Other eating plans

knittinlady
knittinlady Posts: 143 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Background: I started dieting(old-fashioned eat-less-exercise-more plan) in January, and lost 13 pounds before joining MFP in February. Then I lost another 12 pounds over the next three months while counting calories. Then I went on vacation for two weeks, and ate a bunch of fast food, and drank wine, and didn't count a single calorie, and lost 2 pounds over that two weeks. So I've done better when not counting calories...

Now my vacation is over, and I'm back to counting 1200 calories a day. And I feel tired and irritable, and hungry. I think I've gotten to the point where 1200 calories just isn't enough. It was fine in February, but now it's just not.

I tried adjusting my "goals" in my profile, but it still gave me a 1200 calorie plan. I'm considering stopping counting calories altogether, because I seem to do better when I'm not obsessing over the numbers. Any suggestions?

Replies

  • beccarockslife
    beccarockslife Posts: 816 Member
    Set your goal manually and up your calories.
  • knittinlady
    knittinlady Posts: 143 Member
    Thanks! I knew there had to be a way to do that, but I didn't know how. :) I set it to 1300, and I'll see how that goes. I don't want to go up too fast and undo all the work I've done.
  • nicola1141
    nicola1141 Posts: 613 Member
    Yeah, go up slowly. 1200 is likely too little (for exactly the reasons you're describing). You may see an initial stall or gain when you up your calories - don't panic, it is short term. Your body will start losing again.
  • hannah1011z
    hannah1011z Posts: 113 Member
    i had manually lowered my calorie goal to 1200 because ive heard its the least you can eat without your body going into remission and holding onto everything. With that said, i've done little things to help keep my calories low and ive actually had a hard time eating enough calories. If you look at my logs, Im actually not cutting anything out that i like, but limiting it. So for example when i want a can of soda, I also get a bottle of water and take a drink of water before i take a drink of soda each time. This makes the soda last longer, it waters down the sodium, and it gets more pure water into your system. I also drink 1-2 gallons of pure water each day but im also working out every day. Really what ive found is just finding things you like that are less calories but still good. Like i love salad! But my down fall was I also love ranch on my salad, so i bought the light ranch and dont like it much so it led me to finding that i like salad with shredded cheese and when i have the cheese in it i dont need ranch :) that helped a lot. So its just hit and miss, dont let youreself be hungry, itll be worse then taking on an extra banana or something. Also finding whole foods that stick with you is better then empty calories that dissapear in like an hour.

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