MFP: "You are eating too few calories..."

I do feel hungry eating like this but that's not what's important here.

Learning how to eat properly is what's most important, not just losing weight. What do you think is going to happen once you hit your goal and you stop logging if you keep starving yourself?

The importance of that statement cannot be overemphasized. OP and others, PLEASE read it again. Relearning how to live and eat to be healthy for LIFE is what is critical here, not dropping those lbs right now or yesterday.

x2

definitely. That said 1360-1440 is not that much.....eat......or don't. The choice is really yours. I like eating.

My TDEE is around 1700-1800 cal. With a deficit of 20% I'm looking at 1360-1440. And thats defenetely not what MFP says and defenetely can not eat all that

you are confusing your BMR and TDEE.... you shouldn't eat below your BMR and somewhere between the two is best.

This is a little hard to understand since I've only started counting calories since I had my baby which was like October..
I know my bmr is about 1520 and I know that with a deficit of 20% in order to lose weight I should consume about 1220.

You do make sence tho bean with the whole eat 500 more cAlories lol but yeah I just recently started tracking my body fat % but haven't been able to compare it, ill do that a week from now..

Btw I'm 5'3 157 lb 22 yrs old

I haven't read through all of the responses. In my own experience I lost more weight and felt more energetic when I was eating all ofmy calories from MFP plus all of my exercise calories. I had no trouble losing 50 pounds that way. Eat as much as possible while still being able to lose weight. You'll be thankful you did it when you switch to maintenance!

This is a little hard to understand since I've only started counting calories since I had my baby which was like October..
I know my bmr is about 1520 and I know that with a deficit of 20% in order to lose weight I should consume about 1220.

You do make sence tho bean with the whole eat 500 more cAlories lol but yeah I just recently started tracking my body fat % but haven't been able to compare it, ill do that a week from now..

Btw I'm 5'3 157 lb 22 yrs old

You should take your 20% deficit from your TDEE, not your BMR. Your BMR is the amount of calories just to keep you alive and breathing, TDEE includes your daily activity (which I'm sure you have plenty of with a new baby!) I would suggest checking out Dan's thread here:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/682138-in-place-of-a-road-map-2-0-revised-7-2-12

I was basically about to type this whole thing, but he's already done it for me!
Sidenote- if you're breastfeeding, that uses 300-500 more calories a day, on top of regular activity. I don't know the specific numbers as I've never done it, but if you search the forum for "breastfeeding calories" I know I've seen tons of threads about it.

This! You can also use the Scooby site below and plug your number sin, it does all of the math for you. Please be sure to at least eat above your BMR, especially if you are breastfeeding.

http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

This is a little hard to understand since I've only started counting calories since I had my baby which was like October..
I know my bmr is about 1520 and I know that with a deficit of 20% in order to lose weight I should consume about 1220.

You do make sence tho bean with the whole eat 500 more cAlories lol but yeah I just recently started tracking my body fat % but haven't been able to compare it, ill do that a week from now..

Btw I'm 5'3 157 lb 22 yrs old

What you are thinking of for BMR is the amount of Calories required to sustain your essential organs if you had no activity during the day. If you intake less Calories than this, you will burn Calories from your body. If your body has triggered a conservation mode, where it has a reasonable belief that it is starving (neighborhood of 1,200 Calories), your body attempts to conserve every gram of fat, as fat stores have more energy gram-for-gram, and will non-selectively catabolise proteins (muscle-including your heart) in order to feed itself until such a point that you lack enough muscle to support your weight, and then it will dip into fat and muscle stores for energy. Without citing any peer-reviewed literature, your should understand that it is generally accepted that going under 1,200 Calories per day for more than 48 hours can trigger this mode. The other problem is that when you do this, your body drops its BMR lower to save itself. You don't get the physical performance or even mental acuity you are used to. Read several of the above testimonies to that effect.

Some basic hypothetical math to illustrate the potential:
1,500 Calories eaten - 1,400 Calories BMR - 200 Calories exercise = 100 Calories burned off
Conservation mode
1,100 Calories eaten - 800 Calories BMR - 200 Calories exercise = 100 Calories gained and entirely stored as fat. To boot, your body tends not to repair and grow muscles when in a Calorie deficit, so you may feel even more tired.

*Notice that by cutting the Calories too far, you can end up gaining because of an automatic severe drop in your metabolism.

So, going below safe levels, somewhere around 1,200 Calories every day, is a higher risk behavior that should be discouraged as a method of weight loss for normal dieting adults.

The exception is when you have higher risk medical conditions than the risk of permanent heart damage from aggressive diets, and these are monitored and prescribed by physicians with expert advice of dieticians and nutritionists. I strongly discourage against anyone advocating "in the blind" below around 1,250 unless they have good malpractice insurance. That would be a dangerous recommendation (not just relating their own prescribed plans and success) for both parties.

Cheers.

(but to the girl who is freaking out about losing 3lb to get to 115 from 118.... that is not a healthy attitude.)

I'm not freaking out. My attitude is healthy for me. Might not fit someone else, but it works for me.

I used to get that message daily back when I first started on MFP almost a year ago. I was set up for 1200 calories and thought even better if I can do 800-1000. I lost weight fast too. I was also constipated, tired, hungry, edgy, my hair was very dry and thin and I was skinny fat. I had calipers done and found out that everything I lost was muscle and I actually gained fat. At that point, I started reading a lot and educating myself and it was scary to get over the hump and get it through my head that I needed to eat more if I want to do it the right way. I may even gain a few lbs before it all gets straightened out, and I have - and it's all lean body mass. I friended a lot of people that posted about eating more, I joined the eat more 2 weigh less group and I dumped any low calorie eating friends. I have surrounded myself with very knowledgable, very supportive friends (some that have responded in this thread) that typically eat more than I do and it helps so...much mentally. When I ate only 1000 calories, if I had a cheat day, I would gain 3 lbs in water weight the next day. What happens is your metabolism slows to the level you are eating, so you are stuck eating less and less to lose because your body doesn't know when it's going to get enough food. The path I chose was to gradually raise my calories and it has not happened without gaining a few lbs a long the way...but now I can eat 2000 calories in a day and the scale stays the same. I never in my life thought this would be a possibility. All of those issues I had before are gone. I have lots of energy to run, lift heavy weights and then some. I know it's hard to grasp, but as so many people told me...it works.

I eat whatever amount of calories I have set my goal to regardless of whether or not I exercise. I like to view my exercise calories as a "reserve" for the days I know I am going to indulge.

I love that PB!!!! I had some yesterday because I was hungry lol

sidenote: I do eat back about half or all of my workout calories. I rarely come in under 1400 and even more rarely do under 1200. I workout so I can eat and lose.

Considering my 1-2 lb weight loss a week I assume I am taking in the proper amount of calories, even if its a little less some days. Oh and i don't ever eat back the calories I burn, I didn't know it had to be that way :ohwell:

Two points:
1) Wouldn't the whole process be better if you could lose 1-2 lbs/wk and eat like 500 more calories more (I have no idea the actual numbers, but the fact that you're getting the message suggests that it's less than 1200, and lots of women, lots, lose around 1600 cals/day)
2) You might be losing a higher than desirable % of muscle mass. The problem with that is that when people lose a high % of muscle mass, they get to goal weight and still look doughy. Most people should be trying to lose as high as possible a % of fat, and for that, smaller calorie deficits work better.

^^^^^^^ They are 100% correct!!! Eating more than that will benefit you in the long run!

Unless you have a medical condition (as I said above) if you eat over your total daily energy expenditure you gain. If you eat under the amount of energy you expend you don't. Assuming they were eating over their TDEE rountinely to gain weight would not be an erroneous assumption at all. We became overweight because we put more energy into our bodies than we could use.

Then how do you explain the people who lose or maintain weight while eating enormous amounts of fatty foods? Or those who gain weight while eating very little? People are metabolically different (see Roger Williams's work on Biochemical Individuality) and not all calories are metabolized the same way. There is also the fact that if you eat too far below your energy use, you gain weight because your metabolism slows.

I don't know what "we" you are talking about, but I am not included in it, and I am sure I am not the only one.

Unless you have a medical condition (as I said above) if you eat over your total daily energy expenditure you gain. If you eat under the amount of energy you expend you don't. Assuming they were eating over their TDEE rountinely to gain weight would not be an erroneous assumption at all. We became overweight because we put more energy into our bodies than we could use.

Then how do you explain the people who lose or maintain weight while eating enormous amounts of fatty foods? Or those who gain weight while eating very little? People are metabolically different (see Roger Williams's work on Biochemical Individuality) and not all calories are metabolized the same way. There is also the fact that if you eat too far below your energy use, you gain weight because your metabolism slows.

I don't know what "we" you are talking about, but I am not included in it, and I am sure I am not the only one.

1) the fatty foods people - it's not the type of calories they eat it is a combination of the calories in vs energy out. If they are eating truckloads of fatty foods and not gaining then they either have a medical issue or they burn the calories off. Not the most healthiest of lifestyles but not what we are debating.
2) gaining while eating very little - again energy in vs energy out. Very little could be small amounts of calorie dense foods. For example, I would gain weight if all I ate daily was one jar of peanut butter. One jar, not a lot of food but a butt load of kilojoules/calories. About 2 x my maintenance calories in fact.
3) Yes, people are metabolically different in that they burn calories/kilojoules at differing rates etc but one thing is true: we all burn calories and we all need to eat/injest energy to be able to burn calories.
4) Prolonged eating below your energy use slows your metabolic rate. If you get to the point where this is causing a weight gain then you have created a medical issue yes? I did mention that apart from medical conditions.
5) Really? You are not tracking weightloss as well as your food? Your ticker says otherwise. So join us in the 'we'. Yes 'we' who are trying to lose weight have put too much fuel (more than likely inadvertantly or unknowingly or being not as clued up on nutrition as we can be) into our bodies and now 'we' are trying to fix our issues (weight/sugar levels/cholesterol levels whatever). This site is about taking control of our own selves and getting some better information as to what goes into and on in our bodies. So come join me on the proverbial couch with some air popped popcorn (logged of course) and cruise the forums for snippets and hints before we hit the gym.