Am I eating enough?

I am 447 lbs. I am trying to eat 1800 calories a day, but sometimes I don't even eat that. I have actually gained 5 pounds. I am wondering if it's because I am not eating enough?

Open your diary
Do you weigh your food?
Do you exercise?
Any other health issues?
How much H2O?
Whats your height?
How often do you weigh yourself?

I am 447 lbs. I am trying to eat 1800 calories a day, but sometimes I don't even eat that. I have actually gained 5 pounds. I am wondering if it's because I am not eating enough?

I'm sorry if your putting on weight in all likelihood you are eating far more than you think or over estimating your exercise calories. At the weight you are and with that calorie level the weight should be falling off you. . Check that you are weighing measuring food accurately. Remember to count everything drinks as well

I am 447 lbs. I am trying to eat 1800 calories a day, but sometimes I don't even eat that. I have actually gained 5 pounds. I am wondering if it's because I am not eating enough?

Open your diary
Do you weigh your food?
Do you exercise?
Any other health issues?
How much H2O?
Whats your height?
How often do you weigh yourself?

Yes I weigh all my food
No exercise
Not that I know of
48oz or more of flavored water
5'8
Every 2 days

Def should be getting more than 48 ounces of water, much more. Most likely water retention based on your answers.
To limit the amount of what retention you can:
Lower Sodium intake,
increase potassium intake,
drink more water,
lower carb intake (retain less water due to less glycogen stores)

I would also start weighing in once a week, not more if seeing weight fluctuations bother you, under the same conditions, same time of day.

Ho long have you been doing this? I would suggest you eat more - I weigh 176 and eat 1700 and still lose weight - and don't weigh yourself every second day - weight fluctuates....

Doesn't crystal light have calories?

Looks like you've only been tracking for less than a week. Keep tracking and don't weigh for a couple weeks, try to limit fast food to once or twice a week and eat more fruits and veggies.

Doesn't crystal light have calories?

Very few. 5 in half a packet, 10 for one packet in 20 ounces of water. I drink it all the time, log it, no problem.

I am 447 lbs. I am trying to eat 1800 calories a day, but sometimes I don't even eat that. I have actually gained 5 pounds. I am wondering if it's because I am not eating enough?

I concur w/the other assessments that there's a very high chance you *think* you're only eating 1,800, but are actually eating way over that. You may not be eating as much as you used to in order to gain 447 lbs, which leads you to believe you're eating way less (and meeting your daily goal), but in all likelihood you're still eating way over what you should be.

I believe the reasoning for this, is because there is something else at play here. Let me explain.

In order for us to get to a size of 447 lbs, our minds must be very detached from our bodies. We knew, at some point, in the back of our mind, that overeating to the point of gaining that much weight is bad for us...and yet we continued to eat and not exercise or whatever despite witnessing the grave consequences happening to our bodies right in front of our eyes.

The pain and shame of that disparity, caused a split of the mind from the body, if you will. It was too difficult to face. And the food gave you too much pleasure to give it up. Eventually....you detached.... and started telling yourself that "all is fine and normal". And continued to eat and gain and eat and gain until you reached the weight you currently are.

I submit to you, that you've lived a life of shutting down your conscience for so long, that you are now not even capable of honoring the conscience you hear in the back of your head as you're trying to lose weight this time around. You are out of practice. You are detached.

Thus, you *tell yourself* you are eating "1,800 calories a day" and yet you're probably eating way more than that. You don't even know how to be honest anymore.

What to do? How does one become honest and one with their conscience again?

This is not a very popular suggestion on these boards, but I am a BIG believer in the basic 12 Steps they use for just about any addiction program. I'm NOT suggesting you're an addict. I AM suggesting that the STEPS work wonders for people who are detached. What are the steps?

1. We admitted we were powerless over food — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to compulsive overeaters and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

So it's a process of moving from UNawareness, into awareness. Admitting you have a problem. Submitting yourself to something authority that is higher than yourself. Doing an internal check of your flaws and failures and committing to fixing them. Telling someone about your flaws, getting those out in the open. Repairing damages done in relationships in your life. And continuing that process over and over until you break through the wall of detachment and get in touch with your CONSCIENCE. Bringing your actions into alignment with your desires. And if you succeed in that, you get to help others navigate their own issues (which is tremendously exciting).

If you have any questions, please feel free to PM me - I'm happy to discuss further.

Pretty much everything that's in your diary is fast food/high fat (cheese!)/processed.

...you need to seriously decrease the amount of the above items, and incorporate more fruits/veggies/un-processed food into your diet. Even McDonald's has salads and fruit options...

There are many great suggestions that can be found in the recipes section of this site, or by asking about healthy fast-food options in the forums (while the friend/family member is in the hospital).

Good luck!

Are there any fruit and veggies you like? Have you tried a lot of fresh veggies (not from can or frozen)? I used to not like veggies because my mom never made them fresh. Once I started trying fresh veggies made simply, I started liking them a lot more.

I would guess that it's the sodium intake over the last 4-5 days. You were over every day, some days by quite a bit, and given that you don't drink much water, you'll likely retaining a lot of water from that. I know I can be up 3-5 pounds from water weight and it can take up to a week to come all the way off depending on how my eating and water intake goes in the following days.

Good luck!

5lb could be water weight fluctuation especially because so far it seems like you eat a lot of sodium.

That said you are a 23 year old male at 5'8" and 447 lbs. A quick calculation at http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/ says you could be eating 3400 cal a day and losing weight at a 20% calorie reduction rate. You can ease your way in to lowering calories. There is no need to drop down to 1800 immediately unless advised by your doctor. How did you come up with that number? MFP, another calculator, your doctor, what?

And while I agree with others that you can work on incorporating healthier foods, you can lose weight on fast/junk food. You need to eat at a deficit though and give it more time. To make sure you're eating a deficit you need to be really honest with your logging. You didn't get to be 447 quickly, you won't lose it that quickly either.