Upping Calories to drop weight?

LaurenGetsFit2

I'm female, 5'2", ~120 lbs, 23 y/o.
Really my idea weight is somewhere between 105-110. I'm 23 years old, *fairly active* in that I try to exercise 5-6 days a week (30-60 minutes each time, depending on my schedule and what type of exercise it is), but other than that I'm a college student so unfortunately I spend a lot of time sitting.

But I'm graduating soon, so I hope to definitely change that for being on my feet more.

My BMR is ~1,200, and my TDEE is anywhere from 1,600 to 1,700.

I've *been* aiming to eat about 1,200 to 1,300 Calories for the past 2 months and exercising, but if I've managed to lose any weight it just comes back for some reason (maybe water weight? constipation (tmi, sorry)?). I've been trying to do keto for the past month, and I've had some success with it, but lately each time I've done a small refeed meal (usually dinner) once a week, the water weight just clings to me, even though I get right back on the keto wagon the following day. Thanksgiving was a very much non-keto time though. I highly doubt I ever eat as much as I burn in a day, so in theory I should be losing weight even if it's really, really slowly.

I try to keep my macros to 70% fat, 20% protein, 10% carbs (usually leaving me between 20-30 net carbs a day). The exercise I do is either circuit training (cardio & body weight), running intervals, or long brisk walks (so I can study at the same time, lame I know). <b>I've been doing that for months, though, so I'm thinking my body just accepts that as "normal" now and maybe I should up my workouts to longer/more intense</b???

I drink anywhere from 70-100 oz of water or unsweetened tea per day. I've been trying not to eat anything larger than a small snack after 6pm so I'm not stuck sleeping with food in my stomach, which is the worst.


I SERIOUSLY doubt it's muscle weight---I don't do enough strength building exercise to put on muscle, and my BF% has remained the same. My whole <b>goal right now is to lose fat</b>--once I have that lowered, I'm planning on starting doing more strength to actually tone/build more muscle so I don't look skinny fat.

Should I up my Calories? Or just track them more carefully?? I figured since I try to hit ~200 below my "goal" that any miscounting would be adjusted for as far as accidentally underestimating goes.
What should I do to finally make my body give up the unwanted fat? I have a history (from years ago) with eating disorders, but I got over that and about two years got into pretty amazing shape (lost 15 lbs, built up muscle, could run 8 miles several times a week), but then a rough year in college undid all of that and I'm still trying to recover from it with no success. -_-

Derf_Smeggle

I would think with as little as you have to lose and with as tight as the calorie deficit is going to be, it's going to come down to accuracy.
.

• Food scale because eyeballing it unreliable.
• Measuring cup serving sizes for solids have a lot of variance. There are typical gram and ounce weights in parenthesis.
• Verify your entries. There are errors in the database.

* Just for future reference: "[" and "]" are used to open and close mark up tags, instead of "<" and ">".

aloise08

With your height and not too much extra weight to lose you have to remember that you are now playing a waiting game. Think of it this way. If your TDEE is 1500 calories per day (I'm low balling here based on your height if you were to have a sedentary day), and you consumed 1300 calories, that's a 200 calorie deficit. One pound has roughly 3500 calories in it, so a deficit of 200 calories means it would take you over 2 weeks to lose one pound.

Don't pay as much attention to the number on the scale if you are doing keto, long term number yes, short term, no. If you have that one meal a week that puts you over your carbs its just water weight that you are holding onto, you won't have magically gained a pound of fat over night.

My advice is measure everything, on a good day you may be eating 1200 calories and burning 1700 (or a bit more based on activity), that's close to the highest deficit you will get by being healthy, but you have to make sure everything is precise.

I feel you may be counting calories wrong, as its easy to measure a few things slightly wrong and have it add up to be too many calories.


Try out some HIIT/tabata training and heck, even throw in some strength training as it can be awesome for fat loss to switch up your routine.

elphie754

No. Eating more will not result in weight loss.

Francl27

1200 BMR seems low. You're eating more than you think.

kimny72

Derf_Smeggle wrote: »

I would think with as little as you have to lose and with as tight as the calorie deficit is going to be, it's going to come down to accuracy.
.

• Food scale because eyeballing it unreliable.
• Measuring cup serving sizes for solids have a lot of variance. There are typical gram and ounce weights in parenthesis.
• Verify your entries. There are errors in the database.

OP, just wanted to +1 this! With so little to lose, accuracy and patience are invaluable. Good luck :drinker:

strong_curves

Tighten up your tracking & logging. If you aren't using a food scale, I suggest you start using one as soon as you can. When you're smaller and still trying to lose you have to make sure you're as accurate and consistent as possible. This thread might help you:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/113609/relatively-light-people-trying-to-get-leaner/p1

You say you exercise 30-60 minutes almost daily, are you doing mostly cardio? If so, you might want to look into lifting weights also.

LaurenGetsFit2

strong_curves wrote: »

Tighten up your tracking & logging. If you aren't using a food scale, I suggest you start using one as soon as you can. When you're smaller and still trying to lose you have to make sure you're as accurate and consistent as possible. This thread might help you:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/113609/relatively-light-people-trying-to-get-leaner/p1

You say you exercise 30-60 minutes almost daily, are you doing mostly cardio? If so, you might want to look into lifting weights also.

Thank you! I have a kitchen scale, but I'm admittedly lazy and tend to just use measuring cups and "prepared" things like apples, a medium banana, an egg, etc.. I really don't eat much food that I thought I have to *really* worry about measuring precisely (like pasta, for example). Most of that is vegetables, which are so low in Calories I was convinced it didn't really matter. But...apparently it does. How frustrating lol!

Guess it's time to break out the kitchen scale.

As for exercise, I switch it up between circuit training (that has a lot of weight lifting & body weight exercises and a little bit of cardio), running (~30-35 minutes), and long (~60 minutes) brisk walks.

Francl27

Btw, I don't know where you got your numbers from but http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/ says your BMR is 1350... TDEE 1650 if you're completely sedentary... probably 1900-2000 with your activity.

So yeah, again, you're eating more than you think, because there's no way you wouldn't be losing if you really ate 1200 to 1300 calories.

Yi5hedr3

Move fat to 65%, and Protein to 25%.