Looking for friends with 1200 calories

Im pretty sure mine is set at 1250. Its hard but I motivate myself to workout because then I get more calories added to my plate! plus drinking a lot of cold water helps with not being hungry. Veggies are also low on calories so if you add more veggies it'll take longer to get to ur calorie goal! feel free to add me!

Hello everyone,

I need to stick to 1200 calories and I find it TOO DIFICULT TO DO… PLEASE HELP ME!!! I am a food lover, there is nothing I love more than eating for the pleasure of eating. My nice good quality food, my nice red wine and the excellent desert with a cappuccino or espresso coffee its all I need to forget my diet… Well not really, I just need to walk by something attractive and that’s it… Since I was a child I was very food motivated. I was born in Cuba and lived there until I was 27 years old. All my life I was deprived of the variety of food we have here in Canada. My family was very poor and our diet was mostly based on carbohydrates because protein was too expensive. As a child I always had my iron and haemoglobin levels low due to the lack of proteins and several times had to take supplements. In 1989, after the Soviet Union collapsed, Cuba went to a DEEP economic crisis. I was only 18 years old starting University and around 5.3” tall and 130 pounds. By the end of 1991 the country had used all of the food reserves. Cuba was mostly dedicated to sugar cane plantations so there was not much agriculture to begin with (and not tourism yet, it came up later). Between the USA embargo, the remaining of a communist country, and the Cuban government without a good economic infrastructure in place, we had the perfect recipe for starvation. There was pretty much nothing to eat, plus the industries went off, there was no gas, no oil, no power, no fertilizer for the soils, and what’s worse, the government was not ready for this huge collapse so there was no plan in place or money to import anything. Food became an obsession in almost everyone. I was always incline to this kind of addiction so… it very quickly became my main goal in life “TO EAT”. In 1993, our university had no supplies at all other than rice and sugar. For around 6 months we eat nothing else but a glass of water with sugar for breakfast and a cup of rice with a table spoon of sugar for lunch and dinner. I can’t say how many times I went to bed hungry, feeling this deep pain in my stomach, it was better to fall sleep so I didn’t feel it anymore… If there was electrical power at school they will cook a rice soup (water, rice and salt only), and a rice dissert (rice and sugar only) plus the usual cup of rice. Even finding a lemon to make lemonade was almost impossible. I eat so much rice and sugar that soon I was around 160 pounds. Slowly people started growing anything and everywhere. You will see every single piece of land converted into a vegetable garden, people will eat them even before they were fully ready plus there was no fertilizers so they didn’t grow much anyway… Then tourism came up and slowly things got better to some rice and beans and maybe protein once a week. In 2000 my husband got a job contract to come to Canada and I came with him. Just before coming here I could think about nothing else but all the food I was going to eat. I was still 5.3” tall and about 160 pounds. The very first week in Canada I didn’t drink water at all, only coke, and after 7 days I ended with a bladder infection. Now I don’t drink coke anymore :-) … I was so hungry and food obsessed I was getting up in the middle of the night to eat ice-cream. I was not sure how long we could stay here in Canada so I just wanted to make sure I eat everything I never had in my whole life before I returned back to Cuba. In less than 4 months I gained 40 pounds. Eventually we became Canadians and stayed here, one of the best things that ever happen to me, but with that it also came my overweight. When I compare myself with my family and friends that still live in Cuba, I feel so much lucky because I have all the food I want (and life opportunities) while they still think about food all day long… When I go back to visit them, I am not fat, I am lucky :-). Everyone thinks I have a great life because I am so fat (of course food for them means rich….) Dieting becomes even harder with all these memories.. Here in Canada I went back to school and took a college program in Computer Science. The program was very difficult. Even though I was never a fast food person (not such a thing in Cuba) I eat a lot of junk during the school years because I was always studying or doing assignments. I got pretty well educated and now have a nice job that can pay pretty much for all the food I want in the planet :-) LOL … So I hope never to be hungry again.. BUT… obviously now I want to lose some weight. I have done weight watchers but don’t like their meetings or counting points system. I have a gym memberships, I exercise and then I eat so it doesn’t do much by itself… I have taken several one on one sessions with an excellent nutritionist, I learned a lot about north American foods and changed by food habits to a much healthier style. I read a number of good nutrition books, got very well educated and I can tell you I pretty much know what to do and how to do it. I even got some counselling sessions and emotionally I am not so much food obsessed anymore. Now I ate more high quality food, love my red wine and fine cousin but hate portion control. I haven’t gained any more weight in a very long time, I just keep being fat. After all, its very easy to keep it on right? :-)… Every time my stomach tells me that he is hungry or I see something nice I haven’t tried before, I just want to eat it. My brain impulse to put the food in my mouth is faster than my self control and when I realized I just eat it… Today, I am 38 years old, still 5.3” tall of course (Canadian food helped me grow horizontal not vertical :-))… and 235 pounds, but now I am facing heath limitations. My husband and I are trying to have a baby and after years of fertility treatments the doctors pretty much see no other options but IVF for which I MUST be at least 40 pounds thinner or they won’t do it. Everything else is good, I am still lucky enough to be healthy, but overweight… SO…. I am not getting any younger, if I want to have a child it must be NOW… and to do so I need to lose the stupid weight SOON… I joined this site but find it TOO HARD to achieve my daily calories goal of 1200. A normal day for me goes between 1800 to 2400 calories. PLEASE give me some ideas as what so I can stick to 1200 calories without staying hungry all day long which will definitely discourage me and make me quite once more.

Thank you so much for reading my story. Please add me as your friend if you feel like you can provide me with some ideas and support.

Hi,

I have mine set at 1250. If I let the computer do it, it would be at 1200, but I wanted the cushion. I have been doing this since December and am approaching the 40 pound mark, so feel fairly successful. I have an open diary. I am not a 100% healthy eater. i believe in eating all food types in moderation, and I do go over sometimes and don't beat myself up too much. I do exercise and although I do sometimes eat my exercise calories back, a lot of times I don't. I just had surgery, so I am not exercising much at the moment. Feel free to add me for support if you want. Good luck!

I'm in the same boat over here. Sometimes (especially weekends) it gets a little tight, but I've been trying to be better about it, or exercise more. I never really ate breakfast either, though I've been trying to more often, even if it's something small. At first I was all "OH MY LORD THAT ISN'T ENOUGH" and now I'm often left with some, wondering what I should eat to get up to that number. It's an adjustment to be sure, but it is doable.

:flowerforyou:

Thanks Guys, I appreciate all your comments. I will check your open journals and see if I can find some good ideas. I will change my settings as well so you can see mine.

Thanks,

Sonmy.