Maintenance Seems Too Low?

My maintenance calories before exercise are 1560. I am 5'4.75" and 133. I am older than you at 48. I usually end up eating about 1800 calories a day. My plan is usually 450 for breakfast 450 for lunch and that leaves me 660 for dinner and an evening snack. If I do no exercise. I don't work out at a gym. I do 30 minutes of yoga (dvds) on weekdays and I walk about 3 miles daily ,so unless I'm sick I will get some extra calories every day. My typical breakfast is 2 boiled eggs (140 cal) a greek yogurt (100 cals) 2 cups of coffee with 2 tsp sugar and 2 tbsp half and half each (140 total cals) and some fruit. That puts me at 380 calories before I add the fruit and I usually have around 25-50 calories worth of fruit. Based on today's breakfast and lunch it seems to me like you might be able to cut back your calories at breakfast and lunch if you want to have more calories for dinner. Are you doing chores on a farm every day? I would think that you could either add that in as exercise, or consider yourself lightly active and get some more calories that way.

Lots more vegetables! Substitute Cauliflower rice to serve your stew over. Use spaghetti squash and zucchini as noodles. Keep the bread and peanut butter in moderation. Those things will quickly add up the calories. If it's filling for you, that's fine. Otherwise, bulk up with veggies. This is a great website for inspiration - http://www.hungry-girl.com/

It sounds like you depend upon the land a lot to provide the majority of your food. Can you hunt for your protein sources and then spend your money on fresh fruits and vegetables?

could you maybe make thinner slices of bread and just put jelly on it. could you half that roast serving and add some baked potatoe with it. Baked potatoes cooked in juices are my go to when I need to fill up on less calories. Also, maybe you could use a tablespoon of milk instead of creamer.

Also be aware that 1560 goal is for an actual sedentary day. And from MFP sedentary is really sedentary, like no kids, pets, not much reason for moving.

Dollars to donuts your Fitbit is informing MFP that you are no where near sedentary - and your actual eating allowance is much higher if you have accounts synced.

That takes care of the eating enough - as to how to do it in budget - you got some good suggestions I'll let continue.

deannalaverty wrote: »

MyFitnessPal has calculated my maintenance calories at 1560 a day.

Old saying: The proof is in the pudding.

Your actual maintenance calories may be higher than MFP claims. Continue to closely monitor your calories and your weight. If pounds continue to drift off, increase calories until you find your balanced point. This may take several months. MFP told me back in May that my maintenance calorie count was only 1420, but I've lost six pounds since then eating around 1700. The TDEE formula they use is clearly a bit aggressive for some people.

Question for the OP: Are you hoping to subsist at maintenance without any form of regular exercise? If so, you may need to adjust some of the things you eat. I do a lot of things differently, like buy lower calorie breads (Healthy Life, and Sara Lee make 35 and 45 calorie per slice bread that is pretty tasty). They also make hamburger and hotdog buns that come in at 80 calories. Peanut butter is difficult, because of the oils it's really high calorie. You choose to eat it or not, I prefer PB2 it's about 1/3 the calories and, for me at least, the chocolate version is pretty tasty. PB2 and other peanut butter powders are expensive though, so I don't always buy them and sometimes just deal with the calories from regular peanut butter that the family eats. Anything with lots of fat is going to be lots of calories, so try to increase protein a bit and lower fat, but don't cut all fat, you need a good amount for good health. IIFYM.com's calculator helped me quite a bit, as you can add in your regular exercise in their calc and come up with a daily calorie level and macros to stick with for maintenance. I eat a lot of low fat items for calorie reduction, but some of it just isn't as tasty as the full fat version, but lower fat, or light versions sometimes are.

Do check out some other calculators around the net. You'll find some are different, and most will be higher than MFP's estimation if you add in your regular exercise. Just remember, if you use something like IIFYM to calculate a calorie goal for maintenance based on added exercise, you must turn off additional calories added from exercise at MFP or you'll go over and not realize it.

Oh wow! I average about 1300-1380 a day when (I'm eating at full maintenance mode) and I eat 3 meals and 3 snacks a day.
Even when I'm "deficiting" at 1,000-1200 calories I feel like I eat more than you do, or at least more often.
I see a lot of wasted calories in your meals.
For the record I eat cookies and peanut butter and coffee... etc... almost on the daily (well, coffee definitely on the daily) and I still fit it all in my calories, just in smaller portions - for example PB is 1 TBSP not 2.
I think the problem is your limited access to food or you just don't realize how easily cutting a few of your portions down will benefit you in the long run. My coffee, before MFP used to be in the 100 calorie range. I now average about 50-60 calories per every 2 cups! I made adjustments because I wanted to be able to eat more/more often! Looks like you may want to figure that out.

deannalaverty wrote: »

-Cut out or minimize peanut butter entirely
-Put the bread in the freezer so I do not feel pressured to eat it as quickly
-(when eggs are available) Use eggs to help feel fuller in lieu of more bread
-Buy frozen fruits/veggies for the freezer when I have a little extra money, and use these to bulk up meals (not just dinner)
-Transition to black coffee
-BEANS & TATERS
-Introduce more fiber

Was there anything else super important that I missed?

I would miss peanut butter, do try PB2 sometime though. Peanut Butter would be great on a day when you've burned extra calories. PB2 on other days when you have a craving (there are other brands of peanut powder, Jiff, etc.).

I also tried to transition to black coffee with no luck. I just don't like it, it's bitter and sucks. So now I drink it black (no creamer most of the time, or maybe 1 tsp dry non-dairy @ 10 cals, plus I use Stevia Packets. They cost me carbs but are 0 calorie. I do drink it less than I used to, but it's still good with Stevia and lighter creamer options. Hell if you can skip the creamer and just use the Stevia, it's 0 calories.

Taters are good. Try other veggies too, I like cauliflower. Always hated it as a kid, and still dislike it raw, but take about 300g of it, toss it with salt pepper and about a tbsp of olive oil, then bake it at 375 for about 30-45 minutes until it gets a little brown around the edges. It makes a very filling 2 serving dish @ about 100 calories each and has a good amount of fiber. Add that recipe to MFP's recipe calculator and you'll see what I mean.

For breakfast I learned to like Bran Cereal. So now I generally eat .5 cups of original Fiber One Bran with half a banana chopped up in it with .5 cup of vanilla almond milk, then I drink a protein shake after it. What I do is take bananas, let them ripen, then chop them up into slices and freeze them in the freezer, store them in zip lock bags, and simply chop up about 63g of them to add to my cereal in the morning. It's not bad at all with the vanilla almond milk.

.5 cup Fiber One Original Bran Cereal = 60 cal, 25 carbs (complex carbs!), 14g fiber!!, 2g protein
.5 cup Silk Light Vanilla Almond Milk = 30 cal, 6 carbs, 1g protein
63g Dole banana (half a medium) = 55 cal, 15 carbs, 2g fiber, 1g protein

Total for the cereal is 145 cal, 46 carbs, 16g fiber!, 4g protein

I then drink a 2 scoop Body Fortress Vanilla or Chocolate When Isolate shake = 280 cal, 60g protein, 6 carbs, 2g fiber mixed with nothing but water

It's a pretty filling breakfast at about 425 calories, 64g protein, 18g fiber, and 52 carbs. It may sound like it tastes bad but it doesn't, I enjoy it and it's simple and quick. On weekends I work out more and eat a bigger breakfast but that's my go-to M-F breakfast.

Just ideas, you can mix in any fruit you want into the cereal, and it'll help you get your fiber up quickly.