Having Trouble Eating Enough

Your diary is closed, so it's hard to be specific. The standard advice is to incorporate more calorie-dense foods into your diet. Avocado, Greek yogurt, full fat dairy, cheese, nuts and seeds, nut butter, olive oil, coconut oil, dark chocolate, protein shakes and smoothies, etc. It's easy to boost each meal by a few hundred calories without adding a lot of food to your diet.

I agree with both pp's! I am struggling to get to 1600, can barely make 1300 but I've been adding in the above foods.

Whenever I see these posts by people who can't eat their allotted calories, I wonder how they every got to be overweight. Obviously, they aren't counting their calories correctly or weighing and measuring every bite or they are pulling our leg.

Whenever I see these posts by people who can't eat their allotted calories, I wonder how they every got to be overweight. Obviously, they aren't counting their calories correctly or weighing and measuring every bite or they are pulling our leg.

Or, they're not eating enough variety. You could only eat vegetables and that might make it hard to make your total calories. You won't be getting all the nutrients you need, but that's one way that doesn't involve counting incorrectly or pulling our leg. They could just be choosing incorrectly.

Your diary is closed, so it's hard to be specific. The standard advice is to incorporate more calorie-dense foods into your diet. Avocado, Greek yogurt, full fat dairy, cheese, nuts and seeds, nut butter, olive oil, coconut oil, dark chocolate, protein shakes and smoothies, etc. It's easy to boost each meal by a few hundred calories without adding a lot of food to your diet.

^This.

I struggled with this for a while as well, when I was also under the belief that 1200 calories a day was actualy fuelling my body.

I realized that I had the wrong mentality towards how to lose weight; deprivation was not going to make me successful forever.

I chose to return to what were my normal eating habits, only, I measured things out after my eyeball pour. I found out that my serving of cheerios actually equalled almost 2.5 cups, and the suggested serving size was 3/4 cup. I learned about healthy portions while still eating the foods I love.

I also read many of the wonderful posts on here, and elsewhere, about my TDEE, and how to create a deficit from that number.

These are all things that worked for me, that I am simply sharing with you because you asked.

I'm set at 1900 a day and I have no problems meeting that goal. I just finished lunch and I'm already at 1093 cals. Diary is open if you want to have a look.

As others said, can't see your diary, so hard to offer advice, but I will echo the more calorie dense foods - avocados, nuts and nut butters, use coconut and olive oils in cooking and dressings, eat whole eggs, lean meats, cheese, full fat dairy, whole wheat or sourdough breads (and put some real butter on it!), brown rice, etc - NO "diet" foods.

Always measure and weigh everything - if you don't have a food scale, get one, they are reasonably priced, I've seen them at Target, Costco, online at eBay, Amazon, etc. Definitely a good investment, and so is a heart rate monitor (one with a chest strap!) for more accurate calorie burn estimates.

1200 is very little food, really, and likely lower than what you should actually be eating anyway. Do your best to reach that goal, and eat back exercise cals as well. This is how MFP works! Also, if you have less than 100lbs to lose, make sure you're not set with a lose 2lbs a week goal in your settings. This is the golden ticket to 1200 cals for anyone and everyone, which is why so many people at MFP aren't eating enough. A goal of 5. or 1lb a week is much better.

I love the site, and their system works, and it works well - don't get me wrong - but it's only as good as the information you give it. Set your goals too high and it can only spit back the numbers according to what it's given.

I have trouble with that too. I know I shouldn't get all worked up if I go over by 40 or 50 calories, but I can't help it. It's easy to eat all day and be sitting at say 1150 calories after dinner and not know what else to eat to bring you up without going over.

Last night I was low so I had a tablespoon of peanut butter after dinner. Sometimes I'll throw an extra scoop of protein powder in my smoothie if I need the calories. Do what you can.

And for the people who wonder how we have trouble eating enough when we were fat in the first place? You know darned well that changing a lifetime of habits is difficult and we are doing the best we can. We are learning to consider the ramifications of everything we put in our mouths and our food choices are completely different than they were when we gained weight.

So Jealous of people who struggle to ht 1200 -_-