Help! I can not eat less than 1500 calories a day!
Gulen28
Posts: 52 Member
Now, is this a problem? I'm very new in this calorie counting thing and in MFP. This website told me I have to eat 1300. Whatever I do, I'm always around 1500. With exercise I can go below but I can not possibly exercise every day.
Any thoughts?
Any thoughts?
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Replies
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Are you set at 2 lbs per week? If your calories feel too low, go for a slower rate of loss.0
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Experiment with the settings. If you have a "two pound a week" setting, change that to .5 pounds per week. You will get more calories and it will be sustainable. As for "whatever I do, I'm always around 1500," what does that mean? When I think of "whatever I do" in this context, it means stop eating when you reach your calorie allotment.
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Why can't you exercise every day?0
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For one, how much are you trying to lose and how overweight are you? If you don't have a lot to lose but yet have your weight loss goals set too aggressively (trying to lose weight faster than you should) the app could have your calorie goal set pretty low making it hard for you to stick to. That may not be the case, but just a thought.
Also, if you are new to calorie restriction you will take some time to get used to consuming less food. You will be slightly hungry at times eating at a deficit. The trick is using your calories for more filling foods. Foods high in protein help. I personally liked snacking on almonds to help me fill up, or even protein snack bars (not the meal replacement ones).0 -
If your happy with 1500 then stick with it, you will still loose just not as fast as you would at 1300. Mine is set at 1300 also but I struggle to stick to it so usually go up to about 1500/1600. Have lost nearly 4 kg in last 3 months, not a huge loss but its still a loss and i have not given up yet0
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You could also play around with what you're eating during the day. If you go low carb, try mixing a few more in - or if you're all carb, try adding a little protein. Also, make sure you're eating good fats. Your body might be sending you hunger signals because it's looking for more of one of the Macronutrients (fat, protein, and carbohydates).0
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I'm set at 1.5 lbs per week. I thought about lowering it to 1 lbs a week, but then I don't want to end up eating more .In other words, I'm torn between fear of eating more if I allow myself to take more calories in and the constant guilt of always being over 1300.
Funny thing is, I'm still loosing more than 1.5 lbs a week even if I'm over 1300 calories a day? Confusing...0 -
If you are looking to eat about 1200 calories a day and still be content and full then you need to go high protein and high fiber. Go take a look at my food diary for the past few days. Ignore the Ice cream, If you eat 4 oz of meat, 1/2 cup of rice and 2/3 cup of veggies 4 times a day you will get 1200 and have a huge amount of food to eat. I eat my veggies frozen and more with my fingers than a spoon so it takes me 20-30 minutes to eat. I never feel hungry. I know my diary is only 3 days old but I did this method a few years ago and lost 15 pounds before getting distracted. So it works. Your brain and your tummy are both happy.0
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Funny thing is, I'm still loosing more than 1.5 lbs a week even if I'm over 1300 calories a day? Confusing...
X) Lucky Duck! If you're losing, then by all means, up your calorie intake. The MFP system is great as a calorie deficit guideline, but it's not the end-all, be-all truth. That's a great loss rate!0 -
afatpersonwholikesfood wrote: »Are you set at 2 lbs per week? If your calories feel too low, go for a slower rate of loss.
This. It looks like you only have 21 lbs to lose, so 1 lb/week is a good goal.
Also, think about doing the TDEE method, where you estimate your average maintenance (based on exercise over a whole week) and then eat the same every day. You can kind of do the same by banking some exercise calories on days you exercise more and using them on days when you don't exercise. (I switched to TDEE method because I couldn't stand the low calories I was getting on off-days either.)
I suspect you can lose on 1500, however, if you do exercise regularly. I'm currently doing 1610 during the week and 1800 on weekends, and I'm 5'3 and close to goal.0 -
If you are losing weight just fine on 1500 calories and feel good, just change your calorie goal to that and keep going. No reason to suffer when something is already working.0
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SherryTeach wrote: »Experiment with the settings. If you have a "two pound a week" setting, change that to .5 pounds per week. You will get more calories and it will be sustainable. As for "whatever I do, I'm always around 1500," what does that mean? When I think of "whatever I do" in this context, it means stop eating when you reach your calorie allotment.
"whatever I do" for me means eating small and healthy portions and also means trying really hard to cut carbs and increase protein.
If I reach my 1300 limit by late afternoon, I can not NOT have dinner, because I feel bad when I do: I may have a slight blood sugar regulation problem that if I don't eat every 4 hours I feel terrible.
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I'm set at 1.5 lbs per week. I thought about lowering it to 1 lbs a week, but then I don't want to end up eating more .In other words, I'm torn between fear of eating more if I allow myself to take more calories in and the constant guilt of always being over 1300.
Funny thing is, I'm still loosing more than 1.5 lbs a week even if I'm over 1300 calories a day? Confusing...
Maybe your activity level is set to low.
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For one, how much are you trying to lose and how overweight are you? If you don't have a lot to lose but yet have your weight loss goals set too aggressively (trying to lose weight faster than you should) the app could have your calorie goal set pretty low making it hard for you to stick to. That may not be the case, but just a thought.
Also, if you are new to calorie restriction you will take some time to get used to consuming less food. You will be slightly hungry at times eating at a deficit. The trick is using your calories for more filling foods. Foods high in protein help. I personally liked snacking on almonds to help me fill up, or even protein snack bars (not the meal replacement ones).
I'm trying to loose about 15 lbs. I don't know how overweight I am, that's another confusing thing: I'm 41, 5' 7" and currently 164 lbs. Some websites say I have to be maximum 136 lbs, but the last time I was 136 lbs I was 15 years old!0 -
"whatever I do" for me means eating small and healthy portions and also means trying really hard to cut carbs and increase protein.
If I reach my 1300 limit by late afternoon, I can not NOT have dinner, because I feel bad when I do: I may have a slight blood sugar regulation problem that if I don't eat every 4 hours I feel terrible.
Sorry but this doesn't make sense. If you've reached your calorie limit by late afternoon then you are eating too much. Take the total number of calories that you want to eat each day and divide them by the number of times you eat in a day. For me that is 4. That means each meal is 300 calories. I can fill a 10inch plate with 300 calories.
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I don't believe in "trying;" it is the "doing" that counts. I also prefer to eat small, frequent meals. At the beginning I pre-logged the whole day so I would know that I had enough food to take me from breakfast to bedtime without running out of calories in the middle of the afternoon. Even though I don't do that so much now, I have a little mental calculator in my head that keeps my choices regulated so that I have room for dinner and an evening snack. But all of this is moot: you are losing more than 1.5 pounds a week at 1500. That sounds good to me.0
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shadow2soul wrote: »I'm set at 1.5 lbs per week. I thought about lowering it to 1 lbs a week, but then I don't want to end up eating more .In other words, I'm torn between fear of eating more if I allow myself to take more calories in and the constant guilt of always being over 1300.
Funny thing is, I'm still loosing more than 1.5 lbs a week even if I'm over 1300 calories a day? Confusing...
Maybe your activity level is set to low.
Yeah, this is common. I changed mine to lightly active.0 -
"whatever I do" for me means eating small and healthy portions and also means trying really hard to cut carbs and increase protein.
If I reach my 1300 limit by late afternoon, I can not NOT have dinner, because I feel bad when I do: I may have a slight blood sugar regulation problem that if I don't eat every 4 hours I feel terrible.
Okay - not sure about this. If you have a blood sugar regulation problem, cutting carbs too severely may not be in your best interest. Ask your doctor or a licensed dietician about this. Carb cutting does very little for weight loss anyway, but if your doctor has advised this, then that's a lot different.
If you listen to anything on these boards, recognize this one fact: Any weight loss plan you choose has to be sustainable. If you can't live on 1300 calories, then that deficit is not for you. If 1500 calories will continue to net you losses, then there is nothing wrong with upping your total. There's nothing to feel guilty about if you're losing.
My Fitness Pal is not a doctor or a dietician - it's a computer program. If you input certain perameters, it'll give you a guideline to work from, but it does this without knowing you and what your body needs. If you're honestly starving, then listen to your body before you listen to MFP.0 -
Check out this calculator: http://iifym.com/iifym-calculator/
You can change your goals on MFP to reflect the results you get from the calculator but remember to set exercise calories to 1 on MFP to avoid eating too much as your exercise calories will already be included in the IIFYM calculations.0 -
SherryTeach wrote: »Experiment with the settings. If you have a "two pound a week" setting, change that to .5 pounds per week. You will get more calories and it will be sustainable. As for "whatever I do, I'm always around 1500," what does that mean? When I think of "whatever I do" in this context, it means stop eating when you reach your calorie allotment.
"whatever I do" for me means eating small and healthy portions and also means trying really hard to cut carbs and increase protein.
If I reach my 1300 limit by late afternoon, I can not NOT have dinner, because I feel bad when I do: I may have a slight blood sugar regulation problem that if I don't eat every 4 hours I feel terrible.
I eat every three hours
gothicfires had some good suggestions on meals that will sustain you.
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My settings are to lose 1lb per week and I find that if I'm religious and stick to it I can lose up to 2 lbs a week sometimes! As long as you are at a deficit for the week you should lose. Maybe try calculating your BMR and seeing how many calories your body needs in a day. For example, my BMR is about 1800 calories a day and I eat anywhere between 1450 and 1660. It isn't a vast difference but it's effective!
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Given that OP has said she is losing MORE than 1.5 lb/week at what she's eating now (1500), and she's barely even overweight (BMI of 25.7), I'm not sure why anyone would tell her she's eating too much or that she needs to change things so she can eat 1300. Seems to me that she may find 1300 difficult because that's far too aggressive for her.
OP, I think you need to work on this:I'm torn between fear of eating more if I allow myself to take more calories in and the constant guilt of always being over 1300.
What's the magic of 1300? If it makes you feel guilty to be over your goal, change the goal. Manually put in 1500, since you are doing well on that, change 1.5 lb to 1 lb (especially since you will likely exceed it), change your activity level to lightly active if you are at sedentary, stuff like that.0 -
For one, how much are you trying to lose and how overweight are you? If you don't have a lot to lose but yet have your weight loss goals set too aggressively (trying to lose weight faster than you should) the app could have your calorie goal set pretty low making it hard for you to stick to. That may not be the case, but just a thought.
Also, if you are new to calorie restriction you will take some time to get used to consuming less food. You will be slightly hungry at times eating at a deficit. The trick is using your calories for more filling foods. Foods high in protein help. I personally liked snacking on almonds to help me fill up, or even protein snack bars (not the meal replacement ones).
I'm trying to loose about 15 lbs. I don't know how overweight I am, that's another confusing thing: I'm 41, 5' 7" and currently 164 lbs. Some websites say I have to be maximum 136 lbs, but the last time I was 136 lbs I was 15 years old!
Erm, no. I am 5 foot 4.5 and my max for healthy is around 145-150, depending on the website. So there's NO way that your max for a healthy weight range is 136. Your healthy weight range looks to be 118 to 160 for BMI, so knowing that is a good starting point.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »Given that OP has said she is losing MORE than 1.5 lb/week at what she's eating now (1500), and she's barely even overweight (BMI of 25.7), I'm not sure why anyone would tell her she's eating too much or that she needs to change things so she can eat 1300. Seems to me that she may find 1300 difficult because that's far too aggressive for her.
That comment was made based on 1) the title of her post and 2) the fact that she said she didn't eat dinner if she had x amount of calories before dinner.
There was a point in my life where I couldn't imagine surviving off that many calories either. But I now know that it is possible to consume more volume of food at 1200 calories then at 1500. It is possible to eat 1200 calories and not be hungry and it is possible to eat 1500 calories and be hungry. So if she wants to eat less than 1500 calories a day... it is doable. If she is consuming all her calories she allows herself before the evening then she is overeating earlier in the day.
Considering her diary isn't public, it's difficult to be specific with what she should do differently, if anything at all.0 -
gothicfires wrote: »There was a point in my life where I couldn't imagine surviving off that many calories either. But I now know that it is possible to consume more volume of food at 1200 calories then at 1500. It is possible to eat 1200 calories and not be hungry and it is possible to eat 1500 calories and be hungry.
It really depends. I happily ate 1250 or less for months, when I had lots of fat to lose, was less active than now, and 2 lb/week was a reasonable goal. I wasn't hungry at all. Now--when I'm more active, am almost at goal, and 2 lbs is not a reasonable goal--if I were to eat the same exact thing I was happy with before I would not be happy with it. The volume of food would still be high, but volume just isn't everything, and the calories would reflect too aggressive a cut given circumstances.
IMO, given her stats, the amount she has to lose, and the fact that she's losing over 1.5 lb at 1500 (so is likely more active than she thought), she's probably hungry not because she's eating wrong, but because she's eating too few calories.
Anyway, I see her asking whether eating 1500 is a problem. It's not.0 -
futuremanda wrote: »For one, how much are you trying to lose and how overweight are you? If you don't have a lot to lose but yet have your weight loss goals set too aggressively (trying to lose weight faster than you should) the app could have your calorie goal set pretty low making it hard for you to stick to. That may not be the case, but just a thought.
Also, if you are new to calorie restriction you will take some time to get used to consuming less food. You will be slightly hungry at times eating at a deficit. The trick is using your calories for more filling foods. Foods high in protein help. I personally liked snacking on almonds to help me fill up, or even protein snack bars (not the meal replacement ones).
I'm trying to loose about 15 lbs. I don't know how overweight I am, that's another confusing thing: I'm 41, 5' 7" and currently 164 lbs. Some websites say I have to be maximum 136 lbs, but the last time I was 136 lbs I was 15 years old!
Erm, no. I am 5 foot 4.5 and my max for healthy is around 145-150, depending on the website. So there's NO way that your max for a healthy weight range is 136. Your healthy weight range looks to be 118 to 160 for BMI, so knowing that is a good starting point.
So..if she weighs 164 she is overweight according to BMI?0 -
She's BMI 25.7. But the point that poster was making is that she certainly doesn't need to get to 136 to be a healthy weight. 136 is a healthy weight, of course, but so are higher weights if she feels more comfortable there (as her post suggested).0
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I must say I am happily overwhelmed with all the help and the information pouring in. I need to "study" them a little (don't know what BMI is) and get back to you all. Meanwhile THANK YOU ALL for taking time to write and to sincerely help. I didn't realize how helpful this website can be with this community aspect.0
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Body Mass Index... Got it... I really AM a beginner in this, obviously
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