Upping my calories has made eating at deficit so much easier

27(F) / 5’3” / CW: 154lb

The NHS BMI checker recommends I eat 1500-1900 cal daily (“to lose 1-2lb a week, eat at the lower end of the scale”). For several months, I was eating...or at least, attempting to eat, 1500 cal a day.

It went...inconsistently. I’m sure a lot of you know the struggle. Some days you feel great and like eating well is easy peasy, other days you’re feeling hungry and restricted and you’re bitterly clawing back whatever calories you can from your pre-logged dinner in order to make room for dessert.

I was losing weight on 1500, but I was also finding that I was binging maybe once every week-and-a-half purely out of frustration.

I came to realise that I might be being too harsh with 1500cal. I know 1500cal is something of a go-to number for women looking to lose weight, and as a short AFAB-nonbinary person 1500 felt like it should have been fine. I mean, it was doable, but somedays I was having to fight myself so hard and could not keep food out of my head, and of course I was working against myself with the binges as well.

So I changed my MFP goals, switching my Activity level from Sedentary to Active, and changing my Goal to “lose 1lb a week” instead of lose 2lb. My daily cals went up to 1760, which is still roughly in the middle of the ballpark offered to me by the NHS website.

The trade-off, I decided, was that I was going to live up to that “Active” marker. I’ve been more consistent with the gym, because I know I’ll be losing less through my diet and want to keep my progress going.

The first week of eating 1760, I still lost 2lb. It’s too early to tell exactly how my weight loss has been impacted by the change: the second week I was back up 2lb, but it’s shark week and I definitely haven’t eaten 7000 surplus calories since last week, so I know the scale’s a lying motherfuck.

But the MENTAL change has been awesome. I’m still eating at deficit, albeit a smaller one than before, but I’ve felt great these two weeks. Staying in the green on MFP has been easy. I’m no longer depriving myself of Calcium like I was before because I have more room for a daily serving of milk and that tasty but high calorie friend, cheese. I still get hungry towards the end of my shift, as you do, but I haven’t been obsessing over food like I have been.

If I haven’t prelogged all my meals for the day, I don’t stress over what I’m going to eat later in the day, because I know I have the wiggle room to make filling, healthy meals AND have a small dessert, without having to slither off as many calories as I can to make it fit. ...And working out more has been a breeze because I HAVE MORE ENERGY FOR IT.

Taking longer to reach my goals is fine if it means I can let my healthy eating take a backseat in my life, instead of obsessing about it or feeling chained by it. If you’re eating at a large deficit and you too have been feeling stressed or frustrated over your diet—if you’re in it for the long-haul and are okay with maybe hitting your goals a little slower, I’m just saying MAYBE consider giving yourself a break and upping your calories a tad. And then throw your sneakers on and go crush that Stairmaster.

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