Questions about calories...

rhinomidget

Hello everyone! I'm hoping that I don't seem too ignorant when I ask these questions...I'm just a little confused.

So, I've read on numerous websites that you have to eat 3,500 calories (on TOP of your normal calorie intake or just in general?) to gain a pound..HOWEVER, I've counted my calorie intake and I only consume about 1200 - 1400 a day (not including the calories I burn as I exercise)...so, does that mean that I'd have to eat 3,500 ON TOP of that to gain weight?

Also, what is the "time span" for this? As in, if, by the end of the week, I eat 3,500 more calories than usual, or is it a day by day kind of thing?

Thanks all and I apologize for my severe lack of knowledge..

olivia_june

You're trying to gain weight? Bump your calories up to around 2400 and see what happens. The 3500 is per week and is really a rough estimate.

rhinomidget

olivia_june wrote: »

You're trying to gain weight? Bump your calories up to around 2400 and see what happens. The 3500 is per week and is really a rough estimate.

Hahaha, noooo.. I'm just trying to understand it so I can prevent it Thank you!

clambert1273

it would mean that you would have to eat above in a week to gain a pound... so it could be as little as 500 per day extra calories (ABOVE MAINTENANCE) that could gain a pound in a week... it is finding where that spot is that is the hard part

Susieq_1994

The 3500 calories is above the amount of calories you would consume to MAINTAIN your weight.

To make it easily explained, here's a scenario:

Person X maintains their weight of 200 pounds by eating 2000 calories.

This person goes out for a huge buffet and goes crazy, consuming 5500 calories, exactly 3500 calories above their maintenance calorie level, and so person X gains one pound of fat. They may ACTUALLY gain about five pounds due to all the excess food waste in their gut, as well as water retention due to the extra food and due to sodium.

Hope this helped!

Editing to add... That's a sample of the "day by day" that you asked about, but it also works over any given amount of time. For example:

If person X mentioned above ate 2100 calories instead of 2000 consistently over 35 days, they would have gained a pound at the end of those 35 days.

If they ate 500 extra calories every day for a week, they would gain a pound by the end of the week.

And so on!

LeslieB042812

Also, it's important to note that your body doesn't understand the concept of "a week" and doesn't reset when a new week starts. So, you could eat just 100 calories over maintenance every day and gain about a pound every 5 weeks. Now, if you eat 100 over one day and 100 under the next, it evens out and you'll maintain. If you want to maintain, try to understand what your maintenance number is and then try to average out to that over the course of the week.

nishant234

Yep. I have that odd feeling. I should be taking in 2500 calories, but my count is about 1200 a day, not including the exercise. I'm not dieting - just eating more veggies and fruits, and an occasional bread.

But I guess it's working. I'm down 5 pounds in the past 8 days.

segacs

Also important to realize that, whether you're trying to lose 10 pounds or 100 pounds, you didn't gain them all overnight. Maybe it took you a year, or five years, or twenty years, to get to your starting weight. It probably happened slowly, by eating only a handful of calories over maintenance over a long period of time.

Logging and tracking calories is an inexact science no matter how precise you try to be. It's easy to see how, being off by only a small amount of 100-200 calories here and there, it can add up quickly. That's why small deficit diets are often not successful, even though in theory, they should be over time. Because if your TDEE is 1700 and you eat what you think is 1500 but is really 1700, then you won't lose weight.

Also worth noting: 3500 calories = 1lb of fat. But 600 calories = 1lb of muscle. Since most people lose at least some lean muscle mass as well as fat when they're in a sharp calorie deficit, you can see how losing too much weight too quickly can be a bad thing -- it could be a sign of muscle loss. Note that the less body fat you have, the higher the risk (paradoxically) of losing lean muscle. That's why exercise is so important: Progressive strength training can limit lean muscle loss while you're losing fat and help ensure that most of what you lose is fat.

Read this thread to get you started: community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1296011/calorie-counting-101/p1