Is my goal right for me?

serenityrambo
serenityrambo Posts: 4 Member
edited March 6 in Goal: Maintaining Weight
I had started this app for a school project (we had to track what we ate for two days), but then started to realize I am under eating. Have been for a while.

I'm 20 years old, female, lightly active and weigh 118 pounds and have maintained that weight for a few years. The goal that was set for me to maintain it was 1760 calories per day. But I'm not even eating half of that regularly, yet I don't lose weight? I'm not gaining it either. I barely ate 700 calories today and it's 8:28pm. I burned 305 of those because of walking and stretching (I'm training to do the splits, lots of stretching involved). Should I actually be eating 1760 calories per day or is that a computer error? Is my "maintained" weight a result of my body holding onto fat for energy because of how little I'm eating? Should I be eating more?

Help?

Best Answer

  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,416 Member
    Answer ✓
    If you're that height and weight and are logging accurately I'd say see a doctor. Under-eating by that much could be an indication of a medical or psychological issue.

    Yes, eat at least 1700 per day.

Answers

  • sollyn23l2
    sollyn23l2 Posts: 1,755 Member
    How tall are you? Unless 118 is underweight for your height, it's unlikely you're undereating, and much more likely that you're not accurately tracking your calories.
  • serenityrambo
    serenityrambo Posts: 4 Member
    sollyn23l2 wrote: »
    How tall are you? Unless 118 is underweight for your height, it's unlikely you're undereating, and much more likely that you're not accurately tracking your calories.

    I'm 5'2. I add foods to my diary as I eat them. I try to be as accurate as possible because I'm usually very self-conscious about this stuff.
  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 14,244 Member
    The goal is probably right, and you probably are not logging accurately, completely, and honestly. Your diary is locked, so nobody can see what you're logging.

    How are you measuring what you eat?

    How are you deciding which entries from the database are the right ones - some have errors?

    Do you log every thing that goes in your mouth including all beverages, cooking oils, spreads, etc?

    Your body won't "hang on to fat energy." That's like driving your car when there's almost no gasoline and thinking that it will somehow make that gasoline go farther because there's less of it.

  • sollyn23l2
    sollyn23l2 Posts: 1,755 Member
    edited March 7
    mtaratoot wrote: »
    The goal is probably right, and you probably are not logging accurately, completely, and honestly. Your diary is locked, so nobody can see what you're logging.

    How are you measuring what you eat?

    How are you deciding which entries from the database are the right ones - some have errors?

    Do you log every thing that goes in your mouth including all beverages, cooking oils, spreads, etc?

    Your body won't "hang on to fat energy." That's like driving your car when there's almost no gasoline and thinking that it will somehow make that gasoline go farther because there's less of it.

    I've actually done this.... go easy on the gas pedal, coast down any inclines. It'll get you just a little farther with the same amount of gas. Hit the gas harder, speed up faster, etc., you'll burn through your gas faster. Similar with your body.

    That being said, you're 100% right.
  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 14,244 Member
    sollyn23l2 wrote: »
    mtaratoot wrote: »
    The goal is probably right, and you probably are not logging accurately, completely, and honestly. Your diary is locked, so nobody can see what you're logging.

    How are you measuring what you eat?

    How are you deciding which entries from the database are the right ones - some have errors?

    Do you log every thing that goes in your mouth including all beverages, cooking oils, spreads, etc?

    Your body won't "hang on to fat energy." That's like driving your car when there's almost no gasoline and thinking that it will somehow make that gasoline go farther because there's less of it.

    I've actually done this.... go easy on the gas pedal, coast down any inclines. It'll get you just a little farther with the same amount of gas. Hit the gas harder, speed up faster, etc., you'll burn through your gas faster. Similar with your body.

    That being said, you're 100% right.

    You can do that with a full tank of fuel too.

    And it's maybe even a good analogy of how you CAN reduce your caloric expenditure when you're underfed. You just slow your own butt down and coast. Just less activity. Not exactly the same as trying to get from Sacramento to Bakersfield with only two gallons in the tank and expect you'll get there because somehow gas is magic when there's less of it. That only works with olive oil, and according to the story, it only ever happened once.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,204 Member
    serenityrambo wrote: »
    sollyn23l2 wrote: »
    How tall are you? Unless 118 is underweight for your height, it's unlikely you're undereating, and much more likely that you're not accurately tracking your calories.

    I'm 5'2. I add foods to my diary as I eat them. I try to be as accurate as possible because I'm usually very self-conscious about this stuff.

    To suggest that you may not be logging accurately/completely isn't a diss. Calorie counting is IME a surprisingly subtle skill. Most of us who've been doing it for a while have had multiple face-palm moments when we realized some inadvertent distortion that had crept into our logging habits, potentially with a significant impact. (I've been logging for over 8 years now.)

    Unless you're physiologically and medically very, very, VERY unusual, you're not maintaining 118 pound on 700 calories daily. There exist people with unusual (non-average) calorie needs, either high or low . . . but 700-900 calories as maintenance for your size would be such an extreme, extreme variation from normal that it's pretty implausible. The 1760 would be average for someone your size and such other personal characteristics as you input to the calculation.

    This is an article about metabolic variation that should give you an idea how very extreme it would be to require calories at half of the average for similar people:

    https://examine.com/articles/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/

    If you want feedback on logging, make your diary MFP public, and say so here. Otherwise, if you'd been maintaining your weight successfully around 118 for a few years, and that's a sensible weight for you, plus you feel like you're getting overall good nutrition on average most days, and have been generally healthy along the way . . . I'd encourage you to simply keep going as you have been. If it's not broken, no need to fix it.

    Logging is absolutely optional for anyone who doesn't struggle with weight; is healthy, strong and energetic; and is getting generally well rounded nutrition. No need to overthink.

    Best wishes!
  • serenityrambo
    serenityrambo Posts: 4 Member
    edited March 8
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    serenityrambo wrote: »
    sollyn23l2 wrote: »
    How tall are you? Unless 118 is underweight for your height, it's unlikely you're undereating, and much more likely that you're not accurately tracking your calories.

    I'm 5'2. I add foods to my diary as I eat them. I try to be as accurate as possible because I'm usually very self-conscious about this stuff.

    To suggest that you may not be logging accurately/completely isn't a diss. Calorie counting is IME a surprisingly subtle skill. Most of us who've been doing it for a while have had multiple face-palm moments when we realized some inadvertent distortion that had crept into our logging habits, potentially with a significant impact. (I've been logging for over 8 years now.)

    Unless you're physiologically and medically very, very, VERY unusual, you're not maintaining 118 pound on 700 calories daily. There exist people with unusual (non-average) calorie needs, either high or low . . . but 700-900 calories as maintenance for your size would be such an extreme, extreme variation from normal that it's pretty implausible. The 1760 would be average for someone your size and such other personal characteristics as you input to the calculation.

    This is an article about metabolic variation that should give you an idea how very extreme it would be to require calories at half of the average for similar people:

    https://examine.com/articles/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/

    If you want feedback on logging, make your diary MFP public, and say so here. Otherwise, if you'd been maintaining your weight successfully around 118 for a few years, and that's a sensible weight for you, plus you feel like you're getting overall good nutrition on average most days, and have been generally healthy along the way . . . I'd encourage you to simply keep going as you have been. If it's not broken, no need to fix it.

    Logging is absolutely optional for anyone who doesn't struggle with weight; is healthy, strong and energetic; and is getting generally well rounded nutrition. No need to overthink.

    Best wishes!

    If that's so, is it maybe a stress thing? I'm anxious 24/7 and overthink a lot, especially when it comes to school. Finals for the first session of this semester (our 16-week semesters are split in half, making each session 8-weeks long in order to get through classes faster) are tomorrow.

    After a bit of searching, I figured out how to make my diary public. Feel free to look at it and tell me what you think.

    I did end up eating a whole bunch after first posting and have been trying to eat more since then. I also added any exercise that I did (because I learned that's also something you can do), learned that stretching burns calories, and also learned how many calories I burn just from walking around at work.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,204 Member
    Stress can add some water retention, but it won't keep weight stable by increasing and increasing water alongside steadily losing fat for a long time, which latter we'd expect to be happening if you've been eating 700-900 calories daily for several years.

    Your diary is open now. I only see logged food on March 5-7, though I only paged back through a few blank days before that. During those days, you averaged 1374 calories of food, which is lower than 1760, but not insanely lower. It's such a small sample of days, I'd hate to generalize from just that about how you've been eating while maintaining weight for several years. The types of foods you're eating now would be relatively easy to eat more calories of without noticing, when not logging, i.e., before that. Something like some large fries at McD's or an extra can of sugared soda pop or cookie could take that average quite close to the 1760.

    The log itself looks OK (assuming it's complete), other than that it looks like you've logged standard portions (i.e., what the box or package says is one serving, probably without weighing/measuring it), which is not what we'd recommend if a person were trying to be precise. But I don't see anything obviously wrong that would be high impact calorie-wise.

    However, you eat very, very differently from my eating style, so it's possible that there's something that would jump out for someone who's more familiar with logging those types of foods.

    You seem worried about this, and honestly I'm not sure why. Do you want to keep logging for some reason? If you've been maintaining your weight for years, and your doctor concurs that it's a reasonable weight for you, if it were me I'd simply go back to not logging and doing what was working before, from a weight management standpoint.

    It's none of my business, but as an anxious internet granny type, I admit I'd encourage you to work on improving your nutrition as part of your shift into adulthood, because I think that would serve your health better over the long haul. We get away with stuff when younger that will potentially have sub-ideal longer-term consequences.

    You seem to be eating in the "standard American diet" pattern, i.e., virtually no veggies or fruits, high sodium, in this small sample often more than the WHO-recommended 10% of calories from added sugar, not much fiber, relatively low (but possibly minimally adequate?) protein, large fraction highly processed foods.

    Overall, my best guess and subjective interpretation is that you're over-worrying about calories based on a small sample of days so far, though.

    Curious: What did the class for which you did this logging intend for you to learn or accomplish by logging?

    Best wishes!

  • serenityrambo
    serenityrambo Posts: 4 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Stress can add some water retention, but it won't keep weight stable by increasing and increasing water alongside steadily losing fat for a long time, which latter we'd expect to be happening if you've been eating 700-900 calories daily for several years.

    Your diary is open now. I only see logged food on March 5-7, though I only paged back through a few blank days before that. During those days, you averaged 1374 calories of food, which is lower than 1760, but not insanely lower. It's such a small sample of days, I'd hate to generalize from just that about how you've been eating while maintaining weight for several years. The types of foods you're eating now would be relatively easy to eat more calories of without noticing, when not logging, i.e., before that. Something like some large fries at McD's or an extra can of sugared soda pop or cookie could take that average quite close to the 1760.

    The log itself looks OK (assuming it's complete), other than that it looks like you've logged standard portions (i.e., what the box or package says is one serving, probably without weighing/measuring it), which is not what we'd recommend if a person were trying to be precise. But I don't see anything obviously wrong that would be high impact calorie-wise.

    However, you eat very, very differently from my eating style, so it's possible that there's something that would jump out for someone who's more familiar with logging those types of foods.

    You seem worried about this, and honestly I'm not sure why. Do you want to keep logging for some reason? If you've been maintaining your weight for years, and your doctor concurs that it's a reasonable weight for you, if it were me I'd simply go back to not logging and doing what was working before, from a weight management standpoint.

    It's none of my business, but as an anxious internet granny type, I admit I'd encourage you to work on improving your nutrition as part of your shift into adulthood, because I think that would serve your health better over the long haul. We get away with stuff when younger that will potentially have sub-ideal longer-term consequences.

    You seem to be eating in the "standard American diet" pattern, i.e., virtually no veggies or fruits, high sodium, in this small sample often more than the WHO-recommended 10% of calories from added sugar, not much fiber, relatively low (but possibly minimally adequate?) protein, large fraction highly processed foods.

    Overall, my best guess and subjective interpretation is that you're over-worrying about calories based on a small sample of days so far, though.

    Curious: What did the class for which you did this logging intend for you to learn or accomplish by logging?

    Best wishes!

    That honestly eases me. I've been trying to eat more over the past few days.

    Ironically, the class that had me do this was Nutrition (I'm a culinary major, and nutrition is one of the requirements to learn). Our teacher wanted us to do it, eating our regular diets, in order for us to get an idea of what american diets look like nowadays.

    I also decided to continue with the logging in order to bully myself into eating healthier, which is starting to work a bit. I'm already thinking about buying better food come my next paycheck. Also because my parents used to talk about how metabolism slows down as people age. I'm 20 years old. Used to, I would eat an entire pizza by myself and still be hungry. Now I get full after a couple chicken strips or a single bowl of ramen.

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