Feel like I have to starve to lose weight
I am almost 60, active (truly-I live in CO-lots of walking, hiking, gardening, and I do treadmill and strength training, too). I cook 95% of my meals (80% healthy). I am 5' 3.5" tall and weigh 150 (mostly around my belly). The only way I can lose anything is to limit my calories to 1000 per day (or less). I work in a medical field and know this is not healthy. I would really like to lose about 25 lbs and I find this frustrating. I would appreciate any suggestions. Thanks!
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How fast are you trying to lose weight?
Sometimes our expectations are unrealistically high. There’s a post elsewhere by a user complaining that they’re not losing 1.5-2 pounds a day.
That’s madness.
Most people here will tell you the last 20 are the hardest to lose. You’re very close to that already.
Make sure you’re setting a realistic loss goal. Towards the end, I was happy with half a pound a week or a pound a month. It takes a lot of whittling and accuracy to lose those last few pounds, so weighing accurately and logging every bite is critical.
So many of us tried “eyeballing” or guesstimating, only to realize in truth, we were eating a lot more than we thought.
And how long have you been trying to lose, using MFP? The first month or even two will be very yo-yo til you settle in, and til your body becomes accustomed to change.
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I have no specific time limit on losing the 25 pounds. I would be happy if I could lose it in the next year! Thank you for you suggestions!
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Also, I've been using diet trackers for years. So far I am liking MFP. It's simple compared to WW and Cronometer.
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There is a chance you’re eating more calories than you think - do you use a food scale and weigh absolutely everything? To use the old example, a “tablespoon” of peanut butter should be 15g. Yet if I actually grab a spoonful then weigh it, it will be closer to 45g - that’s a significant difference. I’m in the UK so we don’t use cups as measuring units, but I’ve seen a lot of US based posters on here saying cups are also really unreliable. The only way to be sure is using a digital scale and weighing every single bit of cooking oil, every taste when cooking, every bite, every gram of milk in your tea or coffee, every sweet (it’s amazing how many calories I can eat when I’ve only had “one or two” sweets a day), and you need to pick accurate food entries on MFP. It’s great that you eat healthily, but others on here will tell you that they were very overweight even on healthy food.
There are some outliers who need fewer calories - and if you are one, then picking a really slow rate of loss so that you can still consume adequate nutrients will be key.
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Thank you for your suggestions. I have recently starting paying attention to portions as that is the one thing I really haven't done. I don't feel like I go overboard with food, but as you say, "estimating" generally means eating more than you think! I will try actually measuring my portions to see if that helps. If that doesn't help, then actual weighing. Thanks, again!
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Yes, this! It's super difficult to burn enough calories to create a meaningful calorie deficit. The only way however to lose weight is to be in a calorie deficit. If you are active but eating at maintenance you won't lose weight. Be active because it's good for health, but also make sure you do have a calorie deficit. There's no reason to starve yourself. Be realistic, measure your food intake properly, eat enough to feel full and happy.
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i also recommend using a digital food scale for more accuracy.
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Besides carefully weighing or measuring everything you eat, pay attention to the data entries you use. They are user entered, and some are really off. Sometimes that is because the recipe for the product has changed (i.e. bread: my usual ww bread went from 100 calories a slice to 120 or even 130.) Some are also pretty vague: how big is a medium banana? Those extra calories add up. Also, if you are eating back your exercise calories, those may be inflated if you are getting the numbers from a machine or even from this site. Try eating back half the calories estimated for a while and see if that makes a difference.
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I assume you are a woman. I agree with the other replies. Also checkout this post menopause thread.
I included a reply in that thread with some conclusions I’ve made from research earlier this year.
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Here's a viewpoint to consider: Weighing isn't just more accurate than measuring, it's also quicker and easier once you know the tricks.
Yes, I could measure out a level tablespoon of peanut butter, scrape the top flat with a knife for measurement accuracy, scrape the peanut butter out of the spoon onto my Ezekiel pita, spread it with the knife, maybe lick the spoon and knife, then wash the spoon and knife.
Slightly more accurate, but much quicker and easier: Put the jar of peanut butter on the scale, take off the lid. Tare/zero the scale. Dip out some peanut butter with whatever you'll use to spread it. Read the negative number on the scale - that's the amount you took out. Log that. Then spread the PB, lick the utensil, and wash it.
I do that with things in chunks, too, like a hunk of cheese: Put it on the scale, zero, cut off an amount I want to eat, read/log the negative number.
Making a salad or sandwich: Put the plate on the scale. Zero. Put the bread on the plate. Log the weight, zero the scale. Put the mayo on the bread, log/zero. Put the cheese on the may, log/zero. And so forth. I do the same thing when putting ingredients in a pan that will all cook at once: Put the pan on the scale, add each item, log then zero.
A lot of people expect weighing to be more fussy and time-consuming. I think it's the opposite. Plus a scale costs less than a decent pizza.
If eyeballing/estimating works for a person, that's probably the least effort. If going for more precision, scale is less effort and more accurate than cups/spoons.
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hello, I am sending support your way! I feel the same way and it is a daily struggle. I drink a protein shake when I am feeling hungry and can’t afford anymore calories for the day. Or I grab a bowl of grapes. Not sure if it’s helpful but I am here with you ❤️
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as an aside, and as an American if the “OMG! metric?!!!” era, changing to metric has rocked my cooking world.
I was from the “a little more is always better” school of thought, so used heaping everything.
Metric is sooo much more accurate for cooking and baking, plus fewer implements to clean afterwards.
I threw out all my measuring cups and spoons.
It wasn’t hard to change at all, once I got down a few basic concepts.
Man, when I was in school, they made it seem so incredibly confusing and difficult. Now, meters, kilometers, I do struggle with those. Got into an argument with a bunch of Brits when we were eyeballing the size of a rug. They were trying to say that a room size rug was 1x2 meters, and I’m still calling BS on that one!
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If someone already said this, apologies.
1000 calories a day might be what you need if you were just sitting on the couch all day but if you have any kind of job at all or even if you are taking care of family or a house, that's not reasonable.
Enter your stats into the Goals. You have a job so choose an, "Activity Level," that seems reasonable. Don't choose, "Sedentary," that's not the truth. Choose, "Lose 1/2 pound per week." With 20 pounds to lose, that's about where you need to be.
Log your food. Use a food scale. Do that for a month. See how it goes. I'd bet my breakfast that you'll be given way more than 1000 as a base. If you exercise, eat more on those days by entering the exercise into the Exercise tab and eating whatever it tells you.
Here's the official explanation:
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I hear you. I'm under 5', 114 lbs, late 40s woman. Aiming to lose the last 4lbs to get much fitter and to my target weight before menopause hits and it gets even harder.
My TDEE, based on moderate exercise (1/2 hour cardio/weights 4 or 5 days a week, couple of 5k runs, 12,000 daily step goal) is 1540 cals per day, so to lose weight 0.5-1lb per week MFP puts my daily calories at 1200. If I do nothing apart from sit down, my tracker reckons I use around 800-1000 cals a day.
It is very hard as that doesn't seem like much at all. I've had to accept that's all my body needs, and if I want to eat more I have to move a lot more.
Saying no all the time to the extras that taller folk can have with no drama is hard. But as soon as I relax, the weight piles back on. I have lost a stone this year and I just don't want to keep piling it on then struggling to get rid of it again. If I want to stay a sensible weight, I have to log everything and be so careful. Urgh. I love food too :-(
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I've found losing weight as a petite girl (I'm 5 ft) is much much much slower than many people on here who are several inches taller experience. Unfortunately, we just have far less flexibility with our calories than taller people do. Yes, taller people get hungry too... but still, facts is facts... they can just eat more food than we can. Also, the smaller you are, the fewer calories exercise burns. So often the exercise burned estimates will be much more than we're actually burning.
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I don't intend to disagree with your main point when I say this, nor disagree that generically it's easy to over-estimate exercise calories.
Since people who are new here may not realize this, I want to point out that when someone manually types exercise into the MFP cardiovascular section, MFP is using their then-current body weight as recorded in the app as part of estimating those exercise calories. It's not assuming a big person and a small person burn the same number of calories doing the same exercise. The way it uses those numbers may not be perfect, but it isn't a method they made up, either. It's research based.
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i’m in the same boat. Reading the comments I realize I may be undercounting calories. I have a food scale & plan to use it more.
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definitely use a food scale for accuracy. but just wanted to add, for satiety, consider increasing your protein. if your meals contain a good amount of protein, say 40-50 grams per meal, you may feel much fuller. it can be a puzzle making that much protein fit your calories but it can be a game changer for feeling full.
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In my unprofessional opinion, if you are really eating healthy ( not processed foods) and moving a lot the 25 pounds might be heathy weight for you. Maybe do more yoga or pilates, an exercise that tones and makes you feel better about your body if you're not already doing that. ?
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Hello, wishing you well, weight loss is a tough and confusing journey for me too. I am active and prep healhy 80% of the time. I still became overweight for more than 10 years while I was only eating around 1100-1400 (5'1"). My highest was 143 lb at 49 y.o..
My body changed this year, more energy and less pains, I was able to jog/run again. I did mobility focused workouts almost daily. I later added weighlifting at home using dumbbells. My apetite went up 1300-1600, yet I slowly lost weight. I am now 126lb but I can't pinpoint what exacrly helped.
Diet wise, my current targets are 90-110 g protein and 20-30 g fiber. I just started capping carb at 130g. I am not monitoring my fat intake yet.
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Hello have written the same months ago. Im 54 peri and weight loss is zero. 12.5 stone. Short. Hormones good. I am in gym 2-3 times a week and have PT. I am lifting heavy weights. Ive restarted cardio now too. I can not believe in 9 months I havent lost any weight. I am stronger and recovery much improved but Jeeze I dont drink I dont eat after 6pm I am not a binger. I cook from scratch. My portions have def shrunk. I am a lot more aware to the size of my plates than before. High protein. I honestly thought by making some simple tweeks I would have lost 1lb every 2 months?
Ive read Stacey Simms books and endlessly following youtube on similar things.
I am still at a loss unless I starve myself or go for the jabs.
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Do you track your calories? If you don't, you're just winging it based on how you feel… and in that case, you're likely eating much more than you feel like you're eating. Working out is great. But I'm going to be honest.... it does absolutely nothing for weight loss for most people, especially if they're not tracking calories. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Why? Because people just eat those exercise calories back without even noticing or realizing it. And they don't move around as much throughout the rest of their day because their body is exhausted from working out.
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…and then after working out people think they "deserve" more food.
It's really easy to eat too much and really takes a lot of mindfulness to eat at a deficit. If you're not tracking your food and if you don't know correct portion sizes it's going to be a lot harder.
Buy a $20 digital food scale and track calories.
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I went to the gym for 20 years and consistently weighed the same throughout. The company I used to work for paid for a medical each year and, at one such medical, the nurse suggested I look at MyFitnessPal. I couldn't understand why I was still Overweight / not losing, every year, despite all my exercise.
At the beginning of 2017, I decided I wanted to be a 'normal' BMI by my 50th birthday. I finally signed up to MFP and, once I started logging what I was eating, that was the eye-opener. I too cook from scratch (I do a lot of bulk prepped meals, into freezer bags, so I have variety to choose from), but I was eating post-exercise snacks and mid-afternoon-slump snacks, too much rice and pasta etc. I also wasn't burning as much as I assumed I was. In short, I was Maintaining, not in any sort of deficit. I reached my goal, a week before my 50th birthday - then stopped using MFP because "I knew what I was doing". Six months later I was back to where I'd started. I came back to MFP sometime in 2018, got back down to being in Maintenance at a 'Normal' BMI weight and continue to track everything I eat and drink.
You don't have to starve to lose weight, but you do need to be honest about what you're eating vs what you're burning.
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this^^^^^
I naively thought that a slow, three mile evening walk would burn off half a carton of Breyers or a family pack of Oreos.
I had ZERO concept of calories in versus calories out.
Boy was I shocked to learn it might equal two Oreos or a partial serving of ice cream.
Huge disconnect.
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This is the best discussion ive found. CICO is not true. For many of us in Peri/meno the fight is real.
Weight loss in peri... I have a theory, what's been your experience? : r/Perimenopause
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I'm not going to go off-site to read a "theory" from some random blogger.
CICO is absolutely true.
You may have not tracked correctly, and you may have chosen a number that isn't the right number of calories for you for weight loss, but CICO is immutable.
To lose weight one eats fewer calories than are needed to perform that day's activity.
Now, is it easy to figure out what that number is? Yes. Track food accurately over a period of 4-6 weeks and use the body weight changes during that time to move the numbers until the correct number is found. Using a random number off the internet for a calorie goal won't likely work the first try. It takes adjustment. For instance, I have to eat a full 400+ calories more per day than any online calculator tells me to eat to maintain my weight. That's not a broken CICO, that's me being different than the population statistic.
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I read the first few posts on that Reddit thread, then I admit I got bored.
Nothing in the first few posts supports "CICO is not true".
Those posts do support "lots of people don't understand what CICO actually means in practice", "there's more to practical weight loss than calorie counting to some calculator calorie estimate" and even "things maybe get even a little more complicated when we're older or menopausal or statistically unusual in some other way".
There's reams of solid scientific research supporting the contention that calories are the foundation for changes in body weight. No sound scientific counter-evidence.
Not all calories eaten are "calories in". Fitness trackers don't measure "calories out". Human bodies are dynamic: Calories in affect calories out, through things like energy level and fatigue.
Some foods are more sating for their calories. Food choices (and nutrition) affect energy level and appetite, so affect both calorie expenditure and consistent compliance with calorie goals in actual- calorie terms. Foods vary in how many calories are required to digest/metabolize them, from near zero percent of the calories in that food to perhaps as much as 30% of that food's calories.
Deficit size matters for energy level, so affects calories out. Deficit size affects water retention via cortisol and other factors so affects scale weight.
Body composition matters, because yeah, muscle burns a few more calories even at rest than fat does, plus muscle makes it easier, more fun, and possibly more automatic to move more in daily life. Overdoing exercise can reduce calories out. I could go on and on.
CICO is true. CICO is necessary. Simplistic CICO isn't sufficient in practical terms. Bodies are complicated; humans are unique individuals.
Also, CICO (the calorie balance theory or formula) isn't calorie counting (a method of pursuing weight goals).
But calorie counting can work for many people. It helps to understand some of the complexities, though.
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To me, saying CICO isn't real because things can affect the equation is kind of like saying gravity isn't real because a pound of feathers acts differently when dropped compared to a pound of bricks. Sure, gravity affects them differently, but it's still real, it's still the way it works, and you can still use it in your equation to figure out how something will fall. Or, you can just say it doesn't exist, jump off a building, and see how well it works (spoilers… it won't likely go well).
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This is the best discussion ive found. CICO is not true. For many of us in Peri/meno the fight is real.Weight loss in peri... I have a theory, what's been your experience? : r/Perimenopause
You don’t have to believe in the Laws of Physics but it doesn’t make it any less real.
You want to be stuck, just say that. If not, open your food diary, and let’s work through this together. I guarantee we can help you find a solution that is satisfying in both quantity and taste.
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