Under eating...YIKES!

2

Replies

  • J72FIT
    J72FIT Posts: 5,958 Member
    yirara wrote: »
    @kshama2001 it would really help if you opened your diary. It will be a lot easier to help you figure out what's wrong.

    @mrsodessa is the OP not @kshama2001

  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,329 Member
    Ooops, sorry @kshama2001 I indeed wanted to ring up the TO
  • mrsodessa
    mrsodessa Posts: 12 Member
    crb426 wrote: »
    OP, I feel like you are getting frustrated by what we're telling you and I'm sorry that we seem to not be on the same page with what you're asking.

    We agree with you that eating less than 1200 calories is bad. Adding exercise on top of that is very bad. If you are eating less than 1200 calories you should increase your calories to a more sustainable number such as maybe 1400 calories, at least to start.

    If after adding in more calories you are losing at the rate you want, then you're good to go. If you start gaining, then you know you are eating too many calories and can adjust from there.

    We're just saying that if you are not gaining, and not losing, then you are eating at maintenance right now. So there seems to be a general consensus here that is predicting by increasing your calories you will gain weight. That is why we are reluctant to advise it.

    Eating more will not make you lose weight faster. If you are losing weight too quickly then yes, eat more. If you are not losing at all, then you should eat less. *And I'm not saying eat under 1200 calories, I'm saying you are eating more than you think right now and less would actually be in a healthy range.* And that's not an attack on your calorie counting skills, it's just the science behind it.

    I think people were overlooking what I typed because I said before I hit plateau where despite doing the same exact thing I stopped losing weight for 4 months. I am currently losing weight but trying to avoid another situation where I hit a wall. I'm eating 1200 calories now and have dropped 12lbs but if I hit another wall it would be unsafe to cut lower than that to continue losing weight? We agree that anything less than 1200 would be unhealthy.

    with that said how does one proceed when weightloss stalls without doing it an unhealthy manner and under eating because Im essentially heading in that direction.
  • lmf1012
    lmf1012 Posts: 402 Member
    Based on your activity level, I would expect you could raise your calories in and still lose weight right now. How long did it take to lose 12 lbs? As an example, if you’re losing 2lbs a week you could add 500 a day and lose 1lb per week (on average of course)

    By upping your calories now to lose weight, you will have some cushion to lower that later if you stall for several weeks.
  • mrsodessa
    mrsodessa Posts: 12 Member
    lmf1012 wrote: »
    Based on your activity level, I would expect you could raise your calories in and still lose weight right now. How long did it take to lose 12 lbs? As an example, if you’re losing 2lbs a week you could add 500 a day and lose 1lb per week (on average of course)

    By upping your calories now to lose weight, you will have some cushion to lower that later if you stall for several weeks.

    March 15-april 25th I lost 10lbs

    April 25- May 7th I maintained my weight while out of town 162lbs

    Period came May 15th gained 4lbs 166lbs

    From May 19 until now I have lost the menstrual weight plus 2lbs.

    My last weigh in was last Friday and I was 160.4lbs

  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,329 Member
    Oh, just wanted to add that I might have appeared a bit blunt. This wasn't my intention. So you're doing well and there's certainly no need to eat less. I'd rather eat a bit more and practice patience. Yes, there will always be weeks where things move slower, either due to not tracking, or do to waterweight. Menstruation is a typical case for an increase in waterweight as you have noticed. It's normal. It's frustrating that nothing happens for a few days, but there's nothing you can do about it other than accepting it.
  • mrsodessa
    mrsodessa Posts: 12 Member
    yirara wrote: »
    mrsodessa wrote: »
    lmf1012 wrote: »
    Based on your activity level, I would expect you could raise your calories in and still lose weight right now. How long did it take to lose 12 lbs? As an example, if you’re losing 2lbs a week you could add 500 a day and lose 1lb per week (on average of course)

    By upping your calories now to lose weight, you will have some cushion to lower that later if you stall for several weeks.

    March 15-april 25th I lost 10lbs

    April 25- May 7th I maintained my weight while out of town 162lbs

    Period came May 15th gained 4lbs 166lbs

    From May 19 until now I have lost the menstrual weight plus 2lbs.

    My last weigh in was last Friday and I was 160.4lbs

    So basically you lost 172-160lbs = 12lbs since mit March? So that’s 11 weeks. One week doesn’t count as you weren’t tracking. Thus 10 weeks for 12lbs. I’m sorry, but you really need to adjust your expectations. With your weight you should not be losing more than 1lbs per week, but you lost 1.2.
    You
    a) might actually need to eat more as you might crash and burn
    b) stop panicking!
    c) accept that water weight fluctuations happen

    A. is what I have been saying this whole time.

    B. I'm not exactly panicking Im more frustrated at the thought of crashing and burning because I'm over exerting myself in areas where I don't need to.

    C. I understand weight fluctuations because of water especially during my menstrual cycle. I drink a gallon of water everyday. I expect that. My last crash I basically spent 4 months going up and down with menstrual weight gain. i don't consider that weight dropping actually losing weight because whether i worked out or not it would've left me it was water.

    It just sucked to never get under 152 despite trying. During my first crash I thought maybe because I was lifting my body was going through body re-composition...gaining muscle while losing fat so it doesn't reflect on the scale but I had taken measurements and nothing had changed. I know we cant always trust the scale so I did take measurements.
  • LisaGetsMoving
    LisaGetsMoving Posts: 664 Member
    Eat a little more, take at least two rest days per week (or switch out cardio for yoga), and consider a 2 week "maintenance break" every 4th month because plateaus can happen if you follow the same routine day in and day out. Go get a massage, or a mani-pedi, relax... In your first post you stated that you might need to eat a bit more, and everything since then has just been conversation.
  • mrsodessa
    mrsodessa Posts: 12 Member
    Eat a little more, take at least two rest days per week (or switch out cardio for yoga), and consider a 2 week "maintenance break" every 4th month because plateaus can happen if you follow the same routine day in and day out. Go get a massage, or a mani-pedi, relax... In your first post you stated that you might need to eat a bit more, and everything since then has just been conversation.

    yes I agree but I asked a very specific question about eating more and instead of it getting answered everyone has been discussing the accuracy of the numbers and telling me I am obviously eating more than I think despite calorie counting and weighing food. Imagine if I had a eating disorder and I was coming here to admit Im starving myself and just wanted help kinda scary to think this is how people react.
  • aimeeernest
    aimeeernest Posts: 159 Member
    edited June 2021
    I didn't read all the comments but I have found that some smart watches are bold faced liars.

    I trust my Samsung Gear. It tells me the truth. I tried a Fitbit and returned it after less than a week. A somewhat sedendary middle aged woman is not burning 3000 calories per day. No wonder fitbit is popular. Lol.

    It may be the same issue with Apple?

    I have lost nearly 40lbs this year trusting my Samsung. I currently average 1700/day. (Was closer to 1900 at my high weight.) (In TDEE or total calories burned in a day.)
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,393 Member
    mrsodessa wrote: »
    yes I agree but I asked a very specific question about eating more and instead of it getting answered
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    Slow healing. slow nail growth. tiredness. feeling cold. slow healing. etc. CAN all be signs of undereating and partial adaptation. The general recommendation when healing an injury is to eat at/near maintenance.

    If you add food suddenly you will have more food and waste in your system. Your scale weight will go up correspondingly. If you are low glycogen (keto for example), the increase in glycogen storage will show up disproportionately. I like using weight trend applications and reviewing if there has been a change that explains a scale "departure" from the previous. For example a change of weigh in time, before or after drinking coffee :wink: , or change of scale (oops, I broke it again), or a change of location!

    The trend post a major explainable change matters. The exact numbers less so.

    I am not a proponent of pulling bandages too slowly. 50% of the difference and then 50% of the difference a week later gets you there pretty quickly if you need to coddle your brain hamsters. As already suggested, sedentary maintenance levels (especially if you're not actually sedentary) may be a good first place to hang around at.


    While losing weight I got quite into keeping track of things and using graphs and measurements. At maintenance, I no longer log every bite BEFORE eating it, like I did when I first started trying to log my food and lose weight. But it annoys me when I miss things.

    Yesterday I went back to two days ago to log a cliff bar because my package of 12 finished and I had only logged 11. The bar was logged as 70g, instead of 68g, because that was the average of the first 4 bars from the package.

    YMMV, but do keep in mind that it is EASY to miss items. Maintenance breaks, especially when healing an injury, are not the devil.

    :confused:
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,329 Member
    mrsodessa wrote: »
    Eat a little more, take at least two rest days per week (or switch out cardio for yoga), and consider a 2 week "maintenance break" every 4th month because plateaus can happen if you follow the same routine day in and day out. Go get a massage, or a mani-pedi, relax... In your first post you stated that you might need to eat a bit more, and everything since then has just been conversation.

    yes I agree but I asked a very specific question about eating more and instead of it getting answered everyone has been discussing the accuracy of the numbers and telling me I am obviously eating more than I think despite calorie counting and weighing food. Imagine if I had a eating disorder and I was coming here to admit Im starving myself and just wanted help kinda scary to think this is how people react.

    There have been answers that addressed exactly what you were asking. Furthermore, please do keep on posting here, but keep the text short and to the point. Nobody will read, and then read again long walls of text. Keep it short: how long are you at it, how much have you lost, were there periods where you weren't tracking? With this info, and your current/goal weight, size and gender the whole discussion would not have derailed.
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,033 Member
    edited June 2021
    mrsodessa wrote: »
    Eat a little more, take at least two rest days per week (or switch out cardio for yoga), and consider a 2 week "maintenance break" every 4th month because plateaus can happen if you follow the same routine day in and day out. Go get a massage, or a mani-pedi, relax... In your first post you stated that you might need to eat a bit more, and everything since then has just been conversation.

    yes I agree but I asked a very specific question about eating more and instead of it getting answered everyone has been discussing the accuracy of the numbers and telling me I am obviously eating more than I think despite calorie counting and weighing food. Imagine if I had a eating disorder and I was coming here to admit Im starving myself and just wanted help kinda scary to think this is how people react.

    As a regular here, I can tell you that your thread is quite atypical since usually people warn against eating too little very frequently. Not sure why things went the way they did, perhaps too much info in your opening post which made the essential info get a bit lost.

    To get back to the main point: you've gotten some advice that was to the point too (even if it was slightly contradictory 🙂) among the other posts. So what have you decided: gradual increase or increasing in bigger chunks?
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,843 Member
    Lietchi wrote: »
    mrsodessa wrote: »
    Eat a little more, take at least two rest days per week (or switch out cardio for yoga), and consider a 2 week "maintenance break" every 4th month because plateaus can happen if you follow the same routine day in and day out. Go get a massage, or a mani-pedi, relax... In your first post you stated that you might need to eat a bit more, and everything since then has just been conversation.

    yes I agree but I asked a very specific question about eating more and instead of it getting answered everyone has been discussing the accuracy of the numbers and telling me I am obviously eating more than I think despite calorie counting and weighing food. Imagine if I had a eating disorder and I was coming here to admit Im starving myself and just wanted help kinda scary to think this is how people react.

    As a regular here, I can tell you that your thread is quite atypical since usually people warn against eating too little very frequently. Not sure why things went the way they did, perhaps too much info in your opening post which made the essential info get a bit lost.

    To get back to the main point: you've gotten some advice that was to the point too (even if it was slightly contradictory 🙂) among the other posts. So what have you decided: gradual increase or increasing in bigger chunks?

    Yes, I am forever encouraging people to eat back their exercise calories and wish I had a dollar for every time I posted the link to this site which details why the vast majority of women can and should eat more than 1200 calories.

    https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/1200-calorie-diet/

    However, in this case my initial suspicion was that there is a math error, which I feel is borne out by the 1.2 pounds per week calculation - with that average over that long a period of time, there is no major under eating going on here.

    I used to use an entry for weightlifting that was so so inflated, and couldn't understand why people were always saying that weightlifting didn't burn a lot of calories. I was very sad when I started using a better entry. I am very confident in my Calories In, but am always tweaking my Calories Out entries. When I have everything right, over time I lose exactly as expected.
  • ahoy_m8
    ahoy_m8 Posts: 3,048 Member
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Lietchi wrote: »
    mrsodessa wrote: »
    Eat a little more, take at least two rest days per week (or switch out cardio for yoga), and consider a 2 week "maintenance break" every 4th month because plateaus can happen if you follow the same routine day in and day out. Go get a massage, or a mani-pedi, relax... In your first post you stated that you might need to eat a bit more, and everything since then has just been conversation.

    yes I agree but I asked a very specific question about eating more and instead of it getting answered everyone has been discussing the accuracy of the numbers and telling me I am obviously eating more than I think despite calorie counting and weighing food. Imagine if I had a eating disorder and I was coming here to admit Im starving myself and just wanted help kinda scary to think this is how people react.

    As a regular here, I can tell you that your thread is quite atypical since usually people warn against eating too little very frequently. Not sure why things went the way they did, perhaps too much info in your opening post which made the essential info get a bit lost.

    To get back to the main point: you've gotten some advice that was to the point too (even if it was slightly contradictory 🙂) among the other posts. So what have you decided: gradual increase or increasing in bigger chunks?

    Yes, I am forever encouraging people to eat back their exercise calories and wish I had a dollar for every time I posted the link to this site which details why the vast majority of women can and should eat more than 1200 calories.

    https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/1200-calorie-diet/

    However, in this case my initial suspicion was that there is a math error, which I feel is borne out by the 1.2 pounds per week calculation - with that average over that long a period of time, there is no major under eating going on here.

    I used to use an entry for weightlifting that was so so inflated, and couldn't understand why people were always saying that weightlifting didn't burn a lot of calories. I was very sad when I started using a better entry. I am very confident in my Calories In, but am always tweaking my Calories Out entries. When I have everything right, over time I lose exactly as expected.

    I have read the whole thread, and I agree this is the key factor -- 1.2lb/wk loss averaged over many weeks.
    Adjusting to 1lb/wk loss would mean eating 100 calories more per day on top of whatever you're eating now.
    I don't think gradual-add vs. all-at-once-add makes a big difference when you're talking about 100 calories/day.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,843 Member
    ahoy_m8 wrote: »
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Lietchi wrote: »
    mrsodessa wrote: »
    Eat a little more, take at least two rest days per week (or switch out cardio for yoga), and consider a 2 week "maintenance break" every 4th month because plateaus can happen if you follow the same routine day in and day out. Go get a massage, or a mani-pedi, relax... In your first post you stated that you might need to eat a bit more, and everything since then has just been conversation.

    yes I agree but I asked a very specific question about eating more and instead of it getting answered everyone has been discussing the accuracy of the numbers and telling me I am obviously eating more than I think despite calorie counting and weighing food. Imagine if I had a eating disorder and I was coming here to admit Im starving myself and just wanted help kinda scary to think this is how people react.

    As a regular here, I can tell you that your thread is quite atypical since usually people warn against eating too little very frequently. Not sure why things went the way they did, perhaps too much info in your opening post which made the essential info get a bit lost.

    To get back to the main point: you've gotten some advice that was to the point too (even if it was slightly contradictory 🙂) among the other posts. So what have you decided: gradual increase or increasing in bigger chunks?

    Yes, I am forever encouraging people to eat back their exercise calories and wish I had a dollar for every time I posted the link to this site which details why the vast majority of women can and should eat more than 1200 calories.

    https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/1200-calorie-diet/

    However, in this case my initial suspicion was that there is a math error, which I feel is borne out by the 1.2 pounds per week calculation - with that average over that long a period of time, there is no major under eating going on here.

    I used to use an entry for weightlifting that was so so inflated, and couldn't understand why people were always saying that weightlifting didn't burn a lot of calories. I was very sad when I started using a better entry. I am very confident in my Calories In, but am always tweaking my Calories Out entries. When I have everything right, over time I lose exactly as expected.

    I have read the whole thread, and I agree this is the key factor -- 1.2lb/wk loss averaged over many weeks.
    Adjusting to 1lb/wk loss would mean eating 100 calories more per day on top of whatever you're eating now.
    I don't think gradual-add vs. all-at-once-add makes a big difference when you're talking about 100 calories/day.

    Yes, 100 calories is about a tablespoon of peanut butter.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,329 Member
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    ahoy_m8 wrote: »
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Lietchi wrote: »
    mrsodessa wrote: »
    Eat a little more, take at least two rest days per week (or switch out cardio for yoga), and consider a 2 week "maintenance break" every 4th month because plateaus can happen if you follow the same routine day in and day out. Go get a massage, or a mani-pedi, relax... In your first post you stated that you might need to eat a bit more, and everything since then has just been conversation.

    yes I agree but I asked a very specific question about eating more and instead of it getting answered everyone has been discussing the accuracy of the numbers and telling me I am obviously eating more than I think despite calorie counting and weighing food. Imagine if I had a eating disorder and I was coming here to admit Im starving myself and just wanted help kinda scary to think this is how people react.

    As a regular here, I can tell you that your thread is quite atypical since usually people warn against eating too little very frequently. Not sure why things went the way they did, perhaps too much info in your opening post which made the essential info get a bit lost.

    To get back to the main point: you've gotten some advice that was to the point too (even if it was slightly contradictory 🙂) among the other posts. So what have you decided: gradual increase or increasing in bigger chunks?

    Yes, I am forever encouraging people to eat back their exercise calories and wish I had a dollar for every time I posted the link to this site which details why the vast majority of women can and should eat more than 1200 calories.

    https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/1200-calorie-diet/

    However, in this case my initial suspicion was that there is a math error, which I feel is borne out by the 1.2 pounds per week calculation - with that average over that long a period of time, there is no major under eating going on here.

    I used to use an entry for weightlifting that was so so inflated, and couldn't understand why people were always saying that weightlifting didn't burn a lot of calories. I was very sad when I started using a better entry. I am very confident in my Calories In, but am always tweaking my Calories Out entries. When I have everything right, over time I lose exactly as expected.

    I have read the whole thread, and I agree this is the key factor -- 1.2lb/wk loss averaged over many weeks.
    Adjusting to 1lb/wk loss would mean eating 100 calories more per day on top of whatever you're eating now.
    I don't think gradual-add vs. all-at-once-add makes a big difference when you're talking about 100 calories/day.

    Yes, 100 calories is about a tablespoon of peanut butter.

    Or a caramel wafer. A very yummy one.