balancing calories and fat intake

Hey Angie,

I am not the best person to help you but I completely understand where you are coming from. I recently was told I had to keep up with eating my full 1200 calories per day. The reason is (and I will provide a link that explains it much better) is that you need a certain amount of calories a day to keep your energy going in general. If you do not eat enough, your body will start slowing down to conserve energy and in turn slows down your metabolism (go to this link, hopefully that explains it better http://www.livestrong.com/article/290452-side-effects-of-not-eating-enough-calories/)

After taking a peek at your diary, I have a few recommendations that were given to me by a few and have proven to work on me (hopefully will help you). Definitely eat breakfast everyday. I know its an extra meal and you may not have time, but even a banana works well. This way, your body has energy in the morning and you aren't stuffing yourself by lunch. Also, try snacking (on fruit, maybe string cheese, or fresh veggies) a little in between meals, so your body has enough energy for the day.

One cookbook I love right now is Hungry Girl 200 of 200 (title may be off). There are all these meals for under 200 calories and this way I can kind of tweak it to add a little more incase I need to. The Hungry Girl cookbooks are awesome (at least for me) and hopefully can help you too.

My trainer also told me to stick with foods that walk, flew, grew, or swam.... and stay away from anything white (except for egg whites).

I hope all this helps and good luck! Stick with the diary as well

- Ne

Hi Angie,

Welcome to MFP!

I can tell you one thing--after looking at your diary--and it's your eating too few calories! I'm sure the other members who responded already told you this, but you gotta eat more! Don't be afraid of food, just be conscious of what you're eating ; ) A woman should NOT eat less than 1200 a day because then the body goes into starvation mode. So your body holds on to everything you eat thinking you're trying to kill it. And what ends up happening is you don't lose weight, so you get discouraged and the cycle begins again.

One thing I think you need to find out is your BMR--which is basically the amount of calories you burn without doing exercise. After that, decide how many calories you really want to eat in a day. I don't recommend you cut from 2,000 to 1,200 calories a day cold turkey because you're just setting yourself up for damnation. Start cutting 200, then 400, then 600, until you feel you can eat the 1200 and not feel deprived.

I'm not an expert, but from what I noticed in your diary I can try and give you some pointers. 1) eat breakfast! Strandedeyes told you, but you have to eat breakfast. People who eat breakfast are like 15lbs lighter (or something like that) than people who don't eat breakfast. So eat your breakfast! I noticed your highest fat intakes were the cheese and eggs. Next time, instead of the whole egg, just eat the egg white. And for cheese, switch to low-fat cheese.

Here's a website which has helped me A LOT. It breaks down your meals for you and puts in the recommended 3 fruit and 5 veggie servings for you! Enjoy and I hope it helps ; )

http://www.dietitian.com/calchelp.php

P.S. You HAVE GOT to drink more water! When you don't drink enough water, your body holds on to it. So drink your 8, 8oz cups of water each day! If you can squeeze in more, do so!

Thank you for the link. I think I now realize why I had my appendix removed a few years back. I didn't eat much back when it happened. As a matter of fact, I was a size 7 and 140lbs. at the time which was 5 years ago. I was reading the part on the link that if you don't take in enough calories, organs tend to run slower and problems start.

I do try to eat breakfast, but I have insomnia and I tend to wake up around noon. That is why I usually start with lunch and I go for my walk around 3. I also have a hard time taking in enough calories because I'm already feeling like I eat too much...isn't that ironic?

Well, but if you get up at noon, that's still morning for you, right? So regardless of what actual time it is, that is your breakfast. Then you need a snack...then lunch...snack...dinner...maybe another snack... You get the idea. If you need to, you can change the meal labels in your diary to just say certain time periods, like 12 pm- 2, 2 pm-4, etc.

When your previous habits include skipping meals and suppressing appetite, and then binging, I think MFP is a great tool to help break that cycle. For the first couple of weeks, I had a serious lack of appetite (largely due to my previous habits of suppressing appetite.) I never ate breakfast, rarely ate lunch, then a huge dinner and grazed/binged all evening. (I have insomnia too, but it's been better since I started eating healthier & exercising.) But I worked on eating all my meals and snacks and tried to get as close to cal goal as I could. After the first 10 days or so, my appetite came back and now I can eat on a normal schedule, without feeling too full or deprived. And I look forward to eating, but am not ravenous.

But really, as "they" say... you actually do have to eat more to lose weight - IF what you're eating is healthy food.

Thank you! You can do it too!

Definitely, a lot of drugs can wreak havoc on your systems. Sometimes they're necessary, but they often leave you with other horrible things to overcome. Hopefully as you get things under control again, the insomnia will get better, and the weight loss easier.

When texture of an item is a problem, throw it in a blender, spinach in your mashed potatoes looks like some parsley was tossed in, carrots add plenty of moisture to my meatloaf etc.

So get a blender, a mini processor, something that you won't "feel" the texture and go to town on your veggies

First of all, I just wanted to say you're doing a great job!

Second, I was working on a night shift job for 4 years and I was getting home until 5am. Another reason was I became dependent on a medicine that had the horrible side effect of weight gain and appetite given to me by my doctor. This medicine was also good for sleeping right away. I lost my job back last May and since I had insurance thru my job, I had to quit taking it. This caused my insomnia issues. I was on this medicine for 2 years so I'm hoping that as time goes on the weight gain part is officially over when it's out of my system.

Have you tried taking Melatonin. You can get this in the vitamin aisle. 3-5mg is good (I take 3mg). You only take is for a couple of weeks. You take it about an hour before bed. It is something that your body naturally produces - it's our sleep regulator. But when our sleep schedules become off our bodies will produce melatonin at the wrong time if at all. Night shift work can wreak havoc on the melatonin production. Check the internet on how to take it. My doctor put me on Lunesta but only briefly. After that she recommended melatonin. It's not expensive and you don't need insurance to buy it. Bad sleep can be very detrimental to weight loss.

I didn't have a problem going to sleep or even staying asleep but my my sleep was really bad.

As far as eating veggies. I just deal with the texture and taste (I also have a texture issue with all kinds of food). When having a salad I chop up the veggies I don't like as much into smaller pieces. Or I'll throw some raisins in the salad. The sweetness helps.