I'm awake a lot, so how do I account for that in calories?

tnthuynh

I'm awake a lot. I think I average 4 hours of sleep every 24 hours, which means I'm spreading the 1200 Calories over 20 hours on some days, while on others it's spread over 16 hours or so.

On days that I don't manage to sleep well, I'm really hungry because it feels like I'm not eating enough Calories. How do I adjust to that? If I'm really not eating enough Calories, how much should I eat?

RodaRose

How active in the hours that you are up?

ElizabethOakes2

Try using one of the BMR & TDEE calculators (iifym has one, as do several other sites. I don't have the links on hand but I'm sure someone can post them) to figure out what your base metabolic rate is and what your total daily expenditure is. Once you understand those two things, it's a lot easier to figure out how much you should be eating.
It helped for me to start at the top of my TDEE and then just cut out 100 daily calories per week until I was losing at a rate that I liked. Once you're logging everything, too, it's a lot easier to see where you can cut or make changes.

jklepack

I have days where I'm up 26 hours straight and was having a hard time adjusting as well. I starting having my iPhone track my steps and synced it with MyFitnessPal so I knew how much activity I was getting on those days. If I burn an extra 300 calories than the other days I give myself and extra 300 calories to eat. I adjust it depending on my activity level. I don't know if you have that option or something similar available but it's helped me.

jennifer_417

If at all possible, I really recommend you try to get more sleep. I know it can be tough to impossible at times, but if you can, it'll make a lot of things so much easier!
Having said that, I agree with @jklepack, that you ought to invest in some kind of activity tracker that will make automatic adjustments to your calorie goal according to how much you move around. I have a Fitbit One myself, but there are lots of devices out there!
Also, 1200 is just a really small amount of calories. Most people start with that because they plug into MFP that they want to lose 2 lbs per week, and that's the lowest it will go. I recommend that you up your daily calories some. Yes, you'll lose a bit slower, but it will help enormously in being able to sustain weight loss journey.

Orphia

Maybe get a fitness tracker with a heart-rate monitor, like a Fitbit Charge HR, that syncs with MFP.

That will measure your activity and give you extra calories for the day.