Not enough calories

[Tol116]

I haven't done very well with my calories over the past 2 days, I've only eaten around 750 each day and should be eating 1200. I intended to exercise yesterday, but thought it would take it down to around 350 net calories, so thought I'd wait until tonight, but i now have the same problem.

Both days I've eaten breakfast, lunch and dinner and a snack, so I haven't been skipping meals, but the choices I've made have been low in calories.

Yes I can have something else to eat like a yoghurt or even a chocolate bar or a nice piece of chocolate cake, but I'm not really hungry and eating chocolate or cake is NAUGHTY.

I'm just wondering if I've made these choices unknowingly because I didn't loose any weight last week.

Whilst dieting I always try to be good in the week to allow me a little takeaway on a Friday, but at this rate I'll end up eating too little for the whole week.

 

[bevsy]

If you are mean`t to be on 1200, you should not drop to 750, your body will go into starvation mode, and your weight loss will stop because of your metabolism slowing down.
Stick to the calories you should be on and you should lose weight.
Hope this helps. :0)

 

[Beckybex]

I've been having a similar issue. I'm also doing low carb so sometimes its tricky to eat enough calories without having yet more meat. I'm thinking of getting some diet protein shakes to boost up my calories once a day. They have extra fibre too which can't hurt! I definitely stall if I don't eat enough.

 

[Tol116]

I know I shouldn't go below 1200, but I think the problem is to do with my evening meal, most of the time I usually allow around 600-700 calories for this meal, but the last two nights the meal has only been around 300 and it wasn't intentional. The problem I now have is what to do with the extra calories when I'm not really hungry and will feel like I'm eating for the sake of it, if I do.

 

[Tol116]

Thanks Becky, maybe I need to get some of the protein shakes, at least then I can bulk up the calories if I find myself in this situation again. It doesn't happen very often and certainly not two days on the trot.

 

[happyhealthy]

I know it probably seems logical that the lower the amount of calories you eat, the more weight you will lose. For instance, you might think someone eating 800 calories a day will lose weight faster than someone eating 1200 calories. However, our bodies are machines and this is not the case. If you eat 800 for a week, then the next week you eat 1200 calories, you will find that you will lose more weight on the 2nd week, when you ate 1200 calories. It's all to with metabolism, so please try to eat all your calories because it really does make a difference! If I end the night with say 200 calories left, eat something healthy, such as fruit of a yoghurt. I like to eat nature valley nature bars to up my calories at 186 calories. They're healthy but don't leave you feeling that you've just had a second dinner! Also have a bigger breakfast. I usually eat about 400 calories worth. It's also important to plan you meals for the day ahead so you know what food you're going to be eating - that way you can add in extras if you see you're calorie intake falling short.

 

[Caz]

There are things that you could have on top, such as fruit juices? Why are your evening meals so low calorie? Are they diet alternatives? Maybe don't have them, like don't buy a weight watchers lasagne, buy a normal one etc. Thing is, if you're regularly under 1200 then it won't help you at all, it will just hinder your losses. So it is worth having more, just for the sake of it. It's for the sake of your health and wellbeing, as well as your weight loss. Fruit juice is easy to drink even if you're full, maybe try that.

 

[Fattack]

You're saving a LOT of your daily consumed calories for your evening meal - 600 is half of what you should be having (without exercise, and as you said you haven't started exercising yet).

If you're finding you can't eat your evening meal calories, then eat more during the day, save less for your evening meal. You can up your calories in a healthy way by adding things to your meals, or having healthy calorific snacks. Examples: adding nuts or meat to your cereals / salads, drinking fruit juices and milk instead of water / diet sodas, adding a tiny amount of cheese (ricotta is relatively low fat) to sauces / salads, cooking with olive oil, eating avocados in salads, eating a banana with a meal, making healthy smoothies with fruit, honey and greek yoghurt.

 

[Tol116]

Thank you for all of your advice. I have done alot better today, I only have around 90 calories left to eat to make it to 1200 calories, so I'll probably have a yoghurt for pudding.

Fat atrack - Strangely enough someone at work brought in some homemade flapjacks, which contained nuts, seeds, peanut butter and honey, they were so yummy, I've no idea what the actual calorie amount is for them, but I'm estimating around 200 Cals. She did bring some in yesterday, but I thought (wrongly) that I best conserve my calories, so only had a bit.

Caroline - my low cal meals for the previous 2 nights were chicken stir fry with noodles ( and stupidly cut the amount of noodles I could have put in) and last night was 1/2 a small pizza which was only 306 Cals (I had to share the rest with my sons). Thanks for the tip about orange juice, as I certainly could have had a wee glass last night.

The problem I had with my meals is that my OH had done the weekly shopping and since dieting I've tried to make him more aware of the calories in things. Once upon a time the pizzas we'd buy were in excess of 1,000 calories, so now he's trying to be more aware, but maybe it was a little too extreme and I could've eaten the whole one to myself really, but I had to share.

I think I am going to have to increase my intake in the day, I did use to take a banana into work, but stopped thinking it was too high in carbs and I do tend to eat alot of carbs in my evening meal.

 

[iwillsoonbeslim]

I could have written this
I'm brand new to CC and thought it was going to be really tough to stay within my range (having come over from SW, where lots of foods are unlimited - but bloody high in cals).
I started at 1600, but have upped my wanted loss to 2lbs a week this week, which brought my net cals down to 1200...and as I'm also exercising a fair bit, I'm finding this quite hard to eat! I've been indulging in doritos and dips and big bowls of pasta to up my cals, but this doesn't feel like the healthiest option :-/
I'm sure as I/we settle into CC we'll be able to get out cals up without to much junk x