Need some advice coming from very low calorie plateau

FaithfulJewel

My Mum has started recording her food/calories on here after doing another diet for a long while, where she has stopped losing weight.

Although not a brilliant measure of the weekly average, Wednesday she had 784 calories and yesterday was 973. I'm guessing this is about the same, if not more, than she was eating before.

We worked out her BMR is around 1500, her TDEE about 1800, and there's no real goal weight in mind, just around 1lb a week, so I suggested about 1500-1600 calories a day, and eating back exercise calories.

So what does she need to do? Does she need to eat at her TDEE for a while, then hop down to the 15% cut I recommended to her? Or can she just get along with aiming for 1550 or so, which still puts her in a deficit?

Thanks very much for any help.

SezxyStef

weight solids on a food scale...measure liquids.

I suspect there is some underreporting of intake going on.

MFP will give her the number she needs to eat but she has to report it accurately for it to work.

3dogsrunning

My Mum has started recording her food/calories on here after doing another diet for a long while, where she has stopped losing weight.

Although not a brilliant measure of the weekly average, Wednesday she had 784 calories and yesterday was 973. I'm guessing this is about the same, if not more, than she was eating before.

We worked out her BMR is around 1500, her TDEE about 1800, and there's no real goal weight in mind, just around 1lb a week, so I suggested about 1500-1600 calories a day, and eating back exercise calories.

So what does she need to do? Does she need to eat at her TDEE for a while, then hop down to the 15% cut I recommended to her? Or can she just get along with aiming for 1550 or so, which still puts her in a deficit?

Thanks very much for any help.

If you figured out her TDEE, she should not eat back exercise calories. TDEE it total daily energy expenditure - exercise is included in that.
I suspect you figured her TDEE at sedentary, which would be NEAT, not TDEE if she is exercising (basically the same idea as MFP). If that is what you did, she should eat back her calories.

I agree with above post - weigh, measure and log everything.

FaithfulJewel

Thanks, but she measures things accurately already as she's used to doing that from the previous diet (and she uses the entries without asterisks for "standard" foods, unless she has the nutritional packaging in front of her for things like UHT milk which she can double check).

Wednesday breakfast: 30g of Cornflakes, 100ml of Skimmed Milk, 0.5 grapefruit (admittedly not weighed), and 100g of cantaloupe.

Same for lunch. 3 loads of salad veggies, weighed, and a crispbread at 33kcal. Dinner was a recipe she put in, using the recipe itself, on the builder and split into the correct portions (the recipe builder is great, we both agree) plus a slice of branded wholemeal bread.

FaithfulJewel

Ah, my apologies; I go on Sedentary TDEE then add back exercise calories. Didn't realise it had a different name - thank you!

FaithfulJewel

Short of interrogating her or following her around, I'm over 90% sure she's logging correctly. She's even upped her salad vegetable amounts to hit 100g each so it's simple to log.

I've encouraged her to switch to semi skimmed milk, cook with a bit of oil etc.

But that's not really the question. Should she go to maintenance then down, or just up to the deficit I suggested? And if the former, how long should she eat at maintenance for?

Thanks again

Onechk

When I hit a plateau I'll have a refeed or "cheat" day and over-eat for a day or two, making sure I'm consuming more than normal carbs. Otherwise you're gonna keep cutting calories until you're eventually starving yourself. With myself anyways, having a cheat day amps up my metabolism again so I'm not continuously cutting needed calories. When I refeed I go at or above my maintainence level. Few days after I see weight loss again

FaithfulJewel

Thank you, Onechk. I'll try to see if I can convince her to get up to about 2000kcal over the next few days then down to 1550.