Calorie Deficit - Not Eating Enough? - Advice - Help?

sierrarasmussen

Hey all,

I've been on MFP for a a few years now on and off. At my thinnest (years ago in high school) I was 150-ish. I got there by barely eating/fasting/starving - (not a healthy way to do it I know but I was 16 and hated myself so what's a teenager to do).


I'm currently 25 years old, 6' 0" (female) and weigh in at 193 lbs.

When I started out almost three weeks ago now I was at 201 lbs - so in three weeks of tracking food (and eating so much healthier than I was) along with exercising 2x a week, I'm down roughly 8 pounds. For reference my goal weight is 160.


I have set my daily calorie goal at 1,500. I have my daily protein goal at 100g.

I've been more than reaching my daily protein goal. I'm normally between 100-140g of protein daily. However the last week or so my calorie intake has been kinda low between 1,100-1,300. I would hate to self sabotage myself by consuming too little, for the record, I am not doing this purposefully. I feel like 1,500 calories a day seems a bit of a reach for me to make with how much protein I am consuming because I generally feel full. On days I workout I do take in more (around 1,700) because I need the extra fuel and actually end up feeling hungry.

So should I take in less protein and focus on more calories (that sounds dumb though) or should I just suck it up and incorporate little snacks throughout my day to get those added calories? I already do protein shakes, I normally have one every morning for breakfast with a hard boiled egg because I'm up at 0450 and eating anything big or heavy that early makes me absolutely sick.


My diary is public so feel free to check it out.
*I tracked my food/workouts via Samsung Health at the start then switched to MFP on/around the 11th or so. I still don't have most workouts logged in my diary (I use my Samsung Galaxy Watch to track them and while I have Samsung connected to MFP it does not load them into my diary for some reason? IE: if I want them in my diary I have to manually log them and most the time I don't because then it tracks two workouts in my Samsung app) - if anyone can help with that, that'd be great - I've tried disconnecting and reconnecting multiple times.

PAV8888

It is a "common" thing for people to start eating differently when trying to lose weight.
It is also not uncommon to have a time period of suppressed appetite when starting to eat at a deficit.

This is all good for the "weight loss" phase. But weight loss is not the goal. The goal is long term reduced weight maintenance and appropriate weight management--I would think for most people.

It does sound as if you've done a bang-up job of adding things you want to eat more frequently as opposed to concentrating on removing "evil" things. And letting a natural displacement of items you currently want to consume less off to take place.

But I would watch for "ratcheting" deficits--which does sound as if it may be happening. And would be consistent with previous more extreme patterns based on your description. Ratcheting tends to build up towards a nice rebound if/when things collapse, or when continuous attention wanes or changes focus because life happens.

It's a bit early on to tell if you're operating at too large of a deficit... but it does sound as if you're creating one that is much more than 25% or so of your TDEE.

You should be able to get an estimate of your TDEE from your watch.
And an estimate of your caloric intake from MFP.
And an estimate of your weight change from a trending weight app.

Juxtaposing all three, and knowing that a weight change of 1lb represents approximately 3500 Calories, should give you a good idea as to how close to expected population averages you're individually tracking and allow you to target a deficit that is in 20% range of your actual (evidence based) TDEE. (Range: people with higher amounts of energy reserves tend to be able to create larger deficits but individuals vary. The 15% to 25% tends to be a range that works for many. But 10% and even 5% works for some. I tend to be leary of deficits that consistently exceed 25% though some people have achieved them and managed to maintain after)

Making long terms choices that you see yourself continuing to make for a good three+ years is probably a better strategy than making choices that will see you through the next three days, or months