im not eating enough calories but i feel full

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aymi_needstobeslim
aymi_needstobeslim Posts: 24 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
i want to make this quick, you can take a look at my diary i track everything accurately besides my dinner, the reason being that my mom cooks this and i eat whatever she makes as its fresh and healthy. most of the time its a curry because im asian. anyways its difficult to count calories when ingredients have been mixed together already however i still do make sure my portions are according to what nutrients portions are supposed to be. e.g carbs should be 2 palm full etc. before anyone starts lecturing me on how important counting calories accurately is, i am not willing to make myself a seperate dinner everyday just to count calories as i dont hav the time or money. thats not the way i want to change my lifestyle.
Point is- i do not feel deprived at all, i eat till im comfortably full but it doesnt look like im eating enough calories,i dont have cravings as i eat 90%/80% clean, i have a cheat meal on the weekend, should i be worried and will this slow my fat loss?

Replies

  • shadowofender
    shadowofender Posts: 786 Member
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    Just a question, I see a lot of "quick add 90 calories" and .25 T olive oil but...where are those quick add calories coming from and do you have a measurement for a quarter of a tablespoon because I just have a half or a teaspoon which is 1/3. If you do I totally want one...
  • Merkavar
    Merkavar Posts: 3,082 Member
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    I have sort of the same issue. I eat 3 meals, tracked as accurately as possible with out being ocd about it. And still I can find I'm 2k 3k or more under, that's under the kj needed to lose 1kg per week.

    I think the answer I found was look more at the weeks energy. For me I eat less during the week, and exercise more during the week, and on the weekend I eat a bit more. You might find over a week it evens out.

  • ana3067
    ana3067 Posts: 5,623 Member
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    Then you're probably eating more calories than you realize. Healthy =/= always low calorie. And I'm sure plenty of people wuld argue that curry isn't healthy. Carbs shouldn't arbitrarily be "2 palm fulls." I could have 2 palm fulls of carrots or 2 palm fulls of grapes and calories will be vastly different. Or if I chose chocolate, then yeah. Way different calorie counts. You should be eating based on caloric and satiety needs, not arbitrary palm full guidelines.

    Either make your own dinner (I've been doing this myself for years while living at home) or ask your parents to write down the ingredients and measurements/weights of everything used. Then enter it into MFP, create appropriate number of servings (meaning equal amounts if going by volume or number), and log it.

    Also, to say you don't get cravings because you "eat clean" is kind of ridiculous... if this were the case you'd not bother having "cheat meals."

    Your logging overall is not accurate. You clearly are not weighing food, but you are using weighted entries in some cases. You are using a generic recipe entry. You are quick adding calories. If you think that you are full eating 1000 calories then you are clearly eating more than you think, especially since you are not necessarily eating a lot of nutrient dense food. So the only way your eating habits will slow down your losses are if I am correct and you are grossly underestimating your intake numbers. Your profile says you are NOT overweight, so for your goal to be this low means you likely set your goal to 2lb/week, which is MFP default. Change your goal to 0.5lb/week, log accurately, monitor results.
  • jazzy550
    jazzy550 Posts: 264 Member
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    Are you losing too rapidly? Has your weight loss stalled? Just how many calories are we talking? I am on a tablet and can't view any profiles. Anyhow as long as you aren't starving yourself or stalling your weight loss I don't see any harm.
  • StaciMarie1974
    StaciMarie1974 Posts: 4,138 Member
    edited January 2015
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    Are you losing weight? (I assume that is your goal.) Do you feel energetic, satisfied? If so continue as you're doing, logging accurately when you can & estimating to the best of your ability when estimating is necessary. If you're not losing, then you'll need to find an area where you can make changes. If you're not able or willing to be more accurate on the dinner meal, then do something else. Walk an extra 30 minutes a day to burn more calories. Make yourself a salad and eat it along with 1/2 the meal portion you would normally do. Just a couple of ideas.

    Based on your food log you're probably not using a food scale, so you're probably eating more than the calories you are logging. And you don't have much weight to lose - perhaps you're at a healthy weight and need to focus on body composition.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
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    My first question would be, Are you losing weight?
  • jumblejups
    jumblejups Posts: 150 Member
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    Does your mum use the same types of recipes? If so, you could find out how they're made, save it on MFP (as a recipe or meal, I choose meal because then when I add it to my day I can easily tweak any changes), then use it as needed. My husband makes curry, among other things, a family recipe, so I got the recipe from him, logged all of the ingredients and now I add a serving to my diary if he makes it.

    Btw - why would curry be unhealthy, ana? Putting to one side the "there's no bad food" debate, I get that takeaway curries can often have high levels of cream, ghee etc, but homemade curry may not. A generous serving of our homemade curry sauce is about 90 calories. It's basically a little bit of oil, a lot of spices, some onion and garlic, and water, pretty harmless.

    OP, like everyone else has said consider your weight loss. If you're not losing, you're likely underestimating calories. If you genuinely are only having that much and are full but want to meet your calorie goal, you can add calorie dense items - have butter on your bread, sauce on your protein, full fat milk, for instance. If you can't take dairy switch things out for other items; nut butters, avocado, oat cream, etc. You'll soon meet your goal.
  • aymi_needstobeslim
    aymi_needstobeslim Posts: 24 Member
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    shadowofender wrote: »
    Just a question, I see a lot of "quick add 90 calories" and .25 T olive oil but...where are those quick add calories coming from and do you have a measurement for a quarter of a tablespoon because I just have a half or a teaspoon which is 1/3. If you do I totally want one...
    the quick add 90 calories was from a sald i actually calculated but it ddnt get saved and i couldnt b bothered to put it in again :p , but i remembered the number exactly per serving. and yes i do have a quarter tea spoon measuring spoon which i think i got from tesco...
  • aymi_needstobeslim
    aymi_needstobeslim Posts: 24 Member
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    Merkavar wrote: »
    I have sort of the same issue. I eat 3 meals, tracked as accurately as possible with out being ocd about it. And still I can find I'm 2k 3k or more under, that's under the kj needed to lose 1kg per week.

    I think the answer I found was look more at the weeks energy. For me I eat less during the week, and exercise more during the week, and on the weekend I eat a bit more. You might find over a week it evens out.
    hmm that makes sense, has this worked out for you? have you been loosing fat?
  • aymi_needstobeslim
    aymi_needstobeslim Posts: 24 Member
    Options

    StaciMarie1974 wrote: »
    Are you losing weight? (I assume that is your goal.) Do you feel energetic, satisfied? If so continue as you're doing, logging accurately when you can & estimating to the best of your ability when estimating is necessary. If you're not losing, then you'll need to find an area where you can make changes. If you're not able or willing to be more accurate on the dinner meal, then do something else. Walk an extra 30 minutes a day to burn more calories. Make yourself a salad and eat it along with 1/2 the meal portion you would normally do. Just a couple of ideas.

    Based on your food log you're probably not using a food scale, so you're probably eating more than the calories you are logging. And you don't have much weight to lose - perhaps you're at a healthy weight and need to focus on body composition.

    im not loosing weight but my goal is to loose fat, thankyou for the suggestions. i am using a weighing scale and i also use measuring cups.

  • aymi_needstobeslim
    aymi_needstobeslim Posts: 24 Member
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    ana3067 wrote: »
    Then you're probably eating more calories than you realize. Healthy =/= always low calorie. And I'm sure plenty of people wuld argue that curry isn't healthy. Carbs shouldn't arbitrarily be "2 palm fulls." I could have 2 palm fulls of carrots or 2 palm fulls of grapes and calories will be vastly different. Or if I chose chocolate, then yeah. Way different calorie counts. You should be eating based on caloric and satiety needs, not arbitrary palm full guidelines.

    Either make your own dinner (I've been doing this myself for years while living at home) or ask your parents to write down the ingredients and measurements/weights of everything used. Then enter it into MFP, create appropriate number of servings (meaning equal amounts if going by volume or number), and log it.

    Also, to say you don't get cravings because you "eat clean" is kind of ridiculous... if this were the case you'd not bother having "cheat meals."

    Your logging overall is not accurate. You clearly are not weighing food, but you are using weighted entries in some cases. You are using a generic recipe entry. You are quick adding calories. If you think that you are full eating 1000 calories then you are clearly eating more than you think, especially since you are not necessarily eating a lot of nutrient dense food. So the only way your eating habits will slow down your losses are if I am correct and you are grossly underestimating your intake numbers. Your profile says you are NOT overweight, so for your goal to be this low means you likely set your goal to 2lb/week, which is MFP default. Change your goal to 0.5lb/week, log accurately, monitor results.

    the point of the cheat meal is to keep cravings away and thats what it does. i ddnt mean that im super human and dont ever want to eat unclean foods, i meant i dont feel like binging because i eat 80% clean. the quick add calories are ones i have calculated accurately, i use measuring cups, spoons and a weighing scale.
  • aymi_needstobeslim
    aymi_needstobeslim Posts: 24 Member
    Options
    christinev297 wrote: »
    My first question would be, Are you losing weight?
    jumblejups wrote: »
    Does your mum use the same types of recipes? If so, you could find out how they're made, save it on MFP (as a recipe or meal, I choose meal because then when I add it to my day I can easily tweak any changes), then use it as needed. My husband makes curry, among other things, a family recipe, so I got the recipe from him, logged all of the ingredients and now I add a serving to my diary if he makes it.

    Btw - why would curry be unhealthy, ana? Putting to one side the "there's no bad food" debate, I get that takeaway curries can often have high levels of cream, ghee etc, but homemade curry may not. A generous serving of our homemade curry sauce is about 90 calories. It's basically a little bit of oil, a lot of spices, some onion and garlic, and water, pretty harmless.

    OP, like everyone else has said consider your weight loss. If you're not losing, you're likely underestimating calories. If you genuinely are only having that much and are full but want to meet your calorie goal, you can add calorie dense items - have butter on your bread, sauce on your protein, full fat milk, for instance. If you can't take dairy switch things out for other items; nut butters, avocado, oat cream, etc. You'll soon meet your goal.

    i know my initial weight is 9 stones but i havnt weighed myself since so sorry i cant tell you but i does not look like to me iv lost weight.
    jumble jups - that sounds like a reasonable idea but the thing is i dont know how many people it serves. and i agree with you on your question to ana, that the only 'bad' thing my mum uses is oil, which she uses a small amount of and the rest is spices and water, the meat i weigh separately so its not something im worried about.

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