Trouble staying at or below 1300 calories

Samantha972016

I need help/advice on how to stay at 1300 calories each day without feeling like I’m starving!! I work a lot of hours and can’t control when I am able to eat each day and I tend to eat late at night because of my job. My goal is set to only lose half a pound a week and I’m only 5’2” and weigh 137 pounds. I want to lose 9 pounds and I’m not in a hurry to do so but I am not seeing results at all!

tiptoethruthetulips

Are you eating back any exercise calories?

Did you set your weight loss profile to lose 1 or 2 lb per week? If set to 2lb per week, reduce to 1lb per week...see how many more calories per day.

Make sure you are eating sufficient foods that generally keep us satisfied for longer...protein, high fibre foods and some dairy.

Samantha972016

I have it set to only lose a half a pound a week. And yes right now I am eating back my exercise calories because if not I am always hungry. I try to eat foods that are healthier like fruits, veggies, oats, peanut butter. I eat a lot of chicken also. So I’m stumped at this point on how to stay full and only consume 1300 calories because for me that is not sustainable.

ecjim

how much are you loosing at 1300 cals? maybe increase it a bit. The MFP guidelines may not be correct for you

kimny72

Samantha972016 wrote: »

I have it set to only lose a half a pound a week. And yes right now I am eating back my exercise calories because if not I am always hungry. I try to eat foods that are healthier like fruits, veggies, oats, peanut butter. I eat a lot of chicken also. So I’m stumped at this point on how to stay full and only consume 1300 calories because for me that is not sustainable.

Well, you're supposed to eat back your exercise calories. That's why you're hungry when you don't

Based on your numbers, I'm assuming you set yourself as sedentary. Do you have a desk job? If not, you probably aren't sedentary either.

How long have you been eating at this level and struggling with hunger?

The last 10 lbs can take a long time. You just don't have any wiggle room. For me it took using a food scale for almost everything, focusing on increasing my day to day activity level to burn a few more calories, and still took me close to a year. Hang in there!

Samantha972016

Well see that’s the problem. I haven’t been able to stay at that amount of calories. I log everything I eat and I am always over. Yes I set myself as sedentary and I do sit for most of my day. I’m an athletic trainer so I watch more than I do physical activity. But I exercise (mostly cardio and a little body weight activity) everyday if I can. I started again trying to lose weight in December 2019. So I’ve been trying for the past three months yet I still can’t seem to budge the scales in my favor. I also recently quit smoking. And I know that’s playing a part in my weight loss.

Samantha972016

@ecjim I haven’t lost any because I haven’t been eating only the 1300. I always eat more than that.

kimny72

Start watching your macros. Typically, some combo of protein, fat, and/ or fiber help fill people up. If you are short of goal most days on one or more of those, try to get them up to goal and see if it helps.

Some people require volume to feel full. Try really loading up on low cal veggies that you can eat tons of for few calories

Avoid beverage calories if you aren't already.

Try eating at a different schedule if you can. Like skip breakfast so you can have a bigger dinner, or focus your cals on your meals and avoid snacking. Plan more cals at the time of day you struggle most with hunger, less at times you are busy.

If you have a day where you are able to stick to your calorie goal without hunger, really study what you ate that day to see if you can figure out why it worked.

I'm 5'4 and my original cal goal to lose 1/2 lb per week was 1350, and I just couldn't regularly stick to it. So some days I took a bunch of brisk walks and worked out to buy myself 150 extra calories, some days I gutted it out, and some days I ate at maintenance. So I lost 1 lb per month, which can easily hide behind water weight on the scale. It was frustating, but after 6 months or so I saw that the scale had inched down a bit. You just have to not depend on the scale to validate your efforts on a weekly basis, cause it won't!

deannalfisher

I have a hard time believing an athletic trainer is sedentary - even if you don’t workout with your clients you likely move more than you think - I’d switch to slightly active

Also with only 9lbs to move - it’s going to be very slow going and weight fluctuations may hide progrss

hlr1987

I also think you probably are a bit more active than you give yourself credit for. You say you are going over, I'm wondering if you're naturally ending up at maintenance calories - are you gaining weight at what you end up eating instead? If your weight is stable at that higher amount, why not work down to a lower number by reducing your eating window (but eating maintenance calories), or playing around with macros at the higher calorie amount to see if you find out what keeps you fuller for longer? I really feel for you though, I wouldn't want to have to cut down to that few calories.

Samantha972016

Thank you everyone for your input! I have some things I can try now and see if it helps! 🙂

AnnPT77

Another suggestion, as someone who's trying to drop a few more pounds ultra-slowly in year 4+ of maintenance: A half pound a week weight loss is really, really hard to see on the scale in between normal daily weight fluctuations (from water weight changes and digestive contents).

If you aren't already using one, a weight trending app may be a help. There's Libra for Android, Happy Scale for iOS, Trendweight with a free Fitbit account (you don't need a device), and others. You should be able to find a free one. Weigh daily, enter your weight. It will take a while (month, say) to get a valid trend line, but it should help you visualize whether slow loss is happening as planned.

The caveat is that these aren't some kind of magical crystal ball, it's just a statistical projection, so it can still be misleading. But it's better/clearer than looking at those daily ups/downs and trying to figure out what's going on.

(I've lost around 4 pounds in about the past 5 and a half months. It would've taken multiple months to see that it was working, without Libra. In maintenance, I tend to change the advanced settings, the smoothing and projection variables, to a longer time period. I don't know whether the other apps have similar settings.)