Am I living in a bubble about to burst?

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Hey, first post here!

I have been using MFP just to record my weight for the last few months and have been eating home made veggie soup for lunch and salmon and vegies for dinner... thats all.

Now, I know that isnt enough calories per day but i have been losing weight (a total of 32lbs so far) and I have had many possitive comments from people I havnt seen for a while.

However...

I am worried that I am not eating enough according to the posts on these forums. I feel fine, I have alot of energy, my mind is sharp, I feel strong and I am happy. My weight lose in the last 3 weeks has been 5lbs.

So If this is wrong how come I am getting these results? am I missing something here? will those pounds catch up with me? I am worried in case I am in starvation mode and if I start eating 1300 calories(MFP reccomended intake) I'll pile it all back on again.

Many thanks in advance for any advice you may have,

Krafty ;)
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Replies

  • UponThisRock
    UponThisRock Posts: 4,522 Member
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    You might have to keep a smaller deficit in the future.

    As for now, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
  • selfishshellfish
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    Well, I always think that we should go by results and by how we feel. If this plan is working for you and you feel good, go with it.

    You're in a better position to judge what's working for you than any of us, and to engineer a solution based on what you need.

    For example, my plan worked well for me for 40lbs but now I've stopped seeing benefits and my appetite was getting out of control so I've changed things around.

    I hope things keep going well for you.
  • njmp
    njmp Posts: 277 Member
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    Without knowing what your actual calorie intake is, I don't have too much to say. This is a learning curve for all of us...but I think you should at least be eating breakfast. Mandatory IMO.
  • PinkEarthMama
    PinkEarthMama Posts: 987 Member
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    Personally -

    Are you willing to live on soup for lunch and salmon / veggies for dinner forever?

    Answer : Yes
    ...............................Keep doing what you're doing. It's working.

    Answer : No
    .............................. Go slowly back up to 1300 calories or more.
  • noisekraft
    noisekraft Posts: 5 Member
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    Thank you very much for your swift replies.

    I think I will continue as it is for now and if it starts going wrong I will slowley increase my calories to 1300+.

    Krafty ;)
  • wackyfunster
    wackyfunster Posts: 944 Member
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    IMO if what you are doing is working, stick with it. Starvation mode is not real, and the idea that one arbitrary calorie intake is the minimum for a 4'8" sedentary person and also a 6'3" highly active person doesn't even pass the common sense test. People here just confuse wate retention and optimistic caloric intake and expenditure estimates for "starvation mode." The topic is a bit more complex than that, but the primary concern with low cal diets is adequate nutritional intake, and sparing muscle mass. Eating 1200 cals of McDonald's per day is a great way to destroy your health. Eating 1200 calories of calorically sparse whole foods is what most of the island of Okinawa do, and they are the healthiest and longest lived group of people on earth. Just saying.
  • satxdc99
    satxdc99 Posts: 74 Member
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    IMO if what you are doing is working, stick with it. Starvation mode is not real, and the idea that one arbitrary calorie intake is the minimum for a 4'8" sedentary person and also a 6'3" highly active person doesn't even pass the common sense test. People here just confuse wate retention and optimistic caloric intake and expenditure estimates for "starvation mode." The topic is a bit more complex than that, but the primary concern with low cal diets is adequate nutritional intake, and sparing muscle mass. Eating 1200 cals of McDonald's per day is a great way to destroy your health. Eating 1200 calories of calorically sparse whole foods is what most of the island of Okinawa do, and they are the healthiest and longest lived group of people on earth. Just saying.

    Love this!
  • satxdc99
    satxdc99 Posts: 74 Member
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    I am curious to know if in addition to your diet are you also exercising?
  • cmeade20
    cmeade20 Posts: 1,238 Member
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    If its working for now, go for it but if you hit a plateau I'd increase your calories.
  • wookiemouse
    wookiemouse Posts: 290 Member
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    If your only goal is to lose weight, then by all means - keep doing what you're doing!

    Most of the "eat more" posts are aimed at people who are also trying to get toned and build lean muscle mass. It's much harder to achieve that on a low calorie plan.
  • Awkward30
    Awkward30 Posts: 1,927 Member
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    So, the problem with very low calorie diets is getting out of them (and diminishing returns) you will keep losing for a while and may even get to your goal, but then you will want to eat at maintenance and will put on weight because your bmr will be lower than expected. You may be able to slowly raise calories and gain less or none at all, most studies I've seen are too short for me to really know how the story ends. On the diminishing returns side: you lost 5 lb in 3 weeks, that corresponds to a deficit of 833/ day. I have no clue what your tdee is (you can find it at fat2fitradio.com) but I'll pick 2500 as my guess. So it sounds like you aren't even eating 1000 calories. If I subtract that from your guessed tdee, that is a real deficit of 1500. Your body tries to make itself more efficient because it's not getting enough energy. You can pm me if you want me to do the math with your real numbers, but I would be willing to bet that is kinda the story, you aren't losing as much as you should starving yourself because your boy gets more efficient. If you are eating 1000 cals and your tdee is 2000 or less, then you can ignore this. It would be a bigger deficit than you should do, but to each his/her own.

    Also, you aren't getting enough protein, so you will lose muscle, so if you want the "toned" look of very little fat over your muscles, this strategy will prob lose too much muscle for that and give you something closer to what is lovingly referred to in these forums as skinny fat
  • noisekraft
    noisekraft Posts: 5 Member
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    I am curious to know if in addition to your diet are you also exercising?

    I have been walking for 40 mins monday to friday during my lunch breaks at work.

    :D
  • eljulia
    eljulia Posts: 40
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    This is TOTALLY a guess based on my own experience over the years (almost 59 of them! YIKES!) and the millions of things i read for years and didn't put into practice till this past year, BUT-- i think it sounds like you've listened to your body and it has told you what it needs and wants, and that it has managed to educate you in the foods that would negatively impact your weight and your body. i mean, you FEEL good, and that's a good way to know if you are getting enough of the right nutrients etc. If you have energy, well, go for it!

    Things may change after a point. i notice someone else said they hit a plateau at 40 pounds, which is exactly what has happened to me. Also just my own thought, but i feel like my body has hit minor plateaus at certain weights as i've lost, but this is my longest one, so i know i need to change something. But if that happens to you, well, i guess you will change something.

    i do agree that you should have SOMEthing for breakfast, especially as our metabolisms do slow down as we age, and having breakfast helps keep your blood sugar happy and your metabolism happy too. :-)
  • m60kaf
    m60kaf Posts: 421 Member
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    If it's working for you keep at it... wouldnt want the concept to be an excuse to fail

    Kust keep in mind if you stop losing weight the answer might be to eat more at that time
  • tugers2
    tugers2 Posts: 139
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    you're losing weight because you're burning more calories that you're taking in..... u cant eat like that for the rest of your life and when u stop u will gain weight back fast
  • UponThisRock
    UponThisRock Posts: 4,522 Member
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    you're losing weight because you're burning more calories that you're taking in..... u cant eat like that for the rest of your life and when u stop u will gain weight back fast

    People gain weight after a diet because they go back to eating the amount of calories that made them fat, not because they lost weight too quickly.
  • noisekraft
    noisekraft Posts: 5 Member
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    Also I don't seem to be hungry, I mean don't get me wrong I am ready to destroy my dinner when I get home from work but I'm not holding out in pain from noon till 6pm. I start getting hungry about 30 mins before I get to the table.

    If.. or should I say when I hit my plateau I'm hoping you guys will help me brain storm some ideas for kickstarting the loss again.

    Thanks again.
  • sivankeren
    sivankeren Posts: 105 Member
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    You might have to keep a smaller deficit in the future.

    As for now, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

    This. A lot of people here bash the 1200 calories saying it's too low, but what everybody isn't realising is that everyone has a different body. If what you've been doing is working, and you feel good, then no reason to change it now!
  • NoAdditives
    NoAdditives Posts: 4,251 Member
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    Also I don't seem to be hungry, I mean don't get me wrong I am ready to destroy my dinner when I get home from work but I'm not holding out in pain from noon till 6pm. I start getting hungry about 30 mins before I get to the table.

    If.. or should I say when I hit my plateau I'm hoping you guys will help me brain storm some ideas for kickstarting the loss again.

    Thanks again.

    I spent months eating 400-700 net calories every day. I wasn't hungry. Was that healthy? No. It just meant that my body had adjusted to such a low amount of calories. If I were you, I would increase your calories to a healthy amount. Based on what you said you're eating, it can't be enough.
  • sherry9300
    sherry9300 Posts: 149 Member
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    This is called yo-yo dieting. When you return to normal eating, chances are you will gain it all back and then some. That's my experience. By the way, I am an expert at losing weight...it's keeping it off that seems to be the problem. Whatever happens, I wish you well in your endeavor.