I'm confused. Can you really eat too little?

You lost me.

Gotcha. OP said she eats between 800-1000 cals, PLUS she workouts. That's a net of less than 800-1000. I mentioned 500 for the sake of conversation, rather than something more convoluted like "900 calories minus your wokrout calories which could be anywhere from 100-500 calories which would give you a net intake of ~ 300-900 depending on the day."

It was certainly never my intent to suggest OP should be eating specifically 500 cals per day.

kerimanuel wrote: »

Wow! Ok. First of all I never said 500 calories so I don't know why someone went there.
Next, I totally get what you all are saying about nutrition and making sure my body is getting what it needs. I had not been thinking of it from that perspective so thank you! I do want to be healthy.
That being said, what I'm hearing is that I really need to be eating more. I just feel like if I eat more I will not lose weight. I know some of you think I don't need to and I know I'm not "fat" but I WANT to have a body that looks good without clothes on or in a swimsuit. Maybe I can accomplish that without getting to 115, I don't know, but I do know that something has to change. I feel like I have excess fat around my stomach, hips, arms. I guess more flabby than I would like. No, I don't want to be model thin, but I do want to look good. I don't think that's an unreasonable goal.

You probably see yourself very differently than anyone else. At your height and weight, my guess is that you already look perfectly lovely in a bathing suit (bikini even).

I would push you to do a body recomp instead - do a weight lifting programme such as Stronglifts or Starting Strength. Eat at TDEE and slowly build muscle while losing body fat. THAT will do more for your body than under-eating as much as you are proposing. At the least, I would eat TDEE-15% while also weight lifting. That way you'll maintain more of your muscle while losing body fat. Otherwise you are just going to lose both muscle (a lot) and fat and never really look trim and 'toned'.

OP, this link might be of interest to you. Note that she weighs more in her after photo.

http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2011/07/21/meet-staci-your-new-powerlifting-super-hero/

wow! A really heated thread here! I preface my post with this: My Doctor put me on a restricted calorie diet because I used to be fit and thin and I have a slight frame despite my measurements, my bones are small, my wrists = thin, my fingers = thin etc. Everything except my butt, belly, hips, thighs etc... I got FAT.

I changed jobs and let old injuries bring me down and just got fat, which lead to joint problems. He adjusted my perception of food and nutrition by having me weigh my food, measure my portions, OMG, a cup of something ain't very much! 3oz of lean mean is TINY compared to the normal American diet and our perception of what a 'serving' is. 500 calories a day is HARD to do, seriously if you're full on 500 calories either you've had your stomach stapled or you're eating more than 500 calories! I had/have wiggle room in my diet, from 1000 - 1500 calories a day, on days where I don't do much I don't eat much... and even at a 1000 calories, I am not feeling full at the end of the day but that's OK if I've not done anything to warrant eating more.

Common sense.... measure that 500 calories and make sure 1. That's what your eating and 2. make sure you ARE full.

My Dr. saved my life, my profile on MFP says I've dropped 67 lbs, in reality it's closer to a 100 lbs, I just couldn't bring myself to update my highest weight on here. He whacked my food by more than HALF, encouraged me to eat 'clean' cutting processed foods, foods I didn't make myself. Once I was faced with the reality of how much I was eating it opened my eyes to what a portion is and how many calories are REALLY in things. For those who say they eat under a thousand calories a day, I challenge you to weigh, measure and track your food, you'll see it's a bit more than you realize. One way to really REALLY make that deficit work in your favor and not compromise the nutrition, good old fashioned work.... work it out, your body will thank you for it.

kerimanuel wrote: »

Again, I'm not eating JUST 500 calories. Someone threw that out there as an example and y'all are thinking that's what I'm having. Check out my diary. You'll see I'm averaging 800-1000. Some days more. I'm eating. Every meal. I'm just eating better now. The days that my calories were high were days that I ate junk. I know now, based on all your comments, that I need to eat more to stay healthy. But seriously, I feel like I'm eating healthy. I could easily consume many more calories if I ate junk, but I've been very careful not too. I did have a couple of slip ups as you'll see in my diary. So to get more "good" calories I'm going to really have to make myself eat more. I'm trying to wrap my head around that.

I think there was some confusion. No one said you were *eating* 500cal per day. But your NET intake (after burning say 400cal from exercise) is 500 calories (eat 900, exercise 400), which is probably not all that healthy.

Go to the Getting Started forum on here and read the stickies. That will be a start to figuring things out, including how to set your calorie goal to the proper amount.

Just remember the goal is to reach your calorie limit set by MFP.

jkal1979 wrote: »

Just remember the goal is to reach your calorie limit set by MFP.

Correct.

Also, your mindset should be to eat as much as you can and still lose weight... not to eat as little as you can while losing weight.

what helped me, and this is just my observations.... eating cleanly took the weight off me. Cleanly meaning whole foods. Instead of a bag of trail mix (reasonably healthy in most people's eyes) I made trail mix from raw nuts and thinly sliced and dried veggies and fruits without preservatives, stabalizers and added sugars. I have coffee with real heavy cream in it, delicious and my body knows what to do with the real foods, not the 'non-dairy' creamers and powered stuff I literally consumer MORE calories in whole foods than processed foods and lose weight? I was flabbergasted! I couldn't get my head around that either... I'm eating MORE calories and losing more weight.... but it's the foods I was eating.

My joints thank me too, my arthritis has calmed down quite a bit, the swelling and inflammation went way down. I shudder to think what I subjected myself to all those years of processed packaged foods.

You cannot eat too little to stop losing weight.

You most definitely *can* eat too little to stop being healthy.

The dividing line will be in a slightly different place for everybody - the rule of thumb is that the lower your intake, the more carefully you have to monitor what you are eating.

We dont' have much to go on here, but my guess is you will have trouble maintaining a 5x a week vigorous exercise plan on that low of an intake. Let your performance be your guide - if you aren't getting faster/stronger/longer, you're likely not eating enough/properly.

and the whole idea behind working out? so you CAN eat without creating fat! if your daily activities require 800 calories (just an example) and you're intaking 1800, 1000 is going to be stored as fat. It's hard to get the calcium you need without drinkin' the milk right? so you need that 'milk' for the micronutrient of calcium.... but you need to burn off the calories that come from the carbs, fats and proteins you consumed WITH the calcium. Your not going to get enough micronutrients without eating properly, and you're not going to lose weight without burning the extra off.... you can crash diet and lose weight, the wrong weight, it's called 'skinny-fat'.... you're light on the scales but wobbly in the butt....