Increased cals from 1200 to 1500 and have gained significantly every day since

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  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,615 Member
    purple4sure05 wrote: »
    Machka9 wrote: »
    There are a lot of numbers between 1200 and 1500. Pick one of them.

    I'm 5 ft 6 and exercise heavily for an hour and a half 6 days a week. I'm transitioning into maintenance. According to my weight loss trends, online estimates, and common sense I shouldn't have to reduce my calories below 1500 to maintain.

    I'm 5 ft 6 and exercise a lot. I opted to transition into maintenance more gradually. I went from 1250 calories a day (plus half my exercise calories, of course) to 1350 calories a day (plus half exercise calories). Then I went to 1425 calories (plus about 3/4 exercise calories). Finally several months later I reached 1500 calories.

    You don't have to go with 1200 calories OR 1500 calories. There are a lot of other numbers in between you can choose.
  • purple4sure05
    purple4sure05 Posts: 287 Member
    Still hovering around 60 kg for 7 days now. On the other hand my boyfriend who's also increased his calories and eaten way more carbs than I have had managed to drop 2kg overnight.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    BTW - does your chicken stock really have no sodium?
    That's seems a little surprising so might be worth checking.
  • purple4sure05
    purple4sure05 Posts: 287 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    BTW - does your chicken stock really have no sodium?
    That's seems a little surprising so might be worth checking.

    No it doesn't! Haha. It's really hard to find accurate entries in New Zealand. I always just compare the calories to the packaging for stuff like chicken broth or sauerkraut that I'm using that are low calorie. The main food items I eat I'm much more careful with. In the past I didnt really care about sodium but now since it could be effecting things more, its probably worth manually entering everything in if the entry in the database is incomplete
  • bluesheeponahill
    bluesheeponahill Posts: 169 Member
    you can get very low sodium chicken stock, the lowest I've found is 95mg per 100grams in Australia. I'm big on not purchasing items that have added salt in. we have a lot of brands with 'no added salt' and comparing it with the oringal, its shocking how much salt is added. i would think chicken stock does have salt, but its not on the packaging.
  • purple4sure05
    purple4sure05 Posts: 287 Member
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    Okay, I'm back after 4 ish weeks! I need help analyzing these trends if someone can help me.. I get that it shows the trend going down three pounds but if you look at the numbers, I basically have bounced up and down from roughly the same low number to slightly less-high upper numbers. The first one was so high partly due to water retention in sore muscles. My low number has gone down by just over one pound. My weight always came in significantly below the trend line when I ate 1200 calories and now it's all over the place.

    I should be losing a pound a week (based on three months of data before this). I was going to start upping my calories again may 1st but now I feel like I have no idea how to figure out my maintenance calories. This was supposed to help me, but I'm just confused. These trend lines dont make a lot of sense to me considering when I was losing faster for months, it was always so far below the trend.

    Can anyone help me make sense of this? I've been weighing everything I eat as I always have.
  • purple4sure05
    purple4sure05 Posts: 287 Member
    edited April 2019
    apullum wrote: »
    Weight fluctuation of a few pounds from day to day is normal. Fluctuations that encompass increasingly "less high upper numbers" are what normal weight loss looks like. Your Libra graph looks like weight loss at a pace that is generally reasonable given your stats.

    You are within the optimal BMI range for your height. Therefore, you should not be expecting or attempting to lose more than 0.5 lb/week, and that pace of loss may not be consistent. Additionally, 0.5 lb/week may even be faster than your stats can support. When people have very little to lose, it's common for them to only see the number on the scale go down by a pound or two every 4-6 weeks. A pound per week is not a realistic expectation given your stats.

    You also need to become comfortable with normal weight fluctuations as you approach maintenance. Maintenance is not one number. Maintenance is a weight range, usually about 5 pounds, and your weight will fluctuate within it from day to day.

    When you get to maintenance, you'll likely figure out your maintenance calorie goal by gradually adding calories, giving it *about a month* to see whether your weight has stabilized, and adjusting from there. Worrying about day to day fluctuations does not work well for maintenance. You are looking for long term trends rather than each day's number on the scale.

    I'm not currently worrying about the fluctuations, but my question was that I increased to a deficit that should make me lose a pound a week, but I've only really lost 1.5 over 4 weeks. I'm posting again to ask how I'm supposed to figure out my maintenance calories. When I ate 1200 calories i lost 2 pounds a week and then 1.5 or so at the end, so my maintenance calories should be almost 2000. I'm eating 1500 a day now and losing less than a half pound per week so now I'm confused because it significantly stalled my weight loss. I'm just asking for some help figuring out where to go from here. I dont necessarily want to lose weight, I'm just trying to slowly shift into maintenance by increasing calories month to month until I get there.
  • benevempress
    benevempress Posts: 136 Member
    Since you are still losing and want to find your maintenance calories, and because the math isn't working out for you at this point, I suggest increasing 100 calories per day for a week or two (1600 calories for two weeks, 1700 calories for the next two weeks, etc) and if the trend is still down ... repeat. Eventually you should have a flatter trend line and you will have found your maintenance calorie level.
  • zeejane4
    zeejane4 Posts: 230 Member
    edited May 2019
    purple4sure05 wrote: »
    Hey guys, really stressed at the moment and not sure what to do. I've been eating 1200 calories gross for 3 months. I work out for over an hour 6 days a week running two and a half miles, walking quickly at an incline, and strength training. I'm 5'6 and around 131 pounds.

    I decided I needed to increase my calories and start slowing down my weight loss as I transition to maintenance, so I went up to 1500 after a "cheat" meal which was all logged and left me around 1500 cals net. So nothing too crazy.

    The day after my cheat meal I was 59.3 kg (1 kg is 2.2 pounds)
    The next day 59.7
    Then 59.8
    Then 59.8
    Then 60
    Now today I'm in at 60.4?!

    I need to add that my weight never fluctuates like this. I've seen it go up a maximum of .2 kg ever.

    Yes I weigh every single thing I eat on a scale. Including oil. My diet has stayed almost identical with an addition of a couple wafer cookies and popcorn or a small portion of spring rolls.

    This is 1500 gross as well which means 1200 net at the most with exercise cals.

    What am I doing wrong :( I want to just go back to 1200 before I ruin all my hard work. I was losing 1.5 to 2.2 pounds a week before and now I've gained every day for almost a week.

    It took me about 6 months to transition into maintenance and during that time my weight jumped all over the place, before finally settling down (I also lost another pants size during that time, as my body shape continued to change!). Seeing fluctuations right now is completely normal, also remember that you'll have a maintenance range and not a set number. This range takes into account all of the normal daily fluctuations that happen. Most chose a 3lb-5lb range :)

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