Eating more to lose more?
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arditarose wrote: »At 5'5", 160-130, 1300 calories the whole time...I personally suggest a diet break. I'm 5'4" and went from 163 to 128 (at one point). The physical and mental break of eating at maintenance for a couple weeks helped me get back into losing, possibly because it brought leptin levels back up a little, or maybe because it got me logging really accurately again because I sure as heck wasn't going to screw up maintenance calories.
How long have you been in a deficit exactly?
I did that and my appetite went through the roof and I never managed to keep a deficit again.2 -
Why does everyone assume that packaged foods have more contents than labeled? That doesn't make much sense. I'm willing to accept that labeling and weighing at the factory are not going to be accurate 100% of the time,but certainly the bias would be the inclusion of LESS product than advertised. These companies don't make money by giving away free product after all.
Food labelling laws in most countries say that reasonable variation is allowed, BUT the tolerance is mostly one-way. A package must have AT LEAST what it says, within "reassonable" measurement tolerance. Packages that weigh significantly less than it says on the packaging are "noncompliant" while packages that weigh more will not get anyone into trouble:
http://www.foodlabels.com/q&a.htm#2013_jun
NIST Handbook 133 specifies that the average net quantity of contents in a lot must at least equal the net quantity declared on the label. Plus or minus deviation is permitted when caused by unavoidable variation in weighing and measuring that occur in good manufacturing practice. The maximum allowable variance for a package with a net weight declaration of 5 oz is 5/16 oz. Packages under-filled by more than this amount are considered non-compliant.3 -
OP, I would say eat a little more and work out more more, create a bigger deficit by burning more not eating less. That might feel better. At some point, though, the lines will cross, and you will be at the weight that results from a healthy lifestyle. Are your last 10 the "vanity pounds"?0
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Hello,
I've started to hit somewhat of a plateau in my weight loss. I've read about eating more whenever this happens. I plan on adding 120 calories to my daily intake, to put me at 1420 cal/day. Do you think this will be sufficient? Has anyone had success from adding calories?
Plateau means you are eating at maintenance. If this the case, you never eat more to lose more weight, you eat less. Could it be that you are underestimating your calorie intake and/or overestimating calorie burns?
Do you weigh your food? Log everything you eat? Do you eat back exercise calories? Where do you get your calorie burn numbers from?
The only time you increase your calories is if you are already losing weight and want to lose at a slower pace.
You never increase your calories with the idea that it will help you lose weight. If this were true, there would be no fat people in the world.1 -
Wow, a whole 15 calories per slice! Must be why everyone is on a stall around here.
Seriously, this is nickle and diming. After all, the TDEE on which you're basing you goal is already an ESTIMATE! You're certainly off by more than 30 calories.
But this isn't just about bread. Over the day, my food scale saves me at least 100 calories, sometimes more. Significantly more. When you're talking about a smaller woman with little wiggle room for deficit, this is enough to stall all loss.
That's what you don't seem to understand. When there is no margin for error, these things add up. It isn't nickel and diming.
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Christine_72 wrote: »Wow, a whole 15 calories per slice! Must be why everyone is on a stall around here.
Seriously, this is nickle and diming. After all, the TDEE on which you're basing you goal is already an ESTIMATE! You're certainly off by more than 30 calories.
My 72g per serve bread always weighs at least 85g, my 60g Quest bars, at least 65g, 40g pack of oats, usually 43-45g. I don't eat many pre-packaged foods so don't have a lot of comparisons to show you, but I'm assuming most are off. A few grams here and there doesn't sound like much, but add them all up at the end of the week and it could come to a considerable overage that you wouldn't be aware of if you trusted the label..
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but don't food manufactures get fined if their products weigh less than what is stated on the package? So it would be in their best interest if they over estimated rather than short change their customers.
They are allowed to be 20% off in either direction.0 -
This sounds like natural fluctuations.Are you weighing your food and logging everything correctly? How much do you have to lose? The closer you are to your goal the slower the loss. To answer your initial question yes you can eat more and still lose, but it depends. Yes you can eat more than 1200 calories and lose because for most people that is not enough, but if you are already eating close to maintenance calories then no you will probably not lose.
I do use a food scale and weigh everything that's not prepackaged. I am very close to my goal (10 lbs -12 lbs out).I don't feel like this is my maintenance when I am burning 1900-2100 calories a day.
No, I'm afraid you are way overestimating. What could you be doing to burn that much?
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nutmegoreo wrote: »Are you weighing your food and logging everything correctly? How much do you have to lose? The closer you are to your goal the slower the loss. To answer your initial question yes you can eat more and still lose, but it depends. Yes you can eat more than 1200 calories and lose because for most people that is not enough, but if you are already eating close to maintenance calories then no you will probably not lose.
I do use a food scale and weigh everything that's not prepackaged. I am very close to my goal (10 lbs -12 lbs out).I don't feel like this is my maintenance when I am burning 1900-2100 calories a day.
Weigh your prepackaged stuff. You will be surprised how far off it is. It could be enough to throw off your numbers.
Prepackaged food can have way more calories than indicated on the package.0 -
monikafischer wrote: »Eating more I guess depends on your daily activity level and it depends on the food you eat. For example if your workouts are hard, then you must eat more to nourish your body with the lost nutrients. I suggest if you eat more, add HIIT to your workout routine. It will boost your metabolism that will help you lose weight and keep it off.
No....not if you're already eating too much, which maintenance is if your goal is to lose weight.0 -
Why does everyone assume that packaged foods have more contents than labeled? That doesn't make much sense. I'm willing to accept that labeling and weighing at the factory are not going to be accurate 100% of the time,but certainly the bias would be the inclusion of LESS product than advertised. These companies don't make money by giving away free product after all.
Your read the package--150 calories for 38 grams of the prepackaged food.
You weigh food- it comes out to 45 grams (yes, this happens 95% of the time)
You do a simply calculation and see that your food now has 177 calories.
You eat enough prepackaged food, those extra calories can kill a deficit, especially when you have less of a margin for error.
I never thought about the extra as free food, though....interesting perception.
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OP, I would say eat a little more and work out more more, create a bigger deficit by burning more not eating less. That might feel better. At some point, though, the lines will cross, and you will be at the weight that results from a healthy lifestyle. Are your last 10 the "vanity pounds"?
The point is she's not losing weight, so she needs to figure out where her errors are. Eating more and working out more will result in the same results since she's eating too much anyway. 0 -
You might not lose because you eat too little. If you eat low calorie, you will eventually hit a point where your body will decide it is starving thus preventing losing
Starvation mode is a myth. Your body will only decide it's starving when it is ACTUALLY starving (less than 5% body fat).
A plateau is simply when you haven't adjusted your calorie intake for your new weight. Your caloric goal should be reevaluated every 5-10 pounds.0 -
OP, I would say eat a little more and work out more more, create a bigger deficit by burning more not eating less. That might feel better. At some point, though, the lines will cross, and you will be at the weight that results from a healthy lifestyle. Are your last 10 the "vanity pounds"?
The point is she's not losing weight, so she needs to figure out where her errors are. Eating more and working out more will result in the same results since she's eating too much anyway.
I guess I just think that if she's having trouble eating little enough to lose, it's easier to ramp up exercise to burn off the extra. That's how it works for me anyway. So go ahead and eat 1400 instead of 1300, but get up early and walk a 5-mile loop, working off the extra 100 plus another 100. At some point it just gets hard to eat so little and still feel nourished, but I don't ever feel worse for working out.1 -
This sounds like natural fluctuations.Are you weighing your food and logging everything correctly? How much do you have to lose? The closer you are to your goal the slower the loss. To answer your initial question yes you can eat more and still lose, but it depends. Yes you can eat more than 1200 calories and lose because for most people that is not enough, but if you are already eating close to maintenance calories then no you will probably not lose.
I do use a food scale and weigh everything that's not prepackaged. I am very close to my goal (10 lbs -12 lbs out).I don't feel like this is my maintenance when I am burning 1900-2100 calories a day.
No, I'm afraid you are way overestimating. What could you be doing to burn that much?
I think she clarified later that this wasn't an exercise burn but her total calories burned reported from an Activity Tracker (Apple Watch if I remember)?
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OP, I would say eat a little more and work out more more, create a bigger deficit by burning more not eating less. That might feel better. At some point, though, the lines will cross, and you will be at the weight that results from a healthy lifestyle. Are your last 10 the "vanity pounds"?
The point is she's not losing weight, so she needs to figure out where her errors are. Eating more and working out more will result in the same results since she's eating too much anyway.
I guess I just think that if she's having trouble eating little enough to lose, it's easier to ramp up exercise to burn off the extra. That's how it works for me anyway. So go ahead and eat 1400 instead of 1300, but get up early and walk a 5-mile loop, working off the extra 100 plus another 100. At some point it just gets hard to eat so little and still feel nourished, but I don't ever feel worse for working out.
You never eat little enough to lose, you either eat too little and lose weight, eat too much and gain weight or eat just about right and maintain. The only exception are medical issues that need a doctor's attention.0 -
WinoGelato wrote: »
This sounds like natural fluctuations.Are you weighing your food and logging everything correctly? How much do you have to lose? The closer you are to your goal the slower the loss. To answer your initial question yes you can eat more and still lose, but it depends. Yes you can eat more than 1200 calories and lose because for most people that is not enough, but if you are already eating close to maintenance calories then no you will probably not lose.
I do use a food scale and weigh everything that's not prepackaged. I am very close to my goal (10 lbs -12 lbs out).I don't feel like this is my maintenance when I am burning 1900-2100 calories a day.
No, I'm afraid you are way overestimating. What could you be doing to burn that much?
I think she clarified later that this wasn't an exercise burn but her total calories burned reported from an Activity Tracker (Apple Watch if I remember)?
Ah, gotcha. I didn't realize that. Thanks for clarifying. 0
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