I can't seem to eat all of my calories...

try2again · February 2018

skinnyjingbb wrote: »

I always set calorie Goal in MPL 200 lower than my actual goal. l When I started dieting 3 month ago, I set my goal at 1000 manually in MPL, I would sometimes log slightly under 1000 cal and get the warning, just ignore it, because I am eating around 1200 cal. Eyeballing can work if you are consistent in how you do it. I do this because I don't always cook myself. Although food scale is very useful.

Personally, I'd rather go the cheap & easy way of weighing my food so I don't get either shortchanged or blindsided. I want everything I've got coming, and want to know where adjustments need to be made if things aren't working.

kelisuj3593 · February 2018

Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »

You get so much better at all of it over time: weighing, measuring, and eyeballing, when necessary (e.g., at restaurants). Practice makes perfect.

My kit includes a scale, some tupperware bowls for weighing, and a set of cup and spoon measures just for me. I clean after every use so they are always available.

When I am cutting, I weigh most high-calorie-density foods (cheese, nuts, nut butters, meats, some carbs). I measure most oils in a tablespoon. I use a cup measure for certain carbs (cooked rice, pasta, potato). I eyeball or ignore low-calorie foods (salad greens).

Now that I am on maintenance and have been doing if for more than a year non-stop, I can eyeball almost everything and not gain weight.

I say all this to advise you to work hard for a month or two to get your habits established. If you get control of what you are eating, you will control your weight.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write that. Well said and good direction.

StevefromMichigan · February 2018

chelliz88 wrote: »

When I started MFP again on New Years, I realized that eyeballing does NOT work for me. I always thought that I was doing okay...until I was portioning. Then the weight started falling off.

Same here. As an example, I had a baked potato that I brought into work and ate with my lunch. I used an entry for a "medium" potato since I don't have a food scale at work. I had a similar sized potato at home today and weighed it...it was 3 times heavier than the 100g entry I used the day before! So, I mistakenly ate 220 calories more yesterday than I thought. Thankfully, I weigh almost everything, so 200 calories won't make much of a difference in the big picture, but you can see that by eyeballing and not weighing, a few inaccurate entries can add up to big time calorie errors.

Definitely get a good digital scale and I believe you will see better results. Most of the good ones will let you zero with the plate on the scale, making it easy to only weigh the food.

mom22dogs · February 2018

kelisuj3593 wrote: »

I'm new here so i'm not sure how to reply back to certain people. I completely see what you're saying about weighing/measuring my food. I will work on that. I'm keeping my diet very simple and only eating homemade, or fresh foods. I haven't put any recipes together so what I am eating is very simplistic. Chicken/salad/(and I do measure my dressing)/fish/fresh veggies/eggs. i have to do that in the beginning because I am a candy/crap food lover. So this eating healthy is probably a big shock to my system. I'm not a big "meal" eater so I'm used to having snacks. I have been typically eating egg whites or smoothie for breakfast/chicken and salad for lunch and then some type of fish/chicken and fresh veggie (steamed) for dinner. I will get a scale. But what happens if i'm still eating below the 1200 calories?

It doesn't matter how simple or complex your diet is. If you aren't accurately measuring and getting correct calorie counts, you can still eat way more calories than you think you are - I got fat eating healthy foods, not a lot of junk food. It comes down to portion sizes and the corresponding calories. I would bet you aren't eating under 1200 calories. Getting a scale is quite the eye-opener for most.

StevefromMichigan · February 2018

mom22dogs wrote: »

kelisuj3593 wrote: »

I'm new here so i'm not sure how to reply back to certain people. I completely see what you're saying about weighing/measuring my food. I will work on that. I'm keeping my diet very simple and only eating homemade, or fresh foods. I haven't put any recipes together so what I am eating is very simplistic. Chicken/salad/(and I do measure my dressing)/fish/fresh veggies/eggs. i have to do that in the beginning because I am a candy/crap food lover. So this eating healthy is probably a big shock to my system. I'm not a big "meal" eater so I'm used to having snacks. I have been typically eating egg whites or smoothie for breakfast/chicken and salad for lunch and then some type of fish/chicken and fresh veggie (steamed) for dinner. I will get a scale. But what happens if i'm still eating below the 1200 calories?

It doesn't matter how simple or complex your diet is. If you aren't accurately measuring and getting correct calorie counts, you can still eat way more calories than you think you are - I got fat eating healthy foods, not a lot of junk food. It comes down to portion sizes and the corresponding calories. I would bet you aren't eating under 1200 calories. Getting a scale is quite the eye-opener for most.

Yep.

skinnyjingbb · February 2018

try2again wrote: »

skinnyjingbb wrote: »

I always set calorie Goal in MPL 200 lower than my actual goal. l When I started dieting 3 month ago, I set my goal at 1000 manually in MPL, I would sometimes log slightly under 1000 cal and get the warning, just ignore it, because I am eating around 1200 cal. Eyeballing can work if you are consistent in how you do it. I do this because I don't always cook myself. Although food scale is very useful.

Personally, I'd rather go the cheap & easy way of weighing my food so I don't get either shortchanged or blindsided. I want everything I've got coming, and want to know where adjustments need to be made if things aren't working.

I love food scale too. I do weight my food when I am cooking myself, and portion out store brought item. I am not a very good cook so I went to my parents house for dinner a lot and eat out often too, so I had to eyeball the portion. It worked out fine I usually lose the amount weight that reflect my calorie intake.

kelisuj3593 · February 2018

Thank you all! I'm going to get a scale and let you know how I'm doing!!!

cwolfman13 · February 2018

kelisuj3593 wrote: »

I'm new here so i'm not sure how to reply back to certain people. I completely see what you're saying about weighing/measuring my food. I will work on that. I'm keeping my diet very simple and only eating homemade, or fresh foods. I haven't put any recipes together so what I am eating is very simplistic. Chicken/salad/(and I do measure my dressing)/fish/fresh veggies/eggs. i have to do that in the beginning because I am a candy/crap food lover. So this eating healthy is probably a big shock to my system. I'm not a big "meal" eater so I'm used to having snacks. I have been typically eating egg whites or smoothie for breakfast/chicken and salad for lunch and then some type of fish/chicken and fresh veggie (steamed) for dinner. I will get a scale. But what happens if i'm still eating below the 1200 calories?

I've been at this whole good livin' thing for over 5 years...I don't weigh much anymore outside of really calorie dense stuff or stuff that I have a hard time eyeballing (pasta, etc) and rice and other grains because I have to know how much water to use.

The scale was a pretty big eye opener...for example, I noted that a standard serving of chicken breast was 4 oz...I just assumed a chicken breast was 4 ounces...turns out the average chicken breast is 8 ounces plus...I was eating twice or more the amount of calories I was logging. Same for nuts...somewhere along the line someone told me a 1 ounce serving of nuts is a handful...well yeah, if you just put a few nuts in the palm of your hand it's a "handful"...I was easily eating 2-3x more calories than what I was actually logging.

Beyond that, another big issue is accuracy of the data base entry you're choosing. You need to vet the entry for accuracy. Most of the entries are user based and many of them are wildly off. Also, don't pick some generic entry for something you're making at home...like don't just select some "spaghetti bolognese" random entry from the database...that's someone else's recipe and you have no idea if it's remotely the same as yours.

If you're still below 1200 calories and not losing weight and you're being as accurate as possible, I'd pay a visit to the Dr...because pretty much anyone is going to lose weight on such few calories so a medical condition would be the only other thing I could think of.

ladyhusker39 · February 2018

Just to add to the great advice you've already gotten. It's very common when first starting to feel like you've got to go bananas with eating healthy and cut out the foods you love that you think are going to cause you to not lose weight. Although I applaud your commitment to improving the nutritional profile of your diet, don't go so crazy that you don't let yourself enjoy foods you love.

A really solid rule of thumb for long term success is to eat 80% healthy (and that in itself is a very debatable term) and 20% treats or things that maybe aren't so healthy. For you that would appear to be sweets. I'm the same way. I have sugary desserts, candy, etc every day. I'm down 35 lbs and maintaining successfully for several months now.

Stick with it and keep learning.

KrazyKrissyy · February 2018

Go by weekly calories, instead of daily.

kelisuj3593 · February 2018

ladyhusker39 wrote: »

Just to add to the great advice you've already gotten. It's very common when first starting to feel like you've got to go bananas with eating healthy and cut out the foods you love that you think are going to cause you to not lose weight. Although I applaud your commitment to improving the nutritional profile of your diet, don't go so crazy that you don't let yourself enjoy foods you love.

A really solid rule of thumb for long term success is to eat 80% healthy (and that in itself is a very debatable term) and 20% treats or things that maybe aren't so healthy. For you that would appear to be sweets. I'm the same way. I have sugary desserts, candy, etc every day. I'm down 35 lbs and maintaining successfully for several months now.

Stick with it and keep learning.

Thank you!!

lois1231 · February 2018

I agree eyeballing doesn't work. I did it with creamer and found out I was adding almost a cup of creamer to my coffee (yikes). After that I bought a scale. 3 tablespoons of creamer isn't much.