Calorie counting

HaileyCornett7283 wrote: »

I've just started using this app to keep myself from gaining weight by overeating. However, I've caught myself undereating and constantly stressing about what I eat even when I'm very hungry. I'm worried that I'm pushing myself too hard. I'm 250lbs and just starting my journey. I just need some help understanding if I'm harming myself more by going way under my calorie limit.

Hello, and welcome!

I'd very strongly encourage you NOT to go way under your calorie goal, always, but especially when just starting out. I'd encourage you to set a sensibly moderate loss rate target in MFP, and eat very close to the calorie goal that MFP gives you.

"Sensibly moderate weight loss rate" means 0.5-1% of current weight as the weekly loss, with a bias toward the lower end of that range unless severely obese, and under close medical supervision for deficiencies or health complications.

"Very close to calorie goal" means averaging maybe +/- 50 calories daily, maybe a little more than that if a busy or hungry day, maybe a little less if a not-hungry day, but averaging that close or closer over a few-days time period.

Why? Lots of reasons:

1. There's no getting adequate nutrition on too-few calories, no matter what the nutrient percents are. We need certain absolute gram amounts of protein and fats to get essential nutrients our bodies can't manufacture, as just one example. Reasonable - not perfect - nutrition is vital for health.

2. Undereating increases health risks, whether undereating from a too-aggressive loss rate, or from trying to undercut the calorie goal we've set. Some of the risks are lower probability, but some of those are severe: Gallbladder problems, heart issues, etc. Some are more likely, but perhaps less severe: Losing more than minimum muscle alongside fat loss, compromised immune system, etc.

3. Undereating can cause appearance issues, like hair thinning/loss, brittle nails, etc., not to mention simply looking haggard and listless.

4. Fatigue and weakness can result. That's bad for any of us with a busy modern life, but it also tends to reduce our daily life calorie expenditure because we drag through the day, resting more and doing less. That can be subtle, but it's real.

5. Trying to lose weight aggressively fast is more likely to cause bouts of deprivation-triggered overeating, breaks in the action, or even giving up altogether. If those happen, it's not unusual for people to fall into deep self-criticism and high stress, which is psychologically dysfunctional.

6. Striving to eat the minimum can increase stress, which increases cortisol, and cortisol can increase water retention. The stress itself is bad for a person. The water retention shows up on the scale, and sometimes convinces people that loss has slowed, so they cut calories further, creating a down-spiral of stress and restriction. That usually won't end well.

7. Obsessing about more and more calorie reduction can be a step on the path toward a dysfunctional relationship with food, perhaps even toward eating disorders. Better to make a sensible plan and focus on sticking with the plan.

8. Dramatically under-eating does little or nothing to help the person learn sustainable new habits that will not only carry them to goal weight, but help them stay there long term, ideally permanently.

9. The mindset and behavior can concern others who care about us, and in some cases even be a poor model for impressionable people in our lives, children or others.

10. Severe undereating is a thing our bodies can't distinguish from living in a famine. When we do it, essentially we're encouraging - training - our bodies to get along on fewer calories. This isn't "starvation mode" in the sense that we won't be able to lose weight, but is a thing called "adaptive thermogenesis". Some research suggests in can result in long-term reductions in calorie needs, compared with people at the same weight who didn't practice extreme weight loss. If adaptive thermogenesis happens, it can make it harder to reach goal weight, let alone stay there long term.

12. Sticking very close to calorie goal for at least 4-6 weeks (whole menstrual cycles if you have them) will give you enough personal experience data about calorie intake and loss rate that you can knowledgeably adjust your calorie goal to dial in a safe and appropriate loss rate. That's powerful insight. Frantically trying to eat less, varying all over in calorie level, doesn't enable that to happen.

13. Some people - I'm one - turn out to need more calories to achieve any given loss rate than MFP projects. If a person turns out to be like that, severely undercutting the initial goal is even more risky. That's a rare case, but trust me, it can happen. I accidentally lost weight too fast at first on MFP, even when trying for a then-sensible rate, got weak and fatigued, took multiple weeks to recover even though I corrected quickly. Most people will be close to the MFP estimates, because that's how statistics work. But some people will be exceptions, and we don't know that until we have several weeks of personal data to average and review. (I need several hundred calories more daily than expected by MFP and my good brand/model fitness tracker that estimates well for others: That's like a pound a week difference in loss rate!)

I could go on further; I may even be leaving out some important risks. I'm not trying to be mean. I'm trying to encourage you to find a healthy path toward long-term thriving, because there are definitely ways to do that while losing weight. In fact, sometimes a supposedly-slow loss rate will get a person to goal weight in less calendar time than a theoretically aggressive plan that causes those bouts of compensatory over-eating or stop/start yo-yos.

Please set a sensibly moderate weight loss rate, stick close to the calorie goal, and focus on finding and practicing sustainable new eating/activity habits rather than focusing on losing weight fast. That will serve you better, in my experience.

Best wishes!