Will this mess up my metabolism?

Your stomach and your mind may be satisfied, but is your BODY?

You must eat enough to nourish your body and support your workouts. I have no idea why you're satiated with fewer calories. Possibly inaccurate food entries or measurements? Or maybe different macros would be better for you? Speaking only for me and no one else, exercise dulls my hunger. Maybe you have something that decreases your hunger.

As someone who temporarily suffered from underfeeding my body, don't do it! My hair fell out, my skin was scaly and flaked off. It wasn't pleasant.

Best wishes for losing in a healthy, happy way!

Okay, with your height established then you just need to figure your daily TDEE at your high activity level and learn to log food.

Your metabolism won't be permanently "messed up" even if you don't eat enough but you can cause serious health problems if you under-eat for an extended period of time, so take diet breaks.

A lot of this will depend on your accuracy and that takes time to sort out.

may14423 wrote: »

rileysowner wrote: »

While messing with your metabolism is a possible outcome, a more likely one is this, you will lose weight and your body will eventually say, "Enough, I need nutrients!", and the hunger will come and you will put the weight back on and some more for good measure.

So, should I be exercising more instead? I don't "eat back" any calories the app gives me from exercise because I don't think that that would give me a good mindset, as food shouldn't be something that is 'earned' from exercise.

If you use MFP to set your calorie goal, exercise, but don't eat back any exercise calories, you are not using MFP the way it was designed.

https://support.myfitnesspal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032625391-How-does-MyFitnessPal-calculate-my-initial-goals-

Unlike other sites which use TDEE calculators, MFP uses the NEAT method (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis), and as such this system is designed for exercise calories to be eaten back. However, many consider the burns given by MFP to be inflated for them and only eat a percentage, such as 50%, back. Others are able to lose weight while eating 100% of their exercise calories.

springlering62 wrote: »

may14423 wrote: »

cmriverside wrote: »

Okay, with your height established then you just need to figure your daily TDEE at your high activity level and learn to log food.

Your metabolism won't be permanently "messed up" even if you don't eat enough but you can cause serious health problems if you under-eat.

A lot of this will depend on your accuracy and that takes time to sort out.

Well, tdeecalculator.net puts my maintenance at 1470, so 1200 is a very mild deficit. I currently use a food scale to measure everything I log, so I'd seriously hope it's accurate!

Ironically, scales are generally accurate.

It’s operator error that fails us almost every time.

Make sure you’re weighing in grams and focus on accuracy.

The biggest problem with food logging on this site is vetting each item you log.

There are chicken breasts in the database that say anything from 60 calories to 300 calories. Apply that across all the other errors in the database and it's easy to make big mistakes and not even know it (at first.) That can cause hundreds of calories per day in mistakes.

@may14423 - it says on your profile that you joined this site on May 16, 2024. If that is the case, I guess we can't really help you by reviewing your logging since you wouldn't have a lot logged.

How do you know you're eating under 1000 calories (with a lot of junk food?) I mean, none of your query makes a lot of sense.

10,000 steps would be "Active" on myfitnesspal if you're not intending to eat more to fuel it by counting it as purposeful exercise. So set your Goals to "Active" and "Lose 1 pound per week." Log your food for a month. Come back and ask again when you have some logged food and results (or lack of results) with weight loss.

Here's the logging How To:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1

...and a helpful post from the pinned Most Helpful Threads:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10012907/logging-accuracy-consistency-and-youre-probably-eating-more-than-you-think/p1

may14423 wrote: »

rileysowner wrote: »

While messing with your metabolism is a possible outcome, a more likely one is this, you will lose weight and your body will eventually say, "Enough, I need nutrients!", and the hunger will come and you will put the weight back on and some more for good measure.

So, should I be exercising more instead? I don't "eat back" any calories the app gives me from exercise because I don't think that that would give me a good mindset, as food shouldn't be something that is 'earned' from exercise.

I respect that perspective. I even agree, sort of.

What do I mean by "sort of"?

Well, I gotta say, reality has a way of being complicated.

Here's the complication that I also believe: Exercise needs to be fueled adequately, in order to be effective (for weight management OR fitness improvement).

If your deficit really is that mild (like half a pound a week actual loss rate averaged over a month or two), and you do quite small amounts of exercise, it's probably OK to let exercise increase your weight loss rate a little.

(You do, after all, have relatively little weight to lose - compared to someone obese, for example. Daily, our bodies can only metabolize a certain percent of the fat mass we have, to provide energy. After that, the risk of also losing lean tissue increases. Lean tissue includes muscle, tendons, etc. We really don't want to lose much of that! The implication is that slow loss is a good choice for people with relatively small amounts of fat available to lose.)

At the other end of the spectrum, trying to lose weight aggressively fast, and doing quite a lot of activity/exercise, not fueling that exercise, can significantly increase health risks. It can also risk more slowing of certain bodily functions that people may think of as "wrecking metabolism" but that really is a more subtle, limited yet profound thing. For example, our core body temperature may go down a little, so we feel cold. Our hair growth may slow, making hair brittle so it breaks or thins longer term. We may experience subtle fatigue, so we burn fewer calories than we otherwise would, so lose weight slower than expected at too-low calories.

In between those extremes, whether and how much more to eat to fuel exercise vs. lose weight faster is a judgement call. I'm conservative. I want to keep my health strong, my energy level high, my exercise performance good . . . so I carefully estimate and eat back my exercise calories. When I need to lose weight, I stick with a moderate weight loss rate, on the order of 0.5%-1% of current body weight per week, with a bias toward the lower end of that unless severely obese. (I'm not obese anymore. I'm 5'5" and 132 pounds, roughly equivalent to what 109 pounds would be at your 4'11" height. If I creep up a little in weight, I shoot for half a pound loss per week, or less . . . usually less.)

I'd add this, specific to your situation: At 19, you're at absolutely prime age to build fitness in all its dimensions (. . . as I'm not, at 68). Those circumstances will never be better, because youth is a favorable state to do that. The fitness habits and the fit body you build now will be a hugely important foundation for a healthy, happy future. I'd encourage you to think of how to maximize building that fitness founcation, while slowly losing the weight that your PCP agrees that you can healthfully lose.

I know that the decades ahead seem really abstract now, and that spreading weight loss over multi months probably seems really long, from the perspective of 19. Honestly, I wish I'd been smarter about maximizing fitness and health at 19. In retrospect, I can see many ways in which that would've been a better path to thriving good health and happiness long term. That's where I'm coming from in writing this freakin' long essay.

Best wishes!

I didn't read all the comments, but if you are consistently not having a problem overeating why count calories at all?

may14423 wrote: »

hi everyone! checking back in to update! I have been continuing to net <1000 each day, and I am feeling great!! down to 111.8 as of today! woohoo!

Wonderful to hear you’re having success. Be mindful, don’t go too fast, and create habits that will stick for the long term!