Not eating enough.. HELP

If lack of planning is the problem, keep a box of snacks at home for when you find you're under at the end of the day? Fruit and nut bars might fit the bill - how many calories are you under by?

Are you certain you're measuring everything correctly? If you're not losing weight faster than you should (and you're not feeling ill/ravenous all the time) I wouldn't worry about it for now.

I suggest you have a stash of 100-200 calorie snacks, pre-measured, that you can go to at the end of the day if you are consistently under.

I find many people who have trouble meeting their goals is because they have restricted themselves to perceived "diet foods". Just broaden your perspective of what is allowed and it will be a lot easier.

One glass of whole milk (244g) is 103 calories. And it's pretty nicely spread across the macros.

There are 43 calories in one tablespoon of vinaigrette dressing. This will give you a variety of micronutrients carried in the good fat, and it makes the vegetables that much tastier.

I consistently have this problem. I average 1000-1200 calories a day. Should be at 1500. But I eat completely healthy foods and I guess they just fill me up. I am making a conscious effort not to under eat so I'll make sure to eat a serving of almonds mid day, even if I am not hungry and add whole grain tortilla chips with my lunch. That usually gets me to my goal. If not, I'll have another small snack after dinner. I can't seem to increase what i eat at meals. I just can't finish it.

I have the same issue I have to work hard to eat over 1000 a day

I now buy majool dates (56 cals each date)
other fruits like bananas and apples (80 - 100 cals each, depending on the size of fruit)
peanut butter or almond butter heavy on cals but easy to eat if you already feel full
any nuts or seeds that you like are calorie dense, I make up little boxes worth about 250 cals each abnd its easy to just grab and eat
extra oil when cooking
cereal bars or protein bars
or just an extra slice of toast or 3 in the evening
or add a little extra food to each meal (i know that's not always possible if you feel full easy)

whitpauly wrote: »

I never get these kind of threads,who has trouble eating 1200 calories?!?! I could maybe see if you're sick or something but I just don't understand otherwise

Me neither. The place where i have trouble eating 1200 calories is a magical, mythical dreamland where i will never visit!

Sijomial--You don't have to overeat to gain excess weight. Undereating will do it as well. I gained my weight while undereating. Body goes into starvation mode and metabolism gets completely screwed. Body saves every bit of anything it gets as fat. It took me 6 months of planning, alarm-setting, and forcing food down my throat to lose 25 pounds and get the metabolism turned back around.

bfonvill wrote: »

Sijomial--You don't have to overeat to gain excess weight. Undereating will do it as well. I gained my weight while undereating. Body goes into starvation mode and metabolism gets completely screwed. Body saves every bit of anything it gets as fat. It took me 6 months of planning, alarm-setting, and forcing food down my throat to lose 25 pounds and get the metabolism turned back around.

nope nope nope...starvation mode is NOT a thing...adaptive thermogenesis is, but its not like your body stops burning fat - it slows down your metabolism over time and takes prolonged periods of caloric restriction to do it

bfonvill wrote: »

Sijomial--You don't have to overeat to gain excess weight. Undereating will do it as well. I gained my weight while undereating. Body goes into starvation mode and metabolism gets completely screwed. Body saves every bit of anything it gets as fat. It took me 6 months of planning, alarm-setting, and forcing food down my throat to lose 25 pounds and get the metabolism turned back around.

If you undereat every day for a month, you'll lose weight,

OTOH, if you undereat 20 days a month and overeat the other 8, you'll gain weight, and you'll feel like you're starving. In fact, if you're moderately to highly active, you'll even suffer from the negative effects of starvation while gaining weight.

Hair loss, reduced energy, etc.

worst, If you're not logging, you won't even know that you're overeating because you'll focus on the days where you didn't

I love how people think you have to be physically ill or just plain misinformed to be consistently undereating and overweight at the same time.
This is one of the reasons why eating disorders in the overweight population are so grossly underdiagnosed.

I was, and am, rather overweight, but have complex anorexia/bulimia. If I don't make a conscious effort to eat consistently and often, I will eat around 900 calories a day because my hunger response has been desensitized and my body is trained to not ask for food until I'm on maybe day 3 or 4 of 900 calories. By the time hunger is part of the equation, it is physically painful because I've made a problem for myself.

When I first started on MFP, I was eating a consistent 1300 calories a day and struggling to lose weight at 535lbs because of adaptive thermogenesis problems. I was instructed to increase to no less than 2600 a day to be safe for my body. In order to do this without getting sick, I ate a serving of almonds on the hour every hour regardless of hunger feelings. I had to do this progressively over the course of over a week in order to be comfortable and not deterred by being overly full and in pain from eating. After a week and a half or so, my hunger impulses switched back on and I became absolutely ravenous, waking up in painful hunger in the middle of the night, things like that.

People like to say that starvation modes are a myth but the myth of it is that you can cause it to happen by undereating for a few days. Starvation is a real clinical condition that can happen at any weight, and yes, your body can limit unfed metabolic processes in order to preserve survival if you don't feed yourself well. I know because I've lived that narrative. I had to refeed to lose.

Now I've had WLS and with the caloric restriction of the surgery, I'm starting to again see an extreme slowing down of my weight loss. Weigh ~280lbs, eat around 1300 calories a day because that's what I'm structured for, and my weight loss has completely stalled. Abide by MFP opinions, people will say I'm mistaken, but I literally cannot eat maintenance calories (about 2700 calories) with my RNY stomach. It happens, especially for those of us with establish disordered eating patterns. Studies demonstrate that if you've developed disordered eating to a point where you've impacted your metabolic rates, it's a lifelong impact, even if you're considered in recovery.

Anyway OP, if you need to increase, and you've been undereating for an extended period of time, I'd suggest finding palatable calorie-dense foods that you can schedule throughout the day, and eat them regardless of feeling hungry. Focus on protein sources and fiber over sugars (that's my personal opinion, I had more success). Nuts make this easy because you can just count out 14 almonds and eat, for example. Do this consistently to establish a habit and continue. You may not be able to rely on hunger right now so just focus on timing and if it's time for the snack, eat it.