daily calorie allowance is too high

I'm certainly not tiny. I'm 5'6", 172, size 12. I do sit for 10 hours/day with my job though. I do feel miserable when I eat anything close the 1400.

You say you feel miserable eating more than 700 calories a day? Obviously you weren't having that problem before or else you wouldn't be overweight.

I'm certainly not tiny. I'm 5'6", 172, size 12. I do sit for 10 hours/day with my job though. I do feel miserable when I eat anything close the 1400.

So why did you start this thread, if you're happy with what you're doing and don't want to listen to anyone who disagrees with you?

Have to agree here to be honest, We are all saying our opinions and what we think would be best, for them to be shot down again.

To be honest, This is out of the blue and I don't mean to cause offence, but could you be depressed? You can eat to little, not have much of an appetite and under eat if you are depressed?

Anyway hope you sort it out, and maybe start listening to advice being given

I started gaining about 8 months ago and finally started to diet within the last 2 months when, to me, things were out of control. I gained 20 lbs in the course of 6 months

not eating 700 calories a day you didn't. Which means you can eat more than that. You just have decided not to.

You're not taking any of the advice being given, so I don't know what else we can do for you. As people have already said, please calculate your BMR. Just so you know, your BMR (Basal metabolic rate) is the amount of calories your body would burn if you were in a coma. This is the amount of calories your body needs every day just to keep you functioning. And I guarantee you it's more than 700 calories - it's probably double that or more.

Yes you might gain weight at first if you start eating more, because your metabolism is probably a little screwed up right now. The weight gain won't last and you CAN definitely start losing weight eating more than 1400 calories a day.

You didn't gain weight eating 700 calories a day. Obviously you used to eat more than that, and you can again. If you need to eat fast food or dessert or whatever to reach that goal, that's fine. A glass of eggnog has almost 500 calories. You're telling me you couldn't manage to cram down two glasses of eggnog tonight to reach the rest of your thousand calories? (I know it's not even eggnog season, that just sounds really good right now lol)

OP...you seriously need to look up BMR and understand that you need more calories than that just for proper organ function if you slept all day and didn't move a muscle.

Go seek professional, medical help please. When people talk of "starving" it has nothing to do with whether or not you feel hungry or not. Starving is having inadequate nutrition...you cannot get proper nutrition eating 700 calories per day...you cannot get all of your vitamins and minerals and most definitely cannot get your requisite protein or essential fats with that low of calories.

Go get help...you need it.

I said I feel miserable eating amounts close to the 1400 recommended of MFP. I've just been in the habit recently of eating 700-800/day and I feel good. Right now It's 5pm and I've had 320 calories and I feel fine. I can't imagine eating a 1000 calorie dinner and feeling like a million bucks tonight.

There are a lot of ways to boost your intake without adding a large amount of food to your diet. Add cheeses, dairy, Greek yogurt, avocado, eggs, nuts and seeds, nut butters, olive oil or coconut oil, dark chocolate, etc. to your daily routine. Or consider drinking some of your calories. Protein shakes and smoothies, or even fruit juices add calories without filling you up. It's really not too difficult to boost your calories by a few hundred per meal with a little planning.

You're not taking any of the advice being given, so I don't know what else we can do for you.

Here here

I said I feel miserable eating amounts close to the 1400 recommended of MFP. I've just been in the habit recently of eating 700-800/day and I feel good. Right now It's 5pm and I've had 320 calories and I feel fine. I can't imagine eating a 1000 calorie dinner and feeling like a million bucks tonight.

(Don't eat a bunch just to meet your goals)
Also, don't know your age and/or experience, but make sure that the amount of calories that drop in the diary is realistic. I have added a main portion of a meal one time and didn't realize that it said that it was 10 calories, instead of the approximate 500 calories. Don't trust what the MFP app or exercise machines say that you are burning--get a good heart rate monitor.

I said I feel miserable eating amounts close to the 1400 recommended of MFP. I've just been in the habit recently of eating 700-800/day and I feel good. Right now It's 5pm and I've had 320 calories and I feel fine. I can't imagine eating a 1000 calorie dinner and feeling like a million bucks tonight.

(Don't eat a bunch just to meet your goals)
Also, don't know your age and/or experience, but make sure that the amount of calories that drop in the diary is realistic. I have added a main portion of a meal one time and didn't realize that it said that it was 10 calories, instead of the approximate 500 calories. Don't trust what the MFP app or exercise machines say that you are burning--get a good heart rate monitor.

This.
It's recommended that you eat six times a day, three being your 'large meals' and the rest being snack times. That should be plenty enough to reach your daily calorie goal.

they suggested i eat 1690 a day, i lowered it to 1500 to maintain my weight, because thats what im used to and what works for me, anything below 1200 is extreme. are you losing weight?

Yes, it sounds like you've been eating so few calories for such a long time that your hormones are out of whack, causing your metabolism to slow. You need to eat more calories. 700 calories a day is not even enough for a 5' 6" person no matter how sedentary. If you were in a coma, doctors would give you more than 2X that number of calories intraveneously just to keep your heart beating and your lungs going.

If the idea of eating 1400 calories "makes you feel miserable" there are several different things that could be going on:

1. You're eating low-density bulky foods that fill you up. I.e., salads, fruit.
2. After eating so little for a long time, your stomach has shrunk to an unhealthy size.

For both of these problems, eat more calorie dense foods. Put some peanut butter on your apple (it's tasty! and very healthful!). Add an avocado to your salad, maybe some nuts too (I like sunflower seeds on a salad). If you're not actually lactose intolerant, drink milk (lowfat if you wish), eat some cheese once in a while.

You can also eat more times during the day, include some snacks between meals. Gradually increase by 100 calories a day (more if you can). Especially if your stomach has shrunk, this will correct itself very quickly (like, 2-3 weeks).

3. It's very possible that you're just not accurately measuring your calorie intake, and in fact you're already eating much more than you think. It's very easy to get portion sizes wrong. Or if you're logging "in your head" or on scratch paper instead of in a permanent spreadsheet or somewhere like MFP, it's also real easy to introduce rounding errors to your calculations. Those rounding errors ADD UP, especially when your calories are already low. Get a food scale and weigh servings of everything (and log it all) for a week or so just to make sure you're getting an accurate read.

4. Please don't take this as an accusation, but as advice coming from a place of concern for you: you should consider the possibility that you may have an eating disorder. Maybe you don't have one, great! Maybe you do. If you're logging your food accurately and you really are eating less than 1000 calories a day and feel "miserable" when you eat more than that, you can't rule it out without a professional opinion. Take your accurate food log with you when you speak to your doctor. You have to be prepared to get real, otherwise you're beyond anyone's help in achieving your goals.

You'll hear a lot of people here on MFP have experience with their body not responding to weight loss attempts until they increased their calories. If your calorie intake is less than say, 70% of your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) for an extended period of time, you will damage your metabolism (mostly due to hormonal changes) and your body won't respond predictably to calorie deficits, i.e., you can eat too little and not lose, or even actually gain weight.

I started the thread, bc unfortunately I don't know what everyone else's caloric intake is or how their bodies react to eating above or below the recommendation.

Here's mine:

I'm female, 28 yr, 5'7", 172 lb, work a sedentary job around 9-10 hours/day. I work out daily for a minimum of half an hour, up to two hours.

I am eating 1500-1800 calories a day, depending on my exercise. And I am still losing around a pound a week. I started in February with losing 2 pounds/week, before I came here and adjusted things. Unfortunately, although this year I lost around 17% of my body weight, I recently had it tested and only 6-7% was fat. The rest was my own lean mass.

Don't set your goals too fast or too low. Lose slow and easy and you'll actually kick FAT, not other (healthy) sources of weight.

1400 calories is in now way to high. In fact even that amount is fairly low. It really is better to add some activity so you can eat more. The more you can eat the more likely you will hit the nutrients you need. Unless you eat very very poorly;