Adequate calories?

lucyanne15

Hi! If you have a second I would love some guidance please. How do I eat enough so that I'm still losing weight? I'm not restricting too much, 1500 calories a day, and I exercise most days about 30 minutes. But I am plateauing. Do I need to increase my exercise? I'm trying to fully understand how eating more calories actually helps with weight loss. Starvation mode is a myth, right? Thank you for your time!

Redordeadhead

What does plateau mean to you? How long since the scale moved? If it's less than a few weeks, it's not a plateau and you need to give it more time.

First things first, it's not that eating more calories directly makes you lose weight. If you're thinking about "starvation mode" in the sense that eating 1200 calories makes your body hold onto weight, it doesn't work like that.

Weight loss is about math: burning fewer calories than you consume over a period of time means you create a calorie deficit and you will lose weight. Eating more just makes that deficit smaller, or eliminates it, which would slow/stop weight loss.

Now, that being said, if you eat too little, in addition to the negative health consequences, you may move less in your day to day life as you have less energy, meaning you burn fewer calories. You also stress the body, which can lead to water retention.

You should therefore aim for an appropriate calorie deficit. Plug your stats into MFP, select a reasonable weight loss goal (probably not the maximum of 2lb per week unless you are very obese) and eat the number of calories it tells you plus at least some of your exercise calories. Monitor over 4-6 weeks to see your weight loss trend.

springlering62

Hi, @lucyanne15 Welcome to MFP.

I’m going to go out on a limb here. By any chance are you a fairly newish user? Did you just start - or beef up- your exercise program?

Exercise can cause muscle soreness. Duh! We all knew that a couple of enthusiastic days in to MFP, amIright?

Your body is an amazing thing. Recognizing soreness, pain, injury, it will direct water to the sore spot in an effort to promote healing. This means your body retains water during periods of soreness, and then flushes it out when no longer needed.

The sorer you are, the more water- a LOT of water- you can potentially retain.

For example, I spent forty minutes doing weighted squats in the Smith machine yesterday, out of boredom, but mostly to see what I could get it up to. This morning I bundled into a yoga class, assumed chair pose, and whoom!!!! It hit me right in the quads. I’ve been feeling it ever since.

I seldom get DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness. Or something like that. ). But let me tell you, I can pretty well figure out where the four pounds I gained overnight came from.

Thank you, wise body.

If you’ve been humping it, squatting it, pushing it, bending it, or otherwise moving it extra enthusiastically in a new program, this might be the source of your “plateau”.

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