Am I eating too little

hmhill17

At my heaviest, I was 248. I got that down to 240 and sort of held there for a while. I started tracking with MyFitnessPal and walking every morning after the kids went to school.
My pipe dream is to hit 180 again. The app told me that for my goal of 1.5 pounds a week as a lightly active person (walking 20-30 minutes a day at that point), that my max out number calories was 2k a day. That's down to 1970 now. I've ranged from 1350 - 1870 a day over the last 10 days. Some of that was under reporting because I didn't actually measure the coffeemate before yesterday and wow I use a lot. Anyway, I've been spreading my calories out over a bunch of small meals/snacks a day. Lean protein, beans, veggies, cheese, almonds.
That being said, I'm pretty sure I'm not eating enough calories. With the 60 minutes of walking and elliptical I'm doing, am I going to do more damage if I don't get up to that 2k a day?

gothchiq

No, I think you're safe.

heybales

Undereating when you have a lot of fat to lose to healthy levels is less of problem to the body than when you are getting closer to healthy levels.

Because the body will adapt - shoot - even the study on the Biggest Loser group one year showed that you make the deficit big enough even a big body will adapt to burn less.

Honest setup is best bet for success.

Are you truly only Lightly-Active with the walking?
Or do you have family responsibilities (kids or pets too) that are taken care of even after a desk job type of day?
That would be Lightly-Active on it's own.
To add 1 hr of workout on top of that (MFP was designed for exercise to be added when done), would mean easily Active level (but then don't add workouts when done)

1.5 lbs weekly is reasonable if 30-50 lbs left to lose to healthy weight.
Is that true?
If less than that left - you will be creating bigger than desired deficit - so again eating too little.
15-30 left is best served with 1 lb weekly.

try2again

hmhill17 wrote: »

At my heaviest, I was 248. I got that down to 240 and sort of held there for a while. I started tracking with MyFitnessPal and walking every morning after the kids went to school.
My pipe dream is to hit 180 again. The app told me that for my goal of 1.5 pounds a week as a lightly active person (walking 20-30 minutes a day at that point), that my max out number calories was 2k a day. That's down to 1970 now. I've ranged from 1350 - 1870 a day over the last 10 days. Some of that was under reporting because I didn't actually measure the coffeemate before yesterday and wow I use a lot. Anyway, I've been spreading my calories out over a bunch of small meals/snacks a day. Lean protein, beans, veggies, cheese, almonds.
That being said, I'm pretty sure I'm not eating enough calories. With the 60 minutes of walking and elliptical I'm doing, am I going to do more damage if I don't get up to that 2k a day?

If you aren't weighing your food, I guarantee you that you're eating more calories than you think. That's not accusing you of anything... it's just that for many of us, when our weight loss slowed or stopped and we began using a food scale, it became evident that "measuring" and eyeballing weren't serving us well, often to the tune of several hundred additional calories.

Personally, I would re-evaluate your activity setting. MFP's activity settings don't include purposeful exercise, just normal daily activity. It's intended that you log exercise in as you go and you will have additional calories added to your day. Some set their activity setting to reflect exercise, but speaking for myself, as someone who is very sedentary outside of purposeful walking, that daily walk would not be enough to make a dent in my daily calorie allowance.

Generally speaking, the key is to be as accurate as possible, as consistently as possible, over many weeks, then your weekly average weight loss will tell the tale of where you stand and what adjustments you might need to make.

Edited to add: Just noticed the mention that you are up to 60 minutes walking and elliptical. If that's daily, it would be a more significant calorie burn, but personally, I would still want to track it separately.

lynn_glenmont

Since you admit to under reporting your calories, the best information to base a decision on would be your results. How much have lost over what period of time? (Also, what's your height?)

hmhill17

I am now weighing/measuring everything. The only thing I wasn't measuring at the beginning was my Coffeemate. I started measuring that last week and discovered how much I use. I have a couple recipes that I put in myself, so those I can't be sure of because when you select "pork loin" there are about 10 different entries with different numbers. I've started using the scan whenever possible on recipes.

I have kids, but they're old enough that I'm not chasing them around. Steps I take outside of the elliptical and the walking are rarely more than 2k. Granted that's based on the iPhone health app and I don't always carry my phone when I'm walking around the house. Dogs have a fenced yard so not walking them 4-5 times a day. I set up this account years ago and selected light activity because I walked around my office several times a day. I'm a lot more sedentary now.

I'm 5'10 and currently 233 according to my scale yesterday morning (after walk and shower but before food). I was at 238 18 days ago. I've probably averaged 1500 calories a day. My exercise started at 20 minutes of walking and now the walks are up to 35 minutes and I've added the elliptical over the last week so that I'm at 40 minutes (2 20 minute sets) a day. Elliptical has resistance bands that I use for rows and curls while I'm sitting, but I haven't figured out how to put that in the app yet and haven't built it up much.

try2again

hmhill17 wrote: »

I am now weighing/measuring everything. The only thing I wasn't measuring at the beginning was my Coffeemate. I started measuring that last week and discovered how much I use. I have a couple recipes that I put in myself, so those I can't be sure of because when you select "pork loin" there are about 10 different entries with different numbers. I've started using the scan whenever possible on recipes.

I have kids, but they're old enough that I'm not chasing them around. Steps I take outside of the elliptical and the walking are rarely more than 2k. Granted that's based on the iPhone health app and I don't always carry my phone when I'm walking around the house. Dogs have a fenced yard so not walking them 4-5 times a day. I set up this account years ago and selected light activity because I walked around my office several times a day. I'm a lot more sedentary now.

I'm 5'10 and currently 233 according to my scale yesterday morning (after walk and shower but before food). I was at 238 18 days ago. I've probably averaged 1500 calories a day. My exercise started at 20 minutes of walking and now the walks are up to 35 minutes and I've added the elliptical over the last week so that I'm at 40 minutes (2 20 minute sets) a day. Elliptical has resistance bands that I use for rows and curls while I'm sitting, but I haven't figured out how to put that in the app yet and haven't built it up much.

So you're losing about 1.5 lbs/week, which is perfect. Just keep an eye on that average weekly weight loss going forward.

For fresh meat, fruits, & vegetables, the best way to find good data is to use "USDA" in your search. For meat, you want it to be specific and include the state in which you weighed it (raw, boneless, roasted, etc). It sounds like you are familiar with the recipe builder? That's great, just check to make sure the entries it returns match your packaging (even when scanning labels), because bizarre or inaccurate results often pop up. Same with importing recipes, and you want to be careful here too and make sure it reflects the items/brands you actually used, which may or may not be what the recipe called for.

Definitely sounds like you should be set at sedentary and log your purposeful exercise. Be aware, however, that MFP's calorie burn figures are often inflated, so many choose not to eat all of those calories back.

hmhill17

The calorie count for my walks is lower than what my app says I burned so I stick to the lower. I've been using the general aerobic for my elliptical because it's seated, and the elliptical number seems really high. I was going to use stationary bike, but the general aerobic number is lower than most of the options for bike. Figure it's better to over report calorie intake and under report exercise.