Eating 800 calories a day
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I have pretty close to the same stats that you have, though I have about 15 years on ya MFP gave me the same calorie goals and my diary is open if you want to see what I typically eat. I dropped my calories under 1500 when I started at the first of Jan and I felt fatigued within a few days of exercising.0
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Hi OP; glad to see that you're willing to eat more!
Your calorie goal is what MFP plans for you if you don't do ANY exercise, so make sure you hit that as close as possible. Also, since you are nearly 6 feet tall, you may not have much to lose in regards to weight, so make sure you pick a good deficit for your goals. You can use the following tier to set your weekly weight loss goals:
If you have 75+ lbs to lose 2 lbs/week is ideal
If you have 40-75 lbs to lose 1.5 lbs/week is ideal
If you have 25-40 lbs to lose 1 lb/week is ideal
If you have 15-25 lbs to lose 0.5 to 1.0 lb/week is ideal
If you have less than 15 lbs to lose 0.5 lb/week is ideal
You can easily add in an extra 1,000 calories per day on top of what you're eating by adding in calorically dense items like avocado, peanut butter, ect. Also, make sure you are using a food scale to weigh your items, as this will give you more accurate calorie counts.0 -
FoCoAlphaNerd wrote: »As lots of people on here have said, 800 isn't nearly enough for someone your height and weight.
This myth about the "1200 calories" has to go away though. I realize it is as low as MFP goes, I imagine for liability reasons, but I have a friend who is about 5 feet on the nose and does coding for a living (very sedentary). She is more than full at 800-1000 calories. 1200 is not some magic bottom line that people should chime in with the second this question is asked on the forums. Wait to get the whole story.
Haha, way to read the very first sentence of the post. "As lots of people on here have said, 800 isn't nearly enough for someone your height and weight." The very first thing I did was say 800 calories was too low. The next section was about the 1200 calories myth. If only I'd left some visual break or gap between the two thoughts to help separate them.0 -
I am 5'5" and currently 157 lbs. I have lost 37 pounds or so on MFP in 6 1/2 months and even at my height, I have rarely eaten less than 1400-1500 calories a day. I'm still losing. Please, please up your calorie intake. Unfortunately, fast results aren't usually the best. At your current height and weight, your metabolism probably will crash sooner or later and you'll regain anything you lost.0
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Make sure you are weighing your food!0
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Hi, and welcome to this wonderful world! I'm really excited for you to start discovering your body and interacting with it in a brand new way
Some things to keep in mind, because I know how the "hungry" thing can swing either way!
THOUGHT EXERCISE
Assuming your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is 1200, that means your body, as an organic machine that needs fuel to run, needs 1200 energy units (kilocalories). Just to sit in bed watching cartoons, all of our organs are spending energy just to keep us alive. For example, your brain uses ~20% of your BMR. Another vital organ you need to function regardless of how much you eat is your kidneys. So your kidneys use about 6-7% of your BMR, so about another 100kcal are used for just your kidneys. We are now up to about 350kcal to keep your brain and your kidneys going.
So now let's assume I'm NOT just laying in bed watching Adventure Time. For example, now I'm running. I'm making my heart work harder than it normally would. The "extra" work I'm forcing it to do requires energy, yeah? I don't want it to take that energy from my brain or my kidneys (or any of my other vital organs)! So I "give" it some energy so it doesn't cannibalize the rest of my body's fuel. I typically go with ~100kcal/mi.
With weight lifting, it gets a little more complex. Lifting heavy DOES require extra effort from your body, but the energy burned from weight lifting comes from cellular repair pathways, like protein synthesis. Science isn't exactly sure what's going on there, but it's been shown that protein synthesis is upregulated in muscles that experience heavy weight training. So that's where that whole "weight training burns less calories but over a longer period of time" adage is based.
tl;dr: the human body is an astoundingly complex machine that uses kcal to do EVERYTHING from heartbeats to breathing to thinking.0 -
Answer the questions in MFP as honestly as possible. Age, weight, height, activity level. Be very honest with logging food and exercise. At the end of the day if your "calories remaining" are close to zero you are eating healthy and have a good calorie deficit.
If you eat too little your body will go into starvation mode and start storing calories. If you continue to not eat you will start losing weight however other things happen that are not healthy. It is best to keep a calorie deficit of 1000 or less. This is what MFP does for you so if you try to hit zero (while being honest) it will be best thing in the long run.0 -
Assuming it's measured rather than guessed, 800 calories day in day out is going to exhaust you. Why put yourself through it? If the goal is to learn how to eat to lose and stay healthy for the future why not use MFP's guidelines and see how you get on? You're less likely to fall off the wagon and binge if you're eating a more healthy amount.0
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btw I am 5' 11' 270 lbs, MFP tells me I can eat 1600 calories w/o exercise and still lose 2 lb per week. When I meet my FitBit goals MFP tells me I should be eating around 2200 calories.0
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I'm 5'9" female I weigh the same as you. I eat 2300 a day. I think I'd die at 800. literally die lol. I certainly would not have any energy to get me through to day let alone exercise. My BMR is 1800 which means even if I was in a coma i would still need that amount to keep my organs functioning. my guess is if you are feeling full you might not be as accurate as you think with tracking calories. You'll want to figure out a baseline with a BMR calculator to make sure you don't go below it.0
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800 is way too low. Your body will go into starvation mode. You NEED to eat at least 1500 a day! The MFP goal you see is your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate), which means that in order for your body to be awake, you are supposed to meet that goal. Not everyone does this granted, but 800 per day is far too low. All that happens is your body shuts down a bit, your metabolic rate(MR) drops, and your body stores fuel. Actually eating can and will increase your MR, helping you to lose weight.0
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I made a daily meal plan for myself and when I logged it on myfitnesspal the total calories for the day was 800. I feel like it's enough food for me and seems pretty healthy. However a lot of things I'm reading say that below a 1000 calories a day is unhealthy , is this true ?
If you would like to lose weight --just weight--and don't care where it comes from, that plan is fine. If you don't mind losing a higher percentage of muscle, thus making your overall body composition worse and your metabolism slower.
Also if health is not an issue--in other words you don't mind the possibility of losing hair, having pale skin, getting sick more often, or feeling unwell/run down in general-- proceed.0 -
Will definetly be adding some calories to my diet, as most of u explained 800 calories is just not enough even if I feel like I'm full.
Thanks for all the advice0 -
FoCoAlphaNerd wrote: »FoCoAlphaNerd wrote: »As lots of people on here have said, 800 isn't nearly enough for someone your height and weight.
This myth about the "1200 calories" has to go away though. I realize it is as low as MFP goes, I imagine for liability reasons, but I have a friend who is about 5 feet on the nose and does coding for a living (very sedentary). She is more than full at 800-1000 calories. 1200 is not some magic bottom line that people should chime in with the second this question is asked on the forums. Wait to get the whole story.
Haha, way to read the very first sentence of the post. "As lots of people on here have said, 800 isn't nearly enough for someone your height and weight." The very first thing I did was say 800 calories was too low. The next section was about the 1200 calories myth. If only I'd left some visual break or gap between the two thoughts to help separate them.
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As long you eat enough protein to maintain lean body mass, you are doing fine. All diet program out there is replace two meals with their liquid shake and 1 regular meal for dinner. Eat .9g per kilo of your weight and no more than 225g (your weight). You should 2 time weight lifting a week, 2 sets 6-8 reps. Don't do high intensity cardio work out, walk 30 minutes a day. Give you at least 1 free meal a day.0
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@fsalib3 How's it going? Have you reset your goals? How many calories are you aiming for now?0
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christinev297 wrote: »@fsalib3 How's it going? Have you reset your goals? How many calories are you aiming for now?
It's going great thanks for asking
I added brown rice to my dinners instead of just eating the protein alone. Also added a few things to my breakfast and now my calories are at about 1300 per day, I know it should be more so I'm going to keep working on it till its around 1600 at least0 -
christinev297 wrote: »@fsalib3 How's it going? Have you reset your goals? How many calories are you aiming for now?
It's going great thanks for asking
I added brown rice to my dinners instead of just eating the protein alone. Also added a few things to my breakfast and now my calories are at about 1300 per day, I know it should be more so I'm going to keep working on it till its around 1600 at least0 -
Dam, my lunch was nearly 800 calories..... Then Ive still got breakfast, dinner and about 400 cal in snacks to graze on
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I will for sure try adding more calories every week, 150 seems like a good amount, however 2000 seems like a lot , the mfp calculator told me about 1860 in order to lose 2lbs a week.
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I will for sure try adding more calories every week, 150 seems like a good amount, however 2000 seems like a lot , the mfp calculator told me about 1860 in order to lose 2lbs a week.
At least work your way up by 100-200 cals a week until you reach 1860 calories. Afterwards, stay there for a few weeks. By that point you'll have probably lost some more weight, at which point it'd be advisable to switch to a 1lb/week goal, and then you can work your way up to that as well if the jump is too high to just eat it straight out (e.g. more than 200 calorie increase). This is all net as well, so you should be eating your calories back if you log exercise - at least half of them
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I made a daily meal plan for myself and when I logged it on myfitnesspal the total calories for the day was 800. I feel like it's enough food for me and seems pretty healthy. However a lot of things I'm reading say that below a 1000 calories a day is unhealthy , is this true ?
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How accurately are you weighing your food? Are you using a scale or measuring cups? I was surprised how inaccurate I was a year ago when using mostly measuring spoons and eye-balling methods.0
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This discussion has been closed.
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