Not reaching calorie target, is this a problem?

SpaceraiderPhil

I've been doing this food tracking for 9 days now. I'm 5'11" and started at 190lbs, wanting to get down to around 160.

I've a daily calorie target of 1600 and, because I'm being really careful what I eat, I'm not reaching that target, I'm always under. Yesterday, for example, I was 1179 & 1310 the day before. Is this a good thing or not? I'm eating well enough and I feel satisfied & I don't want to eat for the sake of it. Will this cause me problems? I do some exercise but not a lot at the moment.

Thanks

Phil

Sweetsugar0424

Yes, it will start to cause problems. Your body needs calories to function and eventually you will stop losing weight because your body will want to hold on to the fat as it's not getting what it needs.

It's really not that difficult to eat more calories as you learn what all you can eat. I'm currently at 2000 cals/day and am finding lots of foods to eat. If you want a quick calorie add in, you can eat some nuts or a scoop of some kind of peanut/nut butter.

WinnerVictorious

I've been doing this food tracking for 9 days now. I'm 5'11" and started at 190lbs, wanting to get down to around 160.

I've a daily calorie target of 1600 and, because I'm being really careful what I eat, I'm not reaching that target, I'm always under. Yesterday, for example, I was 1179 & 1310 the day before. Is this a good thing or not? I'm eating well enough and I feel satisfied & I don't want to eat for the sake of it. Will this cause me problems? I do some exercise but not a lot at the moment.

Thanks

Phil

in the short term, no.

in the long term, maybe. it depends on how severe your calorie deficit is.

don't stress about each day. try to get close, but focus on your weekly averages. if you're under on that, then try to add some more calories. you can easily add 105 calories with a banana, and it's a good source of potassium (for heart health).

emmad2

It is important to try and stay as close to your calorie target as possible otherwise your body can go into starvation mode as far as I'm aware which as the someone else said, can then stop you from losing weight as your body will store fat. Whenever I've successfully lost weight in the past it has always been through sticking closely to my calorie target and by eating little and often. That's half of the reason why I'm as big as I am at the moment. I tend not to eat very much throughout the day and then by the time the evening comes and the kids are in bed I'm starving and eat a big meal - because I was only eating that one big meal I was coming well under my caloie allowance for the day but my body would then store evrything because it didn't know when it's next meal would come - feel like I'm eating so much at the moment but trying to make myself eat regularly :-) x

WinnerVictorious

It is important to try and stay as close to your calorie target as possible otherwise your body can go into starvation mode as far as I'm aware which as the someone else said, can then stop you from losing weight as your body will store fat. Whenever I've successfully lost weight in the past it has always been through sticking closely to my calorie target and by eating little and often. That's half of the reason why I'm as big as I am at the moment. I tend not to eat very much throughout the day and then by the time the evening comes and the kids are in bed I'm starving and eat a big meal - because I was only eating that one big meal I was coming well under my caloie allowance for the day but my body would then store evrything because it didn't know when it's next meal would come - feel like I'm eating so much at the moment but trying to make myself eat regularly :-) x

in bold... IS COMPLETELY WRONG.

starvation mode is really badly understood and its a topic that comes up on this site almost daily.

you will not go into starvation mode if you have a normal or high BF%. the worst that can happen is a metabolic slowdown from severe low calorie diets, but that takes a long time to manifest, and it's not clear that the amount of the slowdown is all that great.

people who have yo-yo dieted with very low calorie diets FOR YEARS can negatively affect their metabolism, but it's repairable.

your body DOES NOT go into starvation mode overnight, while you sleep.

starvation mode is what happened to those poor souls at Auschwitz. those people were literally starved to death. when the body no longer has fat reserves to draw upon while starving, it will start to consume itself for energy. that's why many of those poor people, although alive when liberated from the camps, were too far gone to be saved and died in the following days and weeks.

this does not happen to anyone unless they have a very low BF% and are starving themselves on a very low calorie diet over a period of many weeks or months.

Superdave24

This is really gonna help you......

I agree with both but more so with "WinnerVic" posts for now. If your in the beginning stage of your diet I think your doing fine but eating healthy snack foods can add good calories to you diet while helping in other area like eating that banana....eat some nuts too.
As you drop weight you might see some plateus here and there.....and thats when you might want to change things up and start thinking about the "Sweetsugars" post. I hope this helps. Just keep us informed of your progress so we can help you through this change.

SpaceraiderPhil

Thanks for the replies. I eat bananas anyway but I'll introduce some walnuts and almonds into my regime as mid morning snacks to bump up the calories a bit. Maybe some dried fruit too.

wahmx3

I think you need to eat more to properly fuel your body. Your brain, heart, lungs etc all need enough nutrition to fully function. Add some healthy fats, nuts, and maybe whole grain bread to up your calories some.