Hardly ever reach calorie goal.

MABMomma

I'm 26, 5'4, & set to eat 1510 a day. I'm aiming to lose 2 lbs a week. I've been losing fine however, I feel satiated LONG before I hit my calorie allotment. I really noticed it today more than others. I feel like I ate a TON of food however, I'm almost 300 short. I also rarely eat back my calories earned from exercise.

Should I keep doing things the same? Am I truly eating too little?

My diary is open, go take a look.

3dogsrunning

Your diary is not open.

How are you measuring your food?

MABMomma

Sorry It is now.

I measure my food using cups & a scale.

3bambi3

Add some calorie dense foods. Avocado, olive oil, peanut butter, actual butter, full fat dairy. There's a whole delicious world out there.

3dogsrunning

MABMomma wrote: »

Sorry It is now.

I measure my food using cups & a scale.

Thanks.

A lot of entries look like they are measured with cups. Your pasta, for instance. Pasta is calorie dense. Ideally you want to measure by weight pre-cooked.
Your entry for ground turkey and pasta sauce is questionable as well. That seems awful low calories but it's hard to say without knowing how much ground turkey went into it.

My coffee with just cream is 70 calories. Your coffee with cream and sugar is 60. Is that your own entry with your own cream measurement? Or a generic one?

Basically, it comes down to how accurate your logging is. It is hard for me to say from looking. Some of these may be your own entries/recipes. But if they aren't, I'd take a closer look at logging, then decide you are eating too little or not.

MABMomma

Thank ladies! I'll look into it further & decide what the hell is going on.

emmycantbemeeko

Most of your measurements are in cups, not by weight. Some of the volumetric measurements are for very calorie-dense foods like pasta- those can easily be off by hundreds of calories. It's highly likely that in measuring by volume, you're eating more calories than you think you are. I'm not being critical of that- I don't weigh my food currently, as I've lost at a pace I'm comfortable with using the more imprecise volume measurements. But I know my calories are probably not 100% accurate, and when I feel stuffed at well below my TDEE, as sometimes happen, I attribute that to my own measuring errors.

If you're overweight, at some point you were able to comfortably eat much more than 1500 calories a day. While making more nutritious food choices and practicing mindfulness can help with satiety, it's unusual for someone of average height who has previously been overeating to be suddenly full by 1200 calories very often. Which suggests that you're probably actually eating more than that, and before forcing yourself to eat more, you might want to investigate using a scale to log more accurately, or you might find yourself unintentionally eating well over your calorie target.

shadowfax_c11

Well since your weight loss is fine I would just go with it. The past few days I have been closing out with 3-400 calories left as well. I just felt satisfied with what I had eaten and I see no reason to force myself to eat when don't feel hungry. That's how I got this heavy to begin with. And then today I was hungry and went a little over. It all balances out. The only thing I would say is make sure you are netting at least 1200 calories just for the sake of good health.

rileysowner

My observations are much the same. The tablespoon of peanut butter at 45 calories seems really low. I have not seen a peanut butter that is less that 90ish calories for a tablespoon, and because it is a ground up solid, tablespoons are not very accurate measures. I have never had a tablespoon of peanut butter that comes out to the amount of grams it is supposed to be. It is always more. With that in mind, if you are satisfied with how you are losing weight, stick to doing things the way you are, but realize if your loss stalls, there is a fair amount of room to tighten up your logging either in measuring portions or in verifying the food you log is matching the information in the database.

firephoenix8

I had a few days a couple weeks ago where I couldn't convince myself to eat at all. The last few I want to eat all the things. Bodies are weird. If you aren't having trouble losing, I wouldn't worry about it.

I haven't formally tracked it, but I'm fairly sure my appetite fluctuations are timed closely with my cycle, which is something else to consider.

emmycantbemeeko

kimyrachel wrote: »

I think you are definitely not eating enough. Calories are not all the same, maybe try to increase your calorie intake but with healthy food. What I mean here is to Minimize meat and dairy products as much as possible. Hope this helped!

What?

Calories are, for weight gain/loss purposes, all the same. Yes, macro changes affect overall health over time and satiety immediately, but excess "healthy" food causes weight gain the same as a donut.

There is nothing inherently unhealthy about meat or dairy products (and I say this as a non-meat-eater of 20 years).

There is no way to "definitely" say the OP is not eating enough when her logging shows an obvious margin of error, nor any reason to suggest she restrict entire categories of food.

chandanista

When I am 100% certain of my logging and see I have 300 calories, I treat myself to a blended ice cream shake with added vanilla protein. The ice cream feels like a huge treat and the protein is a little something extra for my macros (I'd rather be over on that than the others lol).

I've also chilled coffee and blended it with ice cream. Cause you know, caffeine and stuff.