Am I eating too little

tristajennings84
tristajennings84 Posts: 3 Member
edited November 18 in Food and Nutrition
When I started this journey, I weighed 220lbs (I'm 5'6", 32 years old and a girl). I now weigh 175.5lbs and have plateaued 20lbs shy of my goal. When I began, I wasn't active and set my calories at 1200 a day (and usually barely broke a 1000). However, I've since started going to the gym 6 days a week, for a total of 4 hours of cardio a week and about 2.5 hours of weights. I started all this about 3 months ago, and really got serious about a month ago. And I've stopped (or really slowed waaayyy down) on weight loss. I'm also tired and hungry a lot more. Is it possible that 1200 calories is too little now that I'm working out? (Btw, I'm doing 130g a protein a day, 75g of carbs). Should I add more? I don't wanna backtrack.

Replies

  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,011 Member
    How many lbs per week were you losing before, and how much per week are you losing now that you slowed down?

    Have you been using a food scale, or are you using measuring cups/eyeballing?
  • Luna3386
    Luna3386 Posts: 888 Member
    1200 was too low to begin with.

    Now that you have 20 pounds to go reset mfp to 1/2 or 1 pound lost a week and eat back 1/2 of your exercise calories. You may need to fiddle with exactly how much: probably not all because mfp and machines can over estimate but you definitely need more.

    Signs you aren't eating enough:
    Being cranky
    Tired
    Hungry
    Things like hair falling out
    Menstrual cycle changing or stopping
    And more

    And you named two.
  • Forest311
    Forest311 Posts: 6 Member
    edited May 2017
    I try to never eat below my basal metabolic rate (about 1150 for me right now). I think you run the risk of stalling out and messing with your metabolism otherwise. I used Scooby's calculator to find mine out. I think 1200 sounds really low.
  • sjacobscae
    sjacobscae Posts: 1 Member
    I'm not an expert, so keep that in mind, but here is my advice: All calories are not the same. You could eat a lot more food and still keep to 1200 calories. The ratio may be fine (carbs/protein), but consider the types of food you eat. Can you try different foods. I always found that when I increased my workouts - and I workout 6 days a week including running, rowing, weights and other stuff - I'm very hungry. I've looked for foods that give me more energy and are filling (high fiber). BTW, I try to stick to 1400 a day and there are no types of food I can't eat.
  • ndj1979
    ndj1979 Posts: 29,136 Member
    sjacobscae wrote: »
    I'm not an expert, so keep that in mind, but here is my advice: All calories are not the same. You could eat a lot more food and still keep to 1200 calories. The ratio may be fine (carbs/protein), but consider the types of food you eat. Can you try different foods. I always found that when I increased my workouts - and I workout 6 days a week including running, rowing, weights and other stuff - I'm very hungry. I've looked for foods that give me more energy and are filling (high fiber). BTW, I try to stick to 1400 a day and there are no types of food I can't eat.

    All calories are the same from an energy standpoint however they are not all nutritionally the same..

    No matter how you slice it 1200 calories = 1200 calories
  • tristajennings84
    tristajennings84 Posts: 3 Member
    kimny72 wrote: »
    How many lbs per week were you losing before, and how much per week are you losing now that you slowed down?

    Have you been using a food scale, or are you using measuring cups/eyeballing?

    Measuring all the way lol.
  • beanz744
    beanz744 Posts: 221 Member
    Try eat back half of what u burned in exercising for a couple weeks n then gradually reduce calorie count n see what happens
  • JohnnyPenso
    JohnnyPenso Posts: 412 Member
    tristajennings84 wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    How many lbs per week were you losing before, and how much per week are you losing now that you slowed down?

    Have you been using a food scale, or are you using measuring cups/eyeballing?

    Measuring all the way lol.
    I take this to mean you don't have a food scale so my advice would be to buy a scale and measure everything except liquids on the scale. It may not have been super important to be accurate when you started at a higher weight but now that you are closer to your goal the margin for error is much smaller. You can get a gram scale at Walmart for $20 or less.
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