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.
Man, I gotta be real with you. You aren’t going to be able to crowd source this. There’s just too much outdated information, well meaning but flawed advice, and outright bullshit online. Finding the up to date, good answers among the junk would only be possible if you already knew it.
The only reliable way to get good answers about bariatrics is going to specialists. Seriously, you can’t even totally rely on a general practitioner to be caught up, though you might get lucky with an internist. You can make do with nutritionists if they’re either fairly newly graduated, or you know they keep up on their subject.
Hell, there’s some specialists that lag behind in terms of proper, evidence driven best practices.
And the thing nobody online will likely admit is that there isn’t a single, complete answer because part of how fat loss and gain works is governed by individual circumstances regarding hormones, metabolism, and capabilities, which still ignores external factors in making a prescribed weight loss plan work. If your broke ass lives in a food desert, and you’re limited to the corner store for the majority of your supplies, the task gets much harder, just as one example of what I mean by that.
Any medications you’re on, that’s got to be factored in to an overall plan, even OTC meds, supplements, etc.
Now, there are strategies that are fairly reliable in helping manage calorie intake, like going predominantly plant based. You’ll have to study up and make sure that whatever plan you set up has the whole gamut of nutrients you’ll need, but as long as a food desert isn’t in play, that’s usually easy enough. The good news about that is that the core foods tend to be very affordable, and easy to buy in bulk as long as you have storage space.
Another piece of good news is that if you’re using exercise as part of your overall plan, not only will you give yourself a wider space for intake, but it improves your health no matter what weight you’re at along the way. I mean, losing excess fat is great, but it isn’t going to magically make your cardiovascular system work at its best.
And, again, you can only take this comment with a grain of salt because you have no way of knowing that I’m up to date on the interrelated subjects to a degree high enough to be useful. For all you know, I’m thirty years behind on things. And, truth is that the general subject matter isn’t a high priority for my reading time. I do put a bit of time every week into digging through journals and publications with a focus on medical shit, but bariatrics isn’t something I’m into for my own curiosity. So I have to be at least a little behind as default because I’m always behind even on my favorite subjects because I can’t devote enough time to it all.
Weight management is something you have to take on as a long term project where you adapt along the way. You can’t look at it as weight loss either, because just losing excess fat is only part of the project. You have to keep it off and improve your overall health.
Well CICO is always true, but what modern professionals would help with is the other stuff: mental health, planning, long term, etc.
So in the lab, CICO wins, it’s thermodynamics. In real life, people need more support, and they (rightfully, realistically) can’t maintain CICO.
True.
CICO it’s what is called a bounding condition. It’s true but the CO half is almost impossible to know or predict long term outside of being in a 24 - 7 lab.
Hormones, types of calories, activity, and biology all have a huge effect. And long term even small errors in these numbers can have big impacts on weight.
While being accurate about it is hard outside the lab it is very easy to tell where you are on the balance and how much out you are. Just count the calories you consume and weight yourself regularly. If you are gaining weight then you are eating too much, so lower the number of calories you are consuming, if you are losing weight then you are eating less than you are burning. If you weight remains stable then you are in balance. And the amount you are gaining/losing tells you how much of a surplus or deficit you are in.
Over time you can then change the amount you eat by I few hundred calories at a time and you will see yourself move on that balance point. If anything else changes but your intake remains the same then it is likely your calories out that has changed. But even if technically you are digesting less for some reason it does not really matter - the bigger/easier leaver you have to pull is the number you are eating.
Because you are measuring the final output - your weight - it is fairly accurate over time and helps you track actual progress. There is no need to get super accurate about how much your body adobes, shits out or you burn off at rest or through exercise - those might be important in the lab but in real life the far easier to measure weight and how much you are eating is more important.
Eating healthier is not nearly as complicated as this post makes it sound, unless you have unusual underlying medical issues or are aiming to sculpt your body in a very specific way.
- To lose weight, eat about 5-10% less than your daily caloric requirement (there are tons of free calculators and counters online). Water helps to feel full. Increasing exercise can help if changing dietary habits is a struggle.
- To eat healthier overall, eat less processed foods, more fresh stuff.
That’s it. This is all the advice most people realistically need to lose weight/eat better. The hard part is being disciplined about it. Now, discipline, on the other hand, that’s a very personal matter.
And that right there is the kind of comment I was talking about. Well meaning, I’m sure, but so damn general and vague as to be useless to anyone that’s asking what the post is asking.
And, the whole “underlying medical issues” part is key there. Obesity is an underlying medical condition that changes how your body works. It messes with insulin, cortisol, serotonin, and after a point resists weight loss.
Dude is over 250 lbs at approximately six feet tall. If he isn’t a fairly regular weight lifter, he’s into at least overweight BMI, which is absolutely in the range where it counts as a medical condition that can be resistant to casual methodology, and that’s something that bariatric specialists deal with regularly. It’s part of the reason that people have so damn much trouble sustaining weight loss, and maintaining it long enough for the underlying changes to shift back to a healthier cycle.
Discipline is not a significant factor when the patient is at the point where OP is. Claims that it is are empty headed, outdated claptrap that does nothing useful for the patient.
Frankly, your comment is the kind the kind of jackassery that I was talking about.
I can attest from a personal anecdote that eating plant-based makes it enormously easier to cut calories. Provided you don’t decide to take the costliest, least healthy route of basically living off heavily processed plant-based substitutes or the cheapest, second-least healthy route of living off pasta, ramen, and cereal, you’re likely on a diet with plenty of healthy mono- and polyunsaturated fats (and pretty minimal saturated), a high amount of proteins from nuts, seeds, grains, and legumes, a moderate amount of carbs in the form of cereal and simple sugars from fruits, and an absolute abundance of fiber (of which 95% Americans don’t get enough).
Even just incorporating something like tofu into your diet helps a bunch, because it’s basically all protein and good fats while having just a small amount of carbs. Per calorie, it does the best job I’ve ever seen of making you feel full for a long time.
Most realist comment here.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A lot of low calorie veggie to fill your stomach and intermittent fasting to save calories for a bigger dinner.
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.
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:
Try being a pescatarian, shrimp and tilapia are fairly cheap, and finding non-animal protein is actually fairly easy if you branch out a little.
That’s only a fish diet right? I wouldn’t be apposed but I do love my meat though lol
shrimp and tilapia are fairly cheap
This varies hugely based on location, primarily distance from the ocean. Pound for pound, beef and pork are far cheaper than basically any seafood in my region.
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.
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
be carefull with rapid weight loss though, my ex got gout because of it
Also gal bladder problems are a real threat when loosing weight quickly.
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
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.
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 :)
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Learn how to make alfredo sauce. Put it on everything. That will solve your lack of calories.
🤌
As far as I know: forget this thing about the lowered metabolism. Yout body needs the energy it needs for basic functionality.
You may feel less active, lowering the energy used above the basics, but still your heart, lungs, brain, temperature management and all the other stuff need roughly the same energy. If your body does not get it from food then it will use up the fat.
But eating this low level of calories you must make sure that you consume all needed vitamins, minerals and enough protein.
And being less active may end up in a decline of muscle mass. In the end that may lead to lower basal metabolsk hastighet, but not your metabolism shutting down.
So then that lower metabolism stuff isn’t true? I was told that because I’ve also lifted weights to get muscle and was told that since the calories i eat will lower my metabolism I won’t gain the muscle and lose the weight I want.
Muscles weigh more than fat. You can’t just watch your weight when you build muscle to replace fat.
Also, if you stop exercising, too much protein will be stored as fat. Be careful with protein supplements. Only use them when exercising, if at all.
Ik when I tend to use fat loss and weight loss interchangeably
There is a great book in German called " Fett Logik überwinden" ( Overcome fat logic) that scientifically clears up a lot of the myths around gaining and losing weight. What you write about are the classics mentioned in this book.
You need the protein and minerals as building blocks for the muscles. That is why you need to take special care to ingest enough of them with that low calories.
More muscles burn more energy even when idle, that helps losing weight. Looks like you did that right.
Metabolism does play a part, but people of all metabolisms can lose weight.
So then that lower metabolism stuff isn’t true?
No, it’s not. Just a coping mechanism for people to feel better about not being able to stick to a diet necessary for weight loss. Calories in, calories out. Maintaining a calorie deficit (i.e. consuming less than you burn) is what results in weight loss.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I’ll def look into that I never knew that :)
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.
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.
Is this a European joke I’m too Free to understand?
My go-tos are legumes: cheap, easy to cook, go well with a lot of stuff, filling and full of fibre. If I feel snackish I go for a can of peas, f.i…
Pair them with rice, more veggies and lean meat, when you can score a good deal.
