Under eating...YIKES!

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Replies

  • 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: 14,260 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: 9,944 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: 6,846 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: 28,052 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: 3,053 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: 28,052 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: 9,944 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.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    1200 is recommended minimum for avg sedentary female for safety to get enough nutrients in.

    You aren't sedentary, hopefully you don't want minimum results from workouts. And good job trying not to be average.

    Should be eating more - yes.
    Yes you likely will hit the same wall if you keep doing the same thing, and as you mentioned where do you go then?
    How low can you go is not a good goal for diets.
    There was a good post about stress water weight that likely goes with metabolic adaptation that occurred last time - no need to do that again.

    The rate of loss should slow down purposely by you eating more when you have less to lose.
    Or usually your body will do it to you anyway - or injury or sickness really slows it down.

    How much is left to healthy weight at this point?