Does it get easier?
Fujigala
Posts: 34 Member
I am wondering if I will start feeling better on my diet as I continue being consistent.
I have tracked my calories before I reduced them and found out that I eat 2300 calories a day when I'm maintaining my weight. Now I went ahead and reduced my calories to 1800 a day. I eat four meals of 450kcal a day, at roughly 4h intervals. This works for my schedule. My meals contain a lot of raw fruits and vegetables, beans, boiled eggs, a few nuts and peanut butter, chicken. In short, I eat super healthy and have all my macros covered.
Now, my energy goes up and down. Overall, I think I have less energy and a harder time to focus. This is not that far from my normal energy, but I am wondering if I will feel like myself again before I lose 10lbs to fit into my summer dresses again.
What I have noticed so far is that I enjoy watching TV more and am less interested in exercising. Please, tell me how you felt on a reduced calorie diet.
33yo
155lbs
I have tracked my calories before I reduced them and found out that I eat 2300 calories a day when I'm maintaining my weight. Now I went ahead and reduced my calories to 1800 a day. I eat four meals of 450kcal a day, at roughly 4h intervals. This works for my schedule. My meals contain a lot of raw fruits and vegetables, beans, boiled eggs, a few nuts and peanut butter, chicken. In short, I eat super healthy and have all my macros covered.
Now, my energy goes up and down. Overall, I think I have less energy and a harder time to focus. This is not that far from my normal energy, but I am wondering if I will feel like myself again before I lose 10lbs to fit into my summer dresses again.
What I have noticed so far is that I enjoy watching TV more and am less interested in exercising. Please, tell me how you felt on a reduced calorie diet.
33yo
155lbs
0
Replies
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Hmmm. Sounds like you may want to invest in a B12 supplement along with your great meal plan. We all think that if we get on a healthy diet kick that we will begin to gain energy but sometimes our daily lives demand a little extra boost to help us get through our day(s) that is not caffeine fueled. Consider it.1
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How tall are you and what's your goal weight? If you have less than 20 pounds to lose, go for just a half pound per week weight loss goal and do eat back at least half of the calories you earn from exercise.
MFP uses the NEAT method (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis), and as such this system is designed for exercise calories to be eaten back. However, many consider the burns given by MFP to be inflated and only eat a percentage, such as 50%, back.
My FitBit One is far less generous with calories than the MFP database and I comfortably eat 100% of the calories I earn from it back.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/818082/exercise-calories-again-wtf/p13 -
Your meal planning will take regular tweaking, you may need to play with your macros and add more fat or protein. It's much easier once you've figured out what works for you. It shouldn't feel like torture.1
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How tall are you? 500 cals is a large deficit. Do you work out also? What do you do with calories earned from that, if you do so?1
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I am usually active with walks and hikes on the weekends and I used to lift for 20-30 min 4 or 5 times a week. Heavy weights. I never logged my activities and that's how I came up with 2300 a day with my usual activities. Now that I'm on 1800 calories I don't feel like hiking or lighting. Will I get used to the less calories and resume my usual activities? What has been everyone else's experience.
I am 5'5".0 -
Maybe you should try eating back 50-75% of your specific exercise calories, now that you are at 1800.I am usually active with walks and hikes on the weekends and I used to lift for 20-30 min 4 or 5 times a week. Heavy weights. I never logged my activities and that's how I came up with 2300 a day with my usual activities. Now that I'm on 1800 calories I don't feel like hiking or lighting. Will I get used to the less calories and resume my usual activities? What has been everyone else's experience.
I am 5'5".
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You can look into your breakdown of protein, carbs per meal throughout the day. You can also tweak your ratio, as far as protein, carbs, fat, along with fiber, water, sodium, etc. Good luck.0
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I appreciate all the comments, however instead of getting suggestions I was hoping for stories on how everyone else is doing on their diet, whether they had more or less energy.0
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I appreciate all the comments, however instead of getting suggestions I was hoping for stories on how everyone else is doing on their diet, whether they had more or less energy.
my energy is better now that I've figure out what food works for me. In the beginning I'd have days where I was just feeling famished, but then things settled down and I'm rarely hungry unless I diverge from my meal planning and 'got to' foods.0 -
What are your go to foods?0
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I haven't really noticed a big difference overall but I definitely find it easier to recover from workouts when my calories are higher.0
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It's difficult to express "I've been doing great while losing weight" and not at the same time mention what we perceive as you doing differently. So I feel an urge to say that "super healthy" often means restricted and potentilly nutritionally poor, whereas a truly healthy diet is varied and not cutting out any foods. But I can tell you that I didn't need time to "adjust" to my new diet, I just reduced quantity and improved quality of food intake, and I felt good, more energetic and satisified the whole time.3
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I think the first week of a calorie deficit is the worst. It usually gets easier for me after making it through the week. There is not so fun days here and there but once things become routine it seems to go fine. This is assuming I do not have too steep of a calorie deficit.
You may just have to play around what works best for you. Maybe it would work better to have 2 of those meals a little smaller so you can have more calories for when you are your hungriest. Or maybe try getting more protein and fiber- many people find that increases fullness. Or try reducing the amount of fruit you are consuming and look for slow digesting carbohydrates instead.
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I didn't think this would happen, but yes it gets easier to eat differently and smaller portions.
I began July 2015. By the spring of 2016 I had lost 65 pounds. After about two months of restricting what and how much I ate, I found I wasn't craving anything. I know I have to be strict about the variety of my food. If I get too adventurous or change up my meals too drastically, I'm craving again.
I maintained until mid October, and since then I gained about 10. Reason? I was starving due adding resistance training and running to my walking and elliptical routine. I think some was muscle, but I'm paranoid about being fluffy again, so the past two weeks I've cut back calories using MFP goal of losing 1 pound a week. It's not as difficult as I had thought it would be to get back to cutting..... the scale was down 2 pounds this morning. Can't say my pants fit looser yet, but my mind is more at ease.
So. Yes, it gets easier. I had to figure out what tricks/ routines work for me. You'll need to do the same for your own circumstance. Just be sure as the poster above me says, eat plenty of protein and fiber. My go to were Greek yogurt, steel cut oats and hard boiled eggs. I cut out breads and other cereals for months because they were trigger foods got me. As you find yourself dropping inches and weight and begin to feel stronger, your resolve will strengthen. Good luck!1 -
I have find the last 1/4 of this journey to be the hardest, by far, but the upside is, because every pound off now is a bigger percentage of my total weight than before, I feel like it's mitre noticeable. So where five pounds off, at the start, wasn't visible to the naked eye, it makes a big difference now, too how my clothes fit, etc.1
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It sounds like your food choices are spot on. I notice that when I start exercising, especially in the morning, I get an energy boost. When I'm just focused on the food portion, I too feel the call of the couch.
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Thank you for the replies. I started this diet about three weeks ago. During the week I would stick to my calories and on the weekends I wouldn't. Once the weekend was over, it was so hard to start over every time. Now I'm saying enough is enough and I am dieting through my weekends in hope that the saying is right: it is easier to stay on a diet than start a diet.0
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Thank you for the replies. I started this diet about three weeks ago. During the week I would stick to my calories and on the weekends I wouldn't. Once the weekend was over, it was so hard to start over every time. Now I'm saying enough is enough and I am dieting through my weekends in hope that the saying is right: it is easier to stay on a diet than start a diet.
You are using the words "diet" and "dieting" a lot in this thread. That makes me concerned about your mindset and long-term success.
I do not mean this in a bad way, I just would encourage you to shift your focus. Creating a deficit can be tricky because we are all different in what combinations of macros within our calories gives us the feeling of satiety. You may need to adjust those to figure out what works for you. Ultimately what will give you the most success is changing your habits and your entire relationship with food. Your changes need to be something you can live with for a long time after your weight loss has reached its goal. Meaning being constantly aware of how many calories are going in, how many your are burning and keeping watch on what's happening in your body.
If you need a "cheat day" every once in awhile, you shouldn't worry about it. You're going to have times that won't fit your regular days. For me, a cheat day generally means I wipe out my deficit, but rarely means that I overeat enough to gain any weight. (I'd have to overeat by 3500 calories above normal, meaning I'd have to consume nearly 6000 to gain a pound).
If your deficit is 1000 and you feel miserable, reduce it to 500 and see what happens. You may find that once you get used to that, you can increase the deficit again. [ETA - I see you are already at -500, I would go back to looking at the macros and seeing what works best].
In any case, you have to do what you can stick with, and through enough experimentation, you can find what works for you.2 -
I think it takes time to find what works for you, so experimenting with different approaches is a good idea. For myself, I've realised that I need to try different things because I get bored with the monotony of the same approach after a few months. For a while I was doing the 5:2 diet which was great but after a while I stopped for no real reason other than I was fed up of it. But I may go back to it at some point as I know it works for me. At the moment I'm just aiming to eat under my TDEE. I'm thinking of trying One Meal A Day. In other words - I'm still looking for what works for me =D
So yes, this is hard, but yes I think it does get easier, but it takes a bit of time to find what suits you best.0 -
I appreciate all the comments, however instead of getting suggestions I was hoping for stories on how everyone else is doing on their diet, whether they had more or less energy.
I was getting a good laugh at the suggestions. It sounds like you've got the "how" figured out, so it seemed funny to me that people were still regurgitating the same advice they give to everyone.
My experience was that I was a little off the whole time I was trying to lose weight. I was hungry much of the time, but I learned to embrace that as a reminder that my body was getting its energy from stored fat. I didn't have so much of a problem with wanting to watch more TV instead of exercise. Exercise was how I made sure that I could eat more and stay near my goal.0 -
Try cutting your deficit to 250 calories instead of 500 calories. Force yourself to exercise for a few days and eat back half of the those calories. See if that doesn't help the energy. I had to play around with my deficit in the beginning. -500 was too steep for me when I was starting to heavy lift and workout. Once I had a good routine going I was able to cut 500 calories easier. And I still bounce back and forth between -250 and -500 depending on how I'm feeling. Exercise also begets energy so it may take a combination of lowering your deficit (ie. eating more calories) and adding in your workouts (even when you don't feel like it) to get that balance. I also make sure to eat back my exercise calories. I do not feel good without doing that.0
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Yes and no.
Yes it gets easier in you learn what foods fill you up and which do not. You also find some fun extra movement.
No it doesn't because I have this side of me that would like to be a sloth eating potato chips cheese and chocolate washed down with beer every night.
However the longer you keep a habit the more that becomes just what you do.3 -
At first it got easier, but now it's getting harder. If that makes sense. Weight loss was so easy in the beginning. Now it's like I'm in a war of attrition with myself.
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I appreciate all the comments, however instead of getting suggestions I was hoping for stories on how everyone else is doing on their diet, whether they had more or less energy.
If I didn't eat back at least half of my exercise calories, I wouldn't have the energy to exercise, which is why I asked if you are eating the calories you have earned from exercise.
I have more energy now that what I did when I exercised less and ate more.
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TimothyFish wrote: »I appreciate all the comments, however instead of getting suggestions I was hoping for stories on how everyone else is doing on their diet, whether they had more or less energy.
I was getting a good laugh at the suggestions. It sounds like you've got the "how" figured out, so it seemed funny to me that people were still regurgitating the same advice they give to everyone.
My experience was that I was a little off the whole time I was trying to lose weight. I was hungry much of the time, but I learned to embrace that as a reminder that my body was getting its energy from stored fat. I didn't have so much of a problem with wanting to watch more TV instead of exercise. Exercise was how I made sure that I could eat more and stay near my goal.
When people don't have energy that means something is wrong. Could be they are not eating enough, could be thyroid, could be a deficiency in iron, vitamin B, vitamin D, etc. On a calorie counting site the first logical answer is not eating enough, hence the questions to see what the OP is doing.1 -
I appreciate all the comments, however instead of getting suggestions I was hoping for stories on how everyone else is doing on their diet, whether they had more or less energy.
I did alternate day IF for my active weight loss phase so my energy changed, based on where I was at in my IF rotation.
Now that I'm several years into maintenance I'm doing a 'casual' short term weight loss phase, to get rid of winter 'fluff' and I'm aiming for 1,300-1,500 calories a day (just straight up calorie counting). Since I'm already a lower weight, (current bmi is around a 20), I'm aiming for .5lb a week loss. No changes in energy with the reduced calories and because of the kinds of foods I eat I feel pretty stuffed all day. Exercise wise I walk 4-5 times a week right now, for two miles a time (15 minute miles).0 -
Thank you for the replies. I started this diet about three weeks ago. During the week I would stick to my calories and on the weekends I wouldn't. Once the weekend was over, it was so hard to start over every time. Now I'm saying enough is enough and I am dieting through my weekends in hope that the saying is right: it is easier to stay on a diet than start a diet.
Do you still log everything you eat on the weekend? It's perfectly fine to give yourself more calories on the weekend. Maybe just target eating at maintenance for the weekend, which means you won't lose as fast but you also won't reverse your deficit from the week.1 -
Thank you for the replies. I started this diet about three weeks ago. During the week I would stick to my calories and on the weekends I wouldn't. Once the weekend was over, it was so hard to start over every time. Now I'm saying enough is enough and I am dieting through my weekends in hope that the saying is right: it is easier to stay on a diet than start a diet.
Do you still log everything you eat on the weekend? It's perfectly fine to give yourself more calories on the weekend. Maybe just target eating at maintenance for the weekend, which means you won't lose as fast but you also won't reverse your deficit from the week.
This is great advice-op maybe try it and see how it goes?2 -
crazyycatlady1 wrote: »Thank you for the replies. I started this diet about three weeks ago. During the week I would stick to my calories and on the weekends I wouldn't. Once the weekend was over, it was so hard to start over every time. Now I'm saying enough is enough and I am dieting through my weekends in hope that the saying is right: it is easier to stay on a diet than start a diet.
Do you still log everything you eat on the weekend? It's perfectly fine to give yourself more calories on the weekend. Maybe just target eating at maintenance for the weekend, which means you won't lose as fast but you also won't reverse your deficit from the week.
This is great advice-op maybe try it and see how it goes?
Give it a go, the really important part is to keep logging everything - integrity in your logging is the best way to build the self awareness needed for change.1
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