Does anybody actually know...

meganjcallaghan

...how long it takes for extra calories to turn to legit weight? I just want to put a few pounds back on....like 5 - 8 so I'm set to add .5 a week. What I have in my diary isn't quite everything I have in the day. I'll often grab extra fruit/cereal/spoonful of peanut butter/handful of trail mix without bothering to log it because I'm trying to gain, so I don't care so much. I'd estimate I'm probably getting about an extra 500 - 600 calories a day beyond what's in my diary.....and yet, as much as I've been eating over the last week....nothin'.

3laine75

If you were hitting maintainence, you should have at least saw a 3-5 lb (glycogen stores) jump. Maybe you're not there yet?

I wouldn't be too hasty though, you know how our bodies like to F with us. Give it a couple of weeks and if you don't see a gain bump the calories up again. I would say though, it's well worth logging everything so you get a better idea of what's happening.

Wish I was in your position

*spelling

DopeItUp

Between a couple hours and never?

xcalygrl

If you were hitting maintainence, you should have at least saw a 3-5 lb (glycogen stores) jump. Maybe you're not there yet?

I wouldn't be too hasty though, you know how our bodies like to F with us. Give it a couple of weeks and if you don't see a gain bump the calories up again. I would say though, it's well worth logging everything so you get a better idea of what's happening.

Wish I was in your position

*spelling

Agree with the bolded. Keep doing what you're doing for a few weeks and reevaluate. If you're still not gaining or losing, then add another 100 or so calories to each day. MFP and your TDEE (per online calculators) are estimates, but not exact so it takes some adjusting to find your true numbers.

meganjcallaghan

haha...it's weird. i am burning SLIGHTLY more calories in a day because rather than just doing the usual retail type activity around the store i'm also doing 4-5 hours of painting. But it doesn't seem to matter if i adjust my calories to be "losing" "maintaining" or "gaining"....i'm staying within the same 2 pounds of fluctuation every day. I just don't want to be like "well...i guess i just needs to eat MOARRRRR" for 2 weeks and then hop on the scale one day and have gained 10 pounds seemingly overnight. lol

DopeItUp

Weight loss and gain is a funny thing. Increase your calories a little (which you've already done), wait a month. If no gain on the scale and/or in your measurements, add more calories. Rinse, repeat until desired goal has been achieved.

meganjcallaghan

If you were hitting maintainence, you should have at least saw a 3-5 lb (glycogen stores) jump.

This is what I had thought....which is really kind of the only reason I went as low as I have in the first place. I figured if I went 4 or 5 pounds under and then started eating maintenance, I should theoretically end up right where I want to be.

deansdad101

haha...it's weird. i am burning SLIGHTLY more calories in a day because rather than just doing the usual retail type activity around the store i'm also doing 4-5 hours of painting. But it doesn't seem to matter if i adjust my calories to be "losing" "maintaining" or "gaining"....i'm staying within the same 2 pounds of fluctuation every day. I just don't want to be like "well...i guess i just needs to eat MOARRRRR" for 2 weeks and then hop on the scale one day and have gained 10 pounds seemingly overnight. lol

Megan;
First, your "results" qualify you as an "expert" - CONGRATS!!!
Next, IGNORE the "day to day" - it's meaningless.
Finally, unless you are "actually" tracking every single cal, every day, you are compounding "guesstimates" by multiplying them by MORE "guesstimates" and your "numbers" become that much less meaningful.
Focus on pinning that Cals IN number down to what it REALLY is.
Whether painting 4 or 5 hours a day is "light" or "moderate" activity becomes irrelevant when you no longer have to "guess" that you are exceeding your daily input by 500 or 600 cals/day.

Track DAILY (cals & weight) but IGNORE the day to day fluctuations. Pick a number and STICK TO IT as close as possible and watch the TREND over a few weeks. If it's "up" (or "down") more than you want, adjust it by 250/day or so and then give it some time.

Eventually (assuming all else remains "relatively" unchanged) you'll know EXACTLY what YOUR TDEE is (0 gain/loss) and I'll pretty much "guarantee" it ISN'T what ANY of the online calculators tell you it SHOULD be.

wal807

Hey Megan

Why are you so much in a hurry to put some back on ? are you planning on starting a family . If you decide to eat this that and the other all this is going to go to all the stuburn area of your body what you need to do if this is the case is a more resistance workout of 7heavy weght of 7 /10 Reps . as you know muscle out weighs fat . Stay in shape.

asdowe13

Hey Megan

Why are you so much in a hurry to put some back on ? are you planning on starting a family . If you decide to eat this that and the other all this is going to go to all the stuburn area of your body what you need to do if this is the case is a more resistance workout of 7heavy weght of 7 /10 Reps . as you know muscle out weighs fat . Stay in shape.

How does muscle outweigh fat?? 1 pound of muscle = 1 pound of fat

meganjcallaghan

Hey Megan

Why are you so much in a hurry to put some back on ? are you planning on starting a family . If you decide to eat this that and the other all this is going to go to all the stuburn area of your body what you need to do if this is the case is a more resistance workout of 7heavy weght of 7 /10 Reps . as you know muscle out weighs fat . Stay in shape.

How does muscle outweigh fat?? 1 pound of muscle = 1 pound of fat

haha....what he said. perhaps you mean the same pound of fat fills more volume than the pound of muscle.

Regardless, I believe I've underestimated how much my excess skin weighs and how many pounds that is contributing to my overall weight. If you were to take that useless weight out of the picture, I'd be within a few pounds of underweight for my height and my body is definitely starting to act underweight....also with all the skin hanging off such boney bits I'm looking like a holocaust victim. No thank you! Lol.


Also, what you eat does not determine where on your body goes. Eating "this, that or the other thing" doesn't mean the food is going to go to a "stubborn" part of the body (what does that even mean?)

deansdad101

How does muscle outweigh fat?? 1 pound of muscle = 1 pound of fat

Come on Ard;
What the heck are you trying to do here - QUESTION the "myths" that "EVERYBODY KNOWS...?"

"Muscle weighs more than fat.."
"You'll die if you eat less than 1200 cals/day..."
"Starvation mode IS a real thing...."
"Fat is BAD and Carbs are GOOD..."
(it says so in the Bible and a bunch of other books too + I saw it on the internets, so...bonjoors!)

Geeze man who do you think you are to question the "experts"?

What's next....you gonna try and tell us that a pound of feathers weighs more than a solid block of steel???? (good luck with that one cause "everybody already knows" - it's "conventional wisdom" dontchano.(why the heck do you think they call it "wisdom"?)

I'll bet you probably don't even watch Dr (Wizard) Ooz.
(how do you ever expect to learn?)

AliceDark

haha...it's weird. i am burning SLIGHTLY more calories in a day because rather than just doing the usual retail type activity around the store i'm also doing 4-5 hours of painting. But it doesn't seem to matter if i adjust my calories to be "losing" "maintaining" or "gaining"....i'm staying within the same 2 pounds of fluctuation every day. I just don't want to be like "well...i guess i just needs to eat MOARRRRR" for 2 weeks and then hop on the scale one day and have gained 10 pounds seemingly overnight. lol

I had to go much higher than I thought to start gaining weight, and it took me way longer than I thought for gains to actually show up. I'd been around 1450 daily and upped to 1700...nothing...upped to 2000...nothing...finally had to get up to 2100 for any gains to appear (I'm 5'4" and started at 121, btw). So yeah, keep slowly upping your calories until things start to move.

I was scared of the exact same thing as you -- that 10 pounds would magically appear. In the end, it took me about 6 months to gain 9 pounds. If I'd known that, I wouldn't have been so cautious about upping calories in the beginning, because 6 months was a really long time to be in a gaining mindset!

Read this, if you haven't read it already...http://strengthunbound.com/bulking-complete-guide-for-beginners/

He talks about how to approach a bulk if you've been losing weight for a long time, and also talks about how bulking can help with skin issues some people see after large losses.

meganjcallaghan

haha...it's weird. i am burning SLIGHTLY more calories in a day because rather than just doing the usual retail type activity around the store i'm also doing 4-5 hours of painting. But it doesn't seem to matter if i adjust my calories to be "losing" "maintaining" or "gaining"....i'm staying within the same 2 pounds of fluctuation every day. I just don't want to be like "well...i guess i just needs to eat MOARRRRR" for 2 weeks and then hop on the scale one day and have gained 10 pounds seemingly overnight. lol

I had to go much higher than I thought to start gaining weight, and it took me way longer than I thought for gains to actually show up. I'd been around 1450 daily and upped to 1700...nothing...upped to 2000...nothing...finally had to get up to 2100 for any gains to appear (I'm 5'4" and started at 121, btw). So yeah, keep slowly upping your calories until things start to move.

I was scared of the exact same thing as you -- that 10 pounds would magically appear. In the end, it took me about 6 months to gain 9 pounds. If I'd known that, I wouldn't have been so cautious about upping calories in the beginning, because 6 months was a really long time to be in a gaining mindset!

Read this, if you haven't read it already...http://strengthunbound.com/bulking-complete-guide-for-beginners/

He talks about how to approach a bulk if you've been losing weight for a long time, and also talks about how bulking can help with skin issues some people see after large losses.

Ooooh. that's good. I mean, nothing short of surgery will REALLY take care of the skin in the amount that I have (on the right in my profile pic, I literally had to yank the bat wing drapery behind me and pin it with my arms so you can't see how it hangs like a curtain to my elbow). I might not seem that old, but compared to a 20 year old my skin has been around the block one too many times to rebound. I never had very much elasticity to begin with, actually, so it would probably have been a lost cause just based on genetics even then. Since I don't have many thousands of dollars kicking around my bank account though, I'll try anything I can.

__freckles__

How does muscle outweigh fat?? 1 pound of muscle = 1 pound of fat

Come on Ard;
What the heck are you trying to do here - QUESTION the "myths" that "EVERYBODY KNOWS...?"

"Muscle weighs more than fat.."
"You'll die if you eat less than 1200 cals/day..."
"Starvation mode IS a real thing...."
"Fat is BAD and Carbs are GOOD..."
(it says so in the Bible and a bunch of other books too + I saw it on the internets, so...bonjoors!)

Geeze man who do you think you are to question the "experts"?

What's next....you gonna try and tell us that a pound of feathers weighs more than a solid block of steel???? (good luck with that one cause "everybody already knows" - it's "conventional wisdom" dontchano.(why the heck do you think they call it "wisdom"?)

I'll bet you probably don't even watch Dr (Wizard) Ooz.
(how do you ever expect to learn?)

I can't even follow this post. So confused.

OP - listen to AliceDark and read the link she provided. Good luck! :flowerforyou: