Increasing calories helped--thanks!
Options
Replies
-
lightenup2016 wrote: »I think YOU guys are missing the point! You can't see the forest for the trees.
In NO way did the OP suggest that she defied the laws of thermodynamics. She did not say that eating more calories directly made her body lose fat and that it never would have done so if she'd stuck to lower calories. She simply stated that increasing her calories from 1100 up to 1600 RESULTED in her feeling better, having more energy, and losing 8 lbs over 2 months. There is no WHY implicated there. It can be an indirect result. It could be that her body is less stressed which equals lowered cortisol, which equals the body not hanging on to water weight. It could mean she is moving more, and as such she is burning more. She did not imply she is a special snowflake, but simply that she tried a suggestion and got the desired effect, which btw, is likely much healthier, and definitely easier and more comfortable for her. She did NOT state or imply that she would never have lost any weight if she had kept up with the 1100 calorie regimen. She very likely would have (unless her CO really was too low then), but who cares? She feels better this way, is healthier, and is still seeing the scale move.
You guys snub your nose at any suggestion to increase calories, and don't actually LISTEN to the main idea here. Go back and re-read. No, not everyone here is a physicist or biochemist, but I daresay that people do know their bodies to some extent, and you flatly denying that their experience happened is basically calling them liars, or at the least, saying they're extremely ignorant. This is not constructive, but instead insulting, and not inviting in any way. Get over yourselves.
No........
She said in her initial post:The first 2 weeks I lost 10lbs then nothing. I apparently hit a wall but held out hope I was doing the right things. My caloric intake was around 1100 calories each day, which apparently was my norm because I didn't really change much...just tracked. My macros looked good and I continued to eat whole foods.
After feeling depressed and frustrated, I noticed I was incredibly forgetful and having a difficult time concentrating. So I turned to this forum to see if anyone else experienced this. And that's when I discovered I wasn't eating enough and apparently haven't been for years despite weighing over 200lbs.
So I took the trusting plunge and increased my calories to 1600 per day...mostly. I gotta be honest, most days I choked down as much as I could and still only reached 1500 calories.
But it worked! I have lost 8lbs since then and feel happier, less forgetful, and have an easier time concentrating. My energy has also picked up a bit.
YOU are missing the point.
2 -
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »Hello OP! It sounds like we've been having similar issues.
I lost 70 pounds over 9 months almost 2 years ago and then over the course of a year I gained most of that back when I fell into a period of major depression. But a little over a month ago I decided to start losing weight again.
The first 2 weeks I lost about 10 pounds. The next week I lost about 2 more. It was about this time that I started really counting calories and exercising 5 times a week. Before then I had just been eating healthier(I was probably eating around 1700 or so a day) and exercising 3 times a week.
So 2 weeks ago I began counting calories (I have a food scale and I am great about measuring) and eating around 1400 calories a day. I also upped my workouts to 5 times a week,burning between 500 to 600 calories per workout. Now according to CICO I should have been losing a good amount the past 2 weeks yes?
But I haven't lost a single pound, not for 2 weeks. Someone who weighs as much as I do (260) shouldn't be hitting a plateau so early on. I even bought a new scale because I was convinced my scale was broken. I have been flabbergasted trying to figure it out.
I've been searching around on here and on other open forums out there and it seems like this is actually a common problem. Now I'm not an expert and I don't know exactkt why this happens. But it seems like if you work out too much and also diet extensively, it is possible to not lose any weight.
But now that I think about it, when I lost 70 pounds over 9 months almost 2 years ago, I started out only exercising once or twice a week and very gradually increased to 5 times a week exercising and I never experienced this issue then. I'm going to try something similar to what the OP did and I'm going to increase my calories to 1500 and decrease my workouts to 3 times a week for a while. And I'm confident that will restart my weight loss.
Yes I know it makes no sense, but I'm sure some one smarter than me and all the smart *kitten* on this thread could probably explain this phenomenon. There's more to weight loss than CICO.
(Edit: I should also mention that I have not been eating back my exercise calories, truly just eating 1400 a day)
If you've read as much as you've said you've read, then you wouldn't be resorting to name calling.
You'd also realize CICO encompasses what you're experiencing.
Everyone who claims that CICO doesn't work doesn't understand what CICO means.
I don't think they're claiming it doesn't work, rather other things can also impact weight loss other than how much you eat and how much you move. You're almost insulting the complexity of your body if you think it works like a standard calculator 24/7 365 days a year. If think about it, when reading food labels it doesn't actually tell you at which rate the food is being burnt, which foods are more efficient in which bodies nor does it account for every individuals genetic make up and health level, so on and so forth. That being said generally it works until accurate calculated potential results are not met. Then you question things and start picking it apart. I have my own personal approach to CICO but yes generally it does work.
That's just it. CICO is NOT just saying calories in, calories out. It encompasses all of those factors people keep saying it doesn't account for.
The acronym, itself, says that, but scientists, when they discuss CICO do indeed factor those things in and acknowledge them.
All of those things you mentioned fall under either calories in or calories out.
I'm sure they do when they're in the lab but in real time things don't always relay *exactly how they should *all the time in practice. There's still a grey area IMO. Something so general can never be tailor made to every human on the planet. At least not 365 days a year. I know every human has the same heart, lungs, eyes etc but there's still nuances between us.
What are you talking about? You're talking about factors, but the thing is those factors fall under the umbrella of CICO.
The fact that you can't predict them doesn't invalidate the principle of CICO.4 -
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »Hello OP! It sounds like we've been having similar issues.
I lost 70 pounds over 9 months almost 2 years ago and then over the course of a year I gained most of that back when I fell into a period of major depression. But a little over a month ago I decided to start losing weight again.
The first 2 weeks I lost about 10 pounds. The next week I lost about 2 more. It was about this time that I started really counting calories and exercising 5 times a week. Before then I had just been eating healthier(I was probably eating around 1700 or so a day) and exercising 3 times a week.
So 2 weeks ago I began counting calories (I have a food scale and I am great about measuring) and eating around 1400 calories a day. I also upped my workouts to 5 times a week,burning between 500 to 600 calories per workout. Now according to CICO I should have been losing a good amount the past 2 weeks yes?
But I haven't lost a single pound, not for 2 weeks. Someone who weighs as much as I do (260) shouldn't be hitting a plateau so early on. I even bought a new scale because I was convinced my scale was broken. I have been flabbergasted trying to figure it out.
I've been searching around on here and on other open forums out there and it seems like this is actually a common problem. Now I'm not an expert and I don't know exactkt why this happens. But it seems like if you work out too much and also diet extensively, it is possible to not lose any weight.
But now that I think about it, when I lost 70 pounds over 9 months almost 2 years ago, I started out only exercising once or twice a week and very gradually increased to 5 times a week exercising and I never experienced this issue then. I'm going to try something similar to what the OP did and I'm going to increase my calories to 1500 and decrease my workouts to 3 times a week for a while. And I'm confident that will restart my weight loss.
Yes I know it makes no sense, but I'm sure some one smarter than me and all the smart *kitten* on this thread could probably explain this phenomenon. There's more to weight loss than CICO.
(Edit: I should also mention that I have not been eating back my exercise calories, truly just eating 1400 a day)
If you've read as much as you've said you've read, then you wouldn't be resorting to name calling.
You'd also realize CICO encompasses what you're experiencing.
Everyone who claims that CICO doesn't work doesn't understand what CICO means.
I don't think they're claiming it doesn't work, rather other things can also impact weight loss other than how much you eat and how much you move. You're almost insulting the complexity of your body if you think it works like a standard calculator 24/7 365 days a year. If think about it, when reading food labels it doesn't actually tell you at which rate the food is being burnt, which foods are more efficient in which bodies nor does it account for every individuals genetic make up and health level, so on and so forth. That being said generally it works until accurate calculated potential results are not met. Then you question things and start picking it apart. I have my own personal approach to CICO but yes generally it does work.
That's just it. CICO is NOT just saying calories in, calories out. It encompasses all of those factors people keep saying it doesn't account for.
The acronym, itself, says that, but scientists, when they discuss CICO do indeed factor those things in and acknowledge them.
All of those things you mentioned fall under either calories in or calories out.
Thing is, especially when you don't read extensively here AND follow the many links, being told CICO never fails and eating more is never the answer isn't helpful. Both may be true, but they don't help either.
Too large of a deficit can, in a sense, activate a body's self-protection *to a degree* and reduce CO. Even when the individual doesn't see it happening. I guarantee my months long 1000 deficit caused that for me. Was it a metabolic slow down? Potentially partially. Was it a reduction in NEAT? Almost certainly. In the midst of it I couldn't see it. But knowing my logging was as on point as possible, to see a marked reduction in loss rate was very disheartening. It caused me to increase deficit by stopping using any exercise calories. Which, in hindsight was a horrible idea. My previous desire to improve my pace slipped a lot. I quit looking for excuses to increase my step count. I was obsessing and stressing over it. While staying in my calories, I was not making nearly as nutritious choice in food. NEAT tanked, drive tanked and loss rate tanked.
Thank goodness when I reached out here I got good advice and articles. In the end, a diet break to help reset me mentally (and maybe some positive hormonal resets) coupled with a reduced deficit coming out of the break has losses exceeding deficit. NEAT is up, workouts are back to energetic and any potential cortisol related water retention has corrected itself. In *my case eating more was the solution. But that sentence is as unhelpful as the reverse was above.
Compassion, curiosity and tailoring advice to the specific poster can go a long way to actually being helpful to a poster, and lurkers.
I'm not sure what you're arguing against here.
At this point, this is a discussion about how the process works, not about a poster stalled and reaching out for solutions.
If I go into a thread with someone reaching out for solutions, I have a different approach. When I'm in a thread with people saying that science doesn't apply to them, I call them out on their fallacy. They don't need compassion, they need fact checking.3 -
I think a lot of people are experiencing troubles but are afraid to post because they see how others are treated and are not believed.
I think when people post woo and fads they cloud the water and make others confused; they feed into the multimillion dollar health & fitness industry by promoting tabloid style extrapolations that are not firmly grounded in actual science; they take everyone to the lowest common denominator of celebrity endorsed derpitude and reality TV. They make people yo-yo and fail,
When other people confirm that it really isn't that complicated, that majoring in the minors or believing the latest B-list celeb sponsored nonsense is detrimental they do us all an amazing service
The core science behind weight loss is simple, there are many interesting theories and many have infinitesimal impacts on overall weight loss, but that's where some like to live
That derp and misunderstanding kept me fat and unhealthy and wishing for 3 decades
CICO focus make me slim and fit in under a year and has kept me here for almost 2
I know who I'm most grateful to and it isn't those who spread incorrect unfounded information around
Funny how the same thing happened to me with people pounding how simple it is to lose weight on 1200 calories, but that doesn't work for everyone. You do you. YAHOO.
What I always pound on about 1200 calories is that it is only appropriate for women who are very short, or older and sedentary.
Women outside that demographic who are eating 1200 calories and not losing weight over a month or so are under counting their calories in and/or over counting calories out. This is especially true for women who weigh 200 plus. It's simply not possibly for average height women to maintain 200 pounds at 1100 calories or 260 pounds at 1400 calories for weeks on end. Something is wrong with the math.
I wish people weren't insulted when this is pointed out, as study after study shows it is very common to underestimate intake.
Someone should collect all the threads that say "Weight loss became so much easier once I tightened up my food logging."3 -
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »Hello OP! It sounds like we've been having similar issues.
I lost 70 pounds over 9 months almost 2 years ago and then over the course of a year I gained most of that back when I fell into a period of major depression. But a little over a month ago I decided to start losing weight again.
The first 2 weeks I lost about 10 pounds. The next week I lost about 2 more. It was about this time that I started really counting calories and exercising 5 times a week. Before then I had just been eating healthier(I was probably eating around 1700 or so a day) and exercising 3 times a week.
So 2 weeks ago I began counting calories (I have a food scale and I am great about measuring) and eating around 1400 calories a day. I also upped my workouts to 5 times a week,burning between 500 to 600 calories per workout. Now according to CICO I should have been losing a good amount the past 2 weeks yes?
But I haven't lost a single pound, not for 2 weeks. Someone who weighs as much as I do (260) shouldn't be hitting a plateau so early on. I even bought a new scale because I was convinced my scale was broken. I have been flabbergasted trying to figure it out.
I've been searching around on here and on other open forums out there and it seems like this is actually a common problem. Now I'm not an expert and I don't know exactkt why this happens. But it seems like if you work out too much and also diet extensively, it is possible to not lose any weight.
But now that I think about it, when I lost 70 pounds over 9 months almost 2 years ago, I started out only exercising once or twice a week and very gradually increased to 5 times a week exercising and I never experienced this issue then. I'm going to try something similar to what the OP did and I'm going to increase my calories to 1500 and decrease my workouts to 3 times a week for a while. And I'm confident that will restart my weight loss.
Yes I know it makes no sense, but I'm sure some one smarter than me and all the smart *kitten* on this thread could probably explain this phenomenon. There's more to weight loss than CICO.
(Edit: I should also mention that I have not been eating back my exercise calories, truly just eating 1400 a day)
If you've read as much as you've said you've read, then you wouldn't be resorting to name calling.
You'd also realize CICO encompasses what you're experiencing.
Everyone who claims that CICO doesn't work doesn't understand what CICO means.
I don't think they're claiming it doesn't work, rather other things can also impact weight loss other than how much you eat and how much you move. You're almost insulting the complexity of your body if you think it works like a standard calculator 24/7 365 days a year. If think about it, when reading food labels it doesn't actually tell you at which rate the food is being burnt, which foods are more efficient in which bodies nor does it account for every individuals genetic make up and health level, so on and so forth. That being said generally it works until accurate calculated potential results are not met. Then you question things and start picking it apart. I have my own personal approach to CICO but yes generally it does work.
That's just it. CICO is NOT just saying calories in, calories out. It encompasses all of those factors people keep saying it doesn't account for.
The acronym, itself, says that, but scientists, when they discuss CICO do indeed factor those things in and acknowledge them.
All of those things you mentioned fall under either calories in or calories out.
Thing is, especially when you don't read extensively here AND follow the many links, being told CICO never fails and eating more is never the answer isn't helpful. Both may be true, but they don't help either.
Too large of a deficit can, in a sense, activate a body's self-protection *to a degree* and reduce CO. Even when the individual doesn't see it happening. I guarantee my months long 1000 deficit caused that for me. Was it a metabolic slow down? Potentially partially. Was it a reduction in NEAT? Almost certainly. In the midst of it I couldn't see it. But knowing my logging was as on point as possible, to see a marked reduction in loss rate was very disheartening. It caused me to increase deficit by stopping using any exercise calories. Which, in hindsight was a horrible idea. My previous desire to improve my pace slipped a lot. I quit looking for excuses to increase my step count. I was obsessing and stressing over it. While staying in my calories, I was not making nearly as nutritious choice in food. NEAT tanked, drive tanked and loss rate tanked.
Thank goodness when I reached out here I got good advice and articles. In the end, a diet break to help reset me mentally (and maybe some positive hormonal resets) coupled with a reduced deficit coming out of the break has losses exceeding deficit. NEAT is up, workouts are back to energetic and any potential cortisol related water retention has corrected itself. In *my case eating more was the solution. But that sentence is as unhelpful as the reverse was above.
Compassion, curiosity and tailoring advice to the specific poster can go a long way to actually being helpful to a poster, and lurkers.
I'm not sure what you're arguing against here.
At this point, this is a discussion about how the process works, not about a poster stalled and reaching out for solutions.
If I go into a thread with someone reaching out for solutions, I have a different approach. When I'm in a thread with people saying that science doesn't apply to them, I call them out on their fallacy. They don't need compassion, they need fact checking.
What "fallacy"? You would rather someone who is stalling at 1100 or 1200 dip down to 800-900? It would be better to get strengthened, heal, and then lose at a more sensible deficit.3 -
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »Hello OP! It sounds like we've been having similar issues.
I lost 70 pounds over 9 months almost 2 years ago and then over the course of a year I gained most of that back when I fell into a period of major depression. But a little over a month ago I decided to start losing weight again.
The first 2 weeks I lost about 10 pounds. The next week I lost about 2 more. It was about this time that I started really counting calories and exercising 5 times a week. Before then I had just been eating healthier(I was probably eating around 1700 or so a day) and exercising 3 times a week.
So 2 weeks ago I began counting calories (I have a food scale and I am great about measuring) and eating around 1400 calories a day. I also upped my workouts to 5 times a week,burning between 500 to 600 calories per workout. Now according to CICO I should have been losing a good amount the past 2 weeks yes?
But I haven't lost a single pound, not for 2 weeks. Someone who weighs as much as I do (260) shouldn't be hitting a plateau so early on. I even bought a new scale because I was convinced my scale was broken. I have been flabbergasted trying to figure it out.
I've been searching around on here and on other open forums out there and it seems like this is actually a common problem. Now I'm not an expert and I don't know exactkt why this happens. But it seems like if you work out too much and also diet extensively, it is possible to not lose any weight.
But now that I think about it, when I lost 70 pounds over 9 months almost 2 years ago, I started out only exercising once or twice a week and very gradually increased to 5 times a week exercising and I never experienced this issue then. I'm going to try something similar to what the OP did and I'm going to increase my calories to 1500 and decrease my workouts to 3 times a week for a while. And I'm confident that will restart my weight loss.
Yes I know it makes no sense, but I'm sure some one smarter than me and all the smart *kitten* on this thread could probably explain this phenomenon. There's more to weight loss than CICO.
(Edit: I should also mention that I have not been eating back my exercise calories, truly just eating 1400 a day)
If you've read as much as you've said you've read, then you wouldn't be resorting to name calling.
You'd also realize CICO encompasses what you're experiencing.
Everyone who claims that CICO doesn't work doesn't understand what CICO means.
I don't think they're claiming it doesn't work, rather other things can also impact weight loss other than how much you eat and how much you move. You're almost insulting the complexity of your body if you think it works like a standard calculator 24/7 365 days a year. If think about it, when reading food labels it doesn't actually tell you at which rate the food is being burnt, which foods are more efficient in which bodies nor does it account for every individuals genetic make up and health level, so on and so forth. That being said generally it works until accurate calculated potential results are not met. Then you question things and start picking it apart. I have my own personal approach to CICO but yes generally it does work.
That's just it. CICO is NOT just saying calories in, calories out. It encompasses all of those factors people keep saying it doesn't account for.
The acronym, itself, says that, but scientists, when they discuss CICO do indeed factor those things in and acknowledge them.
All of those things you mentioned fall under either calories in or calories out.
Thing is, especially when you don't read extensively here AND follow the many links, being told CICO never fails and eating more is never the answer isn't helpful. Both may be true, but they don't help either.
Too large of a deficit can, in a sense, activate a body's self-protection *to a degree* and reduce CO. Even when the individual doesn't see it happening. I guarantee my months long 1000 deficit caused that for me. Was it a metabolic slow down? Potentially partially. Was it a reduction in NEAT? Almost certainly. In the midst of it I couldn't see it. But knowing my logging was as on point as possible, to see a marked reduction in loss rate was very disheartening. It caused me to increase deficit by stopping using any exercise calories. Which, in hindsight was a horrible idea. My previous desire to improve my pace slipped a lot. I quit looking for excuses to increase my step count. I was obsessing and stressing over it. While staying in my calories, I was not making nearly as nutritious choice in food. NEAT tanked, drive tanked and loss rate tanked.
Thank goodness when I reached out here I got good advice and articles. In the end, a diet break to help reset me mentally (and maybe some positive hormonal resets) coupled with a reduced deficit coming out of the break has losses exceeding deficit. NEAT is up, workouts are back to energetic and any potential cortisol related water retention has corrected itself. In *my case eating more was the solution. But that sentence is as unhelpful as the reverse was above.
Compassion, curiosity and tailoring advice to the specific poster can go a long way to actually being helpful to a poster, and lurkers.
I'm not sure what you're arguing against here.
At this point, this is a discussion about how the process works, not about a poster stalled and reaching out for solutions.
If I go into a thread with someone reaching out for solutions, I have a different approach. When I'm in a thread with people saying that science doesn't apply to them, I call them out on their fallacy. They don't need compassion, they need fact checking.
What "fallacy"? You would rather someone who is stalling at 1100 or 1200 dip down to 800-900? It would be better to refeed, get strengthened, heal, and then lose at a more sensible deficit.
Why are you putting words in my mouth?
The fallacy is that CICO doesn't work.
You don't understand refeeding. Full stop.
In all of the cases of the people on the drastically low deficits who needed to lose (BTW, most of them were bikini competitors and body builders making weight for a show) who eventually used refeeding, do you know what came to light? I found this out on Facebook through Brad Schoenfeld and Alan Aragon. Guess what the dirty little secret is why the scale never moved?
They were all binging and not logging. Sneaking bites of food and not logging them too.
Refeeding? You know what happened with those bikini competitors? They gave them back some of the calories they were eating anyway and the competitors just started working out harder and compensated for the extra calories.
Saying that...
So, when I go into a thread with someone who is stalled in 1200 calories, what I do is ask for their stats, and examine their logging, their activity levels and assess whether they really need to eat 1200. Some short older sedentary women do.
Most people don't.
I usually suggest people up their NEAT and their calories. Sometimes, depending on the length of eating at deficit, I suggest a diet break.
I don't just blithely suggest they up their calories and act like it's some kind of magical solution.
I also don't suggest they try to build muscle because that's near impossible in a deficit and building enough to make a metabolic difference in a deficit? That's a laughable concept.
8 -
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »Hello OP! It sounds like we've been having similar issues.
I lost 70 pounds over 9 months almost 2 years ago and then over the course of a year I gained most of that back when I fell into a period of major depression. But a little over a month ago I decided to start losing weight again.
The first 2 weeks I lost about 10 pounds. The next week I lost about 2 more. It was about this time that I started really counting calories and exercising 5 times a week. Before then I had just been eating healthier(I was probably eating around 1700 or so a day) and exercising 3 times a week.
So 2 weeks ago I began counting calories (I have a food scale and I am great about measuring) and eating around 1400 calories a day. I also upped my workouts to 5 times a week,burning between 500 to 600 calories per workout. Now according to CICO I should have been losing a good amount the past 2 weeks yes?
But I haven't lost a single pound, not for 2 weeks. Someone who weighs as much as I do (260) shouldn't be hitting a plateau so early on. I even bought a new scale because I was convinced my scale was broken. I have been flabbergasted trying to figure it out.
I've been searching around on here and on other open forums out there and it seems like this is actually a common problem. Now I'm not an expert and I don't know exactkt why this happens. But it seems like if you work out too much and also diet extensively, it is possible to not lose any weight.
But now that I think about it, when I lost 70 pounds over 9 months almost 2 years ago, I started out only exercising once or twice a week and very gradually increased to 5 times a week exercising and I never experienced this issue then. I'm going to try something similar to what the OP did and I'm going to increase my calories to 1500 and decrease my workouts to 3 times a week for a while. And I'm confident that will restart my weight loss.
Yes I know it makes no sense, but I'm sure some one smarter than me and all the smart *kitten* on this thread could probably explain this phenomenon. There's more to weight loss than CICO.
(Edit: I should also mention that I have not been eating back my exercise calories, truly just eating 1400 a day)
If you've read as much as you've said you've read, then you wouldn't be resorting to name calling.
You'd also realize CICO encompasses what you're experiencing.
Everyone who claims that CICO doesn't work doesn't understand what CICO means.
I don't think they're claiming it doesn't work, rather other things can also impact weight loss other than how much you eat and how much you move. You're almost insulting the complexity of your body if you think it works like a standard calculator 24/7 365 days a year. If think about it, when reading food labels it doesn't actually tell you at which rate the food is being burnt, which foods are more efficient in which bodies nor does it account for every individuals genetic make up and health level, so on and so forth. That being said generally it works until accurate calculated potential results are not met. Then you question things and start picking it apart. I have my own personal approach to CICO but yes generally it does work.
That's just it. CICO is NOT just saying calories in, calories out. It encompasses all of those factors people keep saying it doesn't account for.
The acronym, itself, says that, but scientists, when they discuss CICO do indeed factor those things in and acknowledge them.
All of those things you mentioned fall under either calories in or calories out.
Thing is, especially when you don't read extensively here AND follow the many links, being told CICO never fails and eating more is never the answer isn't helpful. Both may be true, but they don't help either.
Too large of a deficit can, in a sense, activate a body's self-protection *to a degree* and reduce CO. Even when the individual doesn't see it happening. I guarantee my months long 1000 deficit caused that for me. Was it a metabolic slow down? Potentially partially. Was it a reduction in NEAT? Almost certainly. In the midst of it I couldn't see it. But knowing my logging was as on point as possible, to see a marked reduction in loss rate was very disheartening. It caused me to increase deficit by stopping using any exercise calories. Which, in hindsight was a horrible idea. My previous desire to improve my pace slipped a lot. I quit looking for excuses to increase my step count. I was obsessing and stressing over it. While staying in my calories, I was not making nearly as nutritious choice in food. NEAT tanked, drive tanked and loss rate tanked.
Thank goodness when I reached out here I got good advice and articles. In the end, a diet break to help reset me mentally (and maybe some positive hormonal resets) coupled with a reduced deficit coming out of the break has losses exceeding deficit. NEAT is up, workouts are back to energetic and any potential cortisol related water retention has corrected itself. In *my case eating more was the solution. But that sentence is as unhelpful as the reverse was above.
Compassion, curiosity and tailoring advice to the specific poster can go a long way to actually being helpful to a poster, and lurkers.
I'm not sure what you're arguing against here.
At this point, this is a discussion about how the process works, not about a poster stalled and reaching out for solutions.
If I go into a thread with someone reaching out for solutions, I have a different approach. When I'm in a thread with people saying that science doesn't apply to them, I call them out on their fallacy. They don't need compassion, they need fact checking.
What "fallacy"? You would rather someone who is stalling at 1100 or 1200 dip down to 800-900? It would be better to refeed, get strengthened, heal, and then lose at a more sensible deficit.
I'd rather they knuckle down and buy a food scale and track every single thing that goes into their mouths while using correct database entries to ensure they're actually eating 1200 calories (often times they are at more than double that, people are terrible at estimating their intakes). Then if they are actually eating at a true 1200 calories they should wait it out as it's most likely water retention masking their fat loss. There are very few grown adults who will maintain their weight on 1200 calories, basically very small older females who are completely sedentary, or people who have legitimate medical conditions which they should be having professional treatment for. Certainly not people who weigh 200 lbs like the OP.6 -
I'm not blithely suggesting anything. I am giving the OP the benefit of the doubt that she is smart enough to have logged correctly.3
-
I'm not suggesting anyone build muscle. I said I am working on that. But if someone decides to then great!0
-
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »Hello OP! It sounds like we've been having similar issues.
I lost 70 pounds over 9 months almost 2 years ago and then over the course of a year I gained most of that back when I fell into a period of major depression. But a little over a month ago I decided to start losing weight again.
The first 2 weeks I lost about 10 pounds. The next week I lost about 2 more. It was about this time that I started really counting calories and exercising 5 times a week. Before then I had just been eating healthier(I was probably eating around 1700 or so a day) and exercising 3 times a week.
So 2 weeks ago I began counting calories (I have a food scale and I am great about measuring) and eating around 1400 calories a day. I also upped my workouts to 5 times a week,burning between 500 to 600 calories per workout. Now according to CICO I should have been losing a good amount the past 2 weeks yes?
But I haven't lost a single pound, not for 2 weeks. Someone who weighs as much as I do (260) shouldn't be hitting a plateau so early on. I even bought a new scale because I was convinced my scale was broken. I have been flabbergasted trying to figure it out.
I've been searching around on here and on other open forums out there and it seems like this is actually a common problem. Now I'm not an expert and I don't know exactkt why this happens. But it seems like if you work out too much and also diet extensively, it is possible to not lose any weight.
But now that I think about it, when I lost 70 pounds over 9 months almost 2 years ago, I started out only exercising once or twice a week and very gradually increased to 5 times a week exercising and I never experienced this issue then. I'm going to try something similar to what the OP did and I'm going to increase my calories to 1500 and decrease my workouts to 3 times a week for a while. And I'm confident that will restart my weight loss.
Yes I know it makes no sense, but I'm sure some one smarter than me and all the smart *kitten* on this thread could probably explain this phenomenon. There's more to weight loss than CICO.
(Edit: I should also mention that I have not been eating back my exercise calories, truly just eating 1400 a day)
If you've read as much as you've said you've read, then you wouldn't be resorting to name calling.
You'd also realize CICO encompasses what you're experiencing.
Everyone who claims that CICO doesn't work doesn't understand what CICO means.
I don't think they're claiming it doesn't work, rather other things can also impact weight loss other than how much you eat and how much you move. You're almost insulting the complexity of your body if you think it works like a standard calculator 24/7 365 days a year. If think about it, when reading food labels it doesn't actually tell you at which rate the food is being burnt, which foods are more efficient in which bodies nor does it account for every individuals genetic make up and health level, so on and so forth. That being said generally it works until accurate calculated potential results are not met. Then you question things and start picking it apart. I have my own personal approach to CICO but yes generally it does work.
That's just it. CICO is NOT just saying calories in, calories out. It encompasses all of those factors people keep saying it doesn't account for.
The acronym, itself, says that, but scientists, when they discuss CICO do indeed factor those things in and acknowledge them.
All of those things you mentioned fall under either calories in or calories out.
Thing is, especially when you don't read extensively here AND follow the many links, being told CICO never fails and eating more is never the answer isn't helpful. Both may be true, but they don't help either.
Too large of a deficit can, in a sense, activate a body's self-protection *to a degree* and reduce CO. Even when the individual doesn't see it happening. I guarantee my months long 1000 deficit caused that for me. Was it a metabolic slow down? Potentially partially. Was it a reduction in NEAT? Almost certainly. In the midst of it I couldn't see it. But knowing my logging was as on point as possible, to see a marked reduction in loss rate was very disheartening. It caused me to increase deficit by stopping using any exercise calories. Which, in hindsight was a horrible idea. My previous desire to improve my pace slipped a lot. I quit looking for excuses to increase my step count. I was obsessing and stressing over it. While staying in my calories, I was not making nearly as nutritious choice in food. NEAT tanked, drive tanked and loss rate tanked.
Thank goodness when I reached out here I got good advice and articles. In the end, a diet break to help reset me mentally (and maybe some positive hormonal resets) coupled with a reduced deficit coming out of the break has losses exceeding deficit. NEAT is up, workouts are back to energetic and any potential cortisol related water retention has corrected itself. In *my case eating more was the solution. But that sentence is as unhelpful as the reverse was above.
Compassion, curiosity and tailoring advice to the specific poster can go a long way to actually being helpful to a poster, and lurkers.
I'm not sure what you're arguing against here.
At this point, this is a discussion about how the process works, not about a poster stalled and reaching out for solutions.
If I go into a thread with someone reaching out for solutions, I have a different approach. When I'm in a thread with people saying that science doesn't apply to them, I call them out on their fallacy. They don't need compassion, they need fact checking.
What "fallacy"? You would rather someone who is stalling at 1100 or 1200 dip down to 800-900? It would be better to refeed, get strengthened, heal, and then lose at a more sensible deficit.
Why are you putting words in my mouth?
The fallacy is that CICO doesn't work.
You don't understand refeeding. Full stop.
In all of the cases of the people on the drastically low deficits who needed to lose (BTW, most of them were bikini competitors and body builders making weight for a show) who eventually used refeeding, do you know what came to light? I found this out on Facebook through Brad Schoenfeld and Alan Aragon. Guess what the dirty little secret is why the scale never moved?
They were all binging and not logging. Sneaking bites of food and not logging them too.
Refeeding? You know what happened with those bikini competitors? They gave them back some of the calories they were eating anyway and the competitors just started working out harder and compensated for the extra calories.
Saying that...
So, when I go into a thread with someone who is stalled in 1200 calories, what I do is ask for their stats, and examine their logging, their activity levels and assess whether they really need to eat 1200. Some short older sedentary women do.
Most people don't.
I usually suggest people up their NEAT and their calories. Sometimes, depending on the length of eating at deficit, I suggest a diet break.
I don't just blithely suggest they up their calories and act like it's some kind of magical solution.
I also don't suggest they try to build muscle because that's near impossible in a deficit and building enough to make a metabolic difference in a deficit? That's a laughable concept.
I'm talking about adding 50 calories a day and slowly adding calories over time-- not binging. I've never been a Binger because I hate feeling full. Please stop assuming.
Perhaps the word "refeed" triggered something within you? I edited the word out of my post because I did not mean it in the body building sense of the word.
You can't generalize nor can I. But for those who are stuck at 1200 calories and are not losing, there is hope!2 -
Ok! Y'all got me convinced more calories will help me lose weight. I'm calling Dominos now.
The OP is still on a deficit with her 1600 calories. Going too low in calories and too big with the deficit was the original problem.
Conversely, you can't go above TDEE and expect to lose weight. There is a happy medium. No one is endorsing binging or eating over TDEE. That would be eating over maintenance, so of course you would gain.3 -
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »Hello OP! It sounds like we've been having similar issues.
I lost 70 pounds over 9 months almost 2 years ago and then over the course of a year I gained most of that back when I fell into a period of major depression. But a little over a month ago I decided to start losing weight again.
The first 2 weeks I lost about 10 pounds. The next week I lost about 2 more. It was about this time that I started really counting calories and exercising 5 times a week. Before then I had just been eating healthier(I was probably eating around 1700 or so a day) and exercising 3 times a week.
So 2 weeks ago I began counting calories (I have a food scale and I am great about measuring) and eating around 1400 calories a day. I also upped my workouts to 5 times a week,burning between 500 to 600 calories per workout. Now according to CICO I should have been losing a good amount the past 2 weeks yes?
But I haven't lost a single pound, not for 2 weeks. Someone who weighs as much as I do (260) shouldn't be hitting a plateau so early on. I even bought a new scale because I was convinced my scale was broken. I have been flabbergasted trying to figure it out.
I've been searching around on here and on other open forums out there and it seems like this is actually a common problem. Now I'm not an expert and I don't know exactkt why this happens. But it seems like if you work out too much and also diet extensively, it is possible to not lose any weight.
But now that I think about it, when I lost 70 pounds over 9 months almost 2 years ago, I started out only exercising once or twice a week and very gradually increased to 5 times a week exercising and I never experienced this issue then. I'm going to try something similar to what the OP did and I'm going to increase my calories to 1500 and decrease my workouts to 3 times a week for a while. And I'm confident that will restart my weight loss.
Yes I know it makes no sense, but I'm sure some one smarter than me and all the smart *kitten* on this thread could probably explain this phenomenon. There's more to weight loss than CICO.
(Edit: I should also mention that I have not been eating back my exercise calories, truly just eating 1400 a day)
If you've read as much as you've said you've read, then you wouldn't be resorting to name calling.
You'd also realize CICO encompasses what you're experiencing.
Everyone who claims that CICO doesn't work doesn't understand what CICO means.
I don't think they're claiming it doesn't work, rather other things can also impact weight loss other than how much you eat and how much you move. You're almost insulting the complexity of your body if you think it works like a standard calculator 24/7 365 days a year. If think about it, when reading food labels it doesn't actually tell you at which rate the food is being burnt, which foods are more efficient in which bodies nor does it account for every individuals genetic make up and health level, so on and so forth. That being said generally it works until accurate calculated potential results are not met. Then you question things and start picking it apart. I have my own personal approach to CICO but yes generally it does work.
That's just it. CICO is NOT just saying calories in, calories out. It encompasses all of those factors people keep saying it doesn't account for.
The acronym, itself, says that, but scientists, when they discuss CICO do indeed factor those things in and acknowledge them.
All of those things you mentioned fall under either calories in or calories out.
Thing is, especially when you don't read extensively here AND follow the many links, being told CICO never fails and eating more is never the answer isn't helpful. Both may be true, but they don't help either.
Too large of a deficit can, in a sense, activate a body's self-protection *to a degree* and reduce CO. Even when the individual doesn't see it happening. I guarantee my months long 1000 deficit caused that for me. Was it a metabolic slow down? Potentially partially. Was it a reduction in NEAT? Almost certainly. In the midst of it I couldn't see it. But knowing my logging was as on point as possible, to see a marked reduction in loss rate was very disheartening. It caused me to increase deficit by stopping using any exercise calories. Which, in hindsight was a horrible idea. My previous desire to improve my pace slipped a lot. I quit looking for excuses to increase my step count. I was obsessing and stressing over it. While staying in my calories, I was not making nearly as nutritious choice in food. NEAT tanked, drive tanked and loss rate tanked.
Thank goodness when I reached out here I got good advice and articles. In the end, a diet break to help reset me mentally (and maybe some positive hormonal resets) coupled with a reduced deficit coming out of the break has losses exceeding deficit. NEAT is up, workouts are back to energetic and any potential cortisol related water retention has corrected itself. In *my case eating more was the solution. But that sentence is as unhelpful as the reverse was above.
Compassion, curiosity and tailoring advice to the specific poster can go a long way to actually being helpful to a poster, and lurkers.
I'm not sure what you're arguing against here.
At this point, this is a discussion about how the process works, not about a poster stalled and reaching out for solutions.
If I go into a thread with someone reaching out for solutions, I have a different approach. When I'm in a thread with people saying that science doesn't apply to them, I call them out on their fallacy. They don't need compassion, they need fact checking.
What "fallacy"? You would rather someone who is stalling at 1100 or 1200 dip down to 800-900? It would be better to refeed, get strengthened, heal, and then lose at a more sensible deficit.
Why are you putting words in my mouth?
The fallacy is that CICO doesn't work.
You don't understand refeeding. Full stop.
In all of the cases of the people on the drastically low deficits who needed to lose (BTW, most of them were bikini competitors and body builders making weight for a show) who eventually used refeeding, do you know what came to light? I found this out on Facebook through Brad Schoenfeld and Alan Aragon. Guess what the dirty little secret is why the scale never moved?
They were all binging and not logging. Sneaking bites of food and not logging them too.
Refeeding? You know what happened with those bikini competitors? They gave them back some of the calories they were eating anyway and the competitors just started working out harder and compensated for the extra calories.
Saying that...
So, when I go into a thread with someone who is stalled in 1200 calories, what I do is ask for their stats, and examine their logging, their activity levels and assess whether they really need to eat 1200. Some short older sedentary women do.
Most people don't.
I usually suggest people up their NEAT and their calories. Sometimes, depending on the length of eating at deficit, I suggest a diet break.
I don't just blithely suggest they up their calories and act like it's some kind of magical solution.
I also don't suggest they try to build muscle because that's near impossible in a deficit and building enough to make a metabolic difference in a deficit? That's a laughable concept.
I'm talking about adding 50 calories a day and slowly adding calories over time-- not binging. I've never been a Binger because I hate feeling full. Please stop assuming.
Perhaps the word "refeed" triggered something within you? I edited the word out of my post because I did not mean it in the body building sense of the word.
You can't generalize nor can I. But for those who are stuck at 1200 calories and are not losing, there is hope!
Adding 50 calories a day is not what a refeed is. Adding 50 calories a week or every other week is reverse dieting.
It's also used in conjunction with slowly increasing activity levels and carefully monitoring weight.
It's helpful to know what you're talking about and to be specific when you're using terms if you're going to use them.
And no, you did not "trigger" me.
You do keep making posts about upping calories with very little context. I have never seen you mention specifics until now. Never.
Editing to add that if you want to know what a refeed is, it's usually a carefully controlled day of eating at or slightly above maintenance in a specific macro balance (usually carb heavy) and used by body builders. In casual use, it's just a maintenance eating day.4 -
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »Hello OP! It sounds like we've been having similar issues.
I lost 70 pounds over 9 months almost 2 years ago and then over the course of a year I gained most of that back when I fell into a period of major depression. But a little over a month ago I decided to start losing weight again.
The first 2 weeks I lost about 10 pounds. The next week I lost about 2 more. It was about this time that I started really counting calories and exercising 5 times a week. Before then I had just been eating healthier(I was probably eating around 1700 or so a day) and exercising 3 times a week.
So 2 weeks ago I began counting calories (I have a food scale and I am great about measuring) and eating around 1400 calories a day. I also upped my workouts to 5 times a week,burning between 500 to 600 calories per workout. Now according to CICO I should have been losing a good amount the past 2 weeks yes?
But I haven't lost a single pound, not for 2 weeks. Someone who weighs as much as I do (260) shouldn't be hitting a plateau so early on. I even bought a new scale because I was convinced my scale was broken. I have been flabbergasted trying to figure it out.
I've been searching around on here and on other open forums out there and it seems like this is actually a common problem. Now I'm not an expert and I don't know exactkt why this happens. But it seems like if you work out too much and also diet extensively, it is possible to not lose any weight.
But now that I think about it, when I lost 70 pounds over 9 months almost 2 years ago, I started out only exercising once or twice a week and very gradually increased to 5 times a week exercising and I never experienced this issue then. I'm going to try something similar to what the OP did and I'm going to increase my calories to 1500 and decrease my workouts to 3 times a week for a while. And I'm confident that will restart my weight loss.
Yes I know it makes no sense, but I'm sure some one smarter than me and all the smart *kitten* on this thread could probably explain this phenomenon. There's more to weight loss than CICO.
(Edit: I should also mention that I have not been eating back my exercise calories, truly just eating 1400 a day)
If you've read as much as you've said you've read, then you wouldn't be resorting to name calling.
You'd also realize CICO encompasses what you're experiencing.
Everyone who claims that CICO doesn't work doesn't understand what CICO means.
I don't think they're claiming it doesn't work, rather other things can also impact weight loss other than how much you eat and how much you move. You're almost insulting the complexity of your body if you think it works like a standard calculator 24/7 365 days a year. If think about it, when reading food labels it doesn't actually tell you at which rate the food is being burnt, which foods are more efficient in which bodies nor does it account for every individuals genetic make up and health level, so on and so forth. That being said generally it works until accurate calculated potential results are not met. Then you question things and start picking it apart. I have my own personal approach to CICO but yes generally it does work.
That's just it. CICO is NOT just saying calories in, calories out. It encompasses all of those factors people keep saying it doesn't account for.
The acronym, itself, says that, but scientists, when they discuss CICO do indeed factor those things in and acknowledge them.
All of those things you mentioned fall under either calories in or calories out.
Thing is, especially when you don't read extensively here AND follow the many links, being told CICO never fails and eating more is never the answer isn't helpful. Both may be true, but they don't help either.
Too large of a deficit can, in a sense, activate a body's self-protection *to a degree* and reduce CO. Even when the individual doesn't see it happening. I guarantee my months long 1000 deficit caused that for me. Was it a metabolic slow down? Potentially partially. Was it a reduction in NEAT? Almost certainly. In the midst of it I couldn't see it. But knowing my logging was as on point as possible, to see a marked reduction in loss rate was very disheartening. It caused me to increase deficit by stopping using any exercise calories. Which, in hindsight was a horrible idea. My previous desire to improve my pace slipped a lot. I quit looking for excuses to increase my step count. I was obsessing and stressing over it. While staying in my calories, I was not making nearly as nutritious choice in food. NEAT tanked, drive tanked and loss rate tanked.
Thank goodness when I reached out here I got good advice and articles. In the end, a diet break to help reset me mentally (and maybe some positive hormonal resets) coupled with a reduced deficit coming out of the break has losses exceeding deficit. NEAT is up, workouts are back to energetic and any potential cortisol related water retention has corrected itself. In *my case eating more was the solution. But that sentence is as unhelpful as the reverse was above.
Compassion, curiosity and tailoring advice to the specific poster can go a long way to actually being helpful to a poster, and lurkers.
I'm not sure what you're arguing against here.
At this point, this is a discussion about how the process works, not about a poster stalled and reaching out for solutions.
If I go into a thread with someone reaching out for solutions, I have a different approach. When I'm in a thread with people saying that science doesn't apply to them, I call them out on their fallacy. They don't need compassion, they need fact checking.
What "fallacy"? You would rather someone who is stalling at 1100 or 1200 dip down to 800-900? It would be better to refeed, get strengthened, heal, and then lose at a more sensible deficit.
...In all of the cases of the people on the drastically low deficits who needed to lose (BTW, most of them were bikini competitors and body builders making weight for a show) who eventually used refeeding, do you know what came to light? I found this out on Facebook through Brad Schoenfeld and Alan Aragon. Guess what the dirty little secret is why the scale never moved?
They were all binging and not logging. Sneaking bites of food and not logging them too.
Refeeding? You know what happened with those bikini competitors? They gave them back some of the calories they were eating anyway and the competitors just started working out harder and compensated for the extra calories.
...
Yes, I bet this is very common - people under-eating most of the time but not logging binges/cheat days/meals. When they up their calories they are in fact eating less than before, as well as no longer having the stress of an overly aggressive calorie deficit - stress increases cortisol which leads to water retention.
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/research-review/dietary-restraint-and-cortisol-levels-research-review.html/
...a group of women who scored higher on dietary restraint scores showed elevated baseline cortisol levels. By itself this might not be problematic, but as often as not, these types of dieters are drawn to extreme approaches to dieting.
They throw in a lot of intense exercise, try to cut calories very hard (and this often backfires if disinhibition is high; when these folks break they break) and cortisol levels go through the roof. That often causes cortisol mediated water retention (there are other mechanisms for this, mind you, leptin actually inhibits cortisol release and as it drops on a diet, cortisol levels go up further). Weight and fat loss appear to have stopped or at least slowed significantly. This is compounded even further in female dieters due to the vagaries of their menstrual cycle where water balance is changing enormously week to week anyhow.
And invariably, this type of psychology responds to the stall by going even harder. They attempt to cut calories harder, they start doing more activity. The cycle continues and gets worse. Harder dieting means more cortisol means more water retention means more dieting. Which backfires (other problems come in the long-term with this approach but you’ll have to wait for the book to read about that).
When what they should do is take a day or two off (even one day off from training, at least in men, lets cortisol drop significantly). Raise calories, especially from carbohydrates. This helps cortisol to drop. More than that they need to find a way to freaking chill out. Meditation, yoga, get a massage... Get in the bath, candles, a little Enya, a glass of wine, have some you-time but please just chill.3 -
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »Hello OP! It sounds like we've been having similar issues.
I lost 70 pounds over 9 months almost 2 years ago and then over the course of a year I gained most of that back when I fell into a period of major depression. But a little over a month ago I decided to start losing weight again.
The first 2 weeks I lost about 10 pounds. The next week I lost about 2 more. It was about this time that I started really counting calories and exercising 5 times a week. Before then I had just been eating healthier(I was probably eating around 1700 or so a day) and exercising 3 times a week.
So 2 weeks ago I began counting calories (I have a food scale and I am great about measuring) and eating around 1400 calories a day. I also upped my workouts to 5 times a week,burning between 500 to 600 calories per workout. Now according to CICO I should have been losing a good amount the past 2 weeks yes?
But I haven't lost a single pound, not for 2 weeks. Someone who weighs as much as I do (260) shouldn't be hitting a plateau so early on. I even bought a new scale because I was convinced my scale was broken. I have been flabbergasted trying to figure it out.
I've been searching around on here and on other open forums out there and it seems like this is actually a common problem. Now I'm not an expert and I don't know exactkt why this happens. But it seems like if you work out too much and also diet extensively, it is possible to not lose any weight.
But now that I think about it, when I lost 70 pounds over 9 months almost 2 years ago, I started out only exercising once or twice a week and very gradually increased to 5 times a week exercising and I never experienced this issue then. I'm going to try something similar to what the OP did and I'm going to increase my calories to 1500 and decrease my workouts to 3 times a week for a while. And I'm confident that will restart my weight loss.
Yes I know it makes no sense, but I'm sure some one smarter than me and all the smart *kitten* on this thread could probably explain this phenomenon. There's more to weight loss than CICO.
(Edit: I should also mention that I have not been eating back my exercise calories, truly just eating 1400 a day)
If you've read as much as you've said you've read, then you wouldn't be resorting to name calling.
You'd also realize CICO encompasses what you're experiencing.
Everyone who claims that CICO doesn't work doesn't understand what CICO means.
I don't think they're claiming it doesn't work, rather other things can also impact weight loss other than how much you eat and how much you move. You're almost insulting the complexity of your body if you think it works like a standard calculator 24/7 365 days a year. If think about it, when reading food labels it doesn't actually tell you at which rate the food is being burnt, which foods are more efficient in which bodies nor does it account for every individuals genetic make up and health level, so on and so forth. That being said generally it works until accurate calculated potential results are not met. Then you question things and start picking it apart. I have my own personal approach to CICO but yes generally it does work.
That's just it. CICO is NOT just saying calories in, calories out. It encompasses all of those factors people keep saying it doesn't account for.
The acronym, itself, says that, but scientists, when they discuss CICO do indeed factor those things in and acknowledge them.
All of those things you mentioned fall under either calories in or calories out.
Thing is, especially when you don't read extensively here AND follow the many links, being told CICO never fails and eating more is never the answer isn't helpful. Both may be true, but they don't help either.
Too large of a deficit can, in a sense, activate a body's self-protection *to a degree* and reduce CO. Even when the individual doesn't see it happening. I guarantee my months long 1000 deficit caused that for me. Was it a metabolic slow down? Potentially partially. Was it a reduction in NEAT? Almost certainly. In the midst of it I couldn't see it. But knowing my logging was as on point as possible, to see a marked reduction in loss rate was very disheartening. It caused me to increase deficit by stopping using any exercise calories. Which, in hindsight was a horrible idea. My previous desire to improve my pace slipped a lot. I quit looking for excuses to increase my step count. I was obsessing and stressing over it. While staying in my calories, I was not making nearly as nutritious choice in food. NEAT tanked, drive tanked and loss rate tanked.
Thank goodness when I reached out here I got good advice and articles. In the end, a diet break to help reset me mentally (and maybe some positive hormonal resets) coupled with a reduced deficit coming out of the break has losses exceeding deficit. NEAT is up, workouts are back to energetic and any potential cortisol related water retention has corrected itself. In *my case eating more was the solution. But that sentence is as unhelpful as the reverse was above.
Compassion, curiosity and tailoring advice to the specific poster can go a long way to actually being helpful to a poster, and lurkers.
I'm not sure what you're arguing against here.
At this point, this is a discussion about how the process works, not about a poster stalled and reaching out for solutions.
If I go into a thread with someone reaching out for solutions, I have a different approach. When I'm in a thread with people saying that science doesn't apply to them, I call them out on their fallacy. They don't need compassion, they need fact checking.
What "fallacy"? You would rather someone who is stalling at 1100 or 1200 dip down to 800-900? It would be better to refeed, get strengthened, heal, and then lose at a more sensible deficit.
Why are you putting words in my mouth?
The fallacy is that CICO doesn't work.
You don't understand refeeding. Full stop.
In all of the cases of the people on the drastically low deficits who needed to lose (BTW, most of them were bikini competitors and body builders making weight for a show) who eventually used refeeding, do you know what came to light? I found this out on Facebook through Brad Schoenfeld and Alan Aragon. Guess what the dirty little secret is why the scale never moved?
They were all binging and not logging. Sneaking bites of food and not logging them too.
Refeeding? You know what happened with those bikini competitors? They gave them back some of the calories they were eating anyway and the competitors just started working out harder and compensated for the extra calories.
Saying that...
So, when I go into a thread with someone who is stalled in 1200 calories, what I do is ask for their stats, and examine their logging, their activity levels and assess whether they really need to eat 1200. Some short older sedentary women do.
Most people don't.
I usually suggest people up their NEAT and their calories. Sometimes, depending on the length of eating at deficit, I suggest a diet break.
I don't just blithely suggest they up their calories and act like it's some kind of magical solution.
I also don't suggest they try to build muscle because that's near impossible in a deficit and building enough to make a metabolic difference in a deficit? That's a laughable concept.
I'm talking about adding 50 calories a day and slowly adding calories over time-- not binging. I've never been a Binger because I hate feeling full. Please stop assuming.
Perhaps the word "refeed" triggered something within you? I edited the word out of my post because I did not mean it in the body building sense of the word.
You can't generalize nor can I. But for those who are stuck at 1200 calories and are not losing, there is hope!
Adding 50 calories a day is not what a refeed is. Adding 50 calories a week or every other week is reverse dieting.
It's also used in conjunction with slowly increasing activity levels and carefully monitoring weight.
It's helpful to know what you're talking about and to be specific when you're using terms if you're going to use them.
And no, you did not "trigger" me.
You do keep making posts about upping calories with very little context. I have never seen you mention specifics until now. Never.
Editing to add that if you want to know what a refeed is, it's usually a carefully controlled day of eating at or slightly above maintenance in a specific macro balance (usually carb heavy) and used by body builders. In casual use, it's just a maintenance eating day.
Thanks. I usually do say "reverse dieting" and did not mean refeed. I corrected my post.0 -
Right, she just said "tracking calories", which could mean using measuring cups and spoons or eyeballing.
Also, there are many items in the database that are incorrect.2 -
kshama2001 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »Hello OP! It sounds like we've been having similar issues.
I lost 70 pounds over 9 months almost 2 years ago and then over the course of a year I gained most of that back when I fell into a period of major depression. But a little over a month ago I decided to start losing weight again.
The first 2 weeks I lost about 10 pounds. The next week I lost about 2 more. It was about this time that I started really counting calories and exercising 5 times a week. Before then I had just been eating healthier(I was probably eating around 1700 or so a day) and exercising 3 times a week.
So 2 weeks ago I began counting calories (I have a food scale and I am great about measuring) and eating around 1400 calories a day. I also upped my workouts to 5 times a week,burning between 500 to 600 calories per workout. Now according to CICO I should have been losing a good amount the past 2 weeks yes?
But I haven't lost a single pound, not for 2 weeks. Someone who weighs as much as I do (260) shouldn't be hitting a plateau so early on. I even bought a new scale because I was convinced my scale was broken. I have been flabbergasted trying to figure it out.
I've been searching around on here and on other open forums out there and it seems like this is actually a common problem. Now I'm not an expert and I don't know exactkt why this happens. But it seems like if you work out too much and also diet extensively, it is possible to not lose any weight.
But now that I think about it, when I lost 70 pounds over 9 months almost 2 years ago, I started out only exercising once or twice a week and very gradually increased to 5 times a week exercising and I never experienced this issue then. I'm going to try something similar to what the OP did and I'm going to increase my calories to 1500 and decrease my workouts to 3 times a week for a while. And I'm confident that will restart my weight loss.
Yes I know it makes no sense, but I'm sure some one smarter than me and all the smart *kitten* on this thread could probably explain this phenomenon. There's more to weight loss than CICO.
(Edit: I should also mention that I have not been eating back my exercise calories, truly just eating 1400 a day)
If you've read as much as you've said you've read, then you wouldn't be resorting to name calling.
You'd also realize CICO encompasses what you're experiencing.
Everyone who claims that CICO doesn't work doesn't understand what CICO means.
I don't think they're claiming it doesn't work, rather other things can also impact weight loss other than how much you eat and how much you move. You're almost insulting the complexity of your body if you think it works like a standard calculator 24/7 365 days a year. If think about it, when reading food labels it doesn't actually tell you at which rate the food is being burnt, which foods are more efficient in which bodies nor does it account for every individuals genetic make up and health level, so on and so forth. That being said generally it works until accurate calculated potential results are not met. Then you question things and start picking it apart. I have my own personal approach to CICO but yes generally it does work.
That's just it. CICO is NOT just saying calories in, calories out. It encompasses all of those factors people keep saying it doesn't account for.
The acronym, itself, says that, but scientists, when they discuss CICO do indeed factor those things in and acknowledge them.
All of those things you mentioned fall under either calories in or calories out.
Thing is, especially when you don't read extensively here AND follow the many links, being told CICO never fails and eating more is never the answer isn't helpful. Both may be true, but they don't help either.
Too large of a deficit can, in a sense, activate a body's self-protection *to a degree* and reduce CO. Even when the individual doesn't see it happening. I guarantee my months long 1000 deficit caused that for me. Was it a metabolic slow down? Potentially partially. Was it a reduction in NEAT? Almost certainly. In the midst of it I couldn't see it. But knowing my logging was as on point as possible, to see a marked reduction in loss rate was very disheartening. It caused me to increase deficit by stopping using any exercise calories. Which, in hindsight was a horrible idea. My previous desire to improve my pace slipped a lot. I quit looking for excuses to increase my step count. I was obsessing and stressing over it. While staying in my calories, I was not making nearly as nutritious choice in food. NEAT tanked, drive tanked and loss rate tanked.
Thank goodness when I reached out here I got good advice and articles. In the end, a diet break to help reset me mentally (and maybe some positive hormonal resets) coupled with a reduced deficit coming out of the break has losses exceeding deficit. NEAT is up, workouts are back to energetic and any potential cortisol related water retention has corrected itself. In *my case eating more was the solution. But that sentence is as unhelpful as the reverse was above.
Compassion, curiosity and tailoring advice to the specific poster can go a long way to actually being helpful to a poster, and lurkers.
I'm not sure what you're arguing against here.
At this point, this is a discussion about how the process works, not about a poster stalled and reaching out for solutions.
If I go into a thread with someone reaching out for solutions, I have a different approach. When I'm in a thread with people saying that science doesn't apply to them, I call them out on their fallacy. They don't need compassion, they need fact checking.
What "fallacy"? You would rather someone who is stalling at 1100 or 1200 dip down to 800-900? It would be better to refeed, get strengthened, heal, and then lose at a more sensible deficit.
...In all of the cases of the people on the drastically low deficits who needed to lose (BTW, most of them were bikini competitors and body builders making weight for a show) who eventually used refeeding, do you know what came to light? I found this out on Facebook through Brad Schoenfeld and Alan Aragon. Guess what the dirty little secret is why the scale never moved?
They were all binging and not logging. Sneaking bites of food and not logging them too.
Refeeding? You know what happened with those bikini competitors? They gave them back some of the calories they were eating anyway and the competitors just started working out harder and compensated for the extra calories.
...
Yes, I bet this is very common - people under-eating most of the time but not logging binges/cheat days/meals. When they up their calories they are in fact eating less than before, as well as no longer having the stress of an overly aggressive calorie deficit - stress increases cortisol which leads to water retention.
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/research-review/dietary-restraint-and-cortisol-levels-research-review.html/
...a group of women who scored higher on dietary restraint scores showed elevated baseline cortisol levels. By itself this might not be problematic, but as often as not, these types of dieters are drawn to extreme approaches to dieting.
They throw in a lot of intense exercise, try to cut calories very hard (and this often backfires if disinhibition is high; when these folks break they break) and cortisol levels go through the roof. That often causes cortisol mediated water retention (there are other mechanisms for this, mind you, leptin actually inhibits cortisol release and as it drops on a diet, cortisol levels go up further). Weight and fat loss appear to have stopped or at least slowed significantly. This is compounded even further in female dieters due to the vagaries of their menstrual cycle where water balance is changing enormously week to week anyhow.
And invariably, this type of psychology responds to the stall by going even harder. They attempt to cut calories harder, they start doing more activity. The cycle continues and gets worse. Harder dieting means more cortisol means more water retention means more dieting. Which backfires (other problems come in the long-term with this approach but you’ll have to wait for the book to read about that).
When what they should do is take a day or two off (even one day off from training, at least in men, lets cortisol drop significantly). Raise calories, especially from carbohydrates. This helps cortisol to drop. More than that they need to find a way to freaking chill out. Meditation, yoga, get a massage... Get in the bath, candles, a little Enya, a glass of wine, have some you-time but please just chill.
Bingo. That's also Lyle describing a sort of refeed. And this piece is talking a lot about physique competitors, body builders, and bikini competitors. Because those are the types who they can study easily.
Most of what they know about this kind of stuff is known from these groups of people.
3 -
kshama2001 wrote: »
Right, she just said "tracking calories", which could mean using measuring cups and spoons or eyeballing.
Also, there are many items in the database that are incorrect.
You are right, internet food databases in general are notoriously underestimated and it pays off to do our own research for correct calorie counts.2 -
People need to watch the show "Secret Eaters." People very often think they're eating less than they are. My doubts here are based around the improbability of someone reaching 200 pounds eating only 1100 calories a day.6
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 392.1K Introduce Yourself
- 43.6K Getting Started
- 259.9K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.7K Food and Nutrition
- 47.4K Recipes
- 232.4K Fitness and Exercise
- 403 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.8K Motivation and Support
- 7.9K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.4K MyFitnessPal Information
- 23 News and Announcements
- 983 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.4K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions