How in fresh h*ll does anyone stay within their calorie budget?!!!

Go back to your Goals page. (GOALS > View Guided Setup) here's the link:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided

Set your "Activity Level" to "Active." Also set your goal to "Lose 1/2 pound per week."

With your schedule and all you are doing, no way you are anything less than "Active." It should give you more calories that way. 1300 is way too low for a 40YO, 5 foot 9, 157 pound, working parent (you're female?)

No wonder you're struggling.

FernGitt wrote: »

I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean when you say I "set my deficit too high" and to "eat my exercise calories back." Take it easy on me, I'm a noob here ya know.

"set your deficit too high" means you told it you want to lose weight too fast, so it slashed your calories by more than you need it to. Go back to "goals" and change to half a pound a week. That will give you another 250 calories a day, which will give you some much needed wiggle room. As you get closer to your goal you should aim to lose more slowly so you don't have to starve yourself. With only 17lb to go, half a pound a week is where you want to be. Slow and steady wins the race.

"eating exercise calories back "means you log exercise in your diary, which means myfitnesspal gives you extra calories, and you eat them. This is really important if you are using myfitnesspal as intended, as the basic calorie allowance includes no exercise at all. If you have told it your activity level is "sedentary" then you can track things like walking, provided you are accurate about speed and time. I walk about a mile each day to work, three times a week, and it's amazing how much easier that makes it. If you have set the activity level to "lightly active" or "active" you will need to be more careful as it assumes a certain number of steps when it calculates your basic allowance and you don't want to count them twice.

There is all sorts of other stuff that can help you, to do with more filling foods, but make sure your goals are set up right first, then you can look at that stuff.

How many calories in your Lean Cuisine?

For breakfast this morning I had 1tbl of peanut butter, 1/2 banana and 2 slices of bread for 250 calories plus a glass of V8 juice for 50 calories.

I have already logged lunch, dinner and a dessert and am only slightly above 1300 hundred for the day.

Maybe try a lower calorie bread in the morning. It sounds as if your Lean Cuisine had quite a few calories.

I eat between 1200 and 1600 calories depending on the day. I try to keep breakfast at around 300 calories...lunch at 450, afternoon/nighttime snack 150 and dinner close to 600. If I am having a lower calorie day I take take some off of each meal.

I understand - I'm shorter but about the same weight. Also younger and a man, but what it takes to lose is not that much different. I lose about 0.7 lbs. per week if I stick with 1,500 calories (assuming the right macros also). From what I can tell and what others say, there isn't a single other person on this site that has even close to the same appetite that I have. Despite that this isn't enough for me, there are some things that I'll suggest that I know will help... for someone who isn't me, this may be enough to actually be satisfied with 1,500 or even 1,300 calories:

Skip the bread and peanut butter. Also skip the microwave meals. As others have said, peanut butter and peanuts are primarily fat, not protein. For protein, go with eggs (suggested earlier), chicken breast, or tuna. Instead of bread, add salad (with no croutons or cheese, and use dressing sparingly). You can cut up the chicken breast or tuna and mix into the salad if you would like. This will give you protein with volume, but not a lot of calories.

Anything where you can add high water-content and sometimes fiber (be careful about high fiber foods that also contain a lot of carbs and fat) without much carbs (so not wheat / bread), and without much fat (i.e. not peanut butter and not cheese, and careful about fat ratios in meats) will substitute just as well. Unless you can eat 3+ gallons of salad at a single meal like me, then you should be able to finish under your calorie goal without going hungry.

Once you get your weekly weight loss goal & activity sorted out (as per the previous posts), then you can start the process of learning what food choices make the most of your calorie allowance. At anything less than 1500 calories, I really can't afford liquid calories. Focus on your proteins & fiber first. As has been mentioned, peanut butter is actually a pitiful source of protein. Try Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, tuna, eggs, & lean meats. It's a learning process and it helps to view it that way- i.e., what can I improve on this week? But be aware, since you are relatively small, the weight loss will occur more slowly and you probably won't have much room for error, so accurate logging is essential.

Annie_01 wrote: »

I eat between 1200 and 1600 calories depending on the day. I try to keep breakfast at around 300 calories...lunch at 450, afternoon/nighttime snack 150 and dinner close to 600. If I am having a lower calorie day I take take some off of each meal.

Agree. When I am successful at 1500 calories (and notice I say *when*), the breakdown is typically 400 for breakfast, 500 for lunch, & 600 for dinner. If I was at 1300, it would probably be 300, 400, & 600 (or smaller dinner & afternoon snack).

Annie_01 wrote: »

crzycatlady1 wrote: »

OP-can you make your food diary public so we can take a look at it, I'm still not sure how you hit 1,000 calories eating what you listed in your original post. There's some incorrect food entries listed in the data base so maybe you accidentally chose a wrong, higher calorie option?

And what happens to your calorie number when you chose .5lb instead of the 1lb option, for weekly goal?

I think something is wrong too. I looked at Lean Cuisines website. The meals that I looked at ranged between 250 and 310. Surely her 1 slice of bread with a smear of peanut butter wasn't 700 calories.

Yep, I eat LCs quite a bit and they're pretty low calorie. Maybe she's adding things to her coffee?

Hey Fern.

I am your height, 48, plenty of kids, and maintaining under 140, MFP gives me 1600something before exercise, in practice i eat about 2k and stay under 140 so I think maybe you are too aggressive with the diet.

What were you eating to maintain the weight you are now? Cut out 500 calories a day from that and you should lose weight.

I'm confused how one slice of wheat toast, a little PB, and a Lean Cuisine added up so that you only have 300 cals left?? I'm guessing one slice of wheat toast is what, 120 cals? One tbs of PB is 100, and I eat Lean Cuisine's all the time and I know the absolute highest cal ones are maybe 350. True that PB is a diet-killer (for me) but unless you absolutely piled it on.... ?