How many of us undereat without knowing it?

shinjite

I am a vegan and one of those overweight ones. I went to my doctor about a year and a half ago and asked for his help losing weight. He suggested I eat less so I worked on that and logged my meals. And got fatter. Finally he sent me to a nutritionist who spent more time trying to convince me to at least eat dairy, eggs and seafood and telling me the evils of veganism than she did working on a nutrition plan for me. She found it "strange" that I did not eat anything pre-packaged and told me it was not possible to live in the US without eating refined foods. I walked outta that consultation.
Finally I started doing some research and decided to track my meals.So I started reading and decided to track my calories based on the logs I had been keeping. Turns out I was undereating. I had estimated my calories without really checking. I eat mostly fruit, raw vegetables and berries and occasionallky something like quinoa or oatmeal. When I thought I was getting 1500 cals a day turned out to be less than 600. Most days it was between 200-400. One would think that would make me thin but instead it made me fat, fat, fat. So I decided to focus on getting 1200-2000 calories a day. So far I have only managed 1200-1500 but after the first 3 weeks I actually started losing weight.
In 8 months I have lost 30lbs. I probably would have lost more but some days the thought of eating so much food makes me nauseous and I skip meals on those days.
My point of all this is don't assume others know what is best for you just because they are trained in certain fields. Learn your body! Learn your self! And make your body your experimental lab.
Food is not a one size fits all process. Some people lose weight on a high protein diet, others gain. Conversely some get fat on high carbs others lose.