How the heck do you eat 1600 calories a day??
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Unless you're four feet tall, there's no way you can struggle to get over 1,200 calories per day and be overweight. You may not be measuring/logging accurately.15
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Be carefully you aren't conflating low calorie with healthy. People starting a diet often do. People tend to cut out perfectly healthy food because of calorie content. Just because something is low cal doesn't make it automatically healthy.
I often see people who can't reach their calorie goal using low fat or low calorie versions of food. You can easily add a few extra calories by going with the full version. Yogurt and other dairy, salad dressings are a couple of examples. Egg whites instead of the whole egg is another thing I see. Eat the whole egg.
Add some nuts or nut butter. Avocado. Olive oil. Etc.8 -
Wait until you get that food scale. I was convinced I was eating 1,200 a day and then I found out how tiny 100g of ANYTHING actually is!! I was eating more than double what i thought I was eating.
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Hmmm, it makes me wonder how accurate is your logging... if you're overweight, there had to be a surplus somewhere to get there.7
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livingleanlivingclean wrote: »At some point you must have consumed excessive calories consistently to become overweight, it doesn't just happen by accident.
Have you completely changed your eating habits and food/drinks consumed since you started to try and lose weight?
Liquid drinks ( Starbucks, Soda ) were my downfall. Also, I was recently diagnosed with a debilitating disease. So exercise was none existent for the last year. I used to go all day without eating except for dinner. Or I would grab chips or something throughout the day. Dinner was my meal, and that consisted of a meat, veggie and starch. Now I only drink tea or water, no processed foods, and no unnatural sweets like candy and ect. So, someone whose never been an all day eater trying to do this right, and trying to eat 1600 calories a day is frustrating.1 -
livingleanlivingclean wrote: »At some point you must have consumed excessive calories consistently to become overweight, it doesn't just happen by accident.
Have you completely changed your eating habits and food/drinks consumed since you started to try and lose weight?
Liquid drinks ( Starbucks, Soda ) were my downfall. Also, I was recently diagnosed with a debilitating disease. So exercise was none existent for the last year. I used to go all day without eating except for dinner. Or I would grab chips or something throughout the day. Dinner was my meal, and that consisted of a meat, veggie and starch. Now I only drink tea or water, no processed foods, and no unnatural sweets like candy and ect. So, someone whose never been an all day eater trying to do this right, and trying to eat 1600 calories a day is frustrating.
My dinners routinely come in around 1600 calories.
Unless you have a medical prohibition, there's no reason to not have a large dinner. If IF is your habitual/Natural eating pattern, just go with it.1 -
livingleanlivingclean wrote: »At some point you must have consumed excessive calories consistently to become overweight, it doesn't just happen by accident.
Have you completely changed your eating habits and food/drinks consumed since you started to try and lose weight?
Liquid drinks ( Starbucks, Soda ) were my downfall. Also, I was recently diagnosed with a debilitating disease. So exercise was none existent for the last year. I used to go all day without eating except for dinner. Or I would grab chips or something throughout the day. Dinner was my meal, and that consisted of a meat, veggie and starch. Now I only drink tea or water, no processed foods, and no unnatural sweets like candy and ect. So, someone whose never been an all day eater trying to do this right, and trying to eat 1600 calories a day is frustrating.
I eat about the same calories in 1 large meal and 2 smaller meals (late lunch and dessert). It's not hard....0 -
I agree with mskimee. You can't really log your food accurately unless you weigh your food. Then when understand the right portions, you can adjust your intake to balance everything out1
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You ARE "an eater" or you would be dead.
In fact, you apparently eat more than your body needs often enough that you are carrying more body fat than necessary.
You are not tracking properly and consistently. It is CI:CO -math-.9 -
Eat more calorie dense foods.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10142490/a-list-of-calorie-dense-foods/p1
Start prelogging your food and you will see what will fit.
You don't have to avoid carbs, sugar, all processed foods or eat super low fat to have a healthy diet or lose weight. Weight loss is about calories not type of food.
You can find sample 1600 calorie meal plans online or look at other people's food diaries for ideas.
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I'm not an eater, but surprisingly I'm overweight. I struggle eating more than 1200 calories, and the days I workout I eat less than that. Didn't notice this trend until I started to track my calories. The only thing that I have time to cook is a quick dinner. Any suggestions on grab and go food that will pack a larger calorie count without all the sugar and carbs (gluten-free as well) ?
Nonsense. You didn't become overweight by struggling to eat more than 1200 calories. And if by some miracle you did, you will become more overweight if you eat 1600.
But to answer your question, foods higher fat will be higher in calories per volume. Nuts, nut butters, avocado, leave the skin on your chicken, cook your meals with butter or oil.12 -
It's ok to eat most or all of your calories at one meal. Just try to make sure that meal is relatively balanced. Some ways to add calories: Include a roll with butter, or a glass of milk. If it's too hard to get 1600 in one meal then add another large snack or meal. A smoothie with milk and yogurt and fruit maybe some protein powder can easily be another 300 calories. Nuts are a good high calorie snack. Bananas have 100 calories each.1
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Same here. One of the key reasons I do IF. I can hold off starting to eat and do a filling protein smoothie mid day but come dinner......0 -
Likely when you get a food scale and start tracking more accurately you'll see that you are eating more than 1200 and maybe even more than 1600. Problem will likely solve itself with possibly a few minor tweaks to your eating.7
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Fats are healthy
. Cook your veggies with olive oil or butter, add some avocado, eat more meat! Based on your descriptions that you tended to grab sugar loaded drinks in the past, and tended not to eat much food until dinner time, why not replace those sugary coffee drinks with a better version? Make a coffee protein powder smoothie for the morning to get a few hundred calories. It keeps your habits mostly intact for now, just in a "healthier" way. As time goes on, you may want to adjust, but that might be an easy place to start.
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I'm starving on 1600 calories4
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Ozeri Digital Scale is a really good one and less than 13 bucks.
Here's a typical day for me when I was doing 1600
Breakfast - Whole wheat english muffin (110 cal), Large Egg (70), cheese (50), 1/4 avocado (50) served with half an apple (350 total)
Lunch - Flatbread wrap (100), 2 tbsps peanut butter (190), 2 tbsps dried cranberries (70) (360 total)
Snack - 1 cup Nonfat greek yogurt (120 cal), 1 tbsp peanut butter (90), 2 tbsps walnuts (90), 100 grams strawberries (30) (330 total)
Dinner - Pork Tenderloin 4 oz (120), kale (30), roasted potatoes with peppers & onions (110), roasted brussel sprouts (60), 1 tbsp olive oil (120) (440 total)
Dessert - Sea Salt Caramel Halo Top (80)
Total for the day - 1560
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livingleanlivingclean wrote: »
Who said you had to only eat "healthy" food? What do you think "healthy" means?
There are plenty of calorie dense "healthy" foods (in my opinion of healthy) if that's all you want to eat.
This^
Ask 20 people what "healthy" is and you get 20 definitions. Should you try to improve your eating habits? Yes. Do your eating habits need to be perfect? Absolutely not.
Meet protein and fat goals. Try to get a decent amount of fiber. All things in moderation helps you learn portion control for all foods....not just "diet" foods.5
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