Is this really not enough??

[GoldieGal]

Breakfast: 1/4 cup of porridge

Lunch: Piece of fruit or salad

Dinner: veggies and a bit of chicken

I never ate much to begin with, just the things I ate weren't particularly healthy. Obviously I don't eat the same exact things everyday but it's around the same amount of calories yet apparently this isn't enough?

Will the consequences of this be that bad? Please help!

Oh dear. A Competitive undereating thread.

Disturbing isn't it - as is the idea that you can eat a tiny amount and take vitamin and mineral supplements instead of getting those from food!

GoldfishParade think whatever you like.

This thread is coming up in 'Active' and has generated nearly 200 messages in less than 2 hours.

No-one on MN can answer OP's question. OP knows enough about food to work out for herself how to increase her intake.

Honestly, OP you don't need to be posting your weight, height, BMI or any other information about yourself.

You know enough about food and calories to increase your food intake if you want to. Or not to if you don't want to.

Absolutely VeraPink. I have had disordered eating issues myself and have had friends die of related disorders. I find threads like this disingenuous and agenda'd.

@eaglejulesk I was just asking for advice. I am not competing with anyone else.

Okay, well thank you everyone who has given helpful advice. I will starting eating larger meals, be adding more healthy fats in as well and see how I go.

OP if you Google the NHS website, it gives very clear, unbiased advice on how to eat a healthy, balanced diet.

In no shake or form is 600 - 800 calories per day of limited food groups a healthy balanced diet.

You will kniw as well as anyone in Britain that it's really easy to get a telephone appointment with a GP right now. There's no "rushing off to your gp in the middle of a pandemic" required at all.

At 50kg and 5 feet 2, you have no need to lose weight and need to eat more to sustain your current weight, based on the average person's calorific requirements. The requirement for a youngish woman is around double that per day.

If yiu want to tone up, start exercising, because on 600-800 calories per day, that isn't possible.

You are at risk of your periods stopping and developing brittle bones right now.

If your BMI is fine and you have plenty energy and don't catch every cold going you're probably okay.

Your diet looks lacking in calcium maybe? Perhaps take a multi-vitamin for insurance.

If you are truly wondering about your diet randoms on the internet aren't the best source of advice - I include myself in that!

Speak to your doctor.

@myohmywhatawonderfulday thank you for that. Will definitely look into it.

@LadyH846 the OP said she's switched from biscuits and other junk to the real food she's wearing now, without changing volume of food - in which case her body may already be singing from the extra nutrients, and as it adjusts to the real food may ask for more quantity anyway?

We can't know, just words on a screen, but if you don't already have an eating disorder then following the advice of strangers on what to eat (especially on what not to eat) is the quickest way to develop disordered eating.

Eat real food, listen to your body, focus on strength, try to close your ears to other people's judgment of your body.

Food she's *eating, not wearing. Unless she's as clumsy as me.

I would feel very unwell eating that amount but then I’m quite active and need more calories. If your sat down all day doing nothing then it might be ok but I’m guessing your not?

A piece of fruit for lunch is not enough, maybe a salad containing some protein (meat, fish or meat alternative) and a piece of fruit?

I don’t always eat big meals, I’m more of a grazer and some days will eat 4 or 5 times a day, from a piece of fruit, some nuts to a poached egg on toast, other days I might eat twice but bigger meals.

Try upping your portion sizes, especially breakfast and lunch.

Sounds like an eating disorder. You need to add in more oily fish, larger portions of fruit and a mix of colourful vegetables. You wont be getting the nutrients you need to stay healthy with a limited food intake. If you dont realise that then the lack of a healthy diet is already affecting your brain.

Great advice to look up How to eat a balanced diet on the NHS website.

It's actually very simple, no need for fads or buying unusual superfoods and any of the "clean eating" rubbish promoted on Instagram or whatever.

You must realise that posters are cynical of your agenda here op. Why would you ask if eating one piece of fruit is "enough" for lunch?
Of course it's not. Would you send a child to school with 1 apple in their lunchbox? Would you invite a friend for lunch and give them a satsuma on a plate? Don't be silly now

It really isn't that tricky. OP you need to eat 3 proper meals a day, each one containing carbs, protein and vegetables. Also have a healthy snack mid morning and mid afternoon, such as a price of fruit, nuts, cereal bar etc. What you are currently eating does indicate an unhealthy relationship with food and an eating disorder in the horizon. If you continue to give your body so little sustenance, you will start to become ill. Eat properly, no need to count calories or make it complicated. Just eat proper meals.

This thread is very fucked up.

try putting all the drinks in as well as the meals. see what it says then.

Gosh, you’re hardly eating anything before your evening meal! I would literally be starving if that’s all I had. I’m trying to eat sensibly, but I would say your food intake for lunch especially is way too low.

I think if you carry on eating like this, instead of being healthy, you are slowly killing yourself.

MyFitnessPal app? Same for me too.
I put in all my food for a few days and it wouldn't let me add my day because it wasn't enough calories! What a joke. I was 18 stone a few years ago and now I'm 11stone ish. I do not eat much, I really don't have the stomach for it either. I eat around 1200 calories a day and it says it's not enough for me. :/
It's probably similar for you too!

I think the outline is fine if you add to it

So oats with fruit/yoghurt for breakfast
Salad with avocado/nuts/seeds for lunch
Roasted vegetables with a protein for dinner

Maybe some small snacks of vegetables/nuts/fruit in the day

Are you trying to lose weight?

Breakfast: 1/4 cup of porridge
Lunch: Piece of fruit or salad

This is one meal, breakfast= porridge with some fruit in it (obviously not the veg.)

Dinner: veggies and a bit of chicken

This is the sort of lunch people have when they're on a diet.

Unless you're trying to lose weight, you need an evening meal on top of this.

The consequences of undereating is you mightn't have enough energy, it can be bad for your mental health and cognitive function as your brain isn't getting enough fuel, and you might end up with some vitamin or mineral deficiencies.

Not everyone who eats small or even tiny quantities are anorexic, and suggesting so fails to recognise the vast range in healthy quantities there is for individuals. If someone only needs 800 calories a day, they're fit and healthy, menstruating if young enough and not covered in hair then fine, that's them. Ditto if someone's eating 4,000 calories a day but staying a healthy size with a healthy liver. That's them.

There seems to be this idea that we must all consume the same proportions of foods in an approximate calorie range of 1250 to 2500 a day but people are just so much more varied than that.

If you eat real food - not prepackaged or heavily adulterated - then you can trust your body to tell you what it needs. It's eating crap like meal replacements or thinking of real foods as 'syns' or eating processed foods all the time that messes with your hormones and your head to disorder your eating.

Yes the OP may have a problem. If she does she's not going to believe anyone who tells her so - if she's anorexic she's had so much practise disregarding reality we're not going to reach her. But telling her she must do this that or the other makes anyone else reading this who also eats little by nature feel bad about that for no reason.

How old are you OP? How can you not know what and how much to eat?