Not eating enough

karkaskompetisie

So, I'm trying really hard to eat at least 1200 calories a day but I never seem to reach my calorie goal. Usually I eat between 700-900 calories a day (when I ride my horse it tends to be around 1100) and my BMR is somewhere between 1400-1500. I never really feel hungry and since my body isn't telling me to eat I don't. I know I could try to eat more calorific foods but I don't feel comfortable eating too many high calorie foods and a lot of unhealthy foods trigger me to binge (and purge/restrict afterwards - I used to have anorexia).

Basically my question is: Do I have to make myself eat more if I don't feel hungry and physically well at this calorie consumption?

karkaskompetisie

bump

Jericha1992

Instead of eating high-calorie unhealthy foods, try eating calorie-dense healthy foods! Like nuts!

I would loooovvveee to be able to have some trail mix, but I usually can't in good conscience fit it into my limits.

Are you getting some kind of counseling? It might be helpful in the long run, if you're worried about your ability to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Good luck!

AmyRhubarb

Yes, more calorie dense foods get you closer to goal without having to eat loads of food or turn to junk. Avocados, nuts and nut butters, use coconut and olive oils in cooking and dressings, eggs, cheeses, full fat dairy....

If you're eating super low cals over long periods of time, it is my understanding that the body adjusts, lowering metabolism and won't necessarily trigger those hungry feelings even though you should be eating more, so going by the "not hungry" rule doesn't fly here.

If your BMR is 1400+ you should be eating at LEAST that amount every day. Maybe try to gradually increase by 100-200 cals every couple of days. Log everything and look back over your diary to see what foods help you achieve your daily goal.

karkaskompetisie

Yes, more calorie dense foods get you closer to goal without having to eat loads of food or turn to junk. Avocados, nuts and nut butters, use coconut and olive oils in cooking and dressings, eggs, cheeses, full fat dairy....

If you're eating super low cals over long periods of time, it is my understanding that the body adjusts, lowering metabolism and won't necessarily trigger those hungry feelings even though you should be eating more, so going by the "not hungry" rule doesn't fly here.

If your BMR is 1400+ you should be eating at LEAST that amount every day. Maybe try to gradually increase by 100-200 cals every couple of days. Log everything and look back over your diary to see what foods help you achieve your daily goal.

Instead of eating high-calorie unhealthy foods, try eating calorie-dense healthy foods! Like nuts!

I would loooovvveee to be able to have some trail mix, but I usually can't in good conscience fit it into my limits.

Are you getting some kind of counseling? It might be helpful in the long run, if you're worried about your ability to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

I'm trying to incoperate some nuts and peanut butter but I still don't reach my calorie goal. I've tried avocados too but I don't really like them and I eat mainly vegan. Sometimes I eat eggs but not too often and I eat cottage cheese but besides that pretty much everything I eat is vegan.
I don't have a counsellor and to be honest I don't want to go to a doctor either. I had a lot of stress at home because of my eating disorder and I think my mum is just happy that she sees me eating regularly again. I know quite a bit of nutrition but since I feel physically well (never dizzy, not hungry, not weak or sluggish) I feel torn. On one hand I know I am supposed to eat more on the other I feel fine this way.
Anyway, I am just gonna make my diary public for a while in case somebody wants to look at it.

Thank you both for your suggestions!

ell_v131

Well you came here to ask out opinion if we think you should strive to eat more, and my answer is yes. I have a ex-anorexic cousin so I can imagine How you feel a little bit.

It is hard to achieve more calories on vegan diet, I am not an expert on that, do you eat dairy? If so go for full fat Greek yogurt, full fat milk with high protein cereal. Eggs are great, make sure you eat the yolk: )

I used to share your dislike for avocados, u til I discovered How to make guacamole. Now I hate that I Can't have is as often as I'd like. Just mix the avocado with onion, chillies, tomato, cilantro and lime juice and eat that with nachos or tortilla.

Or bake some tortilla into cbips and make nachos with kidney bean/tomato topping, add Jalapenos and cheese and sour cream. It's delicious.

I recently had to up my calories from 1200 to 1500 and struggled to reach my.goal initially, now I wish I could eat 2000

I hope my advice helps somewhat. I Can't in good conscience tell you to keep eating as you are, cause although you feel fine now, this can come to bite you in the years to come, so take steps to be more healthy.

Good luck!

jen4relient22

yep, your body has learned to silence hunger pains, as it is in starvation mode. you absolutely need to eat more, but you should try to add calories gradually (i'd say around 200 per week) until you at least are eating your BMR every day.

since you don't feel hungry, you should make a rigid eating schedule and stick to it, first planning based off of meals. have breakfast when you wake up, lunch around 12, afternoon snack, dinner around 6, and then have an evening snack. if you are vegan, a good day could be: breakfast- oats in almond milk with fruit or nuts tossed in, lunch- pita and hummus and veggies, pasta with sauce, etc. afternoon snack- fruit with 2 tbs nut butter, or if they make you nervous a piece of fruit with a protein bar. dinner- same as lunches given or something else you enjoy. evening snack- toast with peanut butter, waffle with ice cream on top, another protein bar, fruit, etc.

just force yourself to eat at these set times, following social cues rather than hunger cues. you'd be surprised how quickly your metabolism will recover. you might experience a bit of a "refeed" period where you have binges once you start eating more normally, but that's normal and just a downside to such restricted eating. after you get through that period and your body trusts you to feed it regularly, your metabolism will increase and you will be able to lose weight or maintain it (based on your goals) eating much more.

i've gone through this myself, so feel free to add me as a friend if you need further support!

unFATuated

I can imagine the issues you have increasing the calories you are currently eating. I think you're doing amazingly well getting through the ED and eating on a regular basis, so congratulations to you for coming this far. Your body would have well and truly adjusted to getting so few calories, and while that isn't necessarily a good thing, it is a major barrier to adding more.

Maybe you could increase by as few as 50cals per day for a few weeks, then see how you feel, add another 50 if you feel okay and keep going like that. This sort of thing is going to take a long time to get through, so don't feel that you HAVE to do it now, but have it in the back of your mind that you will need to work on it.

jillianbeeee

my first week on here I asked this very question.Now after all this time i remember one answer. It was the best answer although at the time I was kinda pissed and thought it was rude. The person said something along the lines of "how hard is it to grab a spoon and eat a couple tablespoons of peanut butter to get to the 1200 cal mark?" No one should eat below 1200 a day. noone. And we sure as heck had no problem eating that before, thats why we are here right? We must learn to eat healthy, to make this a lifelong thing and to make sure its long term sustainable. Less then 1200 is not any of those. That was the best weight loss advice I could have ever gotten even though it is quite harsh

Edit: I should have read the entire question. If you have an eating disorder please see a doctor! do not take our advice here! do what the DOCTOR says. Good luck on your journey! I hope you have a smooth recovery

sussexbythesea

yep, your body has learned to silence hunger pains, as it is in starvation mode. you absolutely need to eat more, but you should try to add calories gradually (i'd say around 200 per week) until you at least are eating your BMR every day.

since you don't feel hungry, you should make a rigid eating schedule and stick to it, first planning based off of meals. have breakfast when you wake up, lunch around 12, afternoon snack, dinner around 6, and then have an evening snack. if you are vegan, a good day could be: breakfast- oats in almond milk with fruit or nuts tossed in, lunch- pita and hummus and veggies, pasta with sauce, etc. afternoon snack- fruit with 2 tbs nut butter, or if they make you nervous a piece of fruit with a protein bar. dinner- same as lunches given or something else you enjoy. evening snack- toast with peanut butter, waffle with ice cream on top, another protein bar, fruit, etc.

just force yourself to eat at these set times, following social cues rather than hunger cues. you'd be surprised how quickly your metabolism will recover. you might experience a bit of a "refeed" period where you have binges once you start eating more normally, but that's normal and just a downside to such restricted eating. after you get through that period and your body trusts you to feed it regularly, your metabolism will increase and you will be able to lose weight or maintain it (based on your goals) eating much more.

i've gone through this myself, so feel free to add me as a friend if you need further support!

Just looked at your diary and this is very good advice I difficult to have a balanced diet when vegan
I see you are not eating until mid day please try.
You are very low on protein. How about tofu or some non vegan eggs?
Eggs for breakfast would be good,

I also see you gave a high number if friends. Are they supporting you positively-if not review your list

karkaskompetisie

Well you came here to ask out opinion if we think you should strive to eat more, and my answer is yes. I have a ex-anorexic cousin so I can imagine How you feel a little bit.

It is hard to achieve more calories on vegan diet, I am not an expert on that, do you eat dairy? If so go for full fat Greek yogurt, full fat milk with high protein cereal. Eggs are great, make sure you eat the yolk: )

I used to share your dislike for avocados, u til I discovered How to make guacamole. Now I hate that I Can't have is as often as I'd like. Just mix the avocado with onion, chillies, tomato, cilantro and lime juice and eat that with nachos or tortilla.

Or bake some tortilla into cbips and make nachos with kidney bean/tomato topping, add Jalapenos and cheese and sour cream. It's delicious.

I recently had to up my calories from 1200 to 1500 and struggled to reach my.goal initially, now I wish I could eat 2000

I hope my advice helps somewhat. I Can't in good conscience tell you to keep eating as you are, cause although you feel fine now, this can come to bite you in the years to come, so take steps to be more healthy.

Good luck!

Thank you for the ideas! I don't eat diary very often but I'll try to eat it full fat from now on, and I ate the past two days actually two eggs a day but it doesn't make a huge difference (I eat the yolks) for me and to be honest I don't want to eat eggs everyday so I might just eat tofu on most other days even though it's not very healthy. But I'll probably never like Avocado haha, I tried it in many different recipes and I always dislike it.

donjessop

If you not adverse to protein powders there are a number of them that are actually plant based so they will not disrupt a vegan diet. Putting the powder into a glass of milk would go a long way towards adding both needed calories and protein. This could be more breakfast as opposed to skipping a breakfast and would get you started towards your target.

karkaskompetisie

Just looked at your diary and this is very good advice I difficult to have a balanced diet when vegan
I see you are not eating until mid day please try.
You are very low on protein. How about tofu or some non vegan eggs?
Eggs for breakfast would be good,

I also see you gave a high number if friends. Are they supporting you positively-if not review your list

Oh I do eat breakfast haha but on weekends I usually sleep until like 1 pm because I have to get up very early for school during the week and don't get much sleep. Usually I would have also eaten something between my very late breakfast and dinner but I worked today and didn't have time to eat a late lunch,
(I used to eat completely vegan but I switched to eating some diary and eggs until I know where I can get my protein from, and I do eat tofuq quite regularly actually.

Edit: I should have read the entire question. If you have an eating disorder please see a doctor! do not take our advice here! do what the DOCTOR says. Good luck on your journey! I hope you have a smooth recovery

Oh, don't worry. I am pretty much recovered. I'm no more scared of food or using it as an coping mechanism and at a healthy weight. Very calorie dense or unhealthy foods can still make me anxious but I just ate 1.5 tablespoons of peanut butter (used to be one of my fear foods) and I feel fine. I know I don't eat enough but that's not because I used to have an ED it's really just that I feel hungry in the morning and after school but not really in the afternoon and evening.

yep, your body has learned to silence hunger pains, as it is in starvation mode. you absolutely need to eat more, but you should try to add calories gradually (i'd say around 200 per week) until you at least are eating your BMR every day.

since you don't feel hungry, you should make a rigid eating schedule and stick to it, first planning based off of meals. have breakfast when you wake up, lunch around 12, afternoon snack, dinner around 6, and then have an evening snack. if you are vegan, a good day could be: breakfast- oats in almond milk with fruit or nuts tossed in, lunch- pita and hummus and veggies, pasta with sauce, etc. afternoon snack- fruit with 2 tbs nut butter, or if they make you nervous a piece of fruit with a protein bar. dinner- same as lunches given or something else you enjoy. evening snack- toast with peanut butter, waffle with ice cream on top, another protein bar, fruit, etc.

just force yourself to eat at these set times, following social cues rather than hunger cues. you'd be surprised how quickly your metabolism will recover. you might experience a bit of a "refeed" period where you have binges once you start eating more normally, but that's normal and just a downside to such restricted eating. after you get through that period and your body trusts you to feed it regularly, your metabolism will increase and you will be able to lose weight or maintain it (based on your goals) eating much more.

Oh, I know what hunger pains feel like, I still get them sometimes when I don't eat something during lunch break at school because I forgot to take some fruit with me. I feel hungry in the morning, at school and when I come home after school but not during afternoon or in the evening so I really have to force myself to eat after 4-5pm.
Thanks a lot for your help!although I don't feel too comfortable with your ideas for the evening snack (e.g. waffle with ice cream upsets me, packaged food especially protein/cereal bars are also kind of trigger foods) but I'll probably find something else I feel comfortable eating after dinner.

karkaskompetisie

If you not adverse to protein powders there are a number of them that are actually plant based so they will not disrupt a vegan diet. Putting the powder into a glass of milk would go a long way towards adding both needed calories and protein. This could be more breakfast as opposed to skipping a breakfast and would get you started towards your target.

I'm not skipping breakfast but thank you I'll see if I can find some plant-based protein powder here in Germany (haven't seen it before but maybe I just need to search at other places)

slodawnc

I have had the problem of not getting enough calories also. I started by adding a handful of nuts. I was never hungry in the morning so to change this, I started making a protein shake in the morning to start my day. It has taken awhile but I am now hungry in the morning. My nutritionist recommended drinking a glass of milk as a snack to help increase my calories. I have now added NutriBullet shakes and blasts to my diet which has also helped increase my calorie intake as well as my servings of fruits and vegetables. Please be sure to follow your doctors advice as well.

cafeaulait7

Nuts are great. I used to eat a pack of peanuts to get my calories and protein in when I was sick and too thin (and not hungry). The baking section of a grocery store also has lovely almonds, walnuts, etc that don't have the added salt. Some of those bags are a great little size to take with you easily, unless that's different in Germany. Good luck!

geekyjock76

Doctors will tell you to increase caloric intake despite the absence of hunger until you reach your adjusted maintenance intake. For most recovering anorexics, they simply cannot rely on satiety cues to determine whether they are eating enough because serum leptin levels, even after successful weight recovery, are significantly lower than average. Thus,as the poster above suggested, you'll have to set daily calorie goals for yourself and aim to reach them. Periodically, you'll raise calories until your weight stabilizes (assuming you'll likely regain weight in the process, which is expected).

yaseyuku

The longer you restrict for in my experience, the less hungry you will feel. I have also recovered from an ED and generally have lower hunger signals than normal and have to force myself to eat more.

Try to up the calories as much as you can within whatever foods don't trigger you but are calorie dense. Or eat more times per day but smaller meals/snacks.

gigglesinthesun

one point to think about is why you have chosen to eat vegan. I have nothing against a vegan diet (I am a vegetarian for medical reasons), but it is harder to reach all your recommended nutritional levels with it (iron, protein, calcium). It is doubly harder if you are not eating enough in the first place. Depending on how long you have been doing this I would get some blood tests done to see whether you have any nutritional short-comings.