Best ideas to loose weight while eating more cals!

BHKLEIN

Here's my story:
8 years ago I was 20 years old, in college: 5ft 4in and 117 lbs. I exercised many hours a day: cardio, strength training, stretching, etc. I did it all. I was in great shape and ate really well. Then I met my now futrure hubby. Very thin and tall. Looks great, doesn't eat the most healthest foods all the time and doesn't exercise a lot but his metabolism is insanely high. Meeting him took a huge chunk of my time away. Then I got out of college, started working a full time job and gained weight very slowly. Over the next 4 years I gained a lot of weight and was up to 167ish. I finally saw a pic of myself and I was like... oh my is that really me. I never realized how much weight I had gained. 3 yrs ago I started working out again. Lost about 22 lbs and then got pregnant. I gained a lot of weight from that.... not that I wasn't eatting well, I just didn't exercise mainly due to extreme back pain the pregnancy was causing me. After I had my daughter, the nurses weighted me and I was 190 lbs. UGH!!! Well, it's not easy trying to find time to exercise with a new baby and a full time job. Over the last 2 years I lost about 23 lbs slowly and then my daughter turned 2 years old this summer. I decided it was my time now to get healthy again. My daughter is old enough to be more independ and I don't feel so guilty leaving her with my hubby. Even though he never complained about me having my time to exercise, everyone else in his family would give me crap about leaving him alone to do this for myself. They made me feel selfish and I soon felt like a selfish person for spending time not at home to get back in shape. After 2 years of that B.S. I now don't give a rats butt what they think, I deserve to get in shape. About 3 months ago I became very serious about my health and weight loss. I lowered my cals, track everything I ate and drank. I have a desk job so periodically through my work day I do planks, side planks, bidges, back extenstions, some neck and shoulder exercises to help relax and strengthen those area, etc... basically anything I can do either at my desk or near my desk. I do these several times a day. I walk 35 mins at lunch time then I go home after work, eat a small supper and head outside. I walk every night with the stoller for 60-90 mins and then play with my daughter and 2 dogs for god knows how long. I'm feeling pretty good and now I'm down to 136. I'm hoping to get to about 125-126. I've been reading a lot of posts lately about cals. I usually eat around 1200 cals a day. I never feel hungry or tired. But I also don't want to loose muscle. However, I am VERY concerned that if I up my cals I'll gain weight back which is big fat NO WAY. I don't have a lot of time to squeeze in more exercise in my day without cutting into educational time with my daughter. I will however be doing more strength training in the near future with some weight lifting, free weights, etc... to help tone up but at this very moment I really want to drop more weight before I add more back on from building muscle. I have a really bad lower back, buldged discs. The planks, extentions, bridge, etc that I do at work have really helped strength my core and lower my back pain. However, I have to be carefully what exercises I do to not re-injure my back. There's a lot of bad posts about people who only eat 1200 cals a day and I don't want to be one of those people, but I really don't ever feel hungry or tired and with the exercises I do currently it's taking off the weight and adding toning all around. I eat regular meals and several snacks a day. I just eat less at my main meals and it usually comes out to about 1200 cals, sometimes 1400. I guess I'm looking for some more professional advise. I've been considering getting a trainer at the gym. I have no problem with hard training and I want to look awesome again. So: thoughts people???

diannethegeek

Holy wall of text, Batman! I skipped to the end, so I hope I didn't miss anything important.

Start here: http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/ Figure out your BMR and TDEE. Your TDEE is roughly the number of calories you need to maintain your current weight. Anything less and you should lose. Your BMR is roughly the number of calories your body needs to keep all of your organs functioning. A lot of people recommend not eating less than that unless you're severely overweight.

If you're looking for more healthy, calorie-dense foods, try nuts, nut butters, full fat dairy, Greek yogurt, cheese, olive oil, coconut oil, avocado, protein shakes & smoothies, etc. It's really easy to boost each meal by a few hundred calories without adding much food.

When you increase your calories you are always going to gain a certain amount of water weight as your body replenishes it's glycogen stores. If it's going to freak you out, try upping your calories slowly. Add 100 calories or so a week until you get to a more sustainable level and adjust as needed.

BHKLEIN

Forgot to mention that my TDEE -20% comes out to 1370 if I don't do much exercise and about 1500 with exercise and my BMR is 1414 so really I'm eatting at least 1200-1400 cals a day. Not too far off!!!

diannethegeek

Forgot to mention that my TDEE -20% comes out to 1370 if I don't do much exercise and about 1500 with exercise and my BMR is 1414 so really I'm eatting at least 1200-1400 cals a day. Not too far off!!!

It's funny, when I dropped my calories down to 1200-1400 a day my weight loss stalled out for over two months. Increasing to 1500 and then again to 1600 got me losing again. Sometimes just a few hundred make a big difference, in my experience.

Alta2000

You can do short exercise videos to tone your core/body at home or work from fitnessblender.com You can also do free weights with water/soda bottles to start It is not necessary to do heavy lifting. Everything depends on what you want to achieve.