struggling to eat my 1800 calories a day

rabblerabble

Old fashioned oatmeal. I have a cup (measured dry before cooking) as part of my breakfast almost every morning. 300 calories, Good healthy start to the day.

TavistockToad

I see this kind of post a lot on MFP, but I don't get it.

I mean, other than those who are just trying to maintain or actually trying to gain weight, the majority are trying to lose weight, right?

That means we've ALL eaten more than 1800 calories a day. Hell, some of us a lot more than that. So how is it that when you're trying to lose weight, you all of a sudden can't get to your calorie goals?

My guess is artificial constraints. Trying to not eat any sugar, or refined products, or protein after 8, or carbs, etc, etc, etc... It gets really hard to get to your calorie goals if you only allow yourself tofu after dark and leafy greens with no dressing as your only snack option watching TV at night.

When I get to the end of the day and I've done my exercise and I have 4-500 calories left in my budget, I treat myself. Sometimes it's a sandwich, sometimes it's a bowl of chips (gasp). I'm down 40 pounds in 3 months just being honest and telling myself as long as I'm on my goals and exercising daily and the weight's coming off, I'm 10 times healthier than I was.

And the bonus part is I can do this for the rest of my life. The constraints diets are the ones that you get to your goal and then eat "normally" and gain it all back; or worse you hit a plateau and say screw it and eat whatever. If you teach yourself moderated and thought out snacking now, even on "evil" foods, you can build a lifetime of good habits.

My two cents.

agreed!

squatsandlipgloss

Problem with a lot of people that screwed up their metabolism over the years (me included), we cannot eat 2,000 calories worth of healthy foods because they are so dang filling. We are not used to it. People usually get overweight by over eating on empty calories, therefore aren't able to fit that much food in their stomachs. I can easily eat 2,000 calories of **** (white bread, pralines, fries) but healthy stuff fills me up fast!!

So yes, ask me to eat all that **** up to 2,000 calories, NO problem. But we want to do it the healthy way - and that is where it is challenging

Why do people think that "healthy" has to mean low calorie? I think this is the problem with a lot of people who struggle to meet their calorie goals - the mindset of "I'm trying to lose weight so I must only eat low calorie foods". That, and the polarisation of foods into "good" and "bad".

Nobody said that. All I said that the healthy foods are more filling than the less healthy foods. I didn't say low calorie foods are filling. Think of the healthy foods higher in calories, they usually contain a lot of fat and/or protein - which fills you up, or at least, fills ME up. Avocado, Greek yogurt, eggs, nuts - I love it but I can't eat 2,000 calories worth of that!

ninerbuff

Lol, so how the heck are you going to even eat more once you reach goal?

Just eat higher calorie dense "clean" food. Problem solved.

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