Am I eating enough?

LucidPanda

I am 447 lbs. I am trying to eat 1800 calories a day, but sometimes I don't even eat that. I have actually gained 5 pounds. I am wondering if it's because I am not eating enough?

4daluvof_candice

I am 447 lbs. I am trying to eat 1800 calories a day, but sometimes I don't even eat that. I have actually gained 5 pounds. I am wondering if it's because I am not eating enough?

Open your diary
Do you weigh your food?
Do you exercise?
Any other health issues?
How much H2O?
Whats your height?
How often do you weigh yourself?

erickirb

You def wouldn't gain weight on 1800 cals or less. You may be retaining more water, or you are grossly under estimating the calories you are eating.

Do you weigh all the solids and measure all the liquids you consume? If not you are probably taking in much more than you think you are.

_Zardoz_

I am 447 lbs. I am trying to eat 1800 calories a day, but sometimes I don't even eat that. I have actually gained 5 pounds. I am wondering if it's because I am not eating enough?

I'm sorry if your putting on weight in all likelihood you are eating far more than you think or over estimating your exercise calories. At the weight you are and with that calorie level the weight should be falling off you. . Check that you are weighing measuring food accurately. Remember to count everything drinks as well

LucidPanda

I am 447 lbs. I am trying to eat 1800 calories a day, but sometimes I don't even eat that. I have actually gained 5 pounds. I am wondering if it's because I am not eating enough?

Open your diary
Do you weigh your food?
Do you exercise?
Any other health issues?
How much H2O?
Whats your height?
How often do you weigh yourself?

Yes I weigh all my food
No exercise
Not that I know of
48oz or more of flavored water
5'8
Every 2 days

LucidPanda

I am 447 lbs. I am trying to eat 1800 calories a day, but sometimes I don't even eat that. I have actually gained 5 pounds. I am wondering if it's because I am not eating enough?

I'm sorry if your putting on weight in all likelihood you are eating far more than you think or over estimating your exercise calories. At the weight you are and with that calorie level the weight should be falling off you. . Check that you are weighing measuring food accurately. Remember to count everything drinks as well

I dont know what is going on all I have to drink is a coffee with splenda in the morning and water with cyrstal light. thats all I drink.

bumblebreezy91

I am 447 lbs. I am trying to eat 1800 calories a day, but sometimes I don't even eat that. I have actually gained 5 pounds. I am wondering if it's because I am not eating enough?

Open your diary
Do you weigh your food?
Do you exercise?
Any other health issues?
How much H2O?
Whats your height?
How often do you weigh yourself?

Yes I weigh all my food
No exercise
Not that I know of
48oz or more of flavored water
5'8
Every 2 days

What kind of flavored water?

erickirb

I am 447 lbs. I am trying to eat 1800 calories a day, but sometimes I don't even eat that. I have actually gained 5 pounds. I am wondering if it's because I am not eating enough?

Open your diary
Do you weigh your food?
Do you exercise?
Any other health issues?
How much H2O?
Whats your height?
How often do you weigh yourself?

Yes I weigh all my food
No exercise
Not that I know of
48oz or more of flavored water
5'8
Every 2 days

Def should be getting more than 48 ounces of water, much more. Most likely water retention based on your answers.
To limit the amount of what retention you can:
Lower Sodium intake,
increase potassium intake,
drink more water,
lower carb intake (retain less water due to less glycogen stores)

I would also start weighing in once a week, not more if seeing weight fluctuations bother you, under the same conditions, same time of day.

LucidPanda

I am 447 lbs. I am trying to eat 1800 calories a day, but sometimes I don't even eat that. I have actually gained 5 pounds. I am wondering if it's because I am not eating enough?

Open your diary
Do you weigh your food?
Do you exercise?
Any other health issues?
How much H2O?
Whats your height?
How often do you weigh yourself?

Yes I weigh all my food
No exercise
Not that I know of
48oz or more of flavored water
5'8
Every 2 days

What kind of flavored water?

A mix of Crystal Light. (Lemonade, Fruit Punch)

astrampe

Ho long have you been doing this? I would suggest you eat more - I weigh 176 and eat 1700 and still lose weight - and don't weigh yourself every second day - weight fluctuates....

LucidPanda

I opened my diary if you all want to take a look and give me any pointers

Ktmax456

Doesn't crystal light have calories?

Ktmax456

Your eating pizza hut and going over your calories, and McDonald's...

wilsoje74

Looks like you've only been tracking for less than a week. Keep tracking and don't weigh for a couple weeks, try to limit fast food to once or twice a week and eat more fruits and veggies.

LucidPanda

I normally dont eat Mcdonalds but a family member is in the hospital and thats the only thing there is. I made sure to keep under my calories though.

Crystal Light has 10 calories per packet and I only use 2 a day.

bumblebreezy91

Doesn't crystal light have calories?

Very few. 5 in half a packet, 10 for one packet in 20 ounces of water. I drink it all the time, log it, no problem.

friggie

where are your fruit and veggies?? All that fast food is so high in fat content.

LucidPanda

where are your fruit and veggies?? All that fast food is so high in fat content.

I dont really like fruits and veggies. I wish I did.

dmt4641

I agree with trying to limit your fast food. I eat out usually 1 or 2 times a week and always retain water afterwards even if I stay within my calories from the increased sodium.

Brandolin11

I am 447 lbs. I am trying to eat 1800 calories a day, but sometimes I don't even eat that. I have actually gained 5 pounds. I am wondering if it's because I am not eating enough?

I concur w/the other assessments that there's a very high chance you *think* you're only eating 1,800, but are actually eating way over that. You may not be eating as much as you used to in order to gain 447 lbs, which leads you to believe you're eating way less (and meeting your daily goal), but in all likelihood you're still eating way over what you should be.

I believe the reasoning for this, is because there is something else at play here. Let me explain.

In order for us to get to a size of 447 lbs, our minds must be very detached from our bodies. We knew, at some point, in the back of our mind, that overeating to the point of gaining that much weight is bad for us...and yet we continued to eat and not exercise or whatever despite witnessing the grave consequences happening to our bodies right in front of our eyes.

The pain and shame of that disparity, caused a split of the mind from the body, if you will. It was too difficult to face. And the food gave you too much pleasure to give it up. Eventually....you detached.... and started telling yourself that "all is fine and normal". And continued to eat and gain and eat and gain until you reached the weight you currently are.

I submit to you, that you've lived a life of shutting down your conscience for so long, that you are now not even capable of honoring the conscience you hear in the back of your head as you're trying to lose weight this time around. You are out of practice. You are detached.

Thus, you *tell yourself* you are eating "1,800 calories a day" and yet you're probably eating way more than that. You don't even know how to be honest anymore.

What to do? How does one become honest and one with their conscience again?

This is not a very popular suggestion on these boards, but I am a BIG believer in the basic 12 Steps they use for just about any addiction program. I'm NOT suggesting you're an addict. I AM suggesting that the STEPS work wonders for people who are detached. What are the steps?

1. We admitted we were powerless over food — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to compulsive overeaters and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

So it's a process of moving from UNawareness, into awareness. Admitting you have a problem. Submitting yourself to something authority that is higher than yourself. Doing an internal check of your flaws and failures and committing to fixing them. Telling someone about your flaws, getting those out in the open. Repairing damages done in relationships in your life. And continuing that process over and over until you break through the wall of detachment and get in touch with your CONSCIENCE. Bringing your actions into alignment with your desires. And if you succeed in that, you get to help others navigate their own issues (which is tremendously exciting).

If you have any questions, please feel free to PM me - I'm happy to discuss further.

erickirb

where are your fruit and veggies?? All that fast food is so high in fat content.

There is nothing wrong with getting fat in your diet, but eating that much fast food most likely isn't allowing the OP to get enough vitamins and minerals. And seeing the sodium in fast food, most likely the weight gain is due to water retention caused by high level of sodium.

agataarchangel

Pretty much everything that's in your diary is fast food/high fat (cheese!)/processed.

...you need to seriously decrease the amount of the above items, and incorporate more fruits/veggies/un-processed food into your diet. Even McDonald's has salads and fruit options...

There are many great suggestions that can be found in the recipes section of this site, or by asking about healthy fast-food options in the forums (while the friend/family member is in the hospital).

Good luck!

bumblebreezy91

I looked at your diary. In the few days you've been logging, you've either gone over or eaten several hundred calories under your goal. You need to drink some more water, find some fruits and veggies that you like (add some fruit to your yogurt in the morning, mm!), and start packing healthier snacks/meals for when you're visiting your loved one in the hospital to avoid all the fast food--or, my go-to when I forget to pack on the go is something off the Subway Fresh Fit menu. If you only have a McDonald's, try a snack wrap with grilled chicken for 250 calories (hold the sauce, 180 calories) or if you have the sodium and calories, a premium wrap for 420 calories (be careful of the sodium in this though!) if you are really hungry (in that case, just go to Subway if you can and you've forgotten to pack something from home).

ETA: Be careful of some of McDonald's salads. Sometimes you're better off getting a burger, no kidding. If you must get fast food, check their website for a nutrition guide (or see if they have a brochure in the store) and plan ahead, pre-log it on MFP. This is what I do to keep myself from going overboard.

dmt4641

Are there any fruit and veggies you like? Have you tried a lot of fresh veggies (not from can or frozen)? I used to not like veggies because my mom never made them fresh. Once I started trying fresh veggies made simply, I started liking them a lot more.

4legsRbetterthan2

Well if you just noticed you were up this morning my guess would be the pizza hut on sunday did it from the sodium intake, that will really effect water weight. Did MFP give you the 1800 calorie number? It seems that you could eat more than that and still very successfully lose. Make sure you meet that goal because there are some days you are way over and other days you are way under, if you even out your consumption and try to aviod the sodium a little bit that will help decrease the fluctuations you will see.

LucidPanda

I'll keep this calorie goal for a week, and I wont eat fast food at all. I'll also drink more water. Thanks for all the help everyone.

rachelamber_x

I noticed you haven't logged any oils or things, what did you cook the meat and omelettes in?

Also the homemade omelette with cheese recipe (unless you added it in yourself) probably isn't the best because you don't know the amount of oil or cheese or anything.

What about condiments? Ketchup, mayonnaise, things like that can add quite a few calories

MinnieInMaine

I would guess that it's the sodium intake over the last 4-5 days. You were over every day, some days by quite a bit, and given that you don't drink much water, you'll likely retaining a lot of water from that. I know I can be up 3-5 pounds from water weight and it can take up to a week to come all the way off depending on how my eating and water intake goes in the following days.

Good luck!

smiletime82

I agree with the fruit and veggie recommendation. It looks like most of your meals consist of carbs, meat and cheese. I think I saw 1 apple one day. There are ways to sneak veggies in there. Throw some baby spinach in your sandwiches or with your eggs. Chop up some fresh fruit in your yogurt, eat a big salad. I know my body tends to not lose weight if I eat too many carbs. I LOVE bread, but I know I have to limit it if I want to lose. You can substitute big Portobello mushroom caps for the bun on a burger, or at least eat in open faced with half the bun. When I eat a sandwich, I try to load on as many veggies as I can...red peppers, onions, spinach, lettuce. You still get the taste of the sandwich with healthy veggies to boot and most veggies wont up your calories much but will fill your plate. There have to be a couple you like. Eat them fresh or frozen, not canned so you don't get more salt. You can add seasonings to them to give them more flavor...or to mask it. I also love to add fruit to my salads. mango's oranges, apples, they all go well in salads and give it a lot of flavor. Throw in some tuna or chicken for protein and I make a dressing out of lime juice, a bit of olive oil and a touch of honey.

asciident

5lb could be water weight fluctuation especially because so far it seems like you eat a lot of sodium.

That said you are a 23 year old male at 5'8" and 447 lbs. A quick calculation at http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/ says you could be eating 3400 cal a day and losing weight at a 20% calorie reduction rate. You can ease your way in to lowering calories. There is no need to drop down to 1800 immediately unless advised by your doctor. How did you come up with that number? MFP, another calculator, your doctor, what?

And while I agree with others that you can work on incorporating healthier foods, you can lose weight on fast/junk food. You need to eat at a deficit though and give it more time. To make sure you're eating a deficit you need to be really honest with your logging. You didn't get to be 447 quickly, you won't lose it that quickly either.

LucidPanda

Well if you just noticed you were up this morning my guess would be the pizza hut on sunday did it from the sodium intake, that will really effect water weight. Did MFP give you the 1800 calorie number? It seems that you could eat more than that and still very successfully lose. Make sure you meet that goal because there are some days you are way over and other days you are way under, if you even out your consumption and try to aviod the sodium a little bit that will help decrease the fluctuations you will see.

They gave me 2400 calories a day, but everyone in my family said that was to much, so I decided to go with 1800.