I’m trying to lose weight and was told that hwo I eat about 800-1000 calories a day is too low and lowers my metobolism which will prevent weight loss. I’ve looked up some meal plans and can’t really afford stuff like chicken breast, steak, or salmon every week. So that is why I’m wondering how I can eat 1500 calories a day. Are there some alternatives that I can do?
Also I’d like to ask, say I exercise and burn say 500 calories would I have to eat those calories back or no? I ask cuz I’ve been told yes and told no.
You’ll get a lot of contradictory answers with this question because of two major issues.
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There is more than one way to make your scale number go down.
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Your scale number going down can be for multiple reasons.
For example, dropping a bunch of body fat is a way of posing weight, but it does not look any different on the scale than losing muscle mass or losing a leg. You can have more healthy recomposition where you drop a bunch of fat slowly over time and gain some muscle but overall lose absolutely no weight on the scale, and you can also gain weight without changing fat but be in a better position.
So what would you aim for? It depends on your goals. Do you want to be jacked? Maybe you have early signs of type 2 diabetes and want to stop it there. Or maybe you just really want to get rid of your skin issues like acne and dermititis.
Nobody benefits from being insulin resistant. That is the state that pushes you towards weight gain, diabetes, heart disease, and many other issues including dementia. Fixing that is a central goal for a lot of people and it actually helps with most other health related goals. If I were starting somewhere that is where I would probably try to start.
That said, if you have very little muscle that may be better to work on.
Can you give more detail about your goals?
Basically I have a gut which I want to get rid of (Ik you can’t spot reduce sadly). I don’t want to get super jacked I just want to lose this guy and get muscle. And avoid diabetes since it runs in my family.
I’ve currently been working on muscle more since my job thankfully has a gym I do strength there two days a week and walk/run 3
OK, so good, a clear starting point.
First, adding muscle is a fantastic way to go. Muscle burns energy and new muscle is not insulin resistant, so it lowers your overall insulin resistance. This is key to liberating fat and burning it for energy.
The other big key is diet. Your current diet is overwhelming your body’s ability to burn without storing as fat. This means you are gaining body fat and this will get worse over time. Gaining muscle can help a fair bit but your existing muscle tissue along with other things like fat cells and other organs are all at the point of damage from high sugar levels in your diet. The fact that you can make yourself go to the gym is great, it means you have caught this before it has gotten too bad.
So to make progress on your diet you probably need to do a couple of things. First is check for other symptoms like swelling around the jawline, fat build up over the spine between your shoulders, rash and skin discolouration, pale gums and lips, and any sort of weakness in nails and hair. These are all potential indicators of an acute deficiency and may need medical support. That said, all of these are generally helped by dietary work, so if nothing massive is presenting like a goiter or anaemic gums you should probably just move forward with diet and reevaluate later.
So what to eat. The biggest problem seems to be sugar, followed by the sugar/fat/salt hyper palatable mix, then hyper processed, and lastly problematic plants. If you eat meat, which I would strongly recommend, then paring everything down to very simple meals is the best option. A kilogram of meat per day is a reasonable base for basically everyone. If you start there and can make it a week without anything else you will have a good starting point for completing an exclusion diet. If you can’t jump directly to that then dropping out the worst items is a good step.
Dropping the worst means getting rid of the most packaged and insane foods, like cakes that last 6 months on the shelf or items with ingredients lists longer than The Art of War. If you keep eating sugars but they are in simple forms, for example honey or while fruit, you will avoid most of the worst stuff. It would also be good to learn more about cooking meat properly, so learn how to fry steak, cook chicken wings, and maybe roast a leg of pork. Learn to make basic stuff that tastes good and you will find reducing other crap easier.
Ultimately trying to hit numbers of grams of fat, protein, and carbs is a losing game. You don’t know all the internal systems you have and how they allocate energy, but you do have a handy system they operate with, hunger. We should fix your hunger to make it work properly and that is what the above is for. You have simple foods, your body learns what they provide, your hunger becomes more accurate for what you need.
Once your hunger works properly you will do something like work out and you will feel more hungry in the day or two following it. Then chasing numbers won’t be needed at all and you can relax.
Suggesting to eat a kilogram of meat every day when they say they can’t afford chicken breast is probably the worst advice you can give.
Eating plant based would help much more since it’s much cheaper.
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It’s hard for most people to eat and drink under 1500 calories a day. Are you saying you’re having issues getting up to 1500 calories a day?
Eggs are the cheapest and most perfect protein you can get. Just eat loads of those (around 80 calories an egg) and do some spinach or kale and bell peppers as well. That will cover your veggies and your protein. Then you can fill the rest out with a bit of rice or oatmeal. All of that listed is pretty super cheap.
To your other quaestion- no, you do not need to eat an extra 500 calories if you burn an extra 500 if weight loss is your goal. Eating too little calories (like less than 1200, depending on sex and height) makes your body try to keep your fat and will start removing your muscle in order to make your body have less upkeep. That’s really bad. However, if your body knows it’s getting more calories than that, and that your having to use a lot of your muscles (burning 500 extra calories per day) it will burn off the fat reserves and try to maintain the muscle you keep using.
Careful with the spinach though. Regular lettuce is safer.
Regular lettuce doesnt belong in eggs.
Yep. Because it doesn’t seem plausible for me to get to that which is why I eat under.
That’s a good point for the eggs which I’ll eat more of.
Beans are another good, cheap food.
Hey my guy, if you just need to increase your calorie count just add healthy fats to your diet. Fat is incredibly calorie dense so a little goes a long way.
Nuts are a good way to add calories to your day.
Can i ask you to describe a couple of typical meals you would make for yourself?
Ill tell you how i would modify it with what i have in my cupboards
Are you overweight? Really, it’s very easy to get to 1500 calories in a day if you throw in some carbs and some calorie dense foods. Heck, right now mcdonalds is selling a $5 meal deal that’s 1200 calories. Eat that and 4 eggs for breakfast and you’re already at your calories for the day. A few slices of pizza can be 1000 calories. Just one small breakfast sausage patty is 150 calories. A big bowl of cereal with milk can be 500 calories.
None of that is really a healthy way to go, but all I’m saying that is people who need to lose weight usually have issues getting down to 1500 calories. Someone overweight but having a hard time getting up to 1500 in a day is pretty strange.
Regardless, if you just aren’t that hungry and need some healthy foods with a lot of calories, pecans and macadamia nuts are 200 calories an ounce. Full fat Greek yogurt is really calorie dense. So are things like peanut butter. Trail mix is also a great and really high calorie snack. Also, avocado. Really, there’s a lot of foods that are super calorie dense if you look for them. These are just some of the high calorie healthier ones.
800-1000 calories a day is too low and lowers my metobolism which will prevent weight loss.
If you do it for real for a while, nothing can prevent weight loss.
I’ve looked up some meal plans and can’t really afford stuff like chicken breast, steak, or salmon every week.
Eat real vegetables and fruits. Fresh, where ever possible. You wouldn’t believe how cheap you can feed yourself if you do your cooking yourself.
Avoid all processed food. Avoid all sugar.
be carefull with rapid weight loss though, my ex got gout because of it
“Avoid all sugar”
Right. Avoid fruits.
But seriously. Fruits have very little benefit for health. They have health benefits vegetables have, but with sugars also in them. Fruits are sugared veggies.
Sugared veggies is good. As you say, fruits do have the health benefits vegetables have, which is not “very little”. They’re full of minerals, vitamins, antioxidants, and above all, fiber. Sugar is not all bad either. Evolutionalrily, we probably like sugar exactly because it is present in fruits and eating fruits is beneficial for us. If you ate only fruits all day, then it would be bad for you, but I’m pretty sure in reasonable amounts fruits are an important part of a healthy diet.
Your mostly correct, except there are no fruits that are an important part of a healthy diet. You can have some as a treat or whatever, but they are not important, and simply do what veggies do, but with a spike of sugar.
Vegetables are just fancy nutrients, that’s why I only eat a flavourless calorie paste that contains all my essential vitamins.
Measuring and establishing some boundaries by plant, rather than type, could be useful to op.
Peppers and carrots can be higher in sugar than expected. Relative to their positive flavor impact on a salad, a cutup strawberry or two adds only a small amount.
Grouping plants into fruit or veg might not be effective for calorie monitoring. Would need to know what they want to eat, and search for nutrition info. Thus a plan.
That’s such a dumb take. Fruits are like the second best thing after vegetables in their ration of satiation per calorie.
Added sugar is completely different beast from the sugar in fruits and vegetables.
You would need to eat an ungodly amount of fruits for it to be bad for your health.
They’re still in the “good for you” category, but completely unnecessary for health. Anything you can get from fruit you can get from vegetables and it reduces your sugar intake that way.
At this point, we can boil down everything to a nutrient paste with no flavor to be healthy. But very few people would be able to endure that.
This is a terrible advice to not eat fruits when trying to lose weight. The diet fatigue is real, and eating an apple can at least take off the edge when its getting harder in the later weeks. I know it did for me when I wanted to eat junk food.
And the goal is also to develop healthy habits, and having fruits add to the variety of available food.
I mean, you are technically correct, but it won’t help anyone trying to change their lifestyle.
Have you bothered reading anything OP has posted? They’re having issues getting up to 1500 calories a day and getting enough protein. Fruit won’t help them as much as pecans, veggies, avocado, some carbs, and eggs. Feeling full off fruit isn’t an issue they want.
You are the one with reading skills issue. OP said he doesn’t have money for the meal plans items.
Depending on where you are, eating fruits and veggies in season will be a lot less expensive and somewhat satiating if mixed with inexpensive fats and proteins.
Nuts are expensive as hell, avocado are expansive as well. Even super greens are getting expensive.
If he’s undereating, maybe some sugar in moderation. Humans need calories, maybe a granola bar or something
Yes maybe, but strictly only the kind that you can see before you eat it (like, two pieces into your coffee)
Is that because you know exactly how much you’re using?
Yes.
And because this rule helps a lot with learning good habits.
Frozen fruits and vegetables are also fine. Canned fruits in heavy syrups – not fine.
If Chicken breasts are out of budget then Eggs, Egg Whites, or Beans are probably going to be needed to hit some kind of protein macros.
Yeah I usually go for frozen fruits and veggies since they are “fresher” lol
They unironically might be the freshest fruits and vegetables in the store! So same here
I’ve long said that the best place to loose weight is at the grocery store. You pretty much only ever go to the outside edge. Buy potatoes, onions, peppers, mushrooms, squash and zucchini, radishes, carrots and any other vegetables you like. Bulk is what works here. Then go buy what protein you can afford. Skip anything that has been processed beyond meat and milk.
Yeah I usually do my best to eat vegetables and fruits whenever I can at least. And I’m trying my best to cut back on sugar it’s hard lol but I’m getting there.
Liquid sugar is the worst, IMHO.
Things like soda, fruit juices, energy drinks,etc are way too easy to consume without realising just how much.
It’s very easy to consume ¼ of a pound of sugar a day in just a few drinks.
Drink water.
Yep water and matcha are my go tos for drinks.
And yeah I agree about the liquid sugars def considering trying to make natural juices at least
I feel you, sugar is hard. I find it easier to eat a tiny bit of something sweet like once a week than to cut it altogether. My cravings are too strong when there’s no vision of fulfilling them at least a bit :)
cut back on sugar
One type of snack/dessert I do: get a slice of high-fiber bread (toasted, or not), and put a bit of honey or jam on it. Much better than a pastry, bc I can control exactly how much sugar is there.
Here is a site that has some good lists: https://survival-mastery.com/diy/food_preserv/high-calorie-vegetables.html
Also, the number of calories you eat should be based on your current weight and the types of activities you plan on doing through the day. Calorie intake is variable!
Here is a chart for weight vs calorie intake vs activity:
Learn how to make alfredo sauce. Put it on everything. That will solve your lack of calories.
🤌
Have you looked into animal-free alternatives like tofu, beans, or lentils?
Tofu has fewer calories than chicken per 100g, though it also doesn’t have as much protein for the same size.
I do eat beans and lentils on occasion maybe I should try more? I’ve tried tofu never cared for it lol.
I have seen people eat it straight out of the package before, which is absolutely disgusting.
Not everyone will like every food, even when prepared correctly.Eggs. They’re the most perfect source of protein and they can be prepared a dozen different ways. They’re also dirt cheap. A large size egg is like 80 calories and 6 grams of protein. So $2 in eggs will get you 60 grams of protein a day and just over half your calories per day.
More beans and fish. Skip the skin on chicken as well.
What’s wrong with chicken skin?
It’s very Calorie dense and not very filling.
Beans and lentils are great for protein as well as being much cheaper than meat. You should definitely have them every day.
If you have the time and energy to do so, get dry beans and soak them overnight then cook them; they’ll have less sodium and give you less gas that way.
I’ll def look into that I never knew that :)
this is not universally true, beans are about as expensive as ground pork here in sweden, and it’s not that rare to find the ground pork on sale and thus significantly cheaper than beans.
Frozen peas however are hilariously much cheaper and can simply be thawed in the microwave.
Is this a European joke I’m too Free to understand?
Instead of trying a bunch of different conflicting methods for weight loss from these comments, I would recommend you instead first understand the science of it with:
I’d be cautious stating that these videos represent science. People are free to make their own dietary choices of course, but ‘water fasting’ and ‘low-carbohydrate high-fat’ diets are questionable. Also, FYI, Dr. Jason Fung is a Kidney doctor.
Ok, you have been fed some bullshit. Anyone who just gives you a “eat X calories” advice without knowing your age, height, gender, etc… is full of shit. Makes me no end of mad when you see “Contains 25% of your daily…” on food packaging. Because a 19yo male rugby playing bricklayer and a 46yo female accountant have vastly different requirements.
At the core of it, its CICO (Calories in, Calories out)
https://www.calculator.net/macro-calculator.html Tap your details into that, select a REASONABLE weight loss goal a week, underestimate your exercise, and select the high protein option since you are weight training and want to avoid muscle loss.
A few eggs on a couple of pieces of wholemeal or multigrain toast, pot of greek yoghurt and a coffee is a perfectly good breakfast and Protein shakes are a great way to get protein in and keep calories reasonable, my lunch at work is 2 scoops of Casein protein and a protein bar. I eat boring and super low cal during the day because I train in the afternoon and want to enjoy my dinner.
When it comes to adding back in workout calories… both sides are right. “Diet fatigue” is a real thing, and if you want to keep your calorie defecit around a certain number to avoid getting burnt out then yes, you add them back in. Personally I calculated my macros and calories to “mild” weight loss and estimated my exercise as “none” so my training was where I found the larger part of my deficit.
I could write a very short book on this stuff so if tou have any questions feel free to PM me.
Weight loss advice is nearly a religion. You’re going to have a million different people telling you that something absolutely is or isn’t a certain way. They’ll claim science isn’t science, that the body is magical and mystical and you won’t achieve your goals if you don’t do exactly X or y.
The body does some weird things when you start going into starvation mode but it’s not magic.
If you maintain a calorie deficit, eventually you will lose fat. You’ll also lose muscle.
The calculations for how many calories you actually burn doing something are kind of voodoo, they vary wildly per individual.
You create a calorie deficit so that your body will burn the fat. You work out so that your body will put more energy into building the muscle you’ll be losing. The only way you lose weight is through breathing out carbon dioxide. If you sit around sedentary that’s going to take a very long time.
Pick a target for how much weight you want to lose over a month. Pick a calorie deficit that makes sense to you. Weigh yourself every couple of days and calculate a sliding average. Tune the number of calories you’re eating after the first couple weeks to maintain your weight loss target.
You do need to be careful with extremely low calorie diets. You want to be monitored by a doctor and have regular blood tests to make sure stuff isn’t going awry.
If you want to go cheap, use a free intake monitoring app, eat eggs, beans and rice, try to cram some vegetables in there where you can. Don’t go out of your way to avoid fat but don’t guzzle it either. Shy away from processed carbs like bread and noodles. Don’t necessarily go keto, but keep your carbs in check.
Best advice in this thread. OP please read.
Speak with a doctor, not the internet.
With practice. A lowered metabolism won’t prevent weight loss. You never need to eat more to lose weight. An alternative is to just keep doing what you’re doing so long as it’s working. No, you never have to eat calories back.
As someone who lost 60lb this year: just stop eating ultra processed garbage. Find real foods that you enjoy, and make meals out of those. Eat as much chicken, vegetables, fruits, unsweetened yogurt, fish, eggs, etc as you want and you will lose weight. Unhealthy stuff is fine to eat on occasion but only if you consider it well worth the calories and you are aware of how much you’re eating. Dont mindlessly eat a family size bag of doritoes that you dont even like that much. Dont drown yourself in vegetable oil. I stopped buying loaves of bread, sweets, cereals (why are entire aisles of grocery stores dedicated to this garbage?) , carb-based snacks, etc.
Also no, working out does not mean you can eat a snicker’s bar for free. The new Kurzgesagt video explains how that works. I dont believe you’re gaining or even maintaining your weight at 800-1000 calories, but im just a random person.
The costco rotisserie chicken is only $5, just dont eat too much skin. Yogurt can be affordable and high in protein. Almond milk too. Nuts & beans are decent. Just look at protein to calorie ratios on cheap stuff so you maintain muscle, im sure you can find plenty of foods that work.
Can you give an example of what you currently eat? I… doubt you aren’t losing weight if you are really eating 900 calories a day.
I do eat some sugar which I’m working on cutting back bgut like my other comment it’s not easy lol.
I usually have a fruit smoothie with two scoops of peanut butter every morning or sometimes an egg and english muffin
a turkey, chicken, or roast beef sandwhich for lunch along with some fruits
And dinner my mom usually cooks so I ahve what she makes which usually ranges from fish, steak, pasta, or chicken
but sadly it isn’t every day some days I end up skipping lunch and dinner and just eat a snack
Hi, I must agree with others that you’re eating more than what you think. I was underweight for over 20 years, so the opposite problem, and I’m one of the few people here who read “I struggle to meet 1500 calories” and nodded. For the vast majority of humans, weight loss is entirely based on energy deficit, so something must be up.
Calories are deceptive. Two days ago I had one sub sandwich (the bread I use, Schär ciabatta, comes in half sized so two of them make up one sub). It was 850 calories, far more than I expected the first time I had one— it’s not even large. That plus an Arizona tea made for 1040 calories in a single pretty volumetrically small meal.
I track the calories of every single thing I eat. I use an accurate to 0.1g scale to measure every ingredient I use in meals and to track serving size for snacks. I pour drinks into a measuring cup. It was some work at first but by now it’s basically second nature. You don’t need to go that far, but I’d highly recommend doing something. Every ingredient must be considered: are you accounting for butter or oils in pasta or even steak? Those add hundreds of calories.
The fruit smoothie sounds almost like bulking food to me. Peanut butter in a smoothie is great for weight gain. How much is two scoops? What’s in the smoothie itself? If you have vague measurements of ingredients and amount, I’d be happy to calculate a caloric estimate. It won’t be exact, but would be a good start.
I don’t account for butter or oils cuz I didn’t think much of it but think I should start.
And the fruit smoothie is some I get from Costco, one is a blend of (pineapple, kale, peaches, spinach, and something else) the other is a blend of (berrires and bananas). I add 2 table spoons of peanut butter cuz it’s too bitter without it and I keep forgetting to buy honey since Ik that’s better.
Hm the only one I can find on the Costco site is 110 cals per serving + about 190 for the peanut butter, making for a pretty light breakfast. If the peanut butter is curbing appetite and this is the whole breakfast, it doesn’t necessarily need to be removed.
And yeah, definitely account for butter and oil. I was advised by a dietician to add tablespoons of oil into food (I use olive oil or avocado oil) for additional calories, which I do sometimes. It often makes the difference.
Are you losing any weight? I’m seeing a TDEE (calories per day to maintain) of 3300~3700 depending on much you work out on the five days a week I think I saw earlier. The formulas aren’t always accurate but they’re rarely that far off, and I think it’s somewhat unlikely that your count is off by 1500+ calories a day. It definitely is possible, I’ve read weight management stories like that, but if you start weighing your food and adding calories from oil + butter and see no weight loss I’d consider asking a doctor.
Feel free to ask if you have any questions, I’ve been counting calories and measuring my weight every day for a very long time now. I have my weight management down, and while my experiences may not be applicable for you, I’m happy to elaborate on anything. Weight management is difficult and sometimes a truly long term commitment.
If you are serious about losing weight, what I would suggest you do is start recording what you are eating in detail to see where the calories are actually coming from. Make a spreadsheet and track it. Also if you aren’t already active, pick up some activity to become less sedentary. Doesn’t need to be working out, could be a sport, could be going for more walks.
Maybe I’ll try getting into my fitness pal again. But my trouble is still getting that 1500 calories.
I exercise 5 days a week.
My work has a gym which I use both days I’m in office and when I’m not I walk or run
You’re eating way more than you think if you’re not losing weight on less than that.
Watch secret eaters on YouTube…tons of people don’t realize how much they actually consume.
I lose probably 1-2 pounds a week which isn’t too bad I just don’t want to eat less if it’s unhealthy.
The whole “starvation is bad for you” is bullshit. No one is saying eat so little that you get headaches. You eat yourself into a calorie deficit and once you get to it, your body gets used to it.
I don’t recommend making significant changes to activity levels at the same time as making diet changes. Weight loss comes from changing what you eat. Exercise is absolutely necessary for a healthy lifestyle, but it is not the major factor in weight loss. And increasing exercise behaviors can destabilize eating habits, making it harder to stick to any good changes you do make with either diet or exercise.
This furthers my suspicions you’re not tracking properly. That’s over the 500-1000 kcal you’re claiming. You’re well over it if you consume any liquid sugar (even juice) throughout the day that you haven’t listed.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17469900/ just read the abstract if nothing else.
Whelp that’s not helpful on its own though to be honest. “long term lifestyle change” is the key word I am aware which is… Well at least I didn’t manage it so far. “just do X” is like telling an alcoholic to “just stop drinking, oh but you need a sip every other hour”.
Did you not read the abstract?
Have you not read either the abstract (“calorie deficit not helping”) or my comment? (“input on the inefficiency of diets is useless to OP without any impulse on what to do instead”)?
I don’t understand of what you’re aiming for with your oneliners.
Your previous comment didn’t make sense in relation to the abstract (like nothing about long term change was in it). This one is more understandable. I don’t think replacement advice is needed. Don’t diet is pretty clear. If you couldn’t grasp that from the info, I don’t know what to tell you and you’re not really pleasant to engage with, so I’ll be blocking you.
