Calories too low?

[fairyfingers]

Gosh I'm struggling so sorry this is long.

I have lost about half a stone during lockdown so far but it has been torturous. Would like to lose 1-1.5 stone more. I need to for bmi purposes - am just under bmi 30 now but need to get lower.

Am just using mfp. Have tried IF but really never seen any benefit either weight or health wise. I am short (5 3), start of peri menopause and have a sluggish thyroid - just above the ok levels but not high enough to medicate. I get v tired and v achy easily. Therefore this is always going to be a slog.

I did have mfp set at 1250 cals per day for lb loss a week. I didn't eat back my exercise calories. I would find this ok for maybe 6 days then would just go splurge and eat an extra days calories in one sitting. Then beat myself up and so goes on the cycle.

I've also been feast or famine with exercise as well either doing 3 hour hikes/ 2 hour bike rides plus hiit OR barely getting 2000 steps a day. I've irritated a hip injury by doing too much and have lost all motivation especially as I can't run outside which was my favourite (due to hip). And I honestly hurt/ache after every exercise session.

I have been wondering if I'm not fuelling myself enough hence the tiredness and aches but given I'm struggling to lose on 1200, I am scared about upping calories. TDEE calculators suggest I should aim for about 1350 but that seems too much to lose on although much more sustainable. And may avoid the binges if I don't feel too deprived.

I know the answer is to try but I am worried I'll just get more demotivated if I see no results.

What do I do?

You will be much better on something like 14-1500 calories and keeping it up. There is no point setting yourself up to fail on a low daily amount that you can't do consistently. Weight loss doesn't have to be quick
Slow and steady and sensible is a much better idea. Good luck x

Your under active thyroid needs to be medicated OP. Tired, aching, not losing weight on a low calorie diet are all red flags. If you're peri menopausal then your thyroid function will be affected. Go back to the gp, get a blood test and try medication even if you are "borderline".

Your eating almost half the calories most people need to maintain their weight - if you’re seriously not losing weight by upping to 1300 calories then as pp said it met be worth checking in with your GP. Especially if you are overweight already, you shouldn’t have to reduce by that much at all to lose weight - a very slim person possibly would but generally the heavier you are the quicker you can drop the lbs. But then it also depends on the extent of your ‘slurges’ - depending on how significantly you overeat on those days you may well cancelling out the weight loss you achieved the days before.

Are you possibly not eating enough protein? Protein needs to be a fairly high proportion of your daily calories to keep hunger at bay.
Low calorie diets should be high quality foods.

Thing is you weren’t eating 1200 because you were periodically bingeing. So over the week you’d have been eating a lot more. When I was part of TeamRH Ritchie would regularly post videos to f this very problem. People being too strict in the week and then blowing out at the weekend.

There is a huge benefit to intermittent fasting. First of all your appetite diminishes, so you’re basically rarely hungry. Secondly, your eating window is smaller so you can’t eat as much.

If it were me I would forget calories, put MFP to one side for a week. Focus on a feeding window that will incorporate two satisfying meals with no snacks. Most people opt for missing breakfast and instead eating lunch and dinner. Prepare those meals mindfully but not avoiding fat. So don’t go all cauliflower rice and poached lentils. Have two meals that will fill you up and eat then until you are full (not stuffed), then stop.

I would bet you money that if you fasted between the hours of 8pm and midday the following day and followed the kind of eating I listed above you would lose weight over the course of a week.

Also look at what food you’re bingeing on bthst alone speaks volumes. For me it was always bread, butter and chocolate, so guess what? I know make sure I let myself eat those foods most days and I no longer binge on them.

I am 5 ft 1, to maintain my weight I should eat 1350. To lose 1lb per wk I need to be 500 cals less than that, so i burn 400 cals by walking each day and stick to 1250 as often as possible. Just need to make really low calorie choices for breakfast and lunch then I can manage.

However as PP says keeping it up is the issue. I have a blow out, but try to keep it to one day a month then get back on track rather than most weekends.

What sort of food do you eat? Healthy nutritious calories, or convenience food/shakes/sweet stuff ?

Thank you all. It's very much the binge that is stopping my weight loss I think rather than not being able to lose on 1200. As you rightly said, it's not 1200 every day, it's more like 1500-1600 when you include the 'bad days' which isn't enough to lose on at my weight and age.

I eat fairly well - no meat but lots of veg, eggs fish. Mostly home made and from scratch with the occasional veggie sausage. I do factor in a pudding every day which I always count in which can be an ice cream or a bit of chocolate or a couple of biscuits.

I try and reduce refined carbs to one meal a day in general but not militarily. I do struggle with protein though so have been introducing a protein shake.

When I binge it usually starts with pizza! Not a take away, just a frozen jobbie then the kids chocolate/crisps etc start to appear. Yesterday dh bought croissants (happily in my calories) then I had veggie spag Bol for dinner,again in my calories but still felt starving after despite a reasonable portion so had crisps, chocolate etc. Ended up on about 2000 by the end of the day. So looking back it was a carby day. Usually it's just a fuck it day though when I get resentful I can't eat the nice stuff other people manage to.

And re the thyroid, had it retested through my work gp a few months ago who agreed with nhs gp that not enough to medicate. I may get another blood test privately and go from there. I have read quite a bit that borderline results like mine don't need to be medicated though.....

Ended up on about 2000 by the end of the day.

For me a fairly healthy, weight maintaining day would be around 2000 cal. If I was eating croissants and pizza and then chocolate and crisps on top of meals it would be significantly more. I do wonder if perhaps you aren’t counting the calories correctly, including during the week. How are you calculating them?

You say you like veg, but your example day has croissants, pasta, crisps and choc in it

That’s all fine, I like that kind of stuff, but if you’d had porridge it brown toast + egg for breakfast, and some protein with your veggie spag Bol, you would probably not had the cravings

It’s not just calories that matter, WHAT you eat matters more (IME)

But that’s the point OP, you CAN eat the nice things you want so you don’t feel deprived. You just have to eat them in such a way as to limit insulin.

What I found particularly interesting recently with my fasting is the choices I made when I knew I only had a small window to eat in and I knew I was likely to get full quite quickly. So, whereas I used to just graze across the day and pick at this and that. I opened the fridge and thought what do I really want to eat. What’s going to light my flame?

The decisions I made were so different to when I knew I could eat a bit now, and eat a bit later. I ate a piece of buttered toast with a roast beef slice and mustard and it was bloody gorgeous. I was going to go in for round two but then thought .... hmmm do I really want to eat that again? And the answer was no. So I had a couple of clementines instead. It’s weird. It’s just made me so mindful.

One medium croissant with nothing on it is probably around 250 cal. Freezer pizza - depending on the topping anywhere between 650 (quite generous) to over 900. Then your regular portion of veggie spag bol - I would generously say 500? But it’s probably more. That leaves you with around 450 of crisps and chocolate ‘etc’ - but again that’s it pretty generous too. It’s all very generous and it doesn’t add up for me. There are no drinks factored in either. I could be wrong, but I think you need to check the maths more carefully and perhaps be a little more honest with yourself.

You need to work out roughly what calories you are consuming each day - as a perimenopausal short woman you may find that your daily calories are actually quite a lot lower then you imagine. Be aware that the 2000 calories that’s often quoted can be far too much to maintain weight depending on age height and level of activity. If I don’t do some decent exercise in a day, I might only use 1400 at the moment whilst in lockdown and my age height etc are probably similar to yours. If you’re not losing weight you are consuming more calories then you are using, it really is as simple as that...

Yesterday wasn't pizza and spag Bol! It was a croissant, a salad for lunch then spag bol. Then too many carby things in my day meant I went fuck it and ate crisps and chocolate after the spag Bol which pushed me up to 2000.

I meant usually it's wanting a pizza (or a big slice of cake) which pushes me from staying on track to then thinking fuck it and those days push 2500 - 3000 calories for that day. I also don't usually have croissants for breakfast either.

They are not my normal days where I typically have eggs for breakfast, salad for lunch and a small dinner followed by a small pudding (which has a budget of around 200 calories). My point is the fuckit days are cropping up at least weekly and ruining the rest of the week.

I am confident in my calorie counting. I lost 5+ stone using mfp about 5 years ago and I weigh and measure pretty much everything. I have regained 2 stone (1.5 now) over the years through things like age and stress but also not changing my mindset enough in looking at food as a reward (although it's 1000% better than it was when I was at my heaviest).

I know being short and in my mid 40s means I don't need 2000 calories a day - that was a binge day.

I think my post was looking for a bit of support about how to manage my mindset better and whether I was setting myself up to fail by going too low. When I lost my big chunk of weight I very very rarely had cheat days and just keep within my limits (and still had pizza and cake) so I know I can do it.

I don't know why I am finding it so hard this time - I am very much a carrot not a stick person so I suspect not seeing good things (weight going down, feeling better and stronger) and only seeing bad stuff (weight staying the same, injury, worry about health) is my main issue. I guess I was just asking for validation that going a bit easier on myself was ok

Do go easier on yourself, I was not having a go at you

I just find that eating slow release carbs/fibre/veg/protein makes you less likely to get to a “fuck it” stage

You need to eat. Eat well. Eating a bit of choc or crisps does not equate “binging”...do give yourself a break from that kind of thinking

Apologies OP, I read that as having pizza for lunch as you didn’t mention the salad for lunch.

I guess I was just asking for validation that going a bit easier on myself was ok

I agree with you that sticking to just 1200 calories is setting yourself up to fail - your portions must be tiny if that’s also allowing for a 200 cal desert, you’re bound to still feel hungry. And if you still have chocolates and crisps in the house for the kids then it’s hard to resist temptation. I think that’s really tricky to achieve for weeks on end with the goal of losing over a stone - if it was just a few days for a few vanity pounds it would work fine. I also think losing weight without being able to exercise properly is really hard - even when you do eat back the calories after exercising at least by doing that you can eat a little more and so keep your stomach fuller which will still help you avoid saying ‘fuck it.’ What is the recovery time looking like for your irritated hip injury? If it’s not too long I think you should definitely go easier on yourself for now - just eat to maintain the great weight loss you’ve already achieved or try a very gradual approach, eating healthily with the aim of feeling good/being good to yourself rather than just loosing weight, until you’re able to exercise (moderately, not overdoing it) again.

I've just been having this conversation with my DH as everything I read on mumsnet says I shouldn't be eating my exercise calories but it feels wrong. I've now decided I should. My target is 1200 calories but any exercise for the day offers me further calories to eat.

If I do my usual workout in the morning, it burns around 200 calories. If I'm aiming for 1200 then in reality I'm only gaining sustenance from 1000. When I was doing this I was starving and its easy to then go mad as it's no way to live.

I weigh my food and record my exercise (walking and a circuit) and MFP already recalculates with the target figure.

I'm not a diet guru and success has never been forthcoming but this time I am losing weight and I can see a visible difference. I've also been IF 16:8 which is so much easier than I thought. I moved onto black coffee on day 3 and just have a cup in the morning and fill up on water to suppress any hunger pangs. It's surprising how quickly you get used to it. Plus the added bonus is, if MFP shows an overeat for the day, as long as I'm within my window of eating I dont feel too bad.

Thank you - clearly feeling a bit raw as you can tell.

Hip is on the mend and I can do some other stuff. It's just a bit symptomatic of me going at stuff like a bull at a gate and running every day when I know I should only go 2/3 times a week. So more self sabotage.

I think I'll try IF again and focus on tasty (urgh hate that word) healthy food. And try and go a bit easier. Have promised DH that I won't weigh myself in June to focus on feeling better and not the weight.

Can you walk? Walking rarely leads to injuries, and even with slipped disc and stiff back I manage a 10k walk most days. It’s an underrated form of exercise

It actually loosens my stiff muscles, and eases my back ache. Would your hip allow?