Question for those who added calories and lost weight

graysmom2005

Hey ya'll. I have a question for the folks who weren't eating enough calories, started eating more, and then started losing weight again. How long did it take before the losing started to happen? Did you gain at first? How long did that go on for? How steadily have you lost since you upped your intake? I have been trying to feed my body a lot better the past couple of weeks, but I haven't seen any difference...in fact I'm still on the upper end of my weight bracket. Any insight, advice, HOPE would be great. Thank you!

chevy88grl

I accidentally went over my calories for a few days and within a few days I saw a loss. I upp'ed my calories for a couple weeks and lost 5lbs - within a few days of upping them all the time.

I haven't lost more than the 5lbs and I REFUSE to up my calories again. So, I now officially in maintenance mode.

teamsaris

I upped mine by 400 calories and I saw results right away Are you eating back your exercise calories as well? Plateaus are SO frustrating!!!!

bethvandenberg

I think it took a month or more. It's a wild little thing... Such a weird thing to have to eat more to lose. But it did start to happen again for me. My body seems to lose weight in phases lol

erzsebet_1560

I'm curious too..I upped my calories 2 weeks ago, lost 3 pounds..and now nothing..so frustrating!

Seajolly

I pretty much started losing as soon as I upped my intake. It took probably 3 days for me to really start noticing a difference on the scale. I have only been eating my current daily intake for about a week but I've already lost 2 pounds! I am aiming to eat at least 1350 cals a day and force myself to net 1200+ after working out. I just hope the weight keeps dropping off...

I was eating probably around 800-1100 cals a day before MFP. Occasionally I'd binge and eat 1000 cals in one sitting. It wasn't good but I never thought I could be gaining weight from not eating ENOUGH! I just thought something was wrong with me, like I had a disease or a terrible food allergy that was making me gain! But NO... I just wasn't getting enough calories and my body was holding onto everything I put in! :blushing:

cessnaholly

MFP changed my calories when i lost weight and I tried it at the lower calories. But I gained. When I reset my calories and started eating more I started losing a little bit in a week or two.

graysmom2005

Thanks for the quick responses! I get different numbers from different sources, but it looks like maybe what I was eating these two weeks may still not be enough...it's scary not knowing the number that will help lose/or could make you gain. I have a lot left to eat tonight. I did two spin classes and an abs class....I need to get crackin' on dinner. How many calories are you guys eating now? What made you start losing? Any particular number?

dougswife

I upped mine calories and almost immediatly gained 2 pounds, will know tomorrow how going back down did.

graysmom2005

I upped mine by 400 calories and I saw results right away Are you eating back your exercise calories as well? Plateaus are SO frustrating!!!!

I JUST started eating them back a couple of weeks ago...i started this coming off a major gain from multiple trips so the timing is a bit wonky. I was just trying to net 1200 but an awesome trainer/nutritionist on this site did some math for me and my basic should be over 1500. Oops. STILL not enough.

skinnylizzard

Sometimes it works for me when I hit a plateau. I usually lose 2-3 pounds. Then it stops again so I reduce it again and start losing again. I think it's just a way to shock your body to respond. It's good to switch it up a bit I think.

Panda_Jack

I hit my last plateau for a month, while eating back my exercise cals, I upped my intake by 200 cals and about 2 weeks later lbs started melting off again.

LisaMarieee

I started losing weight right when I raised my calorie intake. Didn't gain a thing. I was expecting to gain but I didn't at all. I lost more weight at a steady and quicker pace compared to when I had been eating less. :huh:

Seajolly

When I was first on MFP my calories were set to 1200, the minimum. But I wasn't eating my exercise calories back and sometimes I was going under my goal by a few hundred calories... I lost a few pounds but then it stopped. So I tried upping mine to 1460, and eating some or all of my exercise calories back but I didn't lose any weight doing that. So I tried 1310 calories and eating most of my exercise calories back and this is working for me so far!

ItsLessOfMe

I need help too. I eat 1200 cals no matter what. Thats how I started loosing again. When I was eating my exersice cals I wasnt loosing. I do spin, cardio machines,strength traning classes, pilates, xbike,zumba I go 5x a week about 1.5 hours a day. I need to figure out how much to eat. when ever I increase my cals I gain.

SO FRUSTRATING!!!! - I am getting to the end of my string...

hgellings

Good question! I have been wondering the same thing. I hit a plateau for the last month and have been trying the zig-zag technique so have been eating more cals that I'm use to so guess we'll see.

chevy88grl

Thanks for the quick responses! I get different numbers from different sources, but it looks like maybe what I was eating these two weeks may still not be enough...it's scary not knowing the number that will help lose/or could make you gain. I have a lot left to eat tonight. I did two spin classes and an abs class....I need to get crackin' on dinner. How many calories are you guys eating now? What made you start losing? Any particular number?

When I tell people how many calories I eat in a day (NET calories), they usually freak out and send me private messages telling me it's too much. lol.

I NET 2200-2500 a day. Depending on what I've done that day. If I don't do a whole lot - I aim for 2200, if I work but don't workout - I aim for 2300ish and if I work AND workout (like today) I will eat close to 2500. Crazy, I know!

LauraMarie37

When I was first on MFP my calories were set to 1200, the minimum. But I wasn't eating my exercise calories back and sometimes I was going under my goal by a few hundred calories... I lost a few pounds but then it stopped. So I tried upping mine to 1460, and eating some or all of my exercise calories back but I didn't lose any weight doing that. So I tried 1310 calories and eating most of my exercise calories back and this is working for me so far!

Your first post on this thread plus this one sound EXACTLY like me. Before MFP, eating 800-1200 and working out 2-6 hours per day...I was literally in tears at least once a week wondering why I was not losing weight. On MFP, starting to really make it to my goal calories every day and the weight dropping off immediately.

I've been on MFP three weeks (eating my exercise calorie back since day 1), and I've consistently been losing 1.5-2 pounds per week. I'm pretty happy with it since I started within about 10 pounds of my ideal weight (and that ideal weight is on the low end of "healthy" BMI due to my profession...if I was just a regular person, I'd be fine maintaining where I am).

I also have one cheat day per week, though (usually really just one cheat meal, but it depends).

LauraMarie37

Oh and to answer your question about how much per day - MFP has me set at 1450 net calories, so that usually means between 1800-2500 total calories depending on how much I train that day. I can't believe I'm eating that much - I literally would have laughed in your face if you told me this would be what worked 2 months ago!

graysmom2005

*sigh* It doesn't seem to be working. Hoped on the scale this morning and I'm up 2 1/2 pounds. I just finished TOM so that shouldn't be a factor. I worked out over 2 hours yesterday. I ate a lot, but I'm just trying to hit the numbers I was given. I'm so confused and Upset. I really thought this was what I was doing wrong. :-((((

teamsaris

What kinds of foods are you eating?

My daily goal is 1650 without exercise, on days when I exercise I eat around 2000-2200 calories depending on what I have done.

One of the things I found to be most detrimental to me was MFP's calculations of calories burned during exercise. I was burning WAY more than what MFP was allotting so in the beginning I was netting a very low calorie count. NOT GOOD. When I run (about 30 mins with a 5 min warm up and a 10 min cool down) I burn upwards of 650 calories...MFP only gave me like 400. When I got my heart rate monitor I was able to see what I am actually burning Maybe that might be something to look into?

I'm 5'9, 155 lbs...what do you have your settings at on MFP? How much are you looking to lose?

TrainingWithTonya

*sigh* It doesn't seem to be working. Hoped on the scale this morning and I'm up 2 1/2 pounds. I just finished TOM so that shouldn't be a factor. I worked out over 2 hours yesterday. I ate a lot, but I'm just trying to hit the numbers I was given. I'm so confused and Upset. I really thought this was what I was doing wrong. :-((((

You did not gain 2 1/2 pounds of fat in a day. In order to do that you would have had to eat about 8000 Extra calories.

When you workout, you actually cause microscopic damage to the body. Extra calories (in the form of protein mostly) are then used to repair that damage, so they are shuttled to the muscle. When you do long, strenuous cardio sessions, you also burn lots of glycogen in addition to fat. The body in trying to prepare for the next time you do that, will store more glycogen in the muscles you worked hard. Both of those processes either require extra water to store stuff in or produce extra water from the chemical reactions. The actual process of fat burning also produces extra water as a by-product. This is why I tell my clients to trust me and hide their scale for at least a month. And after it's worked I'll gladly accept the flowers and hugs of gratitude.

As for your question about how many calories people are consuming, I am between 2000-2300 on days I don't exercise and up to 3000 on days I do exercise and I don't count the fitness classes I teach or exercises I teach my clients as exercise, only my own personal workouts. I don't focus on the scale, but more on body fat %. Yes, because of the amount of exercise I do, I weigh more then the average woman my height. I'm 5'6" and 190 pounds. But I'm also 19% body fat and in a size 8. When you do a lot of exercise like we do, sometimes the scale isn't the best indicator of health or fitness. Relax. Fat loss happens when you don't stress about it.

graysmom2005

What kinds of foods are you eating?

My daily goal is 1650 without exercise, on days when I exercise I eat around 2000-2200 calories depending on what I have done.

One of the things I found to be most detrimental to me was MFP's calculations of calories burned during exercise. I was burning WAY more than what MFP was allotting so in the beginning I was netting a very low calorie count. NOT GOOD. When I run (about 30 mins with a 5 min warm up and a 10 min cool down) I burn upwards of 650 calories...MFP only gave me like 400. When I got my heart rate monitor I was able to see what I am actually burning Maybe that might be something to look into?

I'm 5'9, 155 lbs...what do you have your settings at on MFP? How much are you looking to lose?

Hi! I have a Polar HRM that I wear for every class I take, so it's pretty spot on. I don't count any after burn, which can be another 100-200 calories in the next hour. We work HARD in my classes. :-)

I'm 5 ft 6. I would love to be around 135-140, but I'll take 145 at this point. I've been stuck between 150-155 for over a YEAR. That's with teaching 9 classes a week. *sigh* One of the trainers/nutritionists on this site took the time to do my numbers and came up with 1542 calories a day. I then have to add my workout calories and eat at least 80% of that. That's a LOT of food..and eating more isn't working..but I'll keep trying. I have been eating much better foods. My salads are now full of avocado, sunflower seeds, lean meat, veggies. I eat almonds, apples with peanut butter, Adkins protein bars to throw in my gym bag, nectarines etc. Mornings vary. Always greek yogurt, coffee, and something else...cereal, oatmeal, turkey sausage griddler, crumpets with peanut butter. I'm trying to keep it as real as possible....but with no results. Very frustrating. I got down to 148 for the first time in forever a couple of months ago, but I was eating very little and working out a ton. I never went past that number. I was just hoping THIS WAS IT, and it was start coming off again. :sad: Over a year is a LONG time to sit in a plateau. Thyroid etc is fine. Drinking lots of water...almost feel like this makes the "weight" worse.

graysmom2005

*sigh* It doesn't seem to be working. Hoped on the scale this morning and I'm up 2 1/2 pounds. I just finished TOM so that shouldn't be a factor. I worked out over 2 hours yesterday. I ate a lot, but I'm just trying to hit the numbers I was given. I'm so confused and Upset. I really thought this was what I was doing wrong. :-((((

You did not gain 2 1/2 pounds of fat in a day. In order to do that you would have had to eat about 8000 Extra calories.

When you workout, you actually cause microscopic damage to the body. Extra calories (in the form of protein mostly) are then used to repair that damage, so they are shuttled to the muscle. When you do long, strenuous cardio sessions, you also burn lots of glycogen in addition to fat. The body in trying to prepare for the next time you do that, will store more glycogen in the muscles you worked hard. Both of those processes either require extra water to store stuff in or produce extra water from the chemical reactions. The actual process of fat burning also produces extra water as a by-product. This is why I tell my clients to trust me and hide their scale for at least a month. And after it's worked I'll gladly accept the flowers and hugs of gratitude.

As for your question about how many calories people are consuming, I am between 2000-2300 on days I don't exercise and up to 3000 on days I do exercise and I don't count the fitness classes I teach or exercises I teach my clients as exercise, only my own personal workouts. I don't focus on the scale, but more on body fat %. Yes, because of the amount of exercise I do, I weigh more then the average woman my height. I'm 5'6" and 190 pounds. But I'm also 19% body fat and in a size 8. When you do a lot of exercise like we do, sometimes the scale isn't the best indicator of health or fitness. Relax. Fat loss happens when you don't stress about it.

Haha. Hey Tonya! This weight crept on last week...I thought it was TOM weight, but it's still there. Would the muscle/water thing happen when my body is so used to these workouts? I have to count my classes as I don't have time/energy to workout on TOP of my classes. I teach ELEVEN classes this week. EEK! Summer subbing. I really need a steady body fat measurement. My scale said 21% last night and 23% this morning...so I can't rely on it at all.

Emma1903

Are digital calipers a good way to measure body fat percentage?

lil_pulp

I want to read this when I have more time.

melsinct

I am sorry you are still struggling with this, graysmom! At first I upped my calories by 150 for a couple weeks with no change. I then upped my calories by another 350 calories (so a total of 500 calories) and about one month after that the scale started to move down again. However, during that time I was fiddling around with my calories, I never really gained weight. I bounced between 158-161 the entire time (up and down, up and down, up and down...). Bottom line is it took over a month to get back on track again.

TrainingWithTonya

*sigh* It doesn't seem to be working. Hoped on the scale this morning and I'm up 2 1/2 pounds. I just finished TOM so that shouldn't be a factor. I worked out over 2 hours yesterday. I ate a lot, but I'm just trying to hit the numbers I was given. I'm so confused and Upset. I really thought this was what I was doing wrong. :-((((

You did not gain 2 1/2 pounds of fat in a day. In order to do that you would have had to eat about 8000 Extra calories.

When you workout, you actually cause microscopic damage to the body. Extra calories (in the form of protein mostly) are then used to repair that damage, so they are shuttled to the muscle. When you do long, strenuous cardio sessions, you also burn lots of glycogen in addition to fat. The body in trying to prepare for the next time you do that, will store more glycogen in the muscles you worked hard. Both of those processes either require extra water to store stuff in or produce extra water from the chemical reactions. The actual process of fat burning also produces extra water as a by-product. This is why I tell my clients to trust me and hide their scale for at least a month. And after it's worked I'll gladly accept the flowers and hugs of gratitude.

As for your question about how many calories people are consuming, I am between 2000-2300 on days I don't exercise and up to 3000 on days I do exercise and I don't count the fitness classes I teach or exercises I teach my clients as exercise, only my own personal workouts. I don't focus on the scale, but more on body fat %. Yes, because of the amount of exercise I do, I weigh more then the average woman my height. I'm 5'6" and 190 pounds. But I'm also 19% body fat and in a size 8. When you do a lot of exercise like we do, sometimes the scale isn't the best indicator of health or fitness. Relax. Fat loss happens when you don't stress about it.

Haha. Hey Tonya! This weight crept on last week...I thought it was TOM weight, but it's still there. Would the muscle/water thing happen when my body is so used to these workouts? I have to count my classes as I don't have time/energy to workout on TOP of my classes. I teach ELEVEN classes this week. EEK! Summer subbing. I really need a steady body fat measurement. My scale said 21% last night and 23% this morning...so I can't rely on it at all.

Yes, the muscle/water thing will happen forever. I have been a trainer for 15 years and was working out prior to that and I still get the muscle pump effect. It's hard getting additional exercise in when you are doing a ton of classes and such. That's why you won't see consistency in my workout logs and why I use the extremely active setting instead of logging all my classes because I just don't have time to log them all the time. Plus I can't go by a HRM because of my asthma medication so I'd have to look up the METs for everything and it is just too much when you're a busy person. Life just gets too crazy.

As for the scale and body fat, does it also give you a reading for body water %? If so, then only count the BF% if you have the same BW% because the amount of water will cause a fluctuation in the fat % due to the formulas the scales use for calculations. What I usually do is only weigh, measure, do body composition about once a month or so. If I get on the scale and the body water % isn't the same as the previous month, then I don't count it, although I do write it down. I adjust my water consumption that day to get the body water % to be the same as the previous month and re-do the weight, measurements, and body comp the next morning. By logging both, though, I have a couple of options for the next month to get a comparison of changes. That's really all the scale or even body fat % is good for, monitoring changes.

TrainingWithTonya

Are digital calipers a good way to measure body fat percentage?

The problem with calipers is that they only measure the subcutaneous fat (The fat right under the skin) and not the visceral fat (the fat around the organs) so they often get a lower reading then is the actual body fat percentage. I did a blog post about the different ways of determining body fat % that goes into detail about which ones are better or worse. You can read it here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/TrainingWithTonya But the main thing is that whatever method you chose you are consistent with it because you can't compare one method to the others because of the different ways they read. Just pick whichever method works best for you.

GraceEMyers

Hi,

I recently upped mine from 1200 a day to 1800 a day as i wasnt eating back my excersise calories and was ending up on like 600 - 700 calories net a day and this went on for about 3 months and i just stayed the exact same weight as on the days were i maybe ate abit more my body didnt go back to normal it just stuck in starvaition mode.

Anyway i put on 6lbs after upping my calories!!! Which was a nightmare and this lasted for about 2 weeks but since then the weight has started dropping off again nicley so i think it has worked

Good luck! x

nycegurl74

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