Help! Under Cals and Struggling

KayceeSimone

Hey guys and gals,

I am really struggling to meet my Cals for the day. I'm being under by around 400. I have been eating decent amounts but don't know how to balance everything.

On a side note I have been starving my body for years and having a really unhealthy dinner so that's why I'm trying to lose weight but eat more and be more health conscious.

All advice wanted

kommodevaran

If you are overweight, you have been eating too many calories for a while. If you are overweight, your idea of normal amounts of food may be a bit skewed. To know exactly how much you are eating, you need to weigh it, find correct database entries for each item, and log that exact amount, and do that every time, not leaving anything out.

It's possible to be malnourished and overweight. You need good nutrition. You need to figure out what good nutrition is. You also need to figure out how you can eat healthily, consistently. Many people go from one extreme to another - from overeating anything, to restricting severely both quantity and quality, and neither of them are healthy.

A healthy diet is varied and balanced. Each day, eat enough of all you need, but not too much of anything. An easy way to do this, is to track your intake and hit your calorie goal. To do that and feel satisfied, you need to eat well. Prelogging and tracking macros (fat, protein, carbs) can help you eat well. If you grew up with home cooked meals, you can model your own meals after that. If not, imagine a plate divided into three, where one part is meat, fish, eggs or beans, one part is vegetables, and one part is starch. If you need to lose weight, the vegetable part should take up around half the plate, and the two others split the second half in two. If you want to maintain your weight, the three parts can be of equal size. If you want to gain weight, or are very active, the starch can take up half of your plate. This "plate model" is a simple rule to eat balanced, and it's useful both when you are cooking, and eating out. It is most suited for dinner, and maybe lunch if you eat a similar meal for lunch.

Other meals will look different, and there are a number of ways to get in all you need without eating too much, so you can pretty much eat as you want. For good nutrition, you will want to get in one to three pieces of (different) fruit each day, and some nuts several times per week, if you like that, and fish sometimes, and whole grains more often than refined grains. Treats like sweets and snacks, soda and ice cream are best left for special occasions, unless you can stop at one tiny serving.