Eating too little?

tayusuki

Hi guys!! So I don't bother counting calories, I just eat when I'm hungry.

When I start logging everything though, my calorie count seems pretty low. I'd say in the 1000 range, but I'm not hungry.

I know that eating too little will damage your metabolism something fierce. I also don't know well enough how the calorie thing impacts people who consume a lot of fat (if there's a difference). I don't know if I should be worried or not! I don't know if it can be slowing the weight loss and so forth, but I'm not sure how much more I can really eat.

Suggestions?

bjwoodzy

What's your average meal look like? Like, what foods are you eating?

tayusuki

bjwoodzy wrote: »

What's your average meal look like? Like, what foods are you eating?

Usually have eggs and cheese of some sort with breakfast, and either bacon, cottage cheese, or tomato.

Other meals: double servings of veggies with butter, and then main dishes like salmon, meatloaf, stuffed bell peppers, chicken alfredo (minus pasta), meatballs, things like this.

I cook with or add butter, olive oil, and heavy cream to a lot of things. My fat content is pretty high.

bjwoodzy

Not sure how your fat content could be so high and your cals so low. Maybe start entering in your foods manually, or using the barcode scanner on the app? I haven't used it, but my meals average between 480-700 cals each, plus I have 100-200 cal snacks - which adds up to around ~1600 or so. If you're feeling good and losing weight, it's probably safe for you to just up your portions a bit.

I'm just skeptical of a lot of the data on the food database and I double-check everything. You could be intaking more cals than your diary is telling you - and anyway, once you get a good pattern going, cals are something that can fall by the wayside, as long as you are on top of your carbs/fats/protein intake. I have been going over on cals lately but hitting my macros everywhere else, and I set mine up to be at a 26% deficit to start.

See if your past diaries contain any questionable items - example: I had entered in some pepperoni once that someone decided was 6 g carbs for 8 slices - which, depending on the brand, sometimes processed meats can have a good bit of high-carb fillers and/or sugars in them...however, it was incorrectly entered by a user. Also, found an issue with a brand of eggs I buy locally. The Sparboe farms Grade A large eggs I would track into my breakfast were coming up as 3 g carbs EACH. I knew something was wrong and found the correct one, which was 0 g carbs per egg.

SuperCarLori

Aren't eggs one carb per?

bjwoodzy

0.6 g actually - according to USDA (oops, I'm trusting THE GUBMINT, LOL)

But let's see how we can help the o.p.

anewlifeat40

I find lately I come in around 900-1000 calories if I'm just eating to hunger... I add in some macadamia, almond, or pistachio nuts and cheese to up the calories a little and find it doesn't overfill me... That said, I have a lot of excess fat, so I'm not worried about it too much as my body has plenty of reserves to work from...

Have you read up on leptin at all? That might help reassure you...

tayusuki

I can't figure out how to upload a picture, but for example:

Breakfast and lunch, 14g carbs (tomato sauce and onion mostly) : 7%, 56g fat : 67%, and 48g protein: 26%. I'm not sure how off I am, but I probably need bigger portions not so sure. Oh. Total calories today is about 750.

Edit: 70g fat and 25g carbs to date. Checked the calories and will be 900. But this is about all I'll end up eating today too.

SuperCarLori

Make some luscious fat bombs, maybe?

LINIA

How tall are you OP and how much do you weigh?

tnevin225

I wouldn't worry about the calories. You got a good diet plan with whole natural foods and lots of good fat. Unless you start having some particular problem. If your feeling good,Eat when your hungry, I think you will be fine.

Sunny_Bunny_

How much weight do you have to lose? Your body has stored "food" available. Let it use the stored food while your appetite is so low. I mean, typically, the appetite responds to need. Now that you're not feeding your body hunger hormone triggering foods, it's recognizing that there is not as much need for consumed food because now it is ABLE to use the stored sources so well in the new low insulin environment.
Your body is working perfectly. It's doing exactly what it's supposed to do.
The low appetite WILL NOT last. As your storage gets lower, your body will respond by increasing hunger. When that happens, you need to respond by eating more, even if it means you eat at maintenance for a while so that your metabolism does stay healthy.
Following hunger signals is a very important thing to learn for lifelong health and weight management.

LINIA

@ttnevin225

I agree with your statement " If you're feeling fine ,eat when you're hungry, I think you will be fine."

I won't just force myself to chew & swallow food if i'm not hungry, i doubt it would even stay down.

My guess is the increased "fat" is leading to satiety.....and we are not eating all the low-level simple carbs to trigger an increased appetite.

SamandaIndia

I started on not being hungry low cal for 2 months but it ironed out. If I forget measurements on oil/ butter some days and that can mean under counting.

tayusuki

I'm 5', 155lbs. Trying to lose roughly 45lbs (mainly gonna go by how I feel, so give or take).

It seems like the general agreement is don't stress the calorie thing? c:

tayusuki

And basically just trust the hunger thing (so long as I'm following with good foods). Thirst will rarely be a problem cause I drink a lot of fluids.

Kobz27

Diet sounds like it's well balanced. If you're counting calories and it's really only 1000 or less and you're not hungry I wouldn't worry about it. Listen to your body.

cedarsidefarm

Listen to your body. If you are Not hungry don't force yourself. I did that at first thinking I had to have 3 full meals a day. It only made it difficult for me to tell when I was really hungry because I was eating by the clock and not by what my body wanted. When I caught on to eating based on my hunger, I started losing weight.