miss Arizona

Whats your calorie goal and how close to you come to it? Height, current weight, goals? Weighing & measuring foods? What type of exercise and how are you tracking calorie burns? More info needed to offer help.

Well for starters, 800-900 calories a day is WAY too low, you should be eating a minimum of 1200 per day, and even that is probably too low.

And your diary is private, so can't check that out.

You need to eat the proper number of calories to fuel your body for your current goals - this means figuring your current age, height, weight and activity level, and taking a cut from what your body burns in a 24 hour period. MFP does this for you if you enter your info accurately and with realistic goals.

The daily calorie goal MFP gives you has you at a calorie deficit, meaning you could eat TO GOAL every day, do zero exercise, and you'll lose weight, because that calorie amount is lower than what your body is burning all day - sleeping, walking, working, sitting on the couch, brushing your teeth, etc. Then if you add exercise, you're burning off more cals, so MFP adds those burned cals back into your daily goal. You eat them back, bringing your NET cals to or close to goal, you're still in deficit, you still lose weight, and your body is happily fueled and strong, lean muscle is preserved, while the fat comes off.

You're not doing yourself any favors by eating so low - it's not healthy, it's not sustainable, and it's not worth it.

Personally, my goal is to eat as many cals as I can while still losing weight, which is exactly what I've done for over three years now, reaching goal weight and keeping it off.

Let me preface this with PLEASE do not take this the wrong way, I mean it with the best of intentions, honestly.

Your profile says you have overall 60 ish lbs to lose. That isn't a little bit of weight, that's a decent amount of weight to lose. How, and I mean this in the nicest of ways, how did you get to be in a position of needing to lose 60lbs if you are able to sustain yourself on 800 - 900 calories/day? Like really. I know how I got to be 340lbs, I ate more than I needed to and I struggled to stop those habits. STRUGGLED! I wasn't loving life when I made the changes I did. I mean after I started running and the pounds were dropping I did but trust me, at first it wasn't good. I realized though, I was being too restrictive. Now I'm an everything in moderation and enjoying life

As someone said, what you're eating now is not sustainable. Do you know who survives on 800 - 900 calories? Not 30 year old 5'4 women, that's for darn sure. Especially if you're in a situation where you need to lose more than 50 lbs. Believe it or not, going on diets like this causes the anorexia-like effects on your body, even if you are technically "obese". Your organs don't get the right nutrients, your essential brain function suffers and if you let it go long enough (which takes a lot of control and commitment) your hair falls out, your teeth lose enamel and turn brownish, your nails become brittle. It's not healthy. It's not starvation mode - so do not think of the you need to eat more to lose, at all - it's just not healthy. As Amy mentioned, eat as much as you can while still losing weight. I'm 5'10 and 250lbs and I lose on approx 2,000 net calories/day. I started at 340lbs, and I'm now training to run my first 5K in April. I never thought I'd get here. Training and the gym 5 days/week helped, but nutrition makes an exceptional amount of difference. There's no other way around that.

As for what to eat - eat whatever!! I had freakin McDonalds yesterday because I could not stop thinking about those $1.29 cheeseburgers lol but they fit into my calories so I had it. I'm a big fan of everything in moderation. Some people eat keto, some eat paleo, some are vegetarian. Whatever blows your dress up is really ok, as long as you're getting the nutrients your body needs and I can guarantee you would not get those nutrients on 800 - 900 calories/day.

Further, as RGv2 said, you are probably not accurately logging. If you were truly eating that little then you would be losing. Another factor is if you're using MFP to estimate your exercise calories, it grossly over estimates. Grossly. When I put my exercise is, I cut the calories it tells me I burned in half because I know it's not accurate.

You need to be honest with yourself with what you're eating. And I think you might be surprised by what you're actually putting in your mouth, I know I was at first. You need to drink a lot of water - I drink about 3L/day.

Be honest, weigh everything. Your diary is locked so I can't say for sure but I highly doubt you're honestly eating 800 - 900 calories/day. The long term damage of that is horrible and for most it's not sustainable - especially for those who are overweight. I don't say that to be mean, it's just a conditioning. Most people who have been obese do not have the mentality to only eat that little for sustained periods of time. We just don't. I eat, and I love to eat. I don't deny myself things but I also moderate how much and how often I eat it. I go over on my calories - it happens. Not all the time and not by thousands but it does happen.

The best thing you can do is be honest. Weight loss is about 70% diet and 30% exercise. Ever heard the saying "Abs are made in the kitchen"? It's really true.

Further, 1/4 cup of pasta is really, really not much at all. I know it's a serving but it's very small. And like I said, coming from a position of over eating you must have some serious control to only eat 1/4 cup cooked pasta.

The bottom line to weight loss is CICO. Calories In < Calories out. It's very much that simple. It's not easy to be honest and admit you were eating things you shouldn't have or ate too much or however you want to look at it, but if you aren't honest with yourself about what you're eating and how much of it, what's the point? Also, what you eat in private you wear in public. So whether you "log" accurately or not on MFP, your body will more accurately log every single calorie you consume and every single calorie you burn, always. You can't fool your body into thinking you only ate 800 calories when you really at 1,500. Our bodies are amazing . . . and sometimes that sucks.

Edited for my poor spelling

I weigh slightly more than you (currently 239 lbs) and eat 1500 calories to lose roughly 1.5 lbs a week. I highly suggest that you take some time to review the pinned posts on these forums. By no means am I perfect, but they really helped me get an accurate idea about the science behind weight loss. If you aren’t ready to get behind the concepts, let MFP guide things for you. Set your figures (don't tinker with it), choose to lose 1.5 or 2 lbs per week, and then go. It's that simple.


(Edit to add: I sent you a friend request)