Too low calorie intake?

baleighcakes

So I've read a bunch of threads on not getting enough calories in, but I'm just getting mixed information so I thought I'd add my own to see if I can get any extra input. I've been using myfitnesspal to track my calories with a safe calorie goal (calculated by reducing my TDEE by 20%). However, I've been eating good foods and I can't seem to get anywhere NEAR my calorie goal, even though I'm never hungry. But I think it's starting to really get to me. I worked out my legs and back a few days ago, and my legs still hurt a lot. I also slept for like, 15 hours today and I'm all shaky with an elevated heart rate. I just feel awful. But I hate forcing myself to eat when I'm not hungry. I feel totally satisfied, sometimes stuffed. But should I absolutely make sure I reach my calorie goal every day? Will this eventually pass? What should I do?

chefwrx

How about some details on your macronutrient and caloric targets.

herblackwings39

Could you make your food diary public for a bit so everyone can see what you're doing and make suggestions?

TheBaileyHunter

I've been struggling with the same thing. I've started looking for foods that have high calories & protein but lower in carbs and fat. A challenge, but once you factor in your work-outs it helps get things balanced. (Currently have half my dinner sitting on the table because I am WAY TOO FULL to finish it, but will probably try to go back to it in an hour to get a bit more in)

The kick in the brain for me was, I'd been under for nearly a week and a half and lost nothing. Then for two days I was very close, or just met my calorie goals and BAM! I actually saw a drop. This just cemented it for me.

Good luck! and if you find a good site with recipes that fit the balance, please share! Here's one I found: http://www.buff-dudes.com/

delyn356

Eat more calorie dense foods that are still good for you. Nuts, PB, olive oil, avocados, brown rice. If you add these into your diet, you should be able to reach your calorie goal easily without feeling like your stomach is going to explode.

vorgas

Small meals throughout the day may help. I found it increased my metabolism and delayed the production of the hormones that shut off the hunger feeling.

aFootballLife25

Eat more calorie dense foods that are still good for you. Nuts, PB, olive oil, avocados, brown rice. If you add these into your diet, you should be able to reach your calorie goal easily without feeling like your stomach is going to explode.

This.

MochaMixAZ

Hi. What interesting timing for this question - I'm an RN and Health Coach and just today I teamed up with a Registered Dietician and presented a class on healthy eating. When asked about calorie intake necessary and weight loss, we responded that:

Individual calorie needs vary depending on a lot of different factors. A persons age, height, weight, and activity level, are just some of the things to consider for suggested calorie guidelines. There’s no “one size fits all” when it comes to weight loss. Losing weight is the result of creating an energy deficit and there are 2 sides to that equation, calories in from food, and calories out from movement. A good place to start when considering how many calories are right for you is to determine how many calories you’re eating now and cut that down by about 500 calories a day. Keep in mind, we need a certain amount of calories every day just to fuel our most basic body functions. It is difficult to meet your nutritional needs with less than 1000 calories a day and your metabolism will slow to conserve energy A slower metabolism burns fewer calories.

Generally speaking, the low end of a calorie range for a woman trying to lose weight should be 1100-1300cals/day and for men about 1500-1900 cals/day.

As others have mentioned, you can hit your calorie goals much quicker if you select calorie dense foods such as nuts, oils, and nut butters.

I hope this helps. Best of luck to you!

Siege_Tank

This question is asked by a LOT of new people. I was the same way, I cut out junk, and all the sudden I couldn't eat enough calories to hit my goal, I was full...

It took a while to sink it, but that's how short people like me got overweight, we were eating moderate volumes of high calorie foods. When we switch to high volumes of low cal foods, all the sudden, we worry about things like starvation mode and stuff like that.

Your profile says you have 30 pounds to lose. bear in mind that if you're average height for a woman, TDEE -20% will take a while. If you maintain weight eating at 1500 calories, a 20% cut is 300 calories, or a daily goal of 1200.

well it takes -3500 calories to lose a pound, roughly, or 12 days for that 1500 calorie maintainer, cutting at 20%, to see a pound lost. To put that in perspective, it would take a -20% TDEE eater 35 days to lose 3 pounds, to go from 170 to 167.

I'm not that patient. I think we should cut while we have the motivation, and maintain when we don't.

And just as a reference, if you're active, and maintain weight at say, 2000 calories a day, a 20% cut would take 9 days to see a pound lost, or 26 days to see a 3 pound lost.

For you to lose 30 pounds going -20%, it would take you 350 days to lose that weight. If you maintain at 1500 calories.

If you're at all curious about how it works, you just take your TDEE and cut 20% of that, and divide it by 3500 calories to get the number of days it will take to cut a pound..

I just think that it's way too slow. Get there, get it done, switch to maintenance, and do something fun afterwards.

baleighcakes

Thanks to everyone who has posted so far! I made my food diary public so you can get a better idea on what my daily intake looks like. I don't log exercising because I use other apps for that, but I'm doing the P90X lean program and I'm taking walks every day as well. I still really don't know everything about myfitnesspal and how it works, and I also only know a little behind the science of weight loss. So any suggestions with dummy explanations (lol) would be really helpful.

vorgas

So you're eating 1000 calories and doing daily exercise? I think the P90X is about 500 cals per workout? So you're giving your body 500 calories a day to do all the things it needs. It's not gonna happen.

I think you're mixing two different methods of calorie accounting.

The really, really simple thing is this: Set MFP to a weight loss goal of 0 lbs. Eat that much food every day. Don't eat back exercise calories. Since you don't log them anyway this might work great for you.

As to getting enough food, don't attack it all at once. When I have to make changes I set small, easily accomplished goals to get where I need. For example, drink a protein shake first thing in the morning every day this week. Bang, +100 calories. Next week, see about adding a small handful of nuts right after the workout. That's another 100 calories. I would keep doing this until I was where I needed.

PS: During the Minnesota Starvation Experiment to starve the subjects their meals were cut to a little over 1500 calories a day. You can read more about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experiment

There's just no way 500 net calories is enough for your body. One of the things that happens is your body stops producing the hormones that cause the hunger feeling. This is a survival mechanism that allows you to focus on finding food instead of being distracted by hunger. Not being hungry while eating at extremely low calorie levels is a sure sign you aren't eating enough.

baleighcakes

This actually makes a lot of sense, and setting myfitnesspal to weight maintenance is a great idea. I just have a couple questions:

Setting it to weight maintenance puts me at 1630 daily calories. This is set using the sedentary option (not working right now in order to take care of my disabled veteran husband). And just using exercise creates a deficit of 500 calories, which equals to one pound of weight loss every week. But what if I want to lose two pounds a week, or is this not a safe option for me? Using this method would have me exercise for that first deficit of 500 calories, and then reducing my intake by 500 calories would create that second half of the deficit, equaling to a total deficit of 1000 calories, or a weekly loss of two pounds. But then that would mean me doing P90X on an intake of only 1130 calories.

Am I getting this right?

drefaw

Yes, that's right. I would try and go for a 1 or 1 1/2lb a week goal. Try and keep yourself above that 1200cal mark if at all possible.
And change your Macros so you have 1g of protein for each lb of Lean Body Mass, .35 g of fat for each lb of lbm, then let the remainder go to carbs. Try and keep your carbs eaten as complex carbs as much as possible also.

chefwrx

Are you consuming any stimulants? Caffeine, Ephedrine, or any other medication that might affect metabolism? What does your meal timing look like?

Serah87

I your definitely not hitting your TDEE -20%, looking at your diary,. As other people stated eat more dense food, good luck.

wahmx3

You aren't eating enough...up your calories by about 300 at least, every day. Where are your fruits and veggies? I see 1 fruit most days and few veggies....you need way more of these. Your sodium levels are really high, try and keep under 1700 mgs a day. The cereal you are logging only shows calories and nothing else...obviously, it has nutrients that should be tracked as well. How is your water intake?

psuLemon

If you are doing a beachbody program, you really want to follow their nutritional calculator. I would suggest using the link below to figure out your caloric needs. Then set you macro's to 40% carbs, 40% protein and 20% fats. At this point, you are significantly under eating for a program like that and your protein is almost nothing. If you want a lean and tight body, you want to maintain your lean body mass and it's hard to do that if you don't get enough protein or enough calories. Ideally, your goal should be fat loss, not weight loss. When you lose lean body mass, it takes longer to reach a good body weight to have a tight body.


http://www.teambeachbody.com/eat-smart/nutrition-tools/caloric-needs

psuLemon

Are you consuming any stimulants? Caffeine, Ephedrine, or any other medication that might affect metabolism? What does your meal timing look like?

Meal timing is irrelevant to weight loss. It really doesn't matter if she eats all her calories in 2 meals or 10 as long as her body is receiving enough nutrition, which at this point she isn't because she eats around 1000-1200 calories most days. Realistically, it should be 1800+

jfarnden

The other thing you could do is drink more of your calories rather than trying to jump straight on the heavy solid food bandwagon. If you keep fruit juice (not fruit drink, actual fruit juice not just sugar) on hand and have a few cups a day that's another couple of hundred calories. The brain doesn't really register calories we drink as real food so it doesn't feel like your forcing yourself to eat. Plus breakfast juice or tropical juice are tasty.

erinsueburns

Yep, you need more calories. Little things make a difference. Like keep a bag of pre-measured nuts with you to snack on through the day. If you normally eat chicken breasts, switch to chicken thighs. Make a smoothie with fruit and greek yogurt and maybe even a nut butter. Drinking calories can be easier than eating them.

baleighcakes

You all are awesome for trying to help out. Just one more question!
What about eating back my exercise calories? Like, set a net goal for 1200, burn around 500 calories during P90X, causing a total intake of 1700 calories.

Would that be ok?

vickydubuis

2 WORDS: PEANUT BUTTER

inksyrup

Have you thought about very nutrient-dense foods? Try to add things like oil oil, peanut butter, avocado, and almonds to your meals. Works wonders!

shutupandlift13

You all are awesome for trying to help out. Just one more question!
What about eating back my exercise calories? Like, set a net goal for 1200, burn around 500 calories during P90X, causing a total intake of 1700 calories.

Would that be ok?

If your TDEE-20% is around 1700 then yes, you should eat a TOTAL of 1700 calories, or if you're burning around 500 cals during P90X then you would be NETTING 1200 calories. A lot of people that use TDEE don't track calorie burns just to simplify it even more.

Nuts, oils, eggs, avocados, nut butters, all good easy ways to up your calories without a lot of volume.

psuLemon

You all are awesome for trying to help out. Just one more question!
What about eating back my exercise calories? Like, set a net goal for 1200, burn around 500 calories during P90X, causing a total intake of 1700 calories.

Would that be ok?

Please use the link I posted to figure out your true calorie goal. Do not follow the MFP way of doing things. This is the area where I see the most failure in the programs. This will then allow you to set up a custom profile and you will not need to do NET calories, only total daily calories. Also this allows you to eat the same amount of calories daily.

baleighcakes

You all are awesome for trying to help out. Just one more question!
What about eating back my exercise calories? Like, set a net goal for 1200, burn around 500 calories during P90X, causing a total intake of 1700 calories.

Would that be ok?

Please use the link I posted to figure out your true calorie goal. Do not follow the MFP way of doing things. This is the area where I see the most failure in the programs. This will then allow you to set up a custom profile and you will not need to do NET calories, only total daily calories. Also this allows you to eat the same amount of calories daily.

I did use the calculator, which put me at what I originally calculated - an intake around 1500 calories. I would just really like to lose closer to 2 lbs a week.

psuLemon

You all are awesome for trying to help out. Just one more question!
What about eating back my exercise calories? Like, set a net goal for 1200, burn around 500 calories during P90X, causing a total intake of 1700 calories.

Would that be ok?

Please use the link I posted to figure out your true calorie goal. Do not follow the MFP way of doing things. This is the area where I see the most failure in the programs. This will then allow you to set up a custom profile and you will not need to do NET calories, only total daily calories. Also this allows you to eat the same amount of calories daily.

I did use the calculator, which put me at what I originally calculated - an intake around 1500 calories. I would just really like to lose closer to 2 lbs a week.

I have a feeling the reason it gives you 1500 is because the option you chose. Did you choose "lose a lot of weight"?

I would suggest your expectations are too high. We would all like to get ripped and fit as quick as possible, but it's not realistic. Fast weight loss equates to muscle loss. If you want any kind of definition or muscle, then you want to minimize muscle loss. If you just care about some erroneous number on a scale, then you make that decision. But the scale doesn't always tell the whole picture. Look at the below link.. would you rather look like the 120 lb staci or the 140 lb staci

http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2011/07/21/meet-staci-your-new-powerlifting-super-hero/