Is my calorie deficit too low?

Jay9201

MommaGem2017 wrote: »

Okay, right off the bat I see mostly "generic" entries. You should either rely on the label that came with the food, or try to find a USDA entry.

"Homemade - Broccoli-Cauliflower Bake, 1 cup cooked" & "Homemade - Dahl Recipe, 1 cup" Did you make these yourself? Did you use the recipe builder? Homemade entries can fluctuate dramatically if you don't know how it was prepared. One of my friends uses an entire stick of butter in her mashed potatoes, I don't.

I see entries that are not weighed - "Homemade - Baked White Fish, 1 piece cooked" - how many grams or ounces was this?

"Asda Great Stuff - Apple, 1 Apple" - "Generic - Orange - Medium Size, 1 whole, fresh" These should be weighed, because grocery stores can tend to sell some enormous fruits. My recent nectarine purchase resulted in 110 calorie fruit.

What's USDA? I say generic for majority of my stuff because I can't find the brand when I scan the product. The Dahl yes I cook it myself ok noted I will weigh my fruits. So I could actually be eating around 200 calories extra.. interesting. Thank you all !

janejellyroll

Jay9201 wrote: »

What's USDA? I say generic for majority of my stuff because I can't find the brand when I scan the product. The Dahl yes I cook it myself ok noted I will weigh my fruits. So I could actually be eating around 200 calories extra.. interesting. Thank you all !

I understand that you may have cooked it yourself, but did you build that entry using the Recipe Builder? Or did you do a database search and choose someone else's entry?

When you're choosing someone else's entry, you have no idea what ingredients they are using. It could be very different from your recipe.

animatorswearbras

Ah seen your diary, lots of generic entries and cup measurements rather than digital scale measurements. You must weigh everything there is no such thing as a medium potato they can vary from 100g to 300g, and that 2oz of rice is the cooked calories not the dry calories and is reading very low.

As I said before you need to get the digital scales out and calculate your entire recipes from scratch, oil, stock, dry rice, dry lentils, uncooked meat and veg you should only be using the generic entries as a last resort (eg if you're eating out) and I usually go for the most calorific entry and add 20%. Take care. x

MommaGem2017

USDA - sorry! You might not be from the US, I just assumed. It stands for U.S. Department of Agriculture and they provide lists of the nutritional information of food. So if you search for the food in the MFP database, you can type "usda whitefish raw" and it's usually pretty accurate.

I love dahl - yummy! Do you use the Recipe Builder feature on MFP to enter in your ingredients and get a calorie count for your specific recipe?

jayemes

You're not logging accurately. Like MommaGem2017 said, 1 piece of cooked white fish isn't weighing everything with a scale.

I know you closed your diary again now, but on Saturday you had 1 ounce of lamb curry with rice for one meal. One ounce? I think one ounce would be one single tiny piece of lamb.

Everyone's telling you your problem is incorrect logging. Your problem is incorrect logging. You're not hurting anyone here if you continue. You're only hurting yourself.

animatorswearbras

Also don't add 200 more calories until you've tightened up your logging and weighing everything yourself, I very much suspect you're way over that 1208 already xxx

CharlieBeansmomTracey

Jay9201 wrote: »

MommaGem2017 wrote: »

Okay, right off the bat I see mostly "generic" entries. You should either rely on the label that came with the food, or try to find a USDA entry.

"Homemade - Broccoli-Cauliflower Bake, 1 cup cooked" & "Homemade - Dahl Recipe, 1 cup" Did you make these yourself? Did you use the recipe builder? Homemade entries can fluctuate dramatically if you don't know how it was prepared. One of my friends uses an entire stick of butter in her mashed potatoes, I don't.

I see entries that are not weighed - "Homemade - Baked White Fish, 1 piece cooked" - how many grams or ounces was this?

"Asda Great Stuff - Apple, 1 Apple" - "Generic - Orange - Medium Size, 1 whole, fresh" These should be weighed, because grocery stores can tend to sell some enormous fruits. My recent nectarine purchase resulted in 110 calorie fruit.

What's USDA? I say generic for majority of my stuff because I can't find the brand when I scan the product. The Dahl yes I cook it myself ok noted I will weigh my fruits. So I could actually be eating around 200 calories extra.. interesting. Thank you all !

you could actually be eating more than 200 extra. weigh everything in grams(if its a solid and semi solid) and all liquids in cups. also weigh all oils you may use as well. anything like rice,spaghetti,macaroni,etc need to be weighed dried before you cook it.

MegaMooseEsq

I am a little shorter and heavier than you (5'2", 185 lbs) and I lost about a pound a week over the last month at a net 1900 calories. There's nothing to be embarrassed about, but it is very likely that you are currently eating quite a bit more than you think you are. If the numbers are stressing you out, maybe try just to focus on your portions. If you aren't losing weight, you are eating too many calories, no matter what numbers you're using. It sounds like you're not hungry on your current portions, so maybe just cut down your portions wherever it makes sense to cut and see where you are in a couple of weeks.