not, then why are you even doing it? You want life long changes, not temporary changes.

I recommend eating what you normally eat, but just eat a little bit less. I saw your 7,000 calorie day... it looks good, just cut it by like 60%. I don't recommend making big changes over night like you are doing. It has to be a gradual process. Hit your calorie goals daily(don't worry about healthy and non healthy, most of that is bs anyways).

If you don't eat enough you can easily stall out on your weight loss and not lose weight. That can easily happen to you. When i was about 300lbs I was eating 1,200 calories a day, i didn't lose any weight for 5 weeks. I said "screw this" and started eating again. Don't make the mistake I did.

So here is a question, "Who is healthier, a 400lbs mean eating "healthy" or a man at a healthy weight eating junk food?" A lot of blood pressure, triglycerides, insulin related issues, risk for cardiac arrest are mostly dependent on weight, not food choices. If you lower your weight, you automatically are healthier despite what you eat. Keep in mind I am not saying "go eat junk food 24/7" I am saying enjoy your life, your food... don't stress it to much. If you want some junk food and it fits in to your calories go for it. enjoy it.

I recommend reading this maybe it will drive the point home: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html

Good stuff.

nomeejerome

OP:

Are you using a food scale?
How do you feel at your current intake levels?
At what pace are you losing weight at your current intake levels and how long have you been eating at this intake?

zumarouli

Hello, I'm new here and I don't know much about how the whole thing works. So, my problem is similar to the one of this topic, I think i consume too few calories but I feel full before reaching my calorie goal. Should I start a new topic for this or can I get some advice here? Sorry, for the irrelevant post

LoosingMyLast15

ok I would like to point out that I didn't actually eat Hardee's for breakfast. I set that up as an exaggerated example of what I might eat.
I am in fact still using the slim fast diet. When I started it my plan was to something akin to as follows

1 Slim Fasts for breakfast and 1 for lunch with a healthy snack like fruit or veggy (probably apples or carrots) between
for suppers I figured I had a hand full of options

A salad with either ham, chicken, or turkey with hard boiled egg and sunflower seeds and bacon pieces, and a dressing of spicy mustard and either low fat oil or mayo

2 Tortilla wraps using an entire 90 calorie package each of any of Budding's various meat flavors, lettuce, olives around a medium - large dill pickle and again spicy mustard.

Baked Chicken breaded with egg and Italian bread crumbs with steamed veggy medley with cream of broccoli sauce

Broccoli and beef with Worcestershire sauce, with cauliflower mash with sour cream and onion dip for dressing.

and several other such dinners. things that sounded really good and were simple.

I assumed that would be sufficient yet Im finding that that Idea leaves me severally under calories

also while I do not intend to go full atkins I did decide to use some of their theory's and remove most of the bread and starches from my diet.

phew! glad to hear you're not eating hardees everyday. :happy:

a yummy salad of spinach, tomato, avocado, cucumber, red onion and dressing would be great with your chicken and beef dinners and the avocado has lots of healthy fat/calories.

actually throw avocado in your big salad for dinner as well.

go with extra virgin olive oil while it's higher in calories it's better for you.

how about mashing some white beans into your cauliflower mash.

these little things will help bring up your calories.

darkorical

OP:

Are you using a food scale?
How do you feel at your current intake levels?
At what pace are you losing weight at your current intake levels and how long have you been eating at this intake?

Not currently mostly I measure by cups and convert to weight based on package labeling.
I feel no different what-so-ever as I mentioned before I never really feel hungry or full so that is not an issue. and I have not noticed any change in energy levels or need for sleep.
Ive been doing this for not quite 2 weeks now and just did my first weigh in today I have lost 11 lbs

NOTE there may be some cheating involved with my weight loss tho....
this was me before


and my pic on the left is me now. now I don't know how much all that hair weighs but it FEELS alot lighter.

darkorical

Hello, I'm new here and I don't know much about how the whole thing works. So, my problem is similar to the one of this topic, I think i consume too few calories but I feel full before reaching my calorie goal. Should I start a new topic for this or can I get some advice here? Sorry, for the irrelevant post

there seems to be quite alot of good advice here so by all means continue to read but you may wish to start your own thread to get responses that may be more specifically towards your exact situation.

Sunshine2plus2

Honestly I would cut the shake! Its so unneeded. Eat some peanut butter thats like 200 calories for a 1tbsp. I like to put mine on some graham crackers!

Sarauk2sf

Were you restricting calories prior to this 2 weeks. I realize that you have lost quite a bit of weight before, but how much of gap was there between you losing before and this 2 weeks?

Sarauk2sf

crap it doesn't fit in to my macros. oh yeah i don't follow that silly stuff. (cough cough)

You seem to have had that cough for a while now...here, for you

FunkyTobias

crap it doesn't fit in to my macros. oh yeah i don't follow that silly stuff. (cough cough)

... says the guy who lost 60lbs of lbm.

According to picture wonder less... I think you mean "Says the guy who go really sick and lost a lot of LBM, now who is bulking back up. Without keeping track of macros and who eats a lot of carbs."



why do you even say anything to me?? each time you do I just prove you wrong... stop wasting your time.

Amazing transformation.

You went from a sweatshirt to a t-shirt. And this is supposed to prove what, exactly?

FunkyTobias

crap it doesn't fit in to my macros. oh yeah i don't follow that silly stuff. (cough cough)

... says the guy who lost 60lbs of lbm.

According to picture wonder less... I think you mean "Says the guy who go really sick and lost a lot of LBM, now who is bulking back up. Without keeping track of macros and who eats a lot of carbs."



why do you even say anything to me?? each time you do I just prove you wrong... stop wasting your time.

Amazing transformation.

You went from a sweatshirt to a t-shirt. And this is supposed to prove what, exactly?

I am obviously wider in the chest and shoulders. Obviously you don't see that. You just don't want to see it. My cousin 2 days ago saw me 3 weeks ago he said. "Damn you're putting on weight." I said "yeah" I went back and said, "You mean like getting fatter or more muscular?" he said "more muscular." Just wait a few more months, pics will be out. I only been back in the gym 3 weeks, so be patient. Talk to me when you get a pic, or can back up anything you say with results... thanks for stopping.

Your cousin might be blind or just plainly stupid

LOL @ thinking you can have visible results in 3 weeks.

FunkyTobias

How much mass do you think you can gain in 3 weeks? Honestly?

(not talking about water fluctuation).

You don't track macros (cough) and you've lost a ton of lean mass.

What, exactly, is this supposed to prove?

mazdauk

Anyway, back to the plot.....

OP, bypassing the spat above, as others have said ditch the slimfast shakes. You'd be better off with a glass of 2% milk and some proper food - a chicken salad, some houmous and veggies, whatever you like but make sure it has protein and healthy fats as well as carbs. Making your own will help you control excess sodium, otherwise check the labels and actually avoid things marked "low fat" - they often have hidden sugar, or they are stupidly small portions to fit within the calories.

Anyone who says "I feel too full to eat all my calories" 1) - lucky you, I always can fit in an extra square of chocolate :ohwell: and 2) reduce the leafy veg and instead eat a banana, some nuts, some cheese - anything along those lines which is higher in calories but does have some nutritional benefit.

bostonwolf

I am having a bit of difficulty actually hitting my goals. This would be an exaggeration of what I eat

and the recipes for the spicy salad and taco lasagna



I have been using Slim fast for 2 meals a day and keep ending up 1100 - 1500 shy so today I decided to see what would happen if I just ate what I wanted to. so Imagine my surprise when I still came up nearly a 1000 shy of my goals.

Can someone offer any suggestions, or is it ok to be that far off?

Note: I stand 6,3 weight 385lbs and not even the doctors believe it and insist on reweighing me to make sure at every visit, as they are certain I cant possibly weight over 300-325.

I'm roughly your size though was never as heavy. I started my weight loss journey at about 320, I'm currently about 290. I can tell you what worked for me, though this doesn't mean it will work for you.

One, I started eating mostly Primal (80% of the time, I usually allow myself a cheat meal or two on the weekends.) Eliminating grains and sugar will go a long way towards priming you up for fat loss. This includes eliminating a lot of the crap you seem to be eating now. If it comes prepackaged and has more than four ingredients, throw it away. The closer to its natural state you can eat your food the better. Go to www.marksdailyapple.com for more info on Primal.

Two, your goal is set to 2350 calories and you say you are regularly 1000 calories short of that? Simply put you are starving yourself. If I ate 1300 calories a day I'd chew off my wife's leg while she slept. I imputed your numbers (guessed your age at 40 and left body fat blank into the BMR calculator here:

http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/bmr/

And your BMR (the amount of calories you need to survive on a daily basis) is 3145. So even if you were eating to your 2350 goal, you would STILL be starving yourself. If you want to lose weight in a controlled manner you probably need to be around 2500 minimum, and this takes no account of exercise.

Three, exercise. If you aren't doing any you need to start. Just start off walking, that's what I did. Go as far as you can at whatever pace you can. Then do a bit more the next day, etc etc. Then we get you started with the weights

Four. Be accountable. I decided in December that I was sick of being this overweight. I figured out what foods triggered me to overeat and eliminated them completely. Same with people (if possible) or certain restaurants. You need to know exactly what is going into your body and in what ratios (fat/carbs/protein)

Just from a calorie intake standpoint you can still eat like crap and lose weight as long as you are eating under your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure.) However, you have two kids. I assume you want to be able to play with them and want to be around for them as long as possible. That would be my motivation to clean up my diet (and theirs.) You need to find yours.

Hope this helps.

ncmedic201

One way I've really improved my eating is to creep on other peoples diary It gives me great ideas. I've been working on calories, potassium and sodium. Almonds are a great snack. Hummus with crackers or veggies, cottage cheese. You can try making your own shake for breakfast. I started using ultramet and mix in coconut water, plain yogurt, a banana and sometimes a couple of tablespoons of peanut butter. This will increase your calories and give you some more nutrients too. Also, by bulking up your calories like that it will be easy to replace the shake with a real meal. On days that I want to actually cook my breakfast I have no problem making a big omelet and staying within my calories. Good luck!