Eating the recommended calorie amounts

[JenFZ09]

Are you able to eat at the recommended calorie limits? I am currently 120 lbs at 5'5" and don't really need to lose weight, but I put the calorie limits at losing one pound per week.  I am almost always over the recommended amount (a 500 calorie deficit) by around 200 calories.  I find it hard to reach this recommendation.  I run for an hour a day and follow an almost raw vegan diet (mostly vegetables, fruit, unsweenened almond milk, an ounce of nuts a day), so no bread or grains or sugar etc.    I refuse to be hungry and have never dieted.  

Have you been able to comfortably follow the recommended Fitbit calorie limits without being hungry? Are you losing weight? 

(I have a Charge HR. I don't lose or gain.  If I am on vacation and can exercise more than I do, I might get down to 118 lbs and reach a maximum of 122 lbs if I am not as active, but that's been going on for months.  I used to fluctuate a little higher, maybe up to 123 lbs before I counted every calorie).  

[PamelaHazelton]

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I refuse to be hungry, so if that means a lower deficit, so be it. Most days, though, I'm at a bigger deficit, but I am needing to lose more weight. Yes, I am losing...

Question is, if you don't need to lose weight, why are you using a deficit at all? Or, you could set it at .5, which provides a deficit of 250.

[JenFZ09]

I used to eat a lot less, like not even think about eating, so eating at even 1500 calories scares the heck out of me, so I don't want to eat more than the 1300 calories that Loseit recommends, but I usually end up at 1500-1700 before subtracting anything for exercise (I normally run 5 miles so I will burn 500 calories, or if I'm not running, around 400 calories if I do something else that day).  I was also 105 lbs when I didn't really eat and this can't be healthy. I would like to be around 112 lbs as a goal even though I know this is not necessary.

[kaelarenee7]

I have my Fitbit set to a 500 calorie per day deficit as well and don't have issues reaching the calorie allotment. According to my profile, my average daily intake is around 2300 calories. I make sure that I stay active so that I end up with my deficit. Usually the days where I'm hungry is when I have a larger deficit than 500 calories by the end of the day so I will have a small snack before bed. I allow myself to go "over" on calories a couple days a week.

I noticed that you said that you follow an almost raw vegan diet. I'm not vegan or vegetarian so I'm definitely not an expert, but you may want to look at what percentages of your average daily intake comes from carbs, fats, and proteins. With running an hour a day, you're probably burning off a lot of carbs and from what I understand, you're probably not getting as much fats in your diet as I would since you aren't eating any animal fats. You would be getting some from the nuts and almond milk and you would be getting protein from those as well, plus a little bit from the vegetables. If you're only taking in a small amount of fats and/or proteins, that may be where your hunger is coming from. Another thing to consider is complex carbs versus simple carbs. Complex carbs take longer for your body to break down and use and may help as well, although off the top of my head I can't think of any examples.

Besides playing around with your proportions of carbs, fats, protein, complex carbs, and simple carbs, you may want to consider lowering the deficit to 250 calories per day. Since you don't want to lose a significant amount of weight, this may be easier for you. There's threads that you can look at as well about people who have just a few pounds that they want to lose so you may be able to get some tips from those threads.

[Heybales]

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@JenFZ09 wrote:

Are you able to eat at the recommended calorie limits? I am currently 120 lbs at 5'5" and don't really need to lose weight, but I put the calorie limits at losing one pound per week.  I am almost always over the recommended amount (a 500 calorie deficit) by around 200 calories.  I find it hard to reach this recommendation.  I run for an hour a day and follow an almost raw vegan diet (mostly vegetables, fruit, unsweenened almond milk, an ounce of nuts a day), so no bread or grains or sugar etc.    I refuse to be hungry and have never dieted.  

Have you been able to comfortably follow the recommended Fitbit calorie limits without being hungry? Are you losing weight? 

(I have a Charge HR. I don't lose or gain.  If I am on vacation and can exercise more than I do, I might get down to 118 lbs and reach a maximum of 122 lbs if I am not as active, but that's been going on for months.  I used to fluctuate a little higher, maybe up to 123 lbs before I counted every calorie).  

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If you don't need to lose weight, why are you trying to eat at a deficit than, and by that big amount?

If you are trying to follow the lowered metabolism for longer life theory, that's all and good, especially with nothing to lose.

Just be aware that once that is obtained, you gotta be careful on eating too much then, as it'll be add on as fat.

And they usually don't advocate much exercise because of the stress on the cells.

But that works out well, because the body doesn't make much improvement from exercise in that state anyway.

Or is purpose to lose some fat but stay at same weight?

Eating at deficit isn't way to accomplish that.

Strength train and eat at maintenance for maximum body transformation. Eating in deficit will just slow that down.

[josephz2va]

For me, it's the body fat to lose. Not the weight. But it takes a great deal of concentration to eat right and lose the fat. Giving up sweets, sugars, all that junk food. Keeping my mind on primary focus avoiding cop donuts and brownies.

I'm at the ideal weight. 159-191. It's the fat. 27% keeps me in the obesity range though the weigh in when I get below 191 says I'm just overweight. Gotta work hard on keeping my mind on avoiding bad foods and exercising efficiently.