Should I up my calories to maintenance while trying to lose BF?

Sumiblue

I have lost 10 lbs since January using the MFP method of eating back my exercise calories. Exercise for me is lifting heavy 3-4x/wk (Stronglifts) & occasional cardio, maybe once a week. MFP told me to eat 1200 calories at first. I am 46, 5'2", currently 127.8 lbs. I kept losing and gaining the same 3-5 lbs. In Feb. after more reading and research I raised my calories to 1350-1400 net and started losing steadily. In one month I lost most of the 10 lbs. Now my weight has remained exactly the same for more than a week. Even through TOM. My scale tells me I've lost 3% BF since I got the scale in January. I track my measurements and I have lost several inches. All good. I do have more fat to lose around the hips/thighs (pear shaped) but overall I am pleased at my progress. But, my lifts are stalling. I struggle to lift more than 115 squats, 55 OHP, 75 bench and my deads feel stuck at 145 lbs. If I have a rest day with no exercise I find it very hard to keep at my calorie goal. I put lightly active as my activity level as I am a SAHM. I'm not sedentary but I'm not nearly as active as when I worked on my feet for 7 hrs a day. People have noticed my weight loss. Friends have told me I look buff or fit! But, I still want to lose the extra fat. My best guess is that I am about 24-25% BF. Scale says 23.8% but I'm not going to trust that. I just use it to track progress. I'd love to up my calories to gain strength and muscle but I am nervous to undo my weight loss.I am now at a weight I held pre-pregnancy. I'd love to be at 120 but weight loss has always been very difficult for me. My goal is to be smaller and stronger, not necessarily lighter. It's vanity, I know, but I have a beach vacation coming up

Sumiblue

I just want to be clear that I did not expect to see much weight loss in one week. I have my diet profile set to .5 lb/wk loss. But after losing so steadily previously and then to see my weight loss come to a complete standstill I wonder if I can do something to keep the fat loss going.

Jennbecca33

It sounds like body recomp might be a good way for you to go. Eating at maintenance and lifting heavy will reshape those problem areas - you'll get stronger and smaller at the same time. You won't undo any weight loss if you increase your calories slowly - add 100 calories daily per week or so until you reach your maintenance number. I think you'll have better results if you increase your calories. Also your TDEE (maintenance) may be a higher number than you think. I find MFP underestimates a lot on calorie needs. You had good success with increasing your calories before - if your body plateaus again (1 week is not a plateau by any means), then that's a good indicator you need to increase again as well. But it does sound like eating at maintenance or a very small deficit (10%) might be best.

Sumiblue

Would I eat at my maintenance numbers net or gross? I get confused when I look at other calculators because they give me such different numbers from MFP. Scooby and IIFYM give me much bigger numbers but I think they are for gross calories. I will try increasing by 100 calories per your advice, thanks!

Sumiblue

When I set my profile to maintenance on MFP I get 1640 calories. @heybales‌ spreadsheet I get 1694, Scooby-1825, IIFYM-1609. If I average all of them I get 1692 for maintenance. Maybe I will work my way up to that.

Jennbecca33

I am sure your maintenance calories are more than 1694. We suggest using the Scooby site below. IIFYM really underestimates calorie needs, so I wouldn't suggest using that site.

http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/

When I entered your stats and chose activity level of 3-5 hrs (moderate activity), it gave a TDEE of 1826 for your maintenance calories. That sounds better to me than 1694. A 10% cut would be around 1643. Remember when choosing your activity level on Scooby, you take into consideration your formal exercise as well as any daily activity, which adds up to a lot more than we realize. Depending on how much you are on your feet through the day, it could push you up into the next activity level. I would say you are at least 3-5 level. For example, I only work out 3x a week at the most for 30 min max, but I'm a sahm too, and I have to choose 5-6 hr activity level for me to get a high enough TDEE - if I eat less calories than that, I stall out. So be sure to pick the right activity level for you. If you increase your calories up to maintenance and you are still feeling hungry, be sure to increase some more. You would have to increase your calories way above maintenance to see if significant gain, so don't be afraid to test your numbers out a bit.

Jennbecca33

Oh I just saw that you had listed Scooby 1825 in your previous post - I would definitely try to slowly increase your cals up to that amount and see if your weight holds steady over several weeks. My guess is that you will maintain just fine on that amount. I do think the 1600ish numbers are too low for maintenance.

Sumiblue

thanks!

heybales

Sumiblue wrote: »

When I set my profile to maintenance on MFP I get 1640 calories. @heybales‌ spreadsheet I get 1694, Scooby-1825, IIFYM-1609. If I average all of them I get 1692 for maintenance. Maybe I will work my way up to that.

Personally curious, did you use the BF% stat in there?

I can't believe TDEE would be that much lower than Scooby, unless you are doing a decent amount of walking and counting it as full time hours on Scooby when it burns about half as much as other exercise.
Or the Katch BMR is really that much lower than Mifflin BMR that Scooby is using.

Is the stronglifts the normal 30 min session, x 3.5 sessions a week?
How long is cardio if done?

Sumiblue

I did not use the BF% on Scooby because I don't really know what my actual BF% is. Per your spreadsheet it says 30%, which seems high to me. I have lost 10 lbs and I can see I've lost fat and I redid the numbers but the spreadsheet still tells me 30%. My scale says 23% (down from 26%). I've tried to use calipers on myself and if I did it right it's closer to 24-25% but who knows?! I work out at home and do not have access to a trainer with calipers. I have had a good base of muscle to begin with. Before I had my daughter 3.5 yrs ago I had a very active job of hand-painting walls and ceilings, ladder climbing and lots of lifting for 7 hrs a day, 4-5 days a week. I was also a figure skater in my youth. In my 30s I started lifting on machines in the gym and I was around 19-20% BF (so I was told) and I'm looking like I am getting closer to that again. I can see some muscle definition in my shoulders, arms, abs, quads but still have some excess fat in the hips, thighs to lose before I am satisfied. I am not a spreadsheet person at all (artist!) so I'm not sure that I am using yours correctly, though it looks like a great tool. When I use Scooby's calculator I didn't fill in BF and that's how I got the numbers above on the Mifflin. If I put in 30% for Katch It gives me a TDEE of 1935 and TDEG of 1644, very close to yours; yes. I think the thing that throws a monkey wrench into the calculators is my hips. They are wide.Classic pear shape here. Even if I got my BF really low I'd still have wide hips. Or maybe I really am at 30% and I just have a case of wishful thinking

heybales

So speed skater hips then!

Just challenge anyone that even looks like they are going to comment on them. ;-)

Ya, the spreadsheet is averaging 2 calc's of BF, and a body part that you know is probably bigger than other average parts will throw it off, because they mainly use different parts.
I'd include your scale reading in the space for it to get average of all the methods that can be upwards of 5% accurate.

Sumiblue

More figure skater than speed skater but you get the idea. All those spins and jumps...now as an adult I'm much more interested in speed skating than twirling around! I did put in the scale BF reading but it does not seem to change or affect anything. I find that calculators (and clothing manufacturers) assume that everyone is perfectly balanced.

Sumiblue

@heybales‌ , what do you think about about me being a candidate for a recomp? I'm within 10lbs of goal weight. I've lost 10 lbs and several inches on 1350 net calories daily doing SL 3-4 x week and occasional cardio (maybe 60 min/week). I would like to drop more fat and make some lifting gains. I feel like I have maxed out my deadlift at 150lbs and squats are at 120 eating this way. I certainly feel better than when I was eating 1200 and losing nothing. I'm actually okay if I stayed at 127 lbs but I won't hate it if I get down to 120! I just want to lose the fluff and be strong! It is just so hard for me to eat less. I cook most of my meals from scratch and keep them simple but if I have one night out with wine I'm sunk. Not a fun way to live.

heybales

10 lbs is perfect place to start recomp, if goal weight is based on past experience but lifting is new.

Because the closer to maintenance, the better the lifting will be.
The better the lifting is for causing damage, the better the repair stronger and with more muscle will be.

What could be done to keep losing some fat faster than the trade-off would take (which is slow), is to pick certain days to have a deficit.

Usually the 24-36 hrs after a good lifting session is NOT the time for a deficit, but the 24 hrs prior to lifting could easily be, if meal timing allows a strong workout still.

So you might see if you can trim out 250 calories from maintenance eating level, within the 24 hrs before lifting workout.
14 such days of doing that should still cause 1 lb fat/weight loss.
So with perhaps 3 sessions a week that works with, would take almost 5 weeks.

But during that same time, you'd still be losing fat as you gained more LBM and hopefully muscle mass.
For a woman eating at maintenance, or almost, probably 1 lb swap every 6-8 weeks is realistic.
So within 5 weeks, about 2 lb fat loss - that's a decent volume on a frame almost to goal weight.

Lifts should go up decently too.

To increase general TDEE, do you have time for cardio right after the lifting session, with whatever strength you got?
30 min at full tilt doing whatever should burn decent amount of calories.
Not HIIT, because this isn't about attempting more fat burn. Besides it wouldn't work right after lifting with same muscles anyway. But just high intensity cardio, at the limit, could add 500 calories in 30 min.
That could help when you look at average TDEE figure to use, allowing more eating.
And walking on rest days, while not great calorie burner, is still great recovery level cardio to add in a few more calories.
Actually, if you have HRM, you can do cardio more intense than just walking, but with HRM you can confirm you are staying in Recovery HR zone to still allow best repair. But you'll burn even more calories to increase TDEE.

Then again, perhaps just eating at maintenance level, with those few days of 250 less, will help too.

Sumiblue

Interesting, @Heybales. I have been thinking of doing some 30 minute cardio work after my weight sessions. I'm somewhat limited as to what I can do with a 3 yr old around. But tomorrow is a preschool day and I can give it a try. I've been doing 30 minute bodyweight sessions from the Fitstar app. They always get my heart rate up, along with kettlebell routines. I don't have a HR monitor yet. I've been thinking of getting one just to get a better idea of what my daily burn is. As far as being a new lifter, I think I qualify. This is the first time I've done a progressive lifting program. I have done weight training before but without a plan. I used to go into the weight room and just go from machine to machine. I did upper/lower body split and mostly kept doing the same weights until they felt easy. That was more than 10 years ago. Then, after that I went to a personal trainer and he pushed me more but I never did squats or deadlifts before and certainly never lifted over 100lbs like I do now. I guess today should be my deficit day since I probably ate at maintenance yesterday. I just was plain hungry! It's supposed to be warmish today. Maybe a good day to walk the dog and take the kid for a stroll.

heybales

Don't worry about HRM for full day calorie burn - invalid use of formula which is only for steady-state aerobic exercise, same HR for 2-4 min.
Under exercise level is usually inflated, and anaerobic level above aerobic is invalid.
And non-steady state just causes avgHR to appear inflated, leading to inflated calorie burn.
So with your majority of workouts, not useful.

Sounds like a good routine after lifting for increased calorie burn, probably need light weights for sure with decent reps.

So newish to lifting should see some great performance improvements from eating at/near maintenance.

Sumiblue

Thanks. I'm taking it all in and will try upping calories. I set MFP to maintenance and will keep a deficit for my rest/light exercise days. I had a couple of higher calorie days on the weekend (probably around maintenance) and my weight shot up 2 lbs. I'm guessing it's water weight since I've been on a cut for a while but, eek!

MandaLeigh123

I always think of the calories it would actually take to gain two pounds of fat now and that helps me to put things in perspective. 1 pound is 3500 calories, so two pounds is 7000 calories... so you'd have to eat that on top of your maintenance to gain two pounds.... 7,000 + 1,935 = 8,935. If I understand things right, to gain two pounds overnight you would have had to have eaten 8,935 calories the day before or two days of 4,467.

Sumiblue

Thanks. I know it's not 2 lbs of fat. Just don't like seeing the scale go up after fighting hard to lose 10 & then was steady @ 127 lbs. for an entire week. I'm guessing that it was my body socking away glycogen & water that I'd lost on the cut.

heybales

Yep, and it was going to happen eventually anyway, as soon as you started eating at maintenance.

At least it's spread all over the muscles, should never see it, unless eating more food is causing bloating too.

Sumiblue

Not bloated, thankfully. I track my measurements monthly on the Stronglifts for Women group and whoa! I've lost 3.4 lbs and 5.5 inches since March 1st! Great motivation for today's lifting and cardio workout

heybales

Great results to see and probably feel. Now you have to go shopping I'm sure.