weaning off vlcd

aimanbafakyh

okay so I've been on a vlcd for 2-3 months and lost 20 pounds. Now i wish to maintain my weight and get back to my regular diet. Now how do I do that? I'm mostly sedentry but I'm willing to exercise if i need to. Please help

WinoGelato

I think I recall from a thread you posted last week that you understand that vlcd was not a healthy, smart way to approach weight loss, is that right? I just want to make sure that you don't have disordered thoughts about eating, that this isn't a recurring issue for you, if so, I would strongly encourage you to speak to a medical professional (a Registered Dietician as well as a Psychologist specializing in Eating Disorders) to help determine how to get your physical and mental health on the right track.

With that said, what is usually recommended for transitioning to maintenance is to first calculate your maintenance calories - either your TDEE from another site or an estimate of your non-exercise maintenance level which MFP can provide you if you put in your current stats and "maintain my weight" as your goal. If you use the MFP numbers, and you do exercise, you would want to eat back some of those calories though, as they are not included in the initial estimate.

Then once you know that number, it is recommended that you slowly add in more calories until you reach that calorie level on a consistent basis. Since you've been undereating, you may want to add them a little faster than what people would normally do - I would start with trying to get 1000-1200 calories MINIMUM even if that is a big jump in your current calorie level. Do that for a couple of weeks and then start adding 200 cals/week until you get up to that maintenance estimate. You can expect to see a short term, likely temporary, increase on the scale since you've been at such a large deficit, you will likely see some water weight gain, but it should only be temporary - and depending on how your weight is within the healthy BMI range, maybe a good thing...

Good luck - and again, if there are any concerns about disordered thinking about food or eating and this is a chronic situation for you, then I would work with a medical professional and not rely on my advice or anyone else here on MFP.

quiksylver296

^^

Done.

aimanbafakyh

Won't 1000 be too much?

quiksylver296

aimanbafakyh wrote: »

Won't 1000 be too much?

Go to scoobysworkshop.com. Find the TDEE calculator. Enter your stats. See what number it gives you. That is the amount of calories you need per day to maintain your current weight.

cwolfman13

aimanbafakyh wrote: »

Won't 1000 be too much?

No...that's still a huge deficit from what your maintenance would be.

aimanbafakyh

okay thankyou guys

WinoGelato

This is what concerns me OP. What are your current stats - height, weight, age, gender, and activity level (how much exercise do you do)? The fact that you think 1000 is too many calories indicates you really don't have a good understanding of a healthy amount of calories for yourself.

aimanbafakyh

i am a girl, 21. I weigh 105 lb and I am 5 ft. i normally don't exercise much and if I do its mostly half an hour walk.
What i meant by 1000 calories was that isn't it too sudden? I thought I was supposed to add 300 calories at a time

RoxieDawn

aimanbafakyh wrote: »

i am a girl, 21. I weigh 105 lb and I am 5 ft. i normally don't exercise much and if I do its mostly half an hour walk.
What i meant by 1000 calories was that isn't it too sudden? I thought I was supposed to add 300 calories at a time

On your other thread about this question it says you are eating 750? Is this still true?

You should actually contact your doctor for starters. You are still extremely worried about weight gain.. this is classic sign of ED and your first goal should be to get to healthy amounts of calories quickly.

OP, added for context: Your stats: BMR approx 1200 and approx TDEE (sedentary) 1430... Once you are able to increase your calories appropriately, your TDEE should be anywhere in the 1430 range.

aimanbafakyh

I do not have an eating disorder. I just don't wanna go back to my previous over-weight self.

WinoGelato

aimanbafakyh wrote: »

i am a girl, 21. I weigh 105 lb and I am 5 ft. i normally don't exercise much and if I do its mostly half an hour walk.
What i meant by 1000 calories was that isn't it too sudden? I thought I was supposed to add 300 calories at a time

We are suggesting that you eat a minimum of 1000 calories (which is really still lower than I ever recommend) because you've been on a VLCD for a while now. I thought you were eating 750, so going up to 1000 is an increase of 250 cals. If you can tolerate the big jump and the increase in food (and aren't scared off by a spike on the scale) then you could even go up to 1200 which is the minimum recommended for women.

aimanbafakyh

Okay thankyou

Gallowmere1984

Whoa whoa whoa.

If you are coming off of a VLCD, do NOT use an online TDEE calculator and just set that as your caloric value. You absolutely will end up regaining fat. That's what the body is all hot and ready to do when coming off of a severe deficit. This is how yo-yo dieting starts.

You need to slowly, over the next two weeks, increase your calories every day or every other day, until you reach a point where weight loss slows dramatically. Following that, bump up VERY slowly (maybe 25 kcal per day) until everythig stabilizes.

aimanbafakyh

now I'm confused

sllm1

They're basically saying the same thing but disagreeing on the rate at which you should add calories.

I agree with starting at 1,000 minimum and adding from there. You can add 100 per week or 25 every other day - it all ends up the same in the end.

Eventually, you will need your TDEE to know when you are at maintenance.

aimanbafakyh

oh okay thanks

VeryKatie

sllm1 wrote: »

They're basically saying the same thing but disagreeing on the rate at which you should add calories.

I agree with starting at 1,000 minimum and adding from there. You can add 100 per week or 25 every other day - it all ends up the same in the end.

Eventually, you will need your TDEE to know when you are at maintenance.

I think the other poster was actually saying to add the calories until her weight on the scale stops decreasing weekly. In other words, they are suggesting that her TDEE may not fit with most calculators due to her extended vlcd (implying her practices may have messed with her hormones or caused some muscle/bone loss and may cause her TDEE to be lower than a person her size who did not use a vlcd). I don't know if that's right, but I think that's what they're saying. That a calculated TDEE may not apply and so she should find her TDEE empirically instead of trying to reach a calculated number.

Another way would be to slowly add calories until she gains exactly half a pound in one week and then take 250 calories off that to find her TDEE. Not including any water weight gains. This way she won't end up mistakenly stopping too early, when she could eat more and still not gain.

Gallowmere1984

VeryKatie wrote: »

sllm1 wrote: »

They're basically saying the same thing but disagreeing on the rate at which you should add calories.

I agree with starting at 1,000 minimum and adding from there. You can add 100 per week or 25 every other day - it all ends up the same in the end.

Eventually, you will need your TDEE to know when you are at maintenance.

I think the other poster was actually saying to add the calories until her weight on the scale stops decreasing weekly. In other words, they are suggesting that her TDEE may not fit with most calculators due to her extended vlcd (implying her practices may have messed with her hormones or caused some muscle/bone loss and may cause her TDEE to be lower than a person her size who did not use a vlcd). I don't know if that's right, but I think that's what they're saying. That a calculated TDEE may not apply and so she should find her TDEE empirically instead of trying to reach a calculated number.

Another way would be to slowly add calories until she gains exactly half a pound in one week and then take 250 calories off that to find her TDEE. Not including any water weight gains. This way she won't end up mistakenly stopping too early, when she could eat more and still not gain.

That's exactly where I was going with it. Temporary metabolic slowdown in the range of 20-30% isn't even remotely uncommon when severe caloric restriction is involved. Hell, I'm only cutting at about a 65% deficit, and I still have to ramp back up very slowly, lest my body decide it's time to put a winter coat on, post haste. Even then, it will likely be about two weeks after I get to normal maintenance-10% before I can go to my actual maintenance without getting fat (and destroying the entire point of the cut to begin with).

And women actually have it far worse than men do in this department. The rubberband likes to snap hard.

aimanbafakyh

I read somewhere that it helps when coming off a diet to have small 6-7 meals a day but what if my schedule doesn't allow this?

trigden1991

aimanbafakyh wrote: »

I read somewhere that it helps when coming off a diet to have small 6-7 meals a day but what if my schedule doesn't allow this?

That is rubbish. Eat when suits you and what suits you.