Calorie Intake

thewhipple12955

The app suggests I intake 2500 calories a day to maintain my weight (I can only manage 1900). I literally would be stuffing myself to get those calories in me even though I have a healthy appetite. Once I have deducted 600 calories from my daily workout does this mean I will be a skeleton in 6 months?.

cmriverside

This post is confusing to me so I'll say, set your Goals to "Maintain weight." Eat that amount. On days you do purposeful exercise, add that to the Exercise part. Eat that additional amount.

Log food for 4-6 weeks, see what happens. Adjust if needed.

I would guess that you're not logging food accurately if you are having trouble eating 1900. Or you've been trying to eat low-fat. Adding fats will increase your calories without adding that stuffed feeling.

sijomial

Are you trying to maintain weight after losing weight or gaining weight?

Tell people about yourself and make your diary public and the answer may well reveal itself.

AnnPT77

thewhipple12955 wrote: »

The app suggests I intake 2500 calories a day to maintain my weight (I can only manage 1900). I literally would be stuffing myself to get those calories in me even though I have a healthy appetite. Once I have deducted 600 calories from my daily workout does this mean I will be a skeleton in 6 months?.

If all those estimates are accurate, pretty much yes: In 6 months, eating 600 accurately-logged calories less daily than your actual maintenance calories, you would expect to lose another 28+ pounds, if I did the arithmetic correctly (. . . which sometimes I don't). I think it should be approximately ((600 calories a day times 7 days in a week times 4 weeks in a month times 6 months) divided by 3500 (rough number of calories in a pound of fat)).

If losing that much more weight ramps up adaptive thermogenesis to an extreme, maybe it'd be a little less - hard to know.

If that estimate of your maintenance calories is incorrect (possible) or your logging is less precise (don't know), then maybe not. That's where others' questions come in.

If you have experiential reasons to believe the 2500 is correct, consider the advice given here on MFP to so-called "hard gainers":

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10326769/are-you-a-hard-gainer-please-read#latest

If a person's lost weight, it's somewhat unusual to reach a point where they can't stop losing (most of us who've been materially overweight have some eating capacity), but it's possible, especially in situations where the person has changed their food choices or eating schedule (to something more sating for them) as part of weight loss.

thewhipple12955

Thanks for the comments. I do log very accurately. Somehow I will have to eat more but its not for not wanting. My cardio burns a lot of my calories and I suppose after losing a lot of weight (deliberately) I have become a little paranoid about my calorie intake. Thanks for the advice.

cwolfman13

You don't have to eat more volume. Stop "diet eating"...ie low calorie, high volume foods. Increase your dietary fat...it doesn't take much dietary fat to substantially increase your calorie consumption. Eat full fat everything.

rosiekin

thewhipple12955 wrote: »

Thanks for the comments. I do log very accurately. Somehow I will have to eat more but its not for not wanting. My cardio burns a lot of my calories and I suppose after losing a lot of weight (deliberately) I have become a little paranoid about my calorie intake. Thanks for the advice.

I think it's totally understandable to have concerns over increasing calorie intake after weight loss. However, IMO, that's more a mental battle, because as others have said, it's actually quite easy to add in extra calories (healthily) without adding a lot of volume. If you truly do want to stop losing weight, you'll have to be prepared to eat more, and believe in the maths.

To be honest, I'm struggling a bit with that myself just now. Through increased exercise (walking), I've dropped some weight and while I genuinely think I could do with putting on a few pounds, I'm finding that hard. It's definitely not because I couldn't physically eat more (I can always eat more!), it's because of the mental battle I'm having in my head. The latter is still a work in progress.

I've been maintaining a healthy weight for about 7 years, and this is the first real blip I've had, so overall I've been quite lucky in my own maintenance journey.

justanotherloser007

"rosiekin wrote: »

believe in the maths.

There is a certain amount of trust involved. I agree with all the "add oil" people. Switch back to high calorie options to the degree that is necessary. If you are struggling with "trust" issues, some have added back slowly i.e. +120 calories daily (this is usually 15ml of oil - olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil), and it isn't as difficult as you think. You don't have to add "fish and chips" weekly, but just one meal of that is a lot of oil per week. Maybe geek out on some oils, and how good for your heart some of them are! Make it fun. You are planning for a healthy lifetime.

I think increments could help with the trust issue. Once you see the maths is working, and it isn't as difficult as expected to add 1 tbsp of oil to food a day, then you can work out how you want that to look.