Gaining weight on 1500 cal/day

trk011235813

Hi everyone. I'm a male around 50 years old with very low metabolism. The first 2 weeks of OMAD went well and I lost about 15 lbs but then I hit a plateau for 2 weeks stuck at 252 lbs where my calorie intake generally stayed between 1500 to 2000 cal/day.

Now I'm back to 1500 cal/day but I'm slowly gaining weight. This is very frustrating and I feel full everyday at 1500 cal. and this predicatment seems to come up whenever I try to lose weight. My metabolism goes down to such a point that I need to almost starve to lose weight.

So I'm hoping now to go everyday at 1000 cal but if I can't lose weight on 1000 cal/day I'm not sure what do. I will try to exercise to help the weight loss but I seem to be running out of options and this problem has come up before when attempting to lose weight but I wasn't tracking all my calories everyday. Now I am and I measure out every single thing and count calories carefully.

The principles of OMAD seem to make total sense but I don't think they work for those of us with a very low metabolism. I'm not sure what *does* work but I will try OMAD on 1000 cal/day going forward.

I've had medical tests for my thyroid and I'm not missing anything on my calorie counts per day. I don't eat junk food and try to avoid sugar and drink lots of water.

Any thoughts?

wsandy8512

First off, congratulations on the 15 pound loss. How long have you been gaining? Are you using a food scale and/or measuring every single thing or are you guesstimating? If this is the first week you've showed a gain, did you splurge on anything salty or eat something with a lot of salt that would have you retaining water?

Since you've lost so much in 2 weeks, you should probably redo your MFP calculator based on new weight. The less you weigh, the less calories you need. Your metabolism is not going to take a dive after only two weeks, not like that anyway.

Best to you!

jvcinv

Your body may need time to adapt, 15 lbs in two weeks is a huge amount of weight loss. I'd ride it out a bit more before making changes.
But if you do find that you are truly stalled and OMAD is easy for you, then I would not further reduce calories but spend more time in the fasted state. For example maybe add one water fast day per week. I'm not a believer that you can jump start weight loss by cutting calories without looking also at meal frequency. In my experience losing weight is about becoming good at switching over into fat burning mode (not eating), and then spending a sufficient length of time in fat burning mode. This is what works for me, I don't count calories. When I eat I eat until I feel good and satisfied. What I regulate is the amount of time I spend burning fat for fuel. Others I'm sure will disagree, but this is what I've found.

blambo61

A lot of that initial loss was water. You may be gaining some of it back. That would not be fat gain in that case. Watch how your clothes are fitting too. It is difficult to tell what fat gain / loss is happening when water gain / loss is happening at the same time. You just need to stay with it and plot your data and try to be accurate with the calories and give it some more time to see what happens. I wouldn't go that low in calories (not every day at least). I think it sets you up for failure. Some easy exercise like walking may help you. Stay with it, you will really not be able to determine what is happening for awhile. Good luck!

x3nomorph

if your not losing eat less food, simple

trk011235813

I want to thank everyone for the thoughtful advice. Going forward I'm going to try and cut down on my food intake by taking meals and basically cutting them in half.

After preparing a lunch with 1500 calories I couldn't even finish it today I was so full. It is what it is and I will give it more time and try to hit my protein macros every day.