Under 1200 calories and started gaining weight
tolianie
Posts: 3 Member
I track every thing I eat and have been staying under 1200 most of the time it's between 1035 and 1100, I make sure I get over 10,000 steps in a day and the last two weeks I started gaining weight. I've stopped all caffeine in Sept. and, pasta, rice, breads and potatoes for this diet. I haven't started a proper exercise routine yet just getting in my steps. The Keto Recipe book I got says I should be eating a lot more calories because I've cut out the carbs. but I've been to scared to up my calories because weight loss has always been a struggle for me, I've gained weight before when I was getting professional help dieting.
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Replies
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Even without keto you should be eating more calories. 1200 minimum, and even more if pure getting in 10,000 steps.
It's only been two weeks. Make sure your logging is as accurate as possible (a food scale will help you if portion size is an issue) and please aim for a healthier amount.15 -
if you were truly eating up to 1200 calories you wouldn't be gaining... (its important to eat a minimum of 1200 calories) are you accurately tracking your food/ using a food scale?
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If your only eating 1200 calories and doing 10000 steps you should lose weight
Weighing and measuring everything helps and logging all you consume will show the picture what your eating
I lose slow but if I ate that low and did that many steps I'd lose if I log every single thing I eat and drink and don't go over calories3 -
RunRutheeRun wrote: »if you were truly eating up to 1200 calories you wouldn't be gaining... (its important to eat a minimum of 1200 calories) are you accurately tracking your food/ using a food scale?
Unless the OP has developed and underlying medical condition that they are unaware of5 -
If it's on the scale could it be muscle gain?0
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Water retention? Digestive waste retention?
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I track every thing I eat and have been staying under 1200 most of the time it's between 1035 and 1100, I make sure I get over 10,000 steps in a day and the last two weeks I started gaining weight. I've stopped all caffeine in Sept. and, pasta, rice, breads and potatoes for this diet. I haven't started a proper exercise routine yet just getting in my steps. The Keto Recipe book I got says I should be eating a lot more calories because I've cut out the carbs. but I've been to scared to up my calories because weight loss has always been a struggle for me, I've gained weight before when I was getting professional help dieting.
A few things:
Are you absolutely positive you are logging accurately? Using a food scale?
How tall are you? The "magic number" you're not supposed to go below was created in the 1920's by men, and people (esp those who are not on the shorter side) relate to it like it's truth. Depending on your size, your TDEE, you might have to experiment with total calories.
Are you weighing everyday or once a week? I do the former and it helps me see trends as well as an average loss per week.
Are you taking measurements? My weight has also gone up a couple weeks in a row now, but I'm down several inches. It's not a linear process.
Someone will inevitably tell you to eat more because of "starvation mode" -- there is no such thing. Ignore that if it comes up here.
Lastly, people really mean well on here, but you have to be careful whom you listen to. Seriously -- do not take advice from people who have been on here for years and have not ever lost weight or kept it off. Some people are on here for years bc they maintain and continue to log. Some just talk a good game. The latter sound like they know what to do -- and have 1000s of posts but no results. I am not referring to anyone who has already responded to you. This is just something I have noticed a lot lately -- people try to be helpful and say what is popular advice-wise, but popular or "truisms" do not necessarily work, even when they sound like "science."
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What is your starting weight and what is your goal weight?
How much weight have you gained?
How long have you been doing this?
Please open your diary so we can take a look.3 -
I hear you. It's so frustrating when you know you are doing what you are supposed to do and the scale doesn't move or even goes up! Darn body!! I take a deep breath (after yelling at the scale "are you KIDDING me!") when I get a disappointing weigh-in and tell myself: Persistence and patience. Hopefully clothes are looser and you can focus on that. Hope you break through your plateau soon!3
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can you open your diary please?2
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Try eating 1200 calories minimum and no extra walking per day and see the weight drop off, this is why I stopped walking so much1
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niketasebakeng wrote: »If it's on the scale could it be muscle gain?
on 1100 calories, walking and not lifting?? lol, no.14 -
I don't do keto, but have been in facebook groups where a lot of people are doing it and I noticed many drink bulletproof coffees that they think are so great for them (but are hundreds of extra calories)....are you counting EVERYTHING...?? while the keto people say that calories don't matter on keto - they do for weight loss.9
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First thank you for the reponses. I'll try to address the questions asked, sorry if I miss any. I'll look into opening my diary, not sure how and I'm at work. I DO weigh and measure everything except the sugar free gum I chew. I'm 5'1 and weighed 181 this morning. I weigh myself everyday and only log it once a week on the same say wearing the same outfit. Most of my walking is done at work. Every time I get bloodwork they say I'm perfectly healthy, my dr said 1200 was still to much which is why I try to stay under. My starting weight was 198 but I did a strict 2 week carb and dairy free diet before I started tracking my food. I've been tracking for approximately a month and half losing about 2 pounds a week until 2 weeks ago. I agree with my calorie intake I should be losing that's why I came here. Thank you again for the responses.4
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First thank you for the reponses. I'll try to address the questions asked, sorry if I miss any. I'll look into opening my diary, not sure how and I'm at work. I DO weigh and measure everything except the sugar free gum I chew. I'm 5'1 and weighed 181 this morning. I weigh myself everyday and only log it once a week on the same say wearing the same outfit. Most of my walking is done at work. Every time I get bloodwork they say I'm perfectly healthy, my dr said 1200 was still to much which is why I try to stay under. My starting weight was 198 but I did a strict 2 week carb and dairy free diet before I started tracking my food. I've been tracking for approximately a month and half losing about 2 pounds a week until 2 weeks ago. I agree with my calorie intake I should be losing that's why I came here. Thank you again for the responses.
Weight loss isn't linear. If you were losing two pounds per week and haven't lost weight for only two weeks, you need to give it more time.10 -
There is no way your doctor wants you to eat under 1200 calories. Doctors are bad at nutrition, but not that bad.
It's not possible to be a healthy, overweight person eating 1200 calories, walking 10,000 steps/day, and not lose weight. If you've lost 8 lb in 6 weeks, give it some more time. And consider not torturing yourself - you can easily lose weight eating more. I'm eating 1300-1600/day, walking less, weigh less to start, and am losing at a fairly predictable rate. It's expected to have some weeks without loss, though, as the human body fluctuates.6 -
doctors get approximately 4hours of nutrition training during their medical training (4 years)....if you want professional advice, I would find a Registered Dietician to work with8
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Are you weighing/measuring everything? Be sure to do that and don't guess at how much you are eating.
I eat 1200 per day and losing slowly but I'm losing. I don't always get my steps in each day but I try to do every other day.0 -
First thank you for the reponses. I'll try to address the questions asked, sorry if I miss any. I'll look into opening my diary, not sure how and I'm at work. I DO weigh and measure everything except the sugar free gum I chew. I'm 5'1 and weighed 181 this morning. I weigh myself everyday and only log it once a week on the same say wearing the same outfit. Most of my walking is done at work. Every time I get bloodwork they say I'm perfectly healthy, my dr said 1200 was still to much which is why I try to stay under. My starting weight was 198 but I did a strict 2 week carb and dairy free diet before I started tracking my food. I've been tracking for approximately a month and half losing about 2 pounds a week until 2 weeks ago. I agree with my calorie intake I should be losing that's why I came here. Thank you again for the responses.
If your doctor told you that 1200 calories a day was too much for you, run away, run far away, run far away fast from that doctor and consult a new one. Your BMR at your age/gender/height is over 1300 calories, that's just the number of calories your body needs to survive in a coma. Your TDEE having an active job would be over 1800 calories a day (that's including a lot of walking/being on your feet) to maintain your current weight. That's not even adding in any exercise except the 10k steps you mentioned a day. If you subtracted 500 a day from that you'd be at or slightly above 1300 calories a day, and that's still likely too aggressive since you're hitting 10k a day in steps. Just my opinion based on online calculators. I'm no expert but I'd say you're pretty much starving yourself and it may be causing a ton of water retention and/or waste retention. Start tracking sodium instead of sugar by default in the MFP app, look for things you're missing on your logs (like the oil the food you're eating is prepared in, condiments, etc), and make sure you're using the right entries (cooked vs raw, usda vs community contributed entries). Something is not right, you either simply need to eat more or you may have an unknown medical issue.
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It's weird that your doc said to eat less. On keto it's important to stay low on carbs but some people don't know that fat/protein ratio has to be right too. You want to be at 65% fat 25-30% protein 5-10% carbs. You also have to have a certain amount of potassium and magnesium(which is why I eat lots of spinach). And if you don't do refeeds fish should be in your diet as well. Also 1200 should be your net calories. Find out how many extra calories your burning walking. Because if it's 500 for example then your only getting 700 calories in. If that's the case your body is desperately trying to hold on to reserves. If your suppose to eat 1200 and your burning 500 your total calories should be 1700. That said calories burned tend to be inaccurate so I always go somewhere in the middle. So if it is 500 your burning I would eat 250 over the 1200 minimum. I know it seems nuts but it works. There are days when I go nuts in the gym and get 800-1000 calories burned and I'll eat over 3000 calories and still lose weight.2
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First thank you for the reponses. I'll try to address the questions asked, sorry if I miss any. I'll look into opening my diary, not sure how and I'm at work. I DO weigh and measure everything except the sugar free gum I chew. I'm 5'1 and weighed 181 this morning. I weigh myself everyday and only log it once a week on the same say wearing the same outfit. Most of my walking is done at work. Every time I get bloodwork they say I'm perfectly healthy, my dr said 1200 was still to much which is why I try to stay under. My starting weight was 198 but I did a strict 2 week carb and dairy free diet before I started tracking my food. I've been tracking for approximately a month and half losing about 2 pounds a week until 2 weeks ago. I agree with my calorie intake I should be losing that's why I came here. Thank you again for the responses.
I agree it is very suspicious for a doctor to be telling a healthy person to eat fewer than 1200 calories a day.
2 weeks is not considered a real stall, sometimes the scale just does not cooperate despite progress being made. As already mentioned, weight loss is not always linear, and sometimes you just have weeks where you don't see the loss on the scale, you will probably see a larger than normal drop at a later in time. There are all sorts of things that contribute to water retention that can mask results temporarily (I suspect you are female, any chance you had your period in the time you havn't seen loss?)
It sounds like you have been losing 2lbs/week up until the past 2 weeks, just keep doing what you are doing and I have a feeling you will see a big drop soon. However; I do think upping to at least 1200 calories a day is a good idea.
~best wishes
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OP -- My suggestion: look for threads / groups with women who are 5'2" and less. What you are saying is common, and what you are doing is perfectly fine.
Some of the responses you are getting about calorie counts will not help you given your situation. If you keep doing what you are doing, you will lose. And, again, seek out advice / ideas from shorter women. Other people really do not get it.
Also, as someone else said: weight loss does not always consistently, predictably go down. It is not uncommon for stalls.
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youdoyou2016 wrote: »OP -- My suggestion: look for threads / groups with women who are 5'2" and less. What you are saying is common, and what you are doing is perfectly fine.
Some of the responses you are getting about calorie counts will not help you given your situation. If you keep doing what you are doing, you will lose. And, again, seek out advice / ideas from shorter women. Other people really do not get it.
Also, as someone else said: weight loss does not always consistently, predictably go down. It is not uncommon for stalls.
She isn't short enough for 1100 calories to be an appropriate goal, especially with an active lifestyle11 -
youdoyou2016 wrote: »OP -- My suggestion: look for threads / groups with women who are 5'2" and less. What you are saying is common, and what you are doing is perfectly fine.
Some of the responses you are getting about calorie counts will not help you given your situation. If you keep doing what you are doing, you will lose. And, again, seek out advice / ideas from shorter women. Other people really do not get it.
Also, as someone else said: weight loss does not always consistently, predictably go down. It is not uncommon for stalls.
She isn't short enough for 1100 calories to be an appropriate goal, especially with an active lifestyle
I love irony.
I'm the same height as you, started at a higher weight, similar activity level (lost 100+ over a year, about 10 more to go.) The main thing, in my opinion, is to keep at it because it's not unusual to have a stall for a couple of weeks or even have the scale go up. You need more data. Once you have more information and time, you can adjust from there. And, again (!), people on here talk like they have knowledge when, in fact, they are opinions. Inevitably you'll find someone 4'11" telling you she eats 1700 calories and loses weight. Maybe -- but, really, only you know how your body works, and you just need more time and information to make decisions. Do a search for 5'2" and under folks -- you'll learn a lot. It's very helpful to see a variety of approaches and hear others' experiences.
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youdoyou2016 wrote: »youdoyou2016 wrote: »OP -- My suggestion: look for threads / groups with women who are 5'2" and less. What you are saying is common, and what you are doing is perfectly fine.
Some of the responses you are getting about calorie counts will not help you given your situation. If you keep doing what you are doing, you will lose. And, again, seek out advice / ideas from shorter women. Other people really do not get it.
Also, as someone else said: weight loss does not always consistently, predictably go down. It is not uncommon for stalls.
She isn't short enough for 1100 calories to be an appropriate goal, especially with an active lifestyle
I love irony.
I'm the same height as you, started at a higher weight, similar activity level (lost 100+ over a year, about 10 more to go.) The main thing, in my opinion, is to keep at it because it's not unusual to have a stall for a couple of weeks or even have the scale go up. You need more data. Once you have more information and time, you can adjust from there. And, again (!), people on here talk like they have knowledge when, in fact, they are opinions. Inevitably you'll find someone 4'11" telling you she eats 1700 calories and loses weight. Maybe -- but, really, only you know how your body works, and you just need more time and information to make decisions. Do a search for 5'2" and under folks -- you'll learn a lot. It's very helpful to see a variety of approaches and hear others' experiences.
well considering she is losing about 2lbs/week currently, math says if she were eating 1600 calories a day she would still be losing 1lb/week, which is still an impressive loss rate.....so.....that seems based in knowledge to me7 -
youdoyou2016 wrote: »youdoyou2016 wrote: »OP -- My suggestion: look for threads / groups with women who are 5'2" and less. What you are saying is common, and what you are doing is perfectly fine.
Some of the responses you are getting about calorie counts will not help you given your situation. If you keep doing what you are doing, you will lose. And, again, seek out advice / ideas from shorter women. Other people really do not get it.
Also, as someone else said: weight loss does not always consistently, predictably go down. It is not uncommon for stalls.
She isn't short enough for 1100 calories to be an appropriate goal, especially with an active lifestyle
I love irony.
I'm the same height as you, started at a higher weight, similar activity level (lost 100+ over a year, about 10 more to go.) The main thing, in my opinion, is to keep at it because it's not unusual to have a stall for a couple of weeks or even have the scale go up. You need more data. Once you have more information and time, you can adjust from there. And, again (!), people on here talk like they have knowledge when, in fact, they are opinions. Inevitably you'll find someone 4'11" telling you she eats 1700 calories and loses weight. Maybe -- but, really, only you know how your body works, and you just need more time and information to make decisions. Do a search for 5'2" and under folks -- you'll learn a lot. It's very helpful to see a variety of approaches and hear others' experiences.
Yes, stalls are common, but it's unlikely the OP is getting adequate nutrition on 1100 calories, which is why the 1200 calorie minimum exists. I also get 10,000 steps a day at an active job (though I'm taller) and I've found I can't eat less than 1500 calories net or I start overeating. I also know several shorter women on here who ate much more than 1200 calories and lost.0 -
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If you started 2 weeks ago, give it more time..weight normally fluctuates several pounds due to water weight.
(and see obligatory chart posted by poster above).1 -
4'10" here. Losing pretty consistently on 1240 net (and I often go over - since I'm close to my goal and strength training I mostly just care that I stay under maintenance which is estimated at 1490).
It takes about a 2-week-average-buffered weight to smooth out the fluctuations in my weight.
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Hi I am 161cm some people say 5'3 or 5'4 not really sure and I use metric, and 77.3kg (170.5lbs). I noticed that I only lost if I logged everything on a regular basis on days I have time to do that, to figure out how many calories are in the most common items I ate and I focused on nutrition not exercise and I have been steadily losing weight about .5lbs per week. I tend to eat meals with the family and focus on at least half my plate at lunch or dinner being some variety of dark greens, and with a smaller portion of protein, and carbs (pasta/potatoes/bread/carrots) so long as I am taking in a net amount of calories of 1350 I tend to lose. To low and I am hungry all the time, and miserable, and if I exercise in the day or morning I get ridiculously hungry throughout the day and angry. Your body isn't a calculator that will automatically just do as you ask and continue to drop at the same rate all the time. You will stop losing for a bit but keep at it there are a number of reasons why that scale hasn't changed. You might be gaining muscle and losing fat (great), you may fluctuate because of your monthly cycle, you may have inflammation from muscle tears, you may not have gone to the bathroom etc. Best method to track loss is by measuring fixed points on your body and compare those numbers, at the waist, 10 cm below the knee, and 10 cm above the knee. Something you can reproduce. And compare once a month and you will see changes. Or wear an outfit that is snug right now and take a picture. Repeat under similar conditions in a month, then compare. Weigh yourself however much or little that as you want just make sure you don't get stuck on the numbers. With the doctor thing just make sure that you go for a physical and check for blood sugar, and thyroid levels which they do every year for your physical, other then that so long as you have a good relationship with your physician you can always ask them to explain more about why they are recommending such a low calorie intake or they can direct you to a dietitian. Talk to them first, make sure that you trust them, then if you still feel unsure you can always seek out a second opinion.1
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