Do I really need to eat this much?!?

Keep eating the same kinds of foods you were eating before. Don't live on fat-free non-foods and salad. I don't mean this to sound offensive, but you didn't get to 180 lbs by not eating enough. The reason people don't usually find success with weight loss is they make drastic changes and then wonder why it doesn't work. Firstly, you won't want to keep eating under 1200 calories forever. Secondly, if you do go for a long period of time eating less than 1200 calories, you will burn through your lean mass which will make you burn fewer calories overall in future, which means you will have to eat less and less and less and less as time goes on... else you'll put the weight back on but without the muscle to burn any of it off.

If you are not losing weight it is because you are either consuming more than you think you are and/or overestimating your burn. If you're just guestimating servings and not weighing and measuring out foods then I can pretty much guarantee that you are underestimating intake. If you're using a database like MfP to determine your calorie burn I can pretty much guarantee that you are overestimating your burn.

You have to be as precise as humanly possible really for calorie counting to work. Most people substantially underestimate their intake.

I'm not stalling out - in the last two weeks since i've been logging and eating more than usual I have lost 4.9lbs. I measure and weigh everything - i'm a overachiever..My exercise is something I don't question - yes, I wear a HRM, I'm very fit - I run atleast 5K 3 times a week, teach yoga, etc..

Okay the way your Original Post was phrased gave the impression that you weren't losing weight and were confused because you had been under the impression that you were under eating. I'm not sure what your questions is?

You lost weight while eating more so... you want to keep doing it?

I'm the same height and we have the same goal weight. I know we are different ages, but I have been easily losing weight netting over 1360 calories everyday (grossing between 1360 and 2000 calories). However, I have only attempted to lose 1lb per week even when starting out.

No, you don't need to eat this much. But, if you're genuinely hungry all the time, then it kinda seems you've answered your own question....you don't need to starve either Just pay attention to your body and your results, would be my advice.

I'd like to clarify - because there seems to be confusion...I'm not eating less or better than I was - i'm eating more now - and seem to be losing. I don't eat fat-free, or calorie reduced or anything overly processed.

It's a mind *kitten* that I've been seemingly stuck, but now I'm eating more and have started to lose. I'm not complaing here that I'm not losing - I'm wondering if I really need to eat ALL THE TIME...it seems the opposite of what we are taught.

The goal I set is for 1.5 lbs per week - actually I didn't set it, MFP did...

It is entirely possible that your body was producing stress hormones that helped keep your weight steady if you were under feeding it, it takes a long time to get to that point and it's pretty rare. Some people refer to it as Adrenal Fatigue. But seeing as you don't have any of the exhaustion symptoms, I'd say it's unlikely.

It's much more likely that you believed you were eating very little food before you started to log regularly and are now eating an appropriate amount of calories to lose weight. There is really no way for any of us to know whats really been happening over the past X amount of months.

Another question you might want to ask is: are you eating the 'right' foods. Smart proteins, carbs, fat & fiber? My goal is 1200 a day, but I'm around 1000 a day that's with eating clean and yes there are some days I feel as though I am shoveling in my food just to get to 1000. Having said that ... eating often is important also. Eating every 2 to 3 hrs helps with the 'hunger' you may be feeling.

I've been fallowing Dolvett Quince from the Biggest Loser's book called 3-1-2-1 Diet, for me it really helped to 'explain' what 'clean eating' is and makes its simple to understand AND follow. I have found that following eating 'smart proteins, carbs, fat & fiber' and eating every 2 to 3 hrs, I am not hungry and I am still losing weight. Now I'm not drastically losing weight. About a pound to a pound and a half a week but that's good with me.

I am just an 'average joe' like everyone else trying to walk this healthy journey so I'm just passing along tips that I have learned and have worked for me. Good luck we are all in it together!

I think that until it's broke, don't try to fix it. You've lost weight and had no adverse effects, so there should be no reason to make any change at this time. Even if it doesn't "make sense", keep doing what you're doing. There may be a multitude of reasons why things finally clicked into place, but all you can know for sure is that what you are doing right now is working, so keep it up.

Congrats! Well done. Keep it up.

Gosh, your posts are definitely confusing.

In my opinion, it's not simply eating more that allows you to get to goal. If you eat more, you will find that you have more strength and more energy to do the workouts that you're doing.

It basically is still a calorie in/calorie out equation BUT everything has consequences, meaning that the more you eat, the more you burn and in the long run, your weight loss works out because you don't binge, you exercise, you are fit, you eat well and so on.

My comments are made as an aside to any scientific/physiological explanations that may be made to provide a reason for you seemingly becoming unstuck in your weight loss.

You have two key players that assist in hunger and satiety feedback: hormones that regulate energy balance and portions of the brain responsible for self control (reward vs aversion) and gauging hunger and satiety. The latter becomes compromised after long-term malnutrition.

Serum leptin can decrease after 24 hours of undereating which demonstrates how quickly your body adapts in regulating energy balance. The result is that you no longer feel hungry after eating less for a few days. Once you decrease the deficit, and return energy balance closer to maintenance needs, serum leptin recovers to near baseline concentrations leading to regained hunger response.

If underfeeding persists chronically, the brain itself mutates and areas responsible for self control and gauging hunger and satiety become affected. Through fractional MRI studies on recovered anorexics, scientists have discovered that these areas have greatly altered and remain so even long after recovery. To illustrate the severity of these changes, consider the below different responses.

Healthy person - This person eats a small amount of calories for a meal and experiences hunger within an hour. The brain accurately assesses the degree of hunger. Along with the area of the brain responsible for reward thinking, it assumes you are hungry because you haven't met energy needs. Thus, to maintain weight, you know you must consume more calories.

Anorexic person - This person eats a small amount of calories for a meal and experiences hunger within an hour. The fact that hunger subsides (even if only for an hour) convinces the anorexic they have truly eaten enough. Thus, when they experience hunger again, the brain is genuinely confused. So instead of acknowledging this as a reward scenario, it instead switches to aversion out of fear of getting fat.