New Approach advice/comments

jendpositive

Hello fitness pals,
Here's my thing. Last year lost weight at a steady 2lbs a week sticking to 1200 a day and exercising. Cut to now...14lbs back on and trying to do the same thing, but failing. I feel that I've messed with my metabolism over the past year and now I'm gaining and losing the same pounds over and over. I've decided to be very realistic about weight loss now and try and get my body out of this rut by changing my goal to a 0.5 weight loss per week. I've got 1600 to play with. Do you think I'm going to gain now instead? Has anyone gone through this?

Thanks for the comments.

janejellyroll

How long have you been eating 1,200 a day, exercising, and not losing weight?

psuLemon

The problem with extremely aggressive weight loss goals, as you noticed, is increased loss of muscle mass which leads to slower a BMR/RMR. Cutting slower, while eating foods higher in protein and progressive lifting can help alleviate some of that loss. Will you lose at 1600 will depend what your actual TDEE (based on daily activities and exercise) is and how accurate you are with your logging. So using a food scale is very beneficial.

And honestly, the best thing to do is track for 1 month and adjust based on results.

Kalikel

One doctor suggested, if a body gets sluggish like that, to jack up both the calories and the exercise for a while. There's this whole big theory behind it, more than one theory, I guess, but the end result was more food and more exercise for like six to eight weeks. Then, you can drop both a little and end up higher than you started. Maybe.

I haven't tried this yet and have no clue what will happen if/when I do.

jendpositive

Thanks for the responses. Very helpful. I've been back on the 1200 for three months and working out six days a week, with two days of lifting. I'm interested to see the results, which I'll share.

psuLemon

jendpositive wrote: »

Thanks for the responses. Very helpful. I've been back on the 1200 for three months and working out six days a week, with two days of lifting. I'm interested to see the results, which I'll share.

I would slowly add more calories back (maybe 100-200 a week until you hit 1600). This may help compensate for additional glycogen or food in your GI tract. If not, you may see a plateau for a few weeks while your body adjust to the additional calories.

psuLemon

Oh and if you were averaging 2 lbs a week at 1200 calories, your maintenance or TDEE is 2200 calories. So if you follow that thread now, you would still lose about 1 lb per week at 1700.