Scared of putting weight back on after 1300 kcal diet?
laurenehopkinsx
Posts: 14 Member
I started doing a 1200-1400 kcal diet, I wasn't overweight or anything I just wanted to lose some of the weight I had put on. Now I'm nearly at my goal weight I'm really worried about putting weight back on after. If I just increase my calories by 100 a week until I get up to my maintenance kcals will this prevent me from putting weight back on? Or would I have to do it slower than this? Advice from anyone who has done a similar thing would be very helpful, thanks 
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Replies
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Coming out of a diet you will put on weight, but it will be water weight due to increased carbs, sodium, and general food volume. That being said, if you truly eat at your maintenance levels you shouldn't see any dramatic weight gain.1
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How fast you have been losing weight recently will give you a good clue as to your maintenance calories.
The maths you trusted to lose weight are the same maths that allow you to maintain - so what exactly is the worry?
100 cals is nothing, going slower than that will mean you will lose weight you don't want to lose.
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@laurenehopkinsx Google about Intermittent Fasting (IF) as to a way to increase one's metabolism by eating more calories without gaining weight.2
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Everyone has this concern at first. You have to trust that your body needs to eat up to maintainence. You did not gain fat by eating up to your normal maintenance, it was by eating OVER your maintenance. Eating under your maintenance for the deficit is CORRECTIVE ACTION. Like taking medicine. You don't keep taking medicine when you are no longer sick.
This is why it's good to eat at maintenance at least once a week while on a deficit for so long. Besides the fact that it helps keep your hormones stable.
Since your hormones need to stablize it's really important to eat up to normal, and your hunger will increase as you do this and as the body adjust. As long as you don't eat over maintenance you will not gain fat. The scale is not a good tool at this point.1 -
You won't put on weight when you eat at maintenance. There will be a jump in the scale when you start eating more, but it will go back down. Your weight will also fluctuate a little bit naturally anyway. You don't have to do anything fancy, no IF needed. More calories than your deficit doesn't equal weight gain, more calories than your maintenance does.0
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Agree with all above. I lost 7 stone (now been 7 stone for 18 months) over 2 years and took a year practicing maintenance - going up and down 25 cals at a time. It's true, you eat a bit more and your body keeps a bit more water in the cells so you panic and take off some calories when you didnt need to and the weight drops too much etc. You need the patience to let the calorie changes settle in for a month or so. I lost weight on 1200cals. Maintenance saw me slowly increase to 1650 without exercise. I inadverdently dropped below 7 stone so I had, for the first time, the experience of planning to put a couple of pounds back on. It really made me feel in control. In the past 6 months I have added exercise and this adds another dimension to get use to, as calories burned depends on weight and so now I only use half what I use to at over 14 stone. So some days I can eat up to 1900 calories with some moderate exercise. At a minimum I eat 1700 cals with 50 cals/10 mins of high step exercise. Never thought this would be possible, for me. All of this is part of the journey, the learning, getting to know your body and its needs. Don't panic, enjoy it. The more you experiment, the more in control you will feel. I am now experimenting with saving a 100cals per week, so I always have 1-2000 spare for eating out without having to always make it up the next day, or in one week. I expect I will come up with other strategies, using MFP to keep me on track by being able to analyse my experiments. Good luck and just listen to your body, keep using MFP and enjoy.5
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MichelleLei1 wrote: »Coming out of a diet you will put on weight, but it will be water weight due to increased carbs, sodium, and general food volume. That being said, if you truly eat at your maintenance levels you shouldn't see any dramatic weight gain.
This. The secret is you actually need to drop to 3-4 lbs under your goal weight before maintenance to then sit at your goal whilst maintaining as the glucose and water coming back into muscles etc will give you a few lbs back as soon as your not in deficit. It's not "fat" so don't panic about the scale rise, trust me on this one!! I put my cals to maintaining level when I was ready (1200 up to 1850) but just didn't eat them all to start with! And some days I eat way under still (1000-1300) and somedays I will eat over (2500 ish) and I've maintained for a year now xxx1 -
MichelleLei1 wrote: »Coming out of a diet you will put on weight, but it will be water weight due to increased carbs, sodium, and general food volume. That being said, if you truly eat at your maintenance levels you shouldn't see any dramatic weight gain.
This. The secret is you actually need to drop to 3-4 lbs under your goal weight before maintenance to then sit at your goal whilst maintaining as the glucose and water coming back into muscles etc will give you a few lbs back as soon as your not in deficit. It's not "fat" so don't panic about the scale rise, trust me on this one!! I put my cals to maintaining level when I was ready (1200 up to 1850) but just didn't eat them all to start with! And some days I eat way under still (1000-1300) and somedays I will eat over (2500 ish) and I've maintained for a year now xxx
You don't actually NEED to go under goal.
Not everyone gets the glycogen/water weight bounce.
If you are walking up your calorie goal slowly (like the OP is suggesting) you are still in deficit for a number of weeks so even if you do get a "bounce" it's masked by the continuing deficit.
What you are suggesting is one option for sure but there are many including walking up calories slowly before you get to goal weight.0 -
MichelleLei1 wrote: »Coming out of a diet you will put on weight, but it will be water weight due to increased carbs, sodium, and general food volume. That being said, if you truly eat at your maintenance levels you shouldn't see any dramatic weight gain.
This. The secret is you actually need to drop to 3-4 lbs under your goal weight before maintenance to then sit at your goal whilst maintaining as the glucose and water coming back into muscles etc will give you a few lbs back as soon as your not in deficit. It's not "fat" so don't panic about the scale rise, trust me on this one!! I put my cals to maintaining level when I was ready (1200 up to 1850) but just didn't eat them all to start with! And some days I eat way under still (1000-1300) and somedays I will eat over (2500 ish) and I've maintained for a year now xxx
You don't actually NEED to go under goal.
Not everyone gets the glycogen/water weight bounce.
If you are walking up your calorie goal slowly (like the OP is suggesting) you are still in deficit for a number of weeks so even if you do get a "bounce" it's masked by the continuing deficit.
What you are suggesting is one option for sure but there are many including walking up calories slowly before you get to goal weight.
Oh for sure I only intended to share my own experience and what I've found in my case, of course there are many different methods to get to ops goal!0 -
MichelleLei1 wrote: »Coming out of a diet you will put on weight, but it will be water weight due to increased carbs, sodium, and general food volume. That being said, if you truly eat at your maintenance levels you shouldn't see any dramatic weight gain.
This. The secret is you actually need to drop to 3-4 lbs under your goal weight before maintenance to then sit at your goal whilst maintaining as the glucose and water coming back into muscles etc will give you a few lbs back as soon as your not in deficit. It's not "fat" so don't panic about the scale rise, trust me on this one!! I put my cals to maintaining level when I was ready (1200 up to 1850) but just didn't eat them all to start with! And some days I eat way under still (1000-1300) and somedays I will eat over (2500 ish) and I've maintained for a year now xxx
You don't actually NEED to go under goal.
Not everyone gets the glycogen/water weight bounce.
If you are walking up your calorie goal slowly (like the OP is suggesting) you are still in deficit for a number of weeks so even if you do get a "bounce" it's masked by the continuing deficit.
What you are suggesting is one option for sure but there are many including walking up calories slowly before you get to goal weight.
Oh for sure I only intended to share my own experience and what I've found in my case, of course there are many different methods to get to ops goal!
Yup - the one thing all the methods have in common is eating more!
Hope the OP takes some comfort from people's experience. It's a shame when stress and fear stop people from enjoying what should be a warm glow of achievement.1 -
Any 'weight' you will put on will be water weight from the glycogen stores replenishing themselves as they get extras calories, it will be temporary.
Up your calories bit by bit and monitor/track your weight, give your body several weeks to adjust and get used to extra food 1 -
GaleHawkins wrote: »@laurenehopkinsx Google about Intermittent Fasting (IF) as to a way to increase one's metabolism by eating more calories without gaining weight.
That isnt going go to happen.
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I did IF for a few months but I didn't find my metabolism changed. It was very much like not eating, a bit of a binge and not eating, repeat. I know that not eating breakfast and nothing after dinner in evenings ( a form of IF) helped me to lose weight several years ago. But at this time, that doesn't work. It causes overeating for me. Whereas nowdays just three meals a day with a small snack before bed keeps me able to indure eating low calorie meals over the long term. So now I can sustain the deficit, and it means a more stable deficit. Everybody is different and its important to figure out what will sustain you (disclaimer) but in my case IF, as in no brekfast or evening eating, and also the Every Other Day Diet ( wasn't able to do it for more than a few weeks) made things worse.
Also, it has got to be very important to keep in mind that after a deficit in calories there will be that bloat and full feeling regardless. Forefront in my mind will be the chant, its not fat, its not fat, as long as I don't eat over maintrnance level, its not fat its not fat!0 -
Springfield1970 wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »@laurenehopkinsx Google about Intermittent Fasting (IF) as to a way to increase one's metabolism by eating more calories without gaining weight.
That isnt going go to happen.
IF seldom will be done by thin people for sure since they may have not need to increase their metabolism rate.0 -
@Gamliela IF has no binge factor if done correctly. In my case after my eating became ordered IF worked better.
IF is just one tool plus it comes in many flavors and never is a required part of any weight loss.0 -
GaleHawkins wrote: »Springfield1970 wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »@laurenehopkinsx Google about Intermittent Fasting (IF) as to a way to increase one's metabolism by eating more calories without gaining weight.
That isnt going go to happen.
IF seldom will be done by thin people for sure since they may have not need to increase their metabolism rate.
thin =/ fast metabolism
fat =/ slow metabolism
I really wish people would stop perpetuating these metabolism myths without any hard science to back it up. Metabolism is a chemical process that has been well examined by the scientific community and is well defined by the laws of thermodynamics. It's not some abstract concept that is highly variable or manipulatable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA9AdlhB18o 0 -
MichelleLei1 wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »Springfield1970 wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »@laurenehopkinsx Google about Intermittent Fasting (IF) as to a way to increase one's metabolism by eating more calories without gaining weight.
That isnt going go to happen.
IF seldom will be done by thin people for sure since they may have not need to increase their metabolism rate.
thin =/ fast metabolism
fat =/ slow metabolism
I really wish people would stop perpetuating these metabolism myths without any hard science to back it up. Metabolism is a chemical process that has been well examined by the scientific community and is well defined by the laws of thermodynamics. It's not some abstract concept that is highly variable or manipulatable.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA9AdlhB18o
i like you because you know your stuffMichelleLei1 wrote: »Coming out of a diet you will put on weight, but it will be water weight due to increased carbs, sodium, and general food volume. That being said, if you truly eat at your maintenance levels you shouldn't see any dramatic weight gain.
This. The secret is you actually need to drop to 3-4 lbs under your goal weight before maintenance to then sit at your goal whilst maintaining as the glucose and water coming back into muscles etc will give you a few lbs back as soon as your not in deficit. It's not "fat" so don't panic about the scale rise, trust me on this one!! I put my cals to maintaining level when I was ready (1200 up to 1850) but just didn't eat them all to start with! And some days I eat way under still (1000-1300) and somedays I will eat over (2500 ish) and I've maintained for a year now xxx
You don't actually NEED to go under goal.
Not everyone gets the glycogen/water weight bounce.
If you are walking up your calorie goal slowly (like the OP is suggesting) you are still in deficit for a number of weeks so even if you do get a "bounce" it's masked by the continuing deficit.
What you are suggesting is one option for sure but there are many including walking up calories slowly before you get to goal weight.
and i like you
these people to me are point on0 -
If you add calories back at the rate you're going, you might just keep losing weight for a while. That's what happened to me. I actually ended up dropping a bit below goal. Adding a small amount like 100 each week still keeps you below maintenance for a few weeks.
I didn't gain anything when I went on maintenance. I basically just kept adding on calories each week until I stopped losing. You shouldn't gain much, if anything, unless you are eating above maintenance.0 -
Most people find that maintenance is a range, of 3-5 lbs. Weight naturally fluctuates, and so understanding that before you reverse diet up to what you think your TDEE is, would probably be good. Mine fluctuates depending on time of day, day of week, and week of the month. Going back up may lead to some temporary water weight gain but it is likely just temporary and the slow reverse dieting is the best way to minimize that impact.
Sounds like you are on the right track, no need for dramatic changes to what's already been working.0 -
MichelleLei1 wrote: »
thin =/ fast metabolism
fat =/ slow metabolism
You're right. It's not about metabolism - I was recently informed that it's all about luck.
My sister in law doesn't claim to have a slow metabolism. She just insists that "thin people are lucky." Which means she's not. I guess when you convince yourself that something is out of your hands, it's much easier to give up.
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