Old habits more problems

stepjanjgjg171

stepjanjgjg171

anyone have a habit of not eating the recommended calories ? I’m finding that I’m about 300-400 cals under what I’m supposed to have. I’m afraid to mess up metabolism and not sure how close to get to my macros ( I complete the protein and fats but carbs are under goal)

janesciullo

My situation is the same. I have tried looking for foods higher in carbs but without added sugar or fat like beans, oatmeal, whole grains. But now I have to change my tastes and make these foods fit in to my lifestyle.

cmriverside

See what your weight does over the next month. I know for me, MyFitnessPal gives me too-low calories to maintain my current weight. It's possible you are getting too many calories allocated, BUT it's also possible that your food logging is not very accurate and you're actually eating more than you think.

If you try to log your calories and you find your weight doesn't do what the calculator here says over the next 4-6 weeks, then either tighten up your food logging or just assume you need fewer calories than it thinks you do. Both things are common issues when starting out with an online food logging system.

AnnPT77

What Riverside said.

But if you want to eat more calories . . . just eat something with calories. Honestly.

That's extra super especially true if you're getting enough protein and fats in grams terms. It's OK to eat more protein and fats. You don't have to eat just carbs if your carb total is low.

Some background: Protein and fats contain essential nutrients. We need to eat some, because our bodies can't manufacture them out of any other food intake. Carbs are different, more flexible: Our bodies can make their own carb-equivalents out of protein or fats. Carbs low, carbs high - doesn't matter, as long as you're happy, and getting an adequate minimum of protein and fats.

There are a few health conditions where it's not a great plan to eat truly large amounts of protein or large amounts of fats. High odds you'd know if you had any of those health conditions. As long as you don't have them, don't worry about eating protein or fat above your goal. It's not a problem.

All of this is even more true if your primary goal is weight loss. That's all about calorie intake, in a direct sense. Sure, food choices and macro goals matter for health, satiety, energy level, and that kind of thing. But those only indirectly affect weight loss: If our energy is poor, we drag around, rest more, burn fewer calories than expected via daily life movement. If our appetite spikes, we have trouble staying within calorie goal. The direct mechanism for weight loss is still calories.

Sometimes people think that the macro goals are analogous to a magic spell for weight loss: Every detail must be correct, or bad things happen. It's not like that. "Pretty good on average most of the time" is a perfectly reasonable standard for hitting macro goals . . . for weight loss and for health. No need to obsess about perfection, because mental health is also important. 😉

If you are struggling to get closer to macro goals for nutrition/health reasons, then there are lots of things like this chart on the web that may help:

That one happens to be from this site below, but I'm not endorsing this site in any general sense, it was just an easy-to-find place to get an example of this kind of chart. I don't know anything else about the site, and I definitely get no compensation from linking it. I just think it's wrong to use content from a site without acknowleging the source.

Source: https://www.workingagainstgravity.com/articles/17-macro-tracking-tips

Best wishes!

springlering62

I’m going to take this a different direction.

I’m guessing you’re both new’ish users

What are y’all’s current weight, height, and activity levels. Calorie goals? What weekly losses you set? Are you weighing food, and focusing on logging diligently and accurately?

So often, new people here set an unreasonably large goal for weekly loss, claim they aren’t eating enough, and then claim they’re not losing.

In fact, they’re too new to experience any results yet, and their logging is so poor, shaky, inconsistent, or simply guesstimating that they have no real basis to judge by.

If you haven’t been here very long, you don’t have the data yet.

It sounds very stick-up-your-nether-place, but data rules. I know when I’m over eating, what food I’m overeating, I know which days I under eat calories and which days I over eat. Ditto for macros, particularly protein. I usually eat lower protein than I prefer on Sundays, and make it a point to top off Monday morning before I see my trainer.

Data lets me learn me. With weight loss my goal, “me” is the most interesting of subjects, and the one I need to master.

But now I have to change my tastes 

well of course you need to change your tastes. I would prefer to eat doughnuts, candy, Little Debbie’s, Pepperidge Farm cookies, cake, key lime pie and as much Breyers ice cream as I can cram down with a fork or spoon til it (literally….thanks GERD) comes right back up).

I’ve had to train myself to change my tastes. That’s not a bad thing. I now much prefer my daily afternoon snacks of “thinner me” than the gut gorge of “obese me”.

It tastes better, believe it more not. Our sense of taste is so dulled by the constant barrage of highly seasoned, high fat, low or zero nutrition food, we have to find it again.

Being a witch here, but waaaaaah!!! I have to change my tastes?!

Holding off the one for a few weeks to come out the other side and lose the taste for the former? Absolutely, utterly worth it.

Health, appearance, energy. I discovered I don’t need a constant drip of M&Ms to keep my energy level up. Hell yeah, change your tastes.

AnnPT77

Another gem from @springlering62 - I couldn't agree more.

But I have a corollary/caveat: Sometimes people show up here saying "I've been eating healthy and working out but I haven't lost any weight".

When I was obese, I had a pretty healthy diet, for literal decades having been a vegetarian, whole grain, eat your beans and veggies kind of eater. I stayed fat.

Why?

It's possible to eat too many calories of healthy food, too.

Sure, some - many? - people who've been eating mostly highly processed or refined foods, not very nutrient dense foods, will find their appetite is less of a monster when they switch to mostly lean meats/fish, veggies, fruits, whole grains, and that kind of thing. For a few, that switch - the improvement in fullness - may be enough to lower their calorie intake and trigger weight loss, without calorie counting.

If so, that's great. But don't count on it as a certainty.

And working out? I was working out pretty hard six days most weeks, even competing as an athlete (not always unsuccessfully, either), while staying obese . . . for a dozen years. Yes, being active made me fitter, somewhat healthier, and it improved my quality of life. Definitely worth doing. But no guarantee of weight loss.

Why?

Exercise burns fewer calories than many people assume. Hardly any of us will burn off a Starbucks Venti Caramel Frappuccino worth of calories in a one-hour exercise class. The average person, in the context of a regular life, with job and home life and such, averages about 5% of daily calorie burn from exercise. For really heavy exercisers, it may be 10-15%.

That's not much. With a typical mixed diet, most of us burn around 10% of our daily calories just digesting/metabolizing our food!

(Yes, those percentages are based on scientific research. I didn't make them up.)

Nutrition-dense eating is good. Manageably challenging exercise is good. Even both of them together won't guarantee weight loss. They may help. In a few rare cases, they may even be sufficient . . . but don't count on it.

When I reined in calorie intake, I lost weight. I ate the same range of foods (healthy ones). I did the same exercise.

Whether a person counts them or not, weight loss, at root, is about calories.

springlering62

yes yes yes to @AnnPT77

I exercised and still had zero concept of how much exercise it took to burn off a serving of Nabisco anything.

Imagine my surprise when I learned that a three mile walk in the evening wouldn’t burn off a whole package of cookies. (Quick note, a “serving” is not what I chose to serve myself. Yikes.)

We aren’t taught this stuff in school, tabloids of my era never had a screaming headline , and we’re sure not going to pick it up online these days.

There’s a point, when you’re weighing and logging that you’re going to have that lightbulb moment, and realize that real change is necessary.