Am I on the right track?

What is your calorie goal?

This seems a little extreme to me, especially without more details. How much do you have to lose? What is your daily calorie goal? Do you plan on exercising? If so, do you plan on eating some or all of your exercise calories back?

130by2016 wrote: »

I honestly have always had issues when it came to food be it extreme restriction or overeating. So while my goal is to lose weight, my ultimate goal with all of this is to correct those behaviors.

If you're only eating 1,100 calories you're not correcting those behaviors. And exercising on top of that just adds to the extreme restricting. Maybe you should see a therapist to help you with your ED.

There's nothing wrong with the foods you're eating. Just throw in some ice cream or a couple tbs of peanut butter or a handful of nuts. Just to pad your calories a bit, because you really do need, at minimum, 100-200 more calories than what you're proposing.

130by2016 wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

130by2016 wrote: »

Ready2Rock206 wrote: »

130by2016 wrote: »

I honestly have always had issues when it came to food be it extreme restriction or overeating. So while my goal is to lose weight, my ultimate goal with all of this is to correct those behaviors.

If you're only eating 1,100 calories you're not correcting those behaviors. And exercising on top of that just adds to the extreme restricting. Maybe you should see a therapist to help you with your ED.

Whoa. Slow your roll. I do not have an ED. I'm actually waaaay better than I used to be thankyouverymuch. That's 1,100 calories BEFORE whatever I eat for lunch which will probably take me to around 1,500 more or less, and I'm not planning on doing cardio today because I have an 8 hour shift later. So before you start telling strangers they have a mental illness, you should probably get more information.

Also, since everyone's all "1,200 calories is the magic number," why would eating 100 calories less be considered a bad thing? It's 100 calories.

So what is your calorie goal?

There isn't any reason to get offended. People are responding to what you have written here -- which is that you have a history of "extreme restriction" or "overeating." Maybe you don't think of those things as being associated with EDs, but that is what it means for many of us here (including those who have/had EDs).

If you have to ask why it would be a bad thing for someone with a history of "extreme restriction" to eat less than the minimum calories recommended for her health and wellbeing, step back and think about it. If your ultimate goal is to correct your "extreme restriction," shouldn't your goal to be consume the calories recommended for wellness?

I'm not sure what my calorie goal is atm. MFP tells me 1,200 so okay I'll go with that but my question was more about the contents of what I was eating.

It's easy to snap when someone says, "go see a therapist about your ED" because it feels dismissive and I can FOR SURE tell you that my current situation is nowhere near the extremes of the disordered eating habits I had in the past.

And you're focusing on the extreme restriction part, not the over eating. Both are issues. I'm working on a balancing act here. So, no, if my net calories for the day ended up being 100 calories less then what I'm aiming for, I'm for sure not going to consider that a manifestation of my bad behaviors.

I don't think it is dismissive to suggest that someone who may have a problem consult someone who can help them. This is a helpful board, but we're not qualified to treat EDs (no discussion board is). Getting upset because someone took you at your word about your history of "extreme restriction" and overeating isn't necessary.

I'm not focusing on the restriction at the expense of the overeating. I think they are often feed into each other. Someone who regularly eats less than she requires to maintain her wellbeing (say, under 1,200 calories) is much more prone to binges. So when you ask what is wrong with eating under 1,200 -- well, you could potentially trigger overeating. And those of us who have struggled with restriction in the past often find that undereating will trigger a desire to eat even less.

So if you are interested in addressing both of the issues that you have called out, then eating a sufficient number of calories each day is one of the best ways to do that. Eating enough food will help you balance the desire to undereat OR overeat.

If you don't consider eating less than recommended a manifestation of past behaviors, then I'm not sure anybody here will be able to change your mind about that. So what were you looking for when you asked for advice on your plan, exactly? You said in your OP that you weren't the best judge, but many of your subsequent posts seem to be insisting that you ARE the best judge of your situation and we don't know you.

We don't. But you asked for advice. I'm honestly unsure what you're looking for here.

The thing to be careful of: accuracy. You cannot be accurate when using cups for solid foods. So the cups, tbs, etc. should be in grams from using a food scale. Not terribly important if you have a lot of pounds to lose, but the closer you get to goal: the more important accuracy becomes.

I agree with StaciMarie, in order to track what is going on you need to keep something consistent. Get a scale and weigh foods so you can accurately know how much protein, carbohydrates and fats you are getting. KEEP A LOG OF YOUR WEIGH IN! use 1200 CAL as a starting point and observe what is going on with your weight and appearance. Then you make adjustments to get to your desire. The objective is to eat as much as your metabolism will allow while still loosing weight and getting leaner. this is a process you must fall in love with in order to enjoy the journey...!