Eating healthily yet struggling to eat 1200 cals a day

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Replies

  • Dobbleton
    Dobbleton Posts: 30
    i wish I had your trouble! (and i'm quite surprised how so many people who want to lose weight can't eat that many calories when presumably they've eaten way more than that in the past to be on here...but anyway ho hum)

    I'm a student too. I second the pulses, avocado and nuts thing. But cut out the processed stuff - pies and fishcakes are expensive. Boil some wholewheat pasta - for a packed lunch make a nice salad dressing with extra virgin olive oil and lots of veg and throw in some ham etc...Or make salads with brown rice or chickpeas. Or make some stews in the colder weather. Or make a quick tomato sauce for your pasta with tinned tomatoes and some garlic and olive oil,- really easy -won't take more than 20 mins. Also make your smoothies - so much cheaper - use a fork and a whisk and a bit of elbow grease...Also you can buy cheap cuts of meat to make stews - just cut off all the visible fat and measure everything to work out your cals. Stretch out one chicken breast over two days by making stir fries with lots of in season vegetables. Once you start it'll get easier to plan and fit these things into your daily routine.

    Good luck!

    I'm still paying for 2/3 years ago when my diet was ****e and I just didn't care about health or fitness and ate McDonald's like twice a week because it was convenient. I've been steadily losing (and gaining a little bit and losing again etc) for almost a year now. Calorie counting is relatively new to me but keeping a food diary and a balanced diet isn't. Which was why it shocked me a bit to realise how I find it a bit difficult to get to 1200.

    Those are some good ideas, thank you! Sometimes I find it hard to cook from scratch because I have deadlines (technically I shouldn't be posting here right now, haha) so I don't I'll be able to chuck away my processed food yet though.
  • Dobbleton
    Dobbleton Posts: 30
    Two slices of bread, two tablespoons peanut butter, and two tablespoons jam is somewhere between 400-500 calories.

    Are you saying you can't eat 3 peanut butter sandwiches in a day?

    Here are a few secrets: with under 25 lbs to lose, your body is probably not going to make weight loss easy for you at 1200 cals. Just guessing, but you probably set your weight loss at 2 lb/week, because everyone does. Faster is better, right? Wrong. There is a limit to how much fat you can lose without also taking lean body mass (muscle) with it, and for someone with under 25 lbs to lose, that limit is around 0.5 lbs/week. If you lose more than that, your LBM will also come off with it, leaving you looking less "toned" when you hit your goal weight. Yes, it will take longer, but you will look and feel better about yourself by taking it more slowly. ETA: and YES, this happens even (or especially) when you exercise so much.

    Benefit of this is that you get to up your calories. 1200 calories is a MINIMUM, and if you have not yet calculated your TDEE and BMR, please do so. If you aren't sure how those work or why they are important, let me know and I'll give you a link to check out because they are absolutely crucial to understanding your own body's weight loss.

    You said you are only eating when you are hungry. The hormone that regulates hunger in the human body is called Leptin. When we restict our calories, leptin production is suppressed. When we increase our calories, leptin production also increases. This is completely unrelated to how much food we actually NEED. Basically, that means that if you eat less, you'll feel less hungry, even if you are actually starving. Don't go by how hungry you are. Force feed yourself those peanut butter and jelly sandwiches if you must, and soon your hunger will follow.

    Finally, exercise less. The key to maintaining weight loss is doing something that you can maintain long-term, and I doubt that every day for the rest of your life, you will burn over 700 cals through exercise. There's a psychological block in a lot of us that says this process has to be painful or it isn't working. Not necessarily true. Up your calories. Enjoy your meals! Educate yourself. Weight loss and gain is a lifelong process for most people. You want to be a person for whom weight loss happens once, and maintenance happens after that. Either way, the process will take forever, so why rush it?

    Best of luck!

    Haha, I'll surely have one but I don't love peanut butter enough to eat it three times in a day! :)

    This was all very interesting, thank you so much. I feel much more educated now :) Could you please give me those links?
  • 1ConcreteGirl
    1ConcreteGirl Posts: 3,677 Member
    I wrote out a long explanation of BMR and TDEE here, about 2/3 of the way down the page, and I also linked to the calculator to figure out your own BMR and TDEE in this thread as well.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/829833-calorie-intake-being-under-over-bad

    and here is the calculator, to use once you read the post and understand what it is for:
    http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/

    I hope this helps. :)

    ETA: I saw someone say you should not be eating back your exercise calories. FALSE. When you put in how much you want to lose per week, the number of calories you are given to eat is ALREADY a big deficit. If you don't eat back those calories, you are making the deficit even bigger to the point where your metabolism will stop functioning properly. Please, please, please, eat back your exercise calories. Obviously, this will be easier for you if you are exercising less, as I suggested. The main goal here is giving yourself enough energy that your body will lose weight efficiently, and that won't happen without enough calories going into you.
  • thingstoshea
    thingstoshea Posts: 1
    Sliced on a salad, or adding some slices to your aforementioned chicken breast sandwich on WW bun would be fab. They will give you that textural feel of mayo or sauce without adding unhealthy fats.

    You can also chop up onions, jalapenos, garlic, tomatoes and mix that in with some avocado and the juice of a lime to make guacamole... Again, healthy fats.
  • beachlover317
    beachlover317 Posts: 2,848 Member
    You sound really angry at me... Can I mention I am not eating less than 1200 calories a day by choice. I am trying to get to 1200 and over but when you feel full do you really want to be stuffing half a packet of trail mix down your throat just because of numbers? I'm not completely new at this. I've been going to the gym for over a year and improving my diet for almost as long.
    [/quote]

    I'm not angry at you at all. :flowerforyou: My comment was to the person who obviously doesn't understand how MFP is set up. :noway: I went through this when I joined MFP last year and got some pretty awful advice from people who claimed to understand MFP. They did not and I wasted about 3 months eating under 1200 calories, feeling awful, feeling deprived, and finally unable to work out anymore. I really don't want anyone else to follow the advice that put me in that position. Therefore, what I said to you was to educate yourself on what your body needs to lose weight in a healthy way and not rely on people who may not know what they are talking about.
  • Dobbleton
    Dobbleton Posts: 30
    I wrote out a long explanation of BMR and TDEE here, about 2/3 of the way down the page, and I also linked to the calculator to figure out your own BMR and TDEE in this thread as well.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/829833-calorie-intake-being-under-over-bad

    and here is the calculator, to use once you read the post and understand what it is for:
    http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/

    I hope this helps. :)

    ETA: I saw someone say you should not be eating back your exercise calories. FALSE. When you put in how much you want to lose per week, the number of calories you are given to eat is ALREADY a big deficit. If you don't eat back those calories, you are making the deficit even bigger to the point where your metabolism will stop functioning properly. Please, please, please, eat back your exercise calories. Obviously, this will be easier for you if you are exercising less, as I suggested. The main goal here is giving yourself enough energy that your body will lose weight efficiently, and that won't happen without enough calories going into you.

    Can I just say again: thanks! I had no idea that eating less makes you less hungry. I was told that if you should only eat when you're hungry or you're just eating out of boredom! I think since September I have probably been eating less (with the exception of most of December when I was with my family) since that's when I moved out for the first time and I had to cook for myself for every meal. It certainly makes a lot of sense. I think now I know this, I will be able to get to 1200+ easier as it'll be a matter of getting my body back into a good habit rather than forcing it to do something it doesn't want to, if that makes any sense :).

    Since posting I've eaten a respectable lunch of 462 calories and I've realised I have a full loaf to eat within the next couple of days before it goes out of date so I'll probably have to take you up on those peanut butter sandwiches!

    I've worked out what's 20% of my TDEE now so I'll manually put that into MFP (if I can work out how...)
  • Dobbleton
    Dobbleton Posts: 30
    You sound really angry at me... Can I mention I am not eating less than 1200 calories a day by choice. I am trying to get to 1200 and over but when you feel full do you really want to be stuffing half a packet of trail mix down your throat just because of numbers? I'm not completely new at this. I've been going to the gym for over a year and improving my diet for almost as long.
    I'm not angry at you at all. :flowerforyou: My comment was to the person who obviously doesn't understand how MFP is set up. :noway: I went through this when I joined MFP last year and got some pretty awful advice from people who claimed to understand MFP. They did not and I wasted about 3 months eating under 1200 calories, feeling awful, feeling deprived, and finally unable to work out anymore. I really don't want anyone else to follow the advice that put me in that position. Therefore, what I said to you was to educate yourself on what your body needs to lose weight in a healthy way and not rely on people who may not know what they are talking about.

    Alright, my mistake then, sorry for being on the defensive, haha. I think I have a better understanding now and I should be able to up my calories and get into better habits with practice and perseverance :)
  • jenniejoy07
    jenniejoy07 Posts: 78 Member
    I'll use Monday as an example then.

    I had 335 cal for breakfast, which was porridge some strawberry jam and a small banana
    263 cal for lunch, which was a chicken breast sandwich on a brown bread roll with some margarine
    440 for dinner, which was a meat and potato pie (which I am quite sure isn't healthy but I had yet to go shopping), sliced beetroot and carrots, broccoli and cauliflower

    So that was 1038.

    I DID however end up eating 2 satsumas and a yogurt which brought me up to 1254 but this was only because I stayed up late and it is very important to me that I start going to sleep a lot earlier than I did on Monday. If I am in sleep by 11 as I hope then I wouldn't have eaten those snacks.

    My calorie breakdown for that day was 51/55% for carbs, 30/30% fat and 19/15% for protein.

    where are your snacks you said you were eating during the day. Eating some almonds is a great way to keep your metabolism up and add healthy calories.
  • amy1612
    amy1612 Posts: 1,356 Member
    Same thing here. I can munch all day and rarely hit 1200 calories. I munch on fresh fruit, veggies, nuts, peanut butter, and I love my Morningstar Farms veggie products. I 'do' cook with olive oil and I certainly don't pass on a slice of pizza and a baby Coke. String cheese is a good friend.

    I eat very little meat. (I have a phobia about eating anything that ever had a mother or a face!) So, although I don't often hit that 1200 calorie count, I am still 'full' and I'm absolutely not starving.

    If you snack on peanut butter all day there is no way you can NOT meet 1200 calories. The stuff is a calorie goldmine.
  • Jaulen
    Jaulen Posts: 468 Member
    You should NOT be eating back the exercise calories, they are what make you lose weight. Eating 1200 cal a day with exercise shouldn't be too hard when you think like that.:smile:

    o.O

    You should be eating back exercise (or most of them) if you are using the calorie number that MFP calculates for you. The number MFP calculates already has a calorie deficit built in, with the understanding that you'lll be eating exercise calories.


    As to OP, drink milk, add some eggs, nuts, cheeses, fruit, nutbutters, whole grains, beans....
  • 1ConcreteGirl
    1ConcreteGirl Posts: 3,677 Member
    I wrote out a long explanation of BMR and TDEE here, about 2/3 of the way down the page, and I also linked to the calculator to figure out your own BMR and TDEE in this thread as well.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/829833-calorie-intake-being-under-over-bad

    and here is the calculator, to use once you read the post and understand what it is for:
    http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/

    I hope this helps. :)

    ETA: I saw someone say you should not be eating back your exercise calories. FALSE. When you put in how much you want to lose per week, the number of calories you are given to eat is ALREADY a big deficit. If you don't eat back those calories, you are making the deficit even bigger to the point where your metabolism will stop functioning properly. Please, please, please, eat back your exercise calories. Obviously, this will be easier for you if you are exercising less, as I suggested. The main goal here is giving yourself enough energy that your body will lose weight efficiently, and that won't happen without enough calories going into you.

    Can I just say again: thanks! I had no idea that eating less makes you less hungry. I was told that if you should only eat when you're hungry or you're just eating out of boredom! I think since September I have probably been eating less (with the exception of most of December when I was with my family) since that's when I moved out for the first time and I had to cook for myself for every meal. It certainly makes a lot of sense. I think now I know this, I will be able to get to 1200+ easier as it'll be a matter of getting my body back into a good habit rather than forcing it to do something it doesn't want to, if that makes any sense :).

    Since posting I've eaten a respectable lunch of 462 calories and I've realised I have a full loaf to eat within the next couple of days before it goes out of date so I'll probably have to take you up on those peanut butter sandwiches!

    I've worked out what's 20% of my TDEE now so I'll manually put that into MFP (if I can work out how...)

    Absolutely, you're welcome! It's kind of frustrating when so much misinformation gets thrown around everywhere, kind of feels like you are working uphill to get people to hear that it's just math, it's just science, you aren't a special snowflake; we've all been there. So it's super exciting when someone actually listens and gets it. You made my day! You're also really fortunate to find solid info after just a few days here, so congrats on being a sensible human being, haha!

    The only thing I would clear up though, is that you should only subtract about 10-15% from your TDEE because 20% will result in the too-fast 2lb/week loss that we already covered. Otherwise, you're good! To manually adjust your MFP settings, go to "settings" at the top of the screen.

    One other post that can help you from here, written by an excellent friend here:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/844040-raspberry-ketones-for-the-rest-of-us

    Any other questions, feel free to message me :)
  • yoovie
    yoovie Posts: 17,121 Member
    Day Three, already trying to figure out how to fail. true story.
  • Linli_Anne
    Linli_Anne Posts: 1,360 Member
    One of the very wise on this site said this to me when I was new to MFP and having the same struggle.

    Don't be afraid of the calorie value of foods, especially those that are heatlhy.

    I gave my head a shake, but somewhere inside of me I had made the decision that calories were evil. NOT TRUE.
  • littlemissnatalie
    littlemissnatalie Posts: 5
    I have the EXACT same issue! check out my food diary. I usually hit 1000 a day and am so full all the time. I eat olive oil, peanut butter etc. and still am not getting to 1200 and am burning lots of calories everyday, as my workouts are usually 3 hours. I am in the same boat. I don;t know if I am "starving" my body or being unhealthy. I eat when hungry and not when I'm not. I stay away from dairy, wheat and red meat most of the time and in doing so my body feels clean and happy. I am not losing weight however. Its strange. I am currently getting my hormones and blood tested to see if there is something medically up that is making me not hungry and not lose. I am 5'2 and 119 pounds, trying to get down to 115.
  • auddii
    auddii Posts: 15,357 Member
    What would you eat the black beans and the lentils with, or would you eat them on their own? I'm not big on nuts so these could be easier for me to eat.

    I like lentil soup and they also cook down and turn mushy if you cook them long enough. I use mushy ones as the base for a sauce and use it to make curries or anything with a slightly thicker sauce. I have black beans in all sorts of ways. I'll eat them by themselves with a little bit of the liquid they cooked in, tomatoes, and cilantro (feta cheese is good too and adds a little salt). I'll also have them with scrambled eggs (breakfast burritos are awesome, but even without the tortilla is good), in salads, there's all sorts of things you can do with them. I ate a ton of rice and beans as a grad student (although I didn't lose weight, so be careful of portions).

    I love using allrecipies.com. You can search by food type or ingredients you want to use. Then, once you find one you like, you can use the recipe builder through MFP to determine how many calories per serving (and if you end up making it, just use the recipe to log).
  • Dobbleton
    Dobbleton Posts: 30
    Day Three, already trying to figure out how to fail. true story.

    .... I'm sorry, what?
  • Dobbleton
    Dobbleton Posts: 30
    One of the very wise on this site said this to me when I was new to MFP and having the same struggle.

    Don't be afraid of the calorie value of foods, especially those that are heatlhy.

    I gave my head a shake, but somewhere inside of me I had made the decision that calories were evil. NOT TRUE.

    I honestly don't look at the calorie value of foods if I think it looks healthy and then when I put a meal together and it's only 350 cals or whatever, I'm like "oh ok". But I'm far over 1200 today and working to a higher calorie limit which suits me more thanks to the advice posted on this thread.
  • Dobbleton
    Dobbleton Posts: 30
    I wrote out a long explanation of BMR and TDEE here, about 2/3 of the way down the page, and I also linked to the calculator to figure out your own BMR and TDEE in this thread as well.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/829833-calorie-intake-being-under-over-bad

    and here is the calculator, to use once you read the post and understand what it is for:
    http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/

    I hope this helps. :)

    ETA: I saw someone say you should not be eating back your exercise calories. FALSE. When you put in how much you want to lose per week, the number of calories you are given to eat is ALREADY a big deficit. If you don't eat back those calories, you are making the deficit even bigger to the point where your metabolism will stop functioning properly. Please, please, please, eat back your exercise calories. Obviously, this will be easier for you if you are exercising less, as I suggested. The main goal here is giving yourself enough energy that your body will lose weight efficiently, and that won't happen without enough calories going into you.

    Can I just say again: thanks! I had no idea that eating less makes you less hungry. I was told that if you should only eat when you're hungry or you're just eating out of boredom! I think since September I have probably been eating less (with the exception of most of December when I was with my family) since that's when I moved out for the first time and I had to cook for myself for every meal. It certainly makes a lot of sense. I think now I know this, I will be able to get to 1200+ easier as it'll be a matter of getting my body back into a good habit rather than forcing it to do something it doesn't want to, if that makes any sense :).

    Since posting I've eaten a respectable lunch of 462 calories and I've realised I have a full loaf to eat within the next couple of days before it goes out of date so I'll probably have to take you up on those peanut butter sandwiches!

    I've worked out what's 20% of my TDEE now so I'll manually put that into MFP (if I can work out how...)

    Absolutely, you're welcome! It's kind of frustrating when so much misinformation gets thrown around everywhere, kind of feels like you are working uphill to get people to hear that it's just math, it's just science, you aren't a special snowflake; we've all been there. So it's super exciting when someone actually listens and gets it. You made my day! You're also really fortunate to find solid info after just a few days here, so congrats on being a sensible human being, haha!

    The only thing I would clear up though, is that you should only subtract about 10-15% from your TDEE because 20% will result in the too-fast 2lb/week loss that we already covered. Otherwise, you're good! To manually adjust your MFP settings, go to "settings" at the top of the screen.

    One other post that can help you from here, written by an excellent friend here:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/844040-raspberry-ketones-for-the-rest-of-us

    Any other questions, feel free to message me :)

    I'm glad I made your day, haha. Thank you again. Consumed 1524/1664 cals today and I will definitely keep at it. :)
  • Dobbleton
    Dobbleton Posts: 30
    I have the EXACT same issue! check out my food diary. I usually hit 1000 a day and am so full all the time. I eat olive oil, peanut butter etc. and still am not getting to 1200 and am burning lots of calories everyday, as my workouts are usually 3 hours. I am in the same boat. I don;t know if I am "starving" my body or being unhealthy. I eat when hungry and not when I'm not. I stay away from dairy, wheat and red meat most of the time and in doing so my body feels clean and happy. I am not losing weight however. Its strange. I am currently getting my hormones and blood tested to see if there is something medically up that is making me not hungry and not lose. I am 5'2 and 119 pounds, trying to get down to 115.

    Please see the posts by 1ConcreteGirl! It may just be that you don't eat a great deal and your body is used to it so it tells you you are full but actually you aren't eating as much as your body actually requires. Maybe you shouldn't workout every single day if it makes eating back the calories too hard and you shouldn't need to cut groups as long as everything is in moderation. If you're not losing weight, then 1000 calories a day might be the reason.
  • Dobbleton
    Dobbleton Posts: 30
    What would you eat the black beans and the lentils with, or would you eat them on their own? I'm not big on nuts so these could be easier for me to eat.

    I like lentil soup and they also cook down and turn mushy if you cook them long enough. I use mushy ones as the base for a sauce and use it to make curries or anything with a slightly thicker sauce. I have black beans in all sorts of ways. I'll eat them by themselves with a little bit of the liquid they cooked in, tomatoes, and cilantro (feta cheese is good too and adds a little salt). I'll also have them with scrambled eggs (breakfast burritos are awesome, but even without the tortilla is good), in salads, there's all sorts of things you can do with them. I ate a ton of rice and beans as a grad student (although I didn't lose weight, so be careful of portions).

    I love using allrecipies.com. You can search by food type or ingredients you want to use. Then, once you find one you like, you can use the recipe builder through MFP to determine how many calories per serving (and if you end up making it, just use the recipe to log).

    Sounds tasty! I'll pick some up next time I'm shopping.
  • Dobbleton
    Dobbleton Posts: 30
    To anyone replying to the original post, this has pretty much been resolved now. Thanks for all the advice :)
  • beachlover317
    beachlover317 Posts: 2,848 Member
    I have the EXACT same issue! check out my food diary. I usually hit 1000 a day and am so full all the time. I eat olive oil, peanut butter etc. and still am not getting to 1200 and am burning lots of calories everyday, as my workouts are usually 3 hours. I am in the same boat. I don;t know if I am "starving" my body or being unhealthy. I eat when hungry and not when I'm not. I stay away from dairy, wheat and red meat most of the time and in doing so my body feels clean and happy. I am not losing weight however. Its strange. I am currently getting my hormones and blood tested to see if there is something medically up that is making me not hungry and not lose. I am 5'2 and 119 pounds, trying to get down to 115.

    Please see the posts by 1ConcreteGirl! It may just be that you don't eat a great deal and your body is used to it so it tells you you are full but actually you aren't eating as much as your body actually requires. Maybe you shouldn't workout every single day if it makes eating back the calories too hard and you shouldn't need to cut groups as long as everything is in moderation. If you're not losing weight, then 1000 calories a day might be the reason.

    Smart girl! Now go forth and spread this information any time you can!!! You are going to succeed!

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