Question about daily calories.. 669?

darisey
darisey Posts: 228 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I normally eat about 1,300-1,600 per day but today I have somehow only eaten 669 calories including breakfast lunch and dinner. I feel really full after eating dinner but should I force myself to eat something else to get my calories up a bit to prevent my metabolism from slowing down and going into starvation mode? Or should I just not worry about it as long as I normally eat at least twice the calories?
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Replies

  • missionPossibleIcan
    missionPossibleIcan Posts: 99
    That is really low what in the world did you eat? I would eat something otherwise you might be sluggish tomorrow.
  • darisey
    darisey Posts: 228 Member
    I ate a bowl of oatmeal with honey and a glass of whole milk for breakfast, some of a big bagel with cream cheese for lunch, spinach salad with feta cheese for a snack, for dinner I had 3 homemade tortillas made with corn masa and flax seeds with 1/2 cup of beans.
    I measured everything so I know it's accurate, just weird :/
  • jrmartinezb
    jrmartinezb Posts: 147 Member
    Could it be your scale is broken?.

    Btw, I did some quick math and i get over 800cals for what you ate:

    milk, 1 cup 146 cal
    bagel, 1 pz 153 cal
    cream cheese, 1 tbsp 50 cal
    feta cheese, 1 ounce 74 cal
    tortilla, 3 pz 120 cal
    beans, .5cup 114 cal
    oatmeal, 1cup 159 cal
    honey, .5 tbsp 30 cal

    (edited for spelling)
  • sarahg148
    sarahg148 Posts: 701 Member
    You could have another mini meal. If I didn't, I would be eating way too much the following day to make up for the calories anyway...at least that's how it's worked for me in the past. :\
  • darisey
    darisey Posts: 228 Member
    Jr, I'm going by the labels on my foods.
    I was thinking I had a full glass of milk for breakfast but I only ended up drinking half of it.
    So:
    Whole milk- 75 cal.
    Oatmeal- 114
    .5 tbsp Honey - 25
    Bagel with cream cheese on it- 100 cal.
    Spinach-10 cal.
    Feta (1 teaspoon)- 10
    3 Tortillas- 110
    Flax seeds - 15
    1/2 cup Beans- 90 cal
    Olive oil - 120

    I'm just wondering if this alone will cause my body to freak out or if as long as I eat a a good amount of calories normally, it will be okay? And is it bad to force myself to eat if I feel full which I do now?
  • mgram2
    mgram2 Posts: 128 Member
    If it's a once in a while thing it is no problem.
    Don't eat if you aren't hungry.
    Eat more tomorrow.
  • Skinny_Beans
    Skinny_Beans Posts: 405 Member
    Could you open your diary so we know what you're eating?
  • sholubik
    sholubik Posts: 12
    Be happy about the days that you are under. In my case I have more over days than under, so would be very happy to have an under day.
  • lisab0864
    lisab0864 Posts: 154
    If it's a once in a while thing it is no problem.
    Don't eat if you aren't hungry.
    Eat more tomorrow.

    Great advice.... But don't make the low cals a habit!!!!
  • ceejay1982
    ceejay1982 Posts: 44
    Sometimes I ha e low calorie days but it totally depends on what ive eaten in th past few days and found ive never had that two days running your body will tell U what it needs it will all balance out over the week.
    Good luck. Little and often is the key. Don't force feed yourself listen to ur body!
  • saraann4
    saraann4 Posts: 1,296 Member
    Jr, I'm going by the labels on my foods.
    I was thinking I had a full glass of milk for breakfast but I only ended up drinking half of it.
    So:
    Whole milk- 75 cal.
    Oatmeal- 114
    .5 tbsp Honey - 25
    Bagel with cream cheese on it- 100 cal.
    Spinach-10 cal.
    Feta (1 teaspoon)- 10
    3 Tortillas- 110
    Flax seeds - 15
    1/2 cup Beans- 90 cal
    Olive oil - 120

    I'm just wondering if this alone will cause my body to freak out or if as long as I eat a a good amount of calories normally, it will be okay? And is it bad to force myself to eat if I feel full which I do now?

    a bagel with cream cheese = 100 calories. Not likely. Did you eat a regular bagel and regular cream cheese? Even a bagel thin w/ fat free cream cheese wouldn't come out to 100 calories. I'd know.... :(
  • darisey
    darisey Posts: 228 Member
    I didn't eat a whole bagel, I ate part of my daughter's bagel and cream cheese with my salad. I don't eat anything "reduced fat" or anything like that.

    Well I didn't eat anything else because I was too full but Im going to make sure to include some snacks today so I don't end up with so many calories remaining at night. Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! :)
  • MichelleLaree13
    MichelleLaree13 Posts: 865 Member
    When my brother and I were little, we would go days without eating much. The doctor told my mom not to worry because it is the nutrients we eat in a week that matters. I think if you arent hungry today, you will be hungry tomorrow. No need to eat calories just to eat them.
  • cherriegh
    cherriegh Posts: 196 Member
    So if you eat something like 1000cal and exercise 300back, which one counts net calories?
  • mfp_1
    mfp_1 Posts: 516 Member
    Do you have a digital food scale?
  • inatay7
    inatay7 Posts: 141
    Listen to your body.

    Personally I wouldn't eat more because I still had calories left.

    I find it quite handy to look at the calorie thing as a weekly thing. Sometimes you have a party on the weekend, you eat a bit more than you needed to, and so the next day or even over the next week I find my eaten pattern has changed because my stomach is trying to find that equilibrium again.

    Honestly, I'm a huge believer in finding out what works for your body.... good luck
  • mockchoc
    mockchoc Posts: 6,573 Member
    Have some nuts or nut butter. That is one meals worth of calories not a whole days worth.
  • mulderpf
    mulderpf Posts: 209 Member
    Jr, I'm going by the labels on my foods.
    I was thinking I had a full glass of milk for breakfast but I only ended up drinking half of it.
    So:
    Whole milk- 75 cal.
    Oatmeal- 114
    .5 tbsp Honey - 25
    Bagel with cream cheese on it- 100 cal.
    Spinach-10 cal.
    Feta (1 teaspoon)- 10
    3 Tortillas- 110
    Flax seeds - 15
    1/2 cup Beans- 90 cal
    Olive oil - 120

    I'm just wondering if this alone will cause my body to freak out or if as long as I eat a a good amount of calories normally, it will be okay? And is it bad to force myself to eat if I feel full which I do now?

    This is bordering on starvation!! "Some of a bagel for lunch" - you poured yourself a glass of milk but only had half of it, spinach and feta salad - a teaspoon of feta and 50g of spinach is hardly a salad - it's leaves with a teaspoon of feta and olive oil on!!

    Why are you worried now that you are not hungry - you have probably gone beyond hungry having just a piece of your daughters bagel and some leaves to eat all day? Your body simply cannot function with so little energy going in - remember your heart is muscle that pumps all day long, it needs energy, your lungs need to take in air and process it into oxygen, your brain needs to function, you are using energy just reading this. Your body cannot burn fat that fast that it can simply get ALL of the additional needs in one go - something will have to give, you have to supply your body with enough energy to still function, otherwise your metabolism will simply shut down as your body tries to hold onto everything it has. That's why you never see doctors telling morbidly obese patients to simply stop eating because they have enough fat reserves - you have to put enough energy in!!

    :(
  • Mokey41
    Mokey41 Posts: 5,769 Member
    I didn't eat a whole bagel, I ate part of my daughter's bagel and cream cheese with my salad. I don't eat anything "reduced fat" or anything like that.

    Well I didn't eat anything else because I was too full but Im going to make sure to include some snacks today so I don't end up with so many calories remaining at night. Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! :)

    You aren't too full, you think you're too full because you're dieting and that's the way it should be. It's amazing the tricks our minds can play. We diet and convince ourselves that we couldn't eat another bite but if you're not trying to lose weight you can eat a full meal and be looking for snacks a half hour later. So much of our food intake is directly related to our brain, it controls most of what we perceive as hunger.
  • darisey
    darisey Posts: 228 Member
    No, I don't have a food scale.
    I wasn't trying to starve myself, otherwise I wouldn't be posting here worried about my metabolism, would I? ;)
    I like my salads with spinach and cheese. Wednesday I was craving nachos but instead had 4 cups of spinach with .5 oz cheese and 1 tbsp olive oil and that was delicious and filled me up. The only reason my salad was much smaller yesterday was because I ran out of spinach. Before about two years ago, I wouldn't have added the olive oil because I prefered my salads dry. Yeah everyone always thought I was weird but it's personal preference, not starvation.

    I actually have not been "dieting" in the sense of restricting portions, I have just been trying to choose healthier foods such as the example above and retraining my body to crave those kind of foods when I need a nutrient instead of unhealthy foods that I grew up eating and learning to crave. It's a long process and I've been (very) slowly evolving my diet for a couple of years but now that I'm logging my food, it gives me a better idea of what I'm actually eating, what I need to add more of, if I'm not getting enough of a certain nutrient, etc. I'm naturally a very picky and sparse eater and my entire life, people have harped on me about not eating enough until I starting gaining all of my weight so I'm trying to find a balance in that.

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