Can't eat all the calories

1) Make sure you are actually only eating 1000 calories a day and not overestimating.
2) Lick 3 TBsp of peanut butter/nutella off a spoon. Goal reached.

Sweets1954 wrote: »

I don't understand how anyone who is overweight and now trying to lose weight can say they can't eat 1000-1200 calories a day! How did you get overweight in the first place. I have an allowance of over 1500 calories a day and most days I don't meet or go over it but it is because of the food choices I make. And I am rarely hungry!

It's often because they are under the mistaken impression that weight loss requires cutting all calorie dense foods from the diet.

I'm not all that worried, frankly. These posters typically come on claiming to eat ridiculously low calories and being "unable" to eat more, then they disappear. It's not magic - they just couldn't sustain that, and began to eat reasonable amounts (or just as likely, rebounded and wound up face-down in a trough of Doritos). It seems pretty routine in the weight loss world.

I'm personally not worried that the OP is going to accidentally starve herself to death all the while not feeling hungry. Should she drop in the street, surely someone will come to her aid, but barring that unlikely circumstance, she's going to start getting very very hungry, and she's going to start eating. In fact, I'd put money down that in the two days since she made her post (and hasn't responded), she already has.

Good luck, OP.

TiffanyR71 wrote: »

Very confused by the responses here… If you're full, why would you try to eat more (isn't that often how people become overweight in the first place, by ignoring internal cues)? And why would you try to eat more calorie-dense foods if you are not hungry and are trying to lose weight? You're going to force down some PB "just because", even if you're full & trying to lose weight? According to the principles of CICO, a higher calorie deficit would produce more weight loss more quickly, even if that deficit isn't sustainable, right?

I suspect that the OP is perhaps not tracking accurately...

The first and obvious reason is because your body needs more than 1000 calories to sustain itself. Yes, you could technically survive on 1000 calories or less, but you’d be extremely malnourished, weak, and sickly.

Eating less than 1000 calories also sets you up for a major binge-fest. Did you know that many food cravings are caused by a deficiency in one or more nutrients? Did you know that many other food cravings are caused by uncomfortable emotions? Eating fewer than 1000 calories will certainly cause your levels of key nutrients to dip too low, but you’ll also feel irritable, stressed, fatigued, and deprived, which immediately makes you start craving certain foods with a vengeance! You may be able to deny those cravings for awhile, but they’ll just get stronger until you finally give in – and when you do give in, you’re probably going to eat everything in sight.

If those two reasons aren’t enough for you, eating too few calories is also a waste of time because of the damage you do to your metabolism. When you drop your calorie intake too low, your body immediately goes on high alert and slows everything down to conserve energy and protect vital organ functions. So even if you are able to drop a few pounds quickly at first, your weight loss will soon stall. Worse, as soon as you go back to a normal calorie intake, you’ll start GAINING weight because now your metabolism is slower than it was before so you can’t eat as many calories and maintain your weight.

As you can see, it really IS a waste of time to eat less than 1000 calories. There are many more effective ways to lose weight, like eating moderately and exercising to burn more calories. That is a formula that has worked for centuries and it will work for OP too.

EmilyTwist1 wrote: »

Re: "if you're full on 800 cals, how did you get fat?"

I think the main possibilities are:

1: OP is underestimating calories in

2: OP used to eat high calorie foods that weren't filling, then switched to low calorie very filling foods.

3: OP is really short and sedentary, and gained weight very slowly (ie, eating a little bit over a low tdee).

4: OP has under eaten for a long time and has body image issues, thus they feel full on few calories and think they need to lose weight, even though they're not overweight.


Of course, since we know next to nothing about the OP, we really have no idea what the real problem is.

I would add a 5th: OP dropped this off to get everyone stirred up!

@TiffanyR71

TiffanyR71 wrote: »

Huh... Fried food will ensure that someone won't suffer the deleterious effects of low caloric intake. Cool - could use some fries w/mayo for sure!

Lighten up, folks, was just saying that I personally wouldn't recommend eating something, anything, just so you can get up to the magic number of 1200, whether or not you are hungry (and, incidentally, trying to lose weight). But, hey, to each her own...

Thank god! I've been making the same points as you when I see these threads come up and everyone shouts me down, I'm glad there is another rational person here. The most outrageous claims are that 1) people get malnourished when eating too few calories and 2) you should add high calorie foods to the diet.

For the first, calories don't measure nutrition. Eating 2000 calories worth of white sugar would meet the "minimum" goal and I would still be malnourished. Any bariatric surgeon would tell you that the majority of their patients, who are morbidly obese, are already malnourished.

Regarding the second, again, calories don't measure nutrition. If the solution to eating too few calories is "eat full-fat ground beef instead of lean ground beef, or whole milk instead of skim milk" then you haven't added any nutrients, you've just added fat to the diet. This is TERRIBLE advice that gets repeated over and over.

@malibu927 That recommendation would be entirely reasonable. However, in the past, I have literally had people post "helpful" suggestions like "eat full fat ground beef" or "add more cheese to your salads" or "you have room to have ice cream!" It's also important to consider a reasonable portion. If somebody is failing to eat 400 calories per day, saying "eat nuts" isn't reasonable; does anyone believe that 400 calories worth of nuts per day is part of a healthy diet? It's excessive.

The truth is that all of these posters really need no help. If their 800 calorie per day lifestyle were sustainable, they wouldn't have been fat in the first place. People will crash diet for awhile, then liberalize things a bit, and then the problem has gone away. Unless they are clinically anorexic, this is entirely a self-limited problem.

I had this "problem" for my first 3 weeks. I was eating 1,000 calories and it was a struggle to get there. I was secretly so happy. BUT... Then came week 4 and my body was like "Lady! you're HUNGRY!!!" I now only manage to keep to 1200 because I exercise in order to win a few hundred more calories. Food-wise I eat between 1200-1400 (though I've gone as high as 1500!) but I look to burn what MFP clocks at 400-500 calories a day (which is probably closer to 200-250 calories).

Lately I'm loving water jogging. For an hour. As fast as I can. So far I'm down 21.6 pounds.

LAWoman72 wrote: »

I'm not all that worried, frankly. These posters typically come on claiming to eat ridiculously low calories and being "unable" to eat more, then they disappear. It's not magic - they just couldn't sustain that, and began to eat reasonable amounts (or just as likely, rebounded and wound up face-down in a trough of Doritos). It seems pretty routine in the weight loss world.

I'm personally not worried that the OP is going to accidentally starve herself to death all the while not feeling hungry. Should she drop in the street, surely someone will come to her aid, but barring that unlikely circumstance, she's going to start getting very very hungry, and she's going to start eating. In fact, I'd put money down that in the two days since she made her post (and hasn't responded), she already has.

Good luck, OP.

I enjoyed reading this.