Increasing calories but still loosing weight

lee41major

September saw the start of my new life changing lifestyle. My plan is to gain lean muscle through lifting weights and healthy eating. I've been monitoring my calories and macros, and been increasing the calories when no increase has occurred on the weekly weigh in.My maintenance level should be 2800 for my body type ( ectomorph ) so having steadily increased to 3300 calories imagine my surprise when I got on the scales this morning only to find I'd gone down from 154lb to 153lb in the space of a week.
How many more calories do I need to consume before I start gain even 1/2 lb.
I've already increased the calories to 3500 now so I'll give that a go. My macros are now set to 55C/20P /25F as I believe the protein intake is adequate for my weight as is the carbs intake.
Anyone else had to consume a high level of calories before there body started to adjust to the exercise and food intake.

pinggolfer96

Just increase calories and get your weekly weigh ins. If you drop weight, then increase. It's hard to give any specific caloric recommendation. You just have to test it out and see. May take a couple weeks to find out, but just experiment with what you just increased it to for a week, and if you don't gain, then just add more daily cals.

lee41major

pinggolfer96 wrote: »

Just increase calories and get your weekly weigh ins. If you drop weight, then increase. It's hard to give any specific caloric recommendation. You just have to test it out and see. May take a couple weeks to find out, but just experiment with what you just increased it to for a week, and if you don't gain, then just add more daily cals.

Sounds like I'm going down the right road. It just seems strange consuming all these calories and loosing weight. I've never ate so much in my life.

jdscrubs32

lee41major wrote: »

September saw the start of my new life changing lifestyle. My plan is to gain lean muscle through lifting weights and healthy eating. I've been monitoring my calories and macros, and been increasing the calories when no increase has occurred on the weekly weigh in.My maintenance level should be 2800 for my body type ( ectomorph ) so having steadily increased to 3300 calories imagine my surprise when I got on the scales this morning only to find I'd gone down from 154lb to 153lb in the space of a week.
How many more calories do I need to consume before I start gain even 1/2 lb.
I've already increased the calories to 3500 now so I'll give that a go. My macros are now set to 55C/20P /25F as I believe the protein intake is adequate for my weight as is the carbs intake.
Anyone else had to consume a high level of calories before there body started to adjust to the exercise and food intake.

Hi. I was like you in that I kept increasing the calories but was either losing weight or staying where I was. It wasn't until I went up to 4,000 that I started to gain weight. Keep increasing until you see a gain. Give it a few weeks & increase again if no gain. Both calories & carbs are King. Your macro set up is sound. If you are doing any cardio, either stop or reduce it to one 30 minute session a week. Slowly increase the calories. Pre log your day so you know what you are eating & when which will save times when it's 9pm with a million calories left in the day. Try to eat foods as much as you can but no harm in drinking your calories like full fat milk or shakes. Good luck.

lee41major

Hi. I was like you in that I kept increasing the calories but was either losing weight or staying where I was. It wasn't until I went up to 4,000 that I started to gain weight. Keep increasing until you see a gain. Give it a few weeks & increase again if no gain. Both calories & carbs are King. Your macro set up is sound. If you are doing any cardio, either stop or reduce it to one 30 minute session a week. Slowly increase the calories. Pre log your day so you know what you are eating & when which will save times when it's 9pm with a million calories left in the day. Try to eat foods as much as you can but no harm in drinking your calories like full fat milk or shakes. Good luck.

No I'm not doing any cardio just weights 3 X a week. I'm trying to consume as much healthy food as possible with protein shakes thrown in when I'm struggling to get the numbers up. I'll be happy when the scales start to to increase in numbers. It's a lifestyle change so I'm in it for the long haul. Never thought about full fat milk, I'll give it a go.
Thanks for the help.

jdscrubs32

lee41major wrote: »

Hi. I was like you in that I kept increasing the calories but was either losing weight or staying where I was. It wasn't until I went up to 4,000 that I started to gain weight. Keep increasing until you see a gain. Give it a few weeks & increase again if no gain. Both calories & carbs are King. Your macro set up is sound. If you are doing any cardio, either stop or reduce it to one 30 minute session a week. Slowly increase the calories. Pre log your day so you know what you are eating & when which will save times when it's 9pm with a million calories left in the day. Try to eat foods as much as you can but no harm in drinking your calories like full fat milk or shakes. Good luck.

No I'm not doing any cardio just weights 3 X a week. I'm trying to consume as much healthy food as possible with protein shakes thrown in when I'm struggling to get the numbers up. I'll be happy when the scales start to to increase in numbers. It's a lifestyle change so I'm in it for the long haul. Never thought about full fat milk, I'll give it a go.
Thanks for the help.

No problem. I know you want to eat healthy but don't just eat chicken, broccoli, etc the whole time as you will get bored pretty quickly. No harm in having a pizza, burger, etc every now & again. If you aren't eating peanut butter, almonds, cashews, etc, start having them as they are great for calories.

lee41major

Not eating the pizza or burgers yet but I'm eating peanut butter sandwiches on a daily basis to help out at the end of the day. And I do consume all sorts of different nuts. Ice cream is quite good once in a while too.