Eating 6 Meals Per Day But Not Getting To 1800cal -- And Not Hungry..

[Zanderus]

Hey all,

So for the past 4 weeks i've been kick-starting my metabolism after 19 years of one binge meal per day in the evenings and lardassing around to the tune of 163kg. I'm basically using the S Health app because Fitbit's food catalogue is garbage in Australia and I have been obsessively logging 6 meals per day & counting everything. I work out on the treadmill for about 10,000 steps or for about 60 minutes a day, and have been sleeping well / feeling more energetic than ever before. I feel absolutely great and with my Fitbit charge i'm seeing a slow reduction of my weight.

This week I decided to start Ketosis and try it out for a while, and only manage to cram about 1100 calories per day into me, but even in the previous weeks I barely ate 1800 calories per day. The problem here is that i'm eating all this nutritious food and I don't find myself hungry or drained because lack of intake. I am eating below 50g of carbs per day (Keto), with fat and protein making up the higher percentages of my intake, and seriously i'm feeling great.

So here is my question: Considering the above, do I NEED to eat 1800 calories per day?

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

[Dominique]

First of all, your weight did not increase to 163 kg because all your eating happened in a single meal at dinner time: if you had eaten the same amount of calories per day split over 3, 4 or 6 meals, you would have reached the same weight.

As to whether 1800 calories is too much or 1200 calories is too little, it’s hard to say without knowing much about you (except you’re a male and weigh 163 kg): age, height and activity level. I’m 55 (so perhaps older than you), 65 kg and I burn 2800 calories in average, so I would say 1200 calories is way too little for you.

It’s all about energy balance: how much do you burn, how much to you want to lose and at what pace. This will define how much you need to eat to reach your goal. 

[Zanderus]

According to my dietician it was a combination of things. My metabolism was pretty much non-existant and had been since starting mid-grade school. I never ate breakfast or lunch and just binged when home in the afternoons which carried through my 20s. She isn't te first consulting professional to tell me so. Now I actually have a purpose and a goal so it's going to change this time. So it was basically gorging bad food, inactivity and a metabolism that had almost crapped out due to lifestyle.

Regardless, I am about 5ft 11" and 29 years old. On the treadmill I am burning about 224cal every 20 minutes at a brisk pace and am doing about 40-60 minutes a day. This is determined by how many steps I need to hit my 10k. I went from extremely inactive (essential movement) to all of the above over 3-4 weeks now and am slowly increasing the incline/speed of the treadmill as I can take it. Obviously the more weight I lose the better, but i'm not going to overdo it. It's slow and steady from here. I did a few weeks worth of research on keto, as I only eat around 1200cal at most, and i'm never hungry past designated meal times.

Hope this info helps.

[jump4life]

Zanderus -   I am impressed with your resolve to get to a healthier lifestyle!   

Just using your numbers your resting metabolic rate should be ~2600 cal/day.  Thats the minimum most diet plans would have you eat to prevent  further negative impact to your metabolism. However, I am assuming that the 1800 calorie target was given to you by your dietician?  S/he would have more insight into your current metabolic status, so perhaps there is  a reason to have you even that low.    I would encourage you to make every effort to hit the 1800 cal target-  1200 will be counter productive to your metabolism in the long run.   

So ideas on how to get the extra 600 cal when you are truly not hungry?  If you spread this across your 6  meals you only need to get an extra 100 cal per meal.  Assuming you already are getting sufficient protein and you want to stay Keto, you likey should target those calories to be fat.   The extra 100 calories per meal is only ~11-12 g of fat, which is typically less than a tablespoon.   So add an extra tablespoon of oil based dressing to a salad, an extra bit of olive oil to your vegetable sautee or  double up on whatever fat you already have in your meal.   Front loading your fat in the first part of the meal may also help get in more calories (since the protein is going to make your feel full sooner).       If that still seems daunting you might consider adding another meal or so to your day (although eating 8 times per day would seem daunting to me!) .    

Good luck! 

[Zanderus]

Hey jump4life.

I should clarify and say former dietician. I went to her about a year ago to look into possiblities but got swamped with study/work so I never pursued it. 1800cal was suggested by S Health when I started to get my life together and make a change. I don't even think I could possibly consume 2600cals a day to be honest.. I find it hard getting through my current sized-meals as it is. I did find that figure of 2600 somewhere on a weight-loss calculator, but it seemed incredibly high at the time. I've been going by the typical 'average persons consumption is 7800kj or 1800cal' which seemed the logical benchmark to me.

I suppose I will take it into consideration though, as you do make some good points. The oil to salad could be a winner to reach at least 1800cal, and maybe more if required. I guess I will have to see what a new dietician says.

I have a dietician appointment scheduled for the 29th as I had to book a month in advance, but didn't want to wait that long to properly start eating well & exercising. So until then i've been going by the aforementioned standard and have seen a great improvement in not only my health but my gradually shrinking size. I'm even getting compliments about how much thinner i'm getting.

This is all great information. If anyone else wants to chime in i'm all ears..

[Dominique]

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@Zanderus wrote:

Regardless, I am about 5ft 11" and 29 years old.

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Then your BMR alone is 2617 (you can use this online calculator). Whatever activity you are doing comes on top of that. No wonder someone (not sure if it’s your dietetician, Fitbit, or both) wants you to eat 1800. At any rate, 1200 sounds way too little for you. You have a lot to lose and can therefore afford a larger deficit than most (at least in the beginning), but you shouldn’t go overboard. People who have been successful at dropping weight from a similar level (BMI ~50) will probably give you good advice on suitable deficits. As you said yourself, it took you a long time (several years) to reach 163 kg, so you can’t expect to lose everything in a few months.

[JohnRi]

Hello, in some ways you and I are/were in simlar situations.  6 months ago I was around 281 lbs, or 127kg. 

I've down to 233 lbs, or 105 kg now.  I currently maintain a 1800 calorie diet.  I've got to say 1200 calories sounds low.  I'm 6 foot tall, 48 year old male. If I take a rest day like I did yesterday, I only burned 2500 calories.  When I exercise I burn around 3300 calories.  I usually walk around 90-120 minutes a day, 4-6 miles.  Occasionally 3 miles around an hour or less. 

Weight loss is easiest at the beginning, especially when you are very overweight like I was.  Like you I'm rarely hungry at 1800 calories.  A 6 mile 2 hour walk will make me hungry! 

But there comes a point when you are eating too little, and that will slow weight loss.  So be careful with a diet so low.  There are a lot of people that believe in fasting for a few days or a week, but a diet so low can hurt your health. 

I stumble into Ketosis by accident all the time.  While I'm watching my protein, carbs, and fat content, I'm not micromanging them to the point, where I try to do it.  My wife will tell me I have Keto breath.  Something I never had before I started losing weight.

So if you do the 1100 calories, I'd limit it to a week at a time.  But you probably shouldn't do it for a long period of time. 

Good luck and keep up the journey to better health!

[Zanderus]

This is all great to know. I don't expect to lose it all in a short time frame, I assure you. I guess when I start slimming down I may develop a stronger hunger that will accommodate about 1800 to 2000ish cal per day. These are all good points I will be noting down and discussing with the dietician next week. I will TRY to make at least 1800 until then, but its not because of Keto. There is just so much food! Im guessing moving from solid junk to healthy nutritional food multiplied the amount by at least 4 times the size I was used to eating. Still getting used to a bountiful feast instead of condensed packaged crap with all the preservatives, carbs and saturated fats that make dieticians cry.

[JohnRi]

I was traveling yesterday, so I had a seldom eaten small burger and small fries.  Around 800 calories.  My normal meal would have been a Subway chicken sandwich, with apple slices around 500 calories...  The 6" sub would have kept me full until 5 or 6.  Around 3 yesterday I got hungry.  I thought it was ironic, larger calorie meal, hungry quicker...

[Zanderus]

That is pretty interesting. Today I got to around 1600 but was totally stuffed after each meal. Being Easter I had 1/9th or 25gram of a small chocolate bunny at about 229cal & 28g of carbs after I punched in the nutritional info. I found myself being hungrier faster soon after that. Just thought about it now. You may be on to something.