Do you eat enough?

Hi All

My calorie aim for the day is 1200. I eat breakfast, lunch, dinner and morning and afternoon snacks. I eat lots of low calorie food. Lots of fresh fruit and veggies, soups, cereal, lean meat, wholemeal bread etc. By no means do I starve! When I added everything up on here that I had eaten today my calorie intake was less than 700. Yet I feel I've eaten heaps. Are my numbers wrong? Does this happen to anyone else? Do I need to eat more?

Today I ate:

Breakfast: All Bran Tropical with skim milk

Snack: Instant coffee with skim milk and sugar, trail mix bar, apple

Lunch: Pumpkin soup

Snack: Instant coffee with skim milk and sugar, short bread biscuit

Dinner: Two large field mushrooms stuffed with veggies and couscous

 

Yes! I have some days where I have eaten about 800 after all meals. I try to log right after every meal so I can gage my intake better. Granted I have also seen some 1700 cal days to my surprise.Usually these days happen when I'm snacky around THAT time of the month. When my calories are low and I know I need to eat more,even though I'm not hungry, I usually eat a luna bar(180cal.) and just monitor myself closely the next day to keep my intake at a healthy & consistent level.I don't want to go into starvation mode.I am zigzagging , so I work it all out, and so far it's successful. 22.5 lbs. down and 16 to go.

Make sure your measuring your portions properly so that your logging is accurate. Good luck !

for your PM snakc, might i suggest green tea/herbal instead of coffee: it'll help ya sleep better, plus it's better for you.  you could add calories bu putting a bit of cheese on your soup, or sour cream.  both also add calcium.  you could have a piece for fruit with your b-fast also.  just doing those two things would get you way closer, if it AT 1200 cals

 'Not feeling hungry' is a different thing to 'eating enough'.  Undereat for long enough, the hunger signals die away and your appetite becomes suppressed. 

Yes, you need to eat more.... A bigger serving of All Bran Tropical with semi-skimmed milk and a banana sliced on top, for example.  Some buttered bread rolls with the pumpkin soup.  A couple of crispbreads in the afternoon with peanut butter or lentil spread.  And adding some protein to dinner would help bump it up... how about adding plenty of sliced almonds to the mushroom stuffing and some cheese melted over the top? 

Coffee is bad.instant coffee is worse. Yucky.....

I know when I have had less than 1200 calories the next day.  I have no energy and feel like sleeping all day.

Are you a vegetarian?  I do not see much protein listed above.

I feel ya, my goal is also 1,200 cals. I used to eat over 4,000 cal's a day before I started my diet. But I ate less than 1,100 today and I feel like I ate more today than when I used to eat 4,000 cal's. It kinda freaks me out too. By what you eat on a daily basis it honsetly doesn't look like you ate much at all. You should probley eat fish, something with fatty acids. If you dont eat meats, poultry or fish you could try eating oat and bran cereals, yogurts and cooked veggies or even wheat pastas, just to give you some extra cals. How many cal's did you used to eat?

Hello, just wanted to ask if you measure your food (cereal for example). Before I use to just pour the cereal into a bowl, pour the milk, but I didn't realize what one cup actually was, and what half cup of milk was, but now I measure, and count calories according to their listed "per serving". I use to be naive to labels (I'm now more aware), and a lot of things could be 2 servings in one package, so you actually have to double the calories in some instances. Hope that helps!