Strictly speaking, because I’ve been attempting to eat way too little. SparkPeople tells me my range should be 1200-1600 calories, so I plan out a day’s worth of food within that range. 3:00 rolls around, and I’m pretty hungry, so I have my snack. Within an hour I’m ravenous, so I have a sandwich and some (not very wise) Sunchips. After that I’m still hungry, so I say “Fuck it!” and eat what I want, in amounts that I want, until I’m not hungry anymore. Or on another day, I might start feeling like I want to gnaw my own arm off right when I need to be going somewhere, so I wind up going to the drive thru, and I’m so hungry (and resentful of being hungry) that all judgment goes out the window and it’s deep-fried goodies for me.
So for some time I just gave up, but I wanted to try again, and the same thing happened yesterday. Today I finally Googled “how many calories do I need?” (yeah, the internet is as good as a licensed dietitian!). Found this calculator, which seems pretty reasonable. Add in that I’m nursing, and I’m probably burning 2,600 calories a day.
No wonder I felt so hungry! No wonder I felt anxious and insecure about food. It felt really lousy. And of course then I felt guilty for not sticking to my plan!
I cannot express to you how much better I’m feeling today, and how much easier it is to stick to my plan when my ceiling is 2,000 calories. Note that that will still give me a weight loss of about a pound a week. I’m not getting hungry or to the point of hypoglycemia, so it’s unbelievably easier to make healthy choices.
I’m a little annoyed with myself for just using SparkPeople’s suggestion without checking if it was high enough. I’m familiar with Weight Watchers, and have always figured that the commercial weight loss companies give you an incredibly lowball limit, because they want you to see fast, big results and keep giving them money. I wish I had realized that this guideline was subject to the same pitfall!
Yeah, my wife is nursing, and feeling all guilty about the amount of food she’s eating. You just can’t judge your intake by “normal people” standards right now.
That’s great that you figured out what works best for you!
A couple of months ago I got pretty sick and took a few days off of work. It wasn’t flu or anything like that, I don’t think. But it was a stomach thing combined with really constipation. I couldn’t hold anything down except saltines and ginger ale. When I came back to work, I was very cautious. I ate tiny meals. It was less than half of my normal intake. These days I’m not quite back to normal, but I’m eating a bit more. I should weigh myself to see if I’ve gained/lost, but I don’t really have a baseline to go on.
Yeah, on occasion I exercise, though not strenuously or for long. I’m not quite “sedentary” but probably not quite “light activity” most days either.
I don’t know about triathletes, but when you’re the sole source of nutrition for an infant, you need about 500 extra calories a day. When you’re nursing a 2yo who eats like a linebacker, it’s surely less, but also not zero.
I just finished a snack of a giant strawberry smoothie (2 c berries & 1 c yogurt), with 2 oz cheese on the side. I feel pleasantly full and happy!
Certainly what you eat affects fullness - I’ve been trying to eat more protein and choked down three quarters of a Clif protein bar for breakfast yesterday - I may still not be hungry.
I have also not been eating much and gaining weight. I’m on a sweet kick again. I had two rice crispy treats for breakfast and a box of Milk duds for lunch. With Diet Doctor Pepper of course! It makes me feel less guilty to drink diet soda with sweets. Dinner will probably be ice cream at this rate! Perciful loves to go by the ice cream place on our nightly walks and they make a mean doggy sundae there. It’s a vanilla soft serve topped with a milk bone.
It isn’t how much I eat, it’s what am I eating and I have been very bad. Thank God my job is a workout or I’d be in trouble.
I am not a medical professional, but I would say that 1200-1600 cal/day is presented as the minimum that you should eat, rather than a recommendation. This is a crash-diet number, meant to lose lots of weight really fast without seriously impacting health.
I’ve done similar numbers in the past and it’s very difficult to maintain long-term. Dropping to 1200 calories a day, you stay hungry all the time and it’s easy to fall off of the wagon.
As a nursing mother, you certainly need much more than that. I think that the latter number you have is much more reasonable number that you should be able to maintain.