Hello... Not sure how I'm doing 😬

fatlady85

Hi everyone hope you're all doing well. This might sound bizarre but I'm not sure if I'm eating enough to lose weight.....
I'm tracking everything I eat which is 3 meals a day and fruit but I'm struggling to even reach 1000 calories a day. Anyone else managed OK with less than 1000 unintentionally? X

yirara

So you want to lose weight? That means you've overeaten consistently over years. Let me ask you one question: How come you can't eat enough now?

One good thing: No, eating too little doesn't stop weightloss. Think of underfed people in third world countries. They lose weight until they die
One bad thing: But eating too little is very, very bad for your body. Thus eat more.

goal06082021

Are you sure about the items you're logging? Are you measuring your servings in some way (food scale is recommended, but even cups and spoons is better than just eyeballing it)? Are you comparing the entry on MFP to the nutrition label in your hand, to ensure you're picking accurate entries? There's some wild crap hanging around in the database, if you aren't careful you could be undercounting significantly.

If your logging is accurate and you are in fact coming in sub-1k, though, then you should probably try to eat more. The average adult human body needs about 2000 calories per day - people and bodies vary widely (your age, height, weight, sex, activity level, and bodyfat% all influence that number independently of one another and to different degrees), so your actual needs could be significantly different from that average, but probably not less than half. Anyone trying to eat fewer than 1000 calories per day on purpose, especially with the goal of weight loss, needs to be under very close medical supervision, and transition as soon as possible to a more reasonable and sustainable way of eating.

pridesabtch

Add an apple and some peanut butter... Bam over 1200!

We all know how to eat excessively, now we need to learn to eat moderately. No need to be miserable to lose weight. Open your diary if you want advice on specifics. We can only guess at this point.

KobiHensley

I did the same thing, I was averaging 900 calories (not on purpose, I didn't plan well) and my weight didn't go down. I went up to 1,200 calories and I'm losing steadily.

I added two snacks and am eating a big breakfast which I never ate before.

TheSaladDodger83

Eat small portions, more often. Don’t eat after 6pm, keep a balanced diet of carbs and protein and don’t overfill on foods you think are healthy. Mix it up but keep the calories to 1500 a day as a minimum so your body’s metabolism ticks over nicely.
Eating less will reduce your metabolism and you’ll not lose the weight. The more active you are the faster your metabolism will become

springlering62

TheSaladDodger83 wrote: »

….Don’t eat after 6pm,

I’d be a howling witch if I didn’t eat after 6 pm, and I lost almost a hundred. Didn’t hold me back none.

LiveOnceBeHappy

springlering62 wrote: »

TheSaladDodger83 wrote: »

….Don’t eat after 6pm,

I’d be a howling witch if I didn’t eat after 6 pm, and I lost almost a hundred. Didn’t hold me back none.

Yep, I finished dinner just now at 7:30. Losing just fine. I don’t think weight loss cares about time of day.

AnnPT77

springlering62 wrote: »

TheSaladDodger83 wrote: »

….Don’t eat after 6pm,

I’d be a howling witch if I didn’t eat after 6 pm, and I lost almost a hundred. Didn’t hold me back none.

No kidding.

It's 12:06 AM, I'm eating dinner right now, and will probably go to bed within the hour (unless I have dessert). I've done stuff like this for the whole 7ish years since losing from obese to healthy weight, no problem managing my weight.

OP, you don't need to follow somebody else's rigid, arbitrary rules about when to eat or how many meals to have of what size. You can figure out what works best for you, when it comes to timing of eating - what's easiest for you to stick with.

Eating less than 1000 calories, though, assuming your logging is accurate? Not a good idea unless you're super tiny, old, inactive. Maybe not even then! Not a good idea even if you feel energetic, not hungry. It'll catch up with you.

Undereating means you're not getting enough nutrition, increasing risks to your health, losing more than minimum muscle alongside fat loss . . . potentially some very bad things. You're not on a path of thriving.

Eat some peanut butter, an avocado, some extra dressing on your salad, a full-fat yogurt . . . heck, have a treat of some kind. Getting enough calories is the basic foundation of nutrition. Of course, on top of that foundation, you want to get overall decent nutrition for health, but it won't hold up without the foundation of enough calories.

yirara

TheSaladDodger83 wrote: »

Don’t eat after 6pm

Tell this most of Southern Europe where dinners tend to be late. A lots later than this. Meal timing doesn't matter for weight loss.