Switching to TDEE but not THAT hungry?

akrnrunner

Ok, so I've hit a major plateau in the my weightloss and I'm getting super frustrated. I'm trying to jumpstart it again and switching to the TDEE method to give it a try. I calculated that I'm supposed to be eating around 1900 calories per day.

Does that include days I don't work out?

Also, I'm on day 3 and I find I'm really having trouble getting that many calories in. My goal is to eat as clean and unprocessed as possible but I'm having trouble eating clean foods that get me the calories I need and then I find that I snack on some unhealthy options just to get my calorie count up a bit... or I go way over in my carbs. blahhhh....

So should I listen to my hunger signs or force myself to get in 1900 calories? Feel free to take a pick at my diary. I'll change the settings in a minute.

Thanks everyone!

1ConcreteGirl

Okay, quick education:

Leptin is the hormone in your body that regulates hunger. Leptin production follows caloric intake: if you restrict calories, your Leptin production will decrease and you will feel less hungry. This is how anorexics can eat 800 calories a day and not feel hungry. If you eat more, your Leptin production will increase, and you will feel more hungry.

Because you are restricting calories, your Leptin production is out of whack; meaning, DO NOT listen to your body about how much/when to eat. Get your calories in and your Leptin production will follow, soon it will be no problem. Of course, every now and then, a day off this won't hurt you, but don't make it a habit to only eat when hungry, especially when dieting.

As for your TDEE, there are two wasy of calculating it.

1) You can set your activity level to sedentary or lightly active. That means you can log all your exercise into MFP and eat those calories back. I like this method because I find it motivating to see all the calories I burned when I work out.

2) You can set your activity level to include your exercise. In this case, you do not log the exercise you do (or you log it as having burned 1 calorie, since MFP won't let you log something as burning 0 calories), and you just eat your allotted calories wtihout worrying about exercise.

Either way, you NET the number of calories that you were given when you found your TDEE minus 20%.

akrnrunner

Okay cool! That makes sense! Got the TDEE calculation down and I think I'm ready to go from there! Thanks a bunch for your help!