To think eating 1500 cals daily is unsustainable?

[savedbythewell]

And if you disagree, how do you do it?
How do you satisfy your appetite and what weight loss is reasonable monthly, if three stone overweight

Yes! Good for her! She eats real food and isn’t sitting there desperately reading the back of the packet. THIS is what a healthy relationship with food looks like.

Look up the Hadza tribe research. Again, so many of our ideas about what makes the West fat are wrong.

This is interesting. It backs up what I and others have been saying about protein, and that it doesn’t just matter how much you eat, but WHAT you eat. It also backs up the importance of strength training to preserve muscle mass during weight loss.

And for those who don’t believe standard low-calorie dieting affects your BMR - read the first bit!

On a diet I think 1500 is ok, once you’ve done the first week it’s easier. Choose high protein meals to fill you up. I have 1200 on a diet as my TDEE is lower as I’m only 5ft 1 with less than a stone to get to my ideal.

1500 really isn't a diet though. It's just not eating shit, or snacking between meals.

Greek yog breakfast
Oatcakes or similar and soft cheese lunch
Quorn chicken and bean mix in pitta with salad for tea

For me personally 1500 calories is disordered eating territory.

I find this very odd. I am in my 50s and Indian, plus vegetarian. Most of my meals are therefore Indian or Asian inspired. I don't calorie count but roughly speaking:
Breakfast is an omelette or eggs in some form with a piece of toast( about 300)

lunch usually rotis and a sauted vegetable. Occ a hearty salad or a wholemeal wrap with falafel, hummus or pasta with veg chucked in ( about 400)

snacks usually nuts or fruit, occ a couple of biscuits or a bit of dark chocolate( maybe 200)
dinner usually rice, daal, vegetables and /or a raita. ( about 500)
I eat crisps, chocolate and drink alcohol on the weekend. This comes to less than 1500, I think.

You think this is disordered eating? It's just not eating processed junk or binge eating. I am not denying myself anything.( except meat). My husband does eat chicken and fish and still manages to stay under 1500 with roughly the same diet.

@shumway

For me personally 1500 calories is disordered eating territory.

Why?? I mean, I circle at 2-2.5k myself but 1500 calories could be around:

• breakfast and supper - All bran with almond milk 170 cals x 2
• lunch - Chicken breast, carrots, peas, sweetcorn, beetroot, 300 cals
• dinner - Salmon, broccoli, beans, peas, carrots, spinach, leek, sesame seeds, 600 cals
• snacks - Cauliflower rice and pickles 50 cals, Apple, banana 150 cals, 5 teas with almond milk 100 cals, snacks on lettuce, cucumber, grapes

... That's a pretty filling day!

For me personally 1500 calories is disordered eating territory.
Unless you're very active or taller than 5ft3 1500 is plenty for one day.

Seems like a perfectly normal diet though I draw the line at cauliflower rice. I continue to eat basmati though I eat less of it! I think as earlier pp said, people think daily meals have to be pizza or chips or nuggets or burgers They don't have to be, though nothing wrong with those once a week as a treat.

I am 5"7 and also a size 10-12 like pp, but don't look fantastic because all my excess weight is around my tummy, like most Asians. I have been told by GP that my BMI needs to be under 23 to avoid diabetes in mid-life.

No one who has shared their daily menu on this thread has listed anything suggesting disordered eating. Lots of healthy menus.

it’s really not that hard to eat a healthy diet with no processed foods and stick to that total. It is hard to fight the messaging of the food and diet industries and relearn what a healthy diet looks like.

I do dislike the focus on calories though. It’s entirely possible to eat a lot of calories of the right foods (low glycaemic load) and not store the excess calories as fat if insulin sensitivity is normal. The problem with those who are struggling with weight is that their insulin balance has been fucked up by years of diets that teach the wrong things - low fat/ sugar free rubbish that messes up our bodies.

why is it that counting calories doesn’t work for so many people, yet there are plenty of us on the thread saying don’t count calories, just eat a healthy low crap diet and watch the weight normalise. Unfortunately there is little profit in this approach, so the diet industry rolls on, leaving nothing but early death and misery in its wake.

Yeah, on its own it's awful, but cauliflower rice with some vinegar and pickled onions or pickles for flavour is lovely!

There's also a cauliflower and broccoli rice, but tbh it tastes the same as the cauliflower one.

The sweet potato rice version is absolutely delicious on its own though, I highly recommend!

I like cauliflower rice fried, mixed with full fat cream cheese, Parmesan and garlic, then stuffed into peppers and baked.

That honestly sounds great. Will try it. I love stuffed peppers

Well my TDEE is around 1200 calories, which I reckon is about right for my age, weight, height and current level of activity. Were I to eat 1500 or (shudder) 2000 a day, I would very quickly become a porker. Not what I want.
Sadly, it is a fact of life, as you age, but I am happy to eat 1 meal a day (lunch) which is high in the protein, minerals, vitamins and fibre that my body needs. Obviously I make exceptions for special occasions and I do factor in the odd glass of whisky or wine.
However, I am not prepared to compromise on the quality of my food or "waste" calories on highly-processed rubbish. Fortunately I am in a position, financially, to be able to do this. Other are not.

I agree FelicityFlops
I suspect the majority of people saying 1500 calories is a tiny amount are quite young. Things definitely change as you age, especially post menopause. Until I was in my late 30s, I could eat more or less what I wanted and stay slim. And if I started to feel my clothes feeling a bit tight I could cut out snacks and reduce portion size a bit and I would shed half a stone in a few weeks no trouble at all. Now I am in my mid 50s it is a whole different ball game!
I'm not stupid. I know at this stage in life I'm never going to have my size 6 20 odd year old body again, but I don't want to be fat. I have been, and frankly it was shit so I am not going back there. And if that means I have to be a lot more careful about what I eat, then so be it.

Depends upon your size and activity levels. 1-200 calorie deficit is good for weight loss with the odd day of maintenance calories thrown in so your metabolism doesn't adjust to be more efficient on lower calories.

For me 1500 calories would leave me feeling very deprived. I am above average height, weightlifting 3 x a week and have a big family to run around after. For me calories is not overly important (I do not count them), I have to ensure I get plenty of protein and don't have too many carbs. I do OMAD most days with a more relaxed fasting:eating ratio at the weekend and losing around 0.5kg a week doing that.

Same. I exercise a lot to stay healthy and eating 1500cals would negate that and wouldn't be healthy for me. Although I don't calorie count, I have no need to, I know my body is fit and strong and that's my priority.

Daily intense exercise for 30 to 40 minutes will only use a few hundred calories at most. My last functional strength session of 40 minutes only burned 180 extra calories. A 5K outdoor run with hills is around 400 for me. My base rate is 1200 per day.

The calories we actually need is vastly over estimated. But if we eat the right foods it doesn’t actually matter anyway. The important thing is how much of the food we eat that actually gets turned into body fat. The better the quality of your diet, the lower this figure will be.

Yes and there isn't that much difference between intense cardio and a fast walk.

I find that an hour on the mini-trampoline works off around 500 calories for me - lots of jogging, kickboxing, squats, star jumps, normal jumps.

I can't recommend it enough if you find exercise tedious, I think the bouncing makes it fun

Lots of people just don't care though and don't exercise to burn calories but do it to be fit. I walk 2 hours a day total with the dogs, run 5k 6 days a week and do gym workouts 5 days a week and cycle most places with absolutely no idea how many calories any of that is burning because I don't care. I don't need to lose weight, I eat when I am hungry why would I care how many calories I'm burning, it wouldn't improve my life in anyway.

Some people are calorie obsessed but some of us just want to feel good.

Yeah, it must be nice if you can entirely self-regulate. Funnily enough, these days I keep an eye on calories on Fitbit to make sure I'm definitely eating enough.

I don't always get hunger cues, or sometimes fill up too much on veg without realising it, and found I was losing weight when I didn't watch it.

So sometimes at the end of the day I need to have a couple of extra bowls of cereal or bananas or something to make sure I'm in the "red" zone of eating a bit too much.

@Choopi i also don’t exercise to burn calories, I do it to be fit. It’s just. My iPhone/watch tell me so it is interesting to note how few calories exercise burns if it’s not something people are aware of.

I think a mistake we see quite often is people on strict faddy diets who go for a walk and then reward themselves with a piece of cake and wonder why they are still fat.

I stuck to 1200 to get near to my goal weight. Now to maintain I might do a couple of 1200 calorie days, try and stick to around 1500 on other days and chill the fuck out if I have a couple of 2500 days at the weekend - because the other days balance it out!

That's what it's all about really isn't it, balance.

I think 1800 is better unless you live on the sofa. There is a good book called How Not to Diet. It's about nutrient-dense eating for automatic weight loss, by giving your DNA and gut microbes, what they need to fully function and allow weight loss. Most 'diets' fall way short of good nutrition, which backfires in the end.