who would have thought it would work?!!

hill2302

so how long should you up your claorie intake a couple of days or a week ??? Then go back down to 1200 calories??

This varies from person to person. For me, I can't drop back down. I have to leave my calories at the point where I raised them too or I start to gain weight again. I started at 1700, upped to 1900, then 2000 - at 2000 I maintained my original goal weight of 150lbs from Sept 2010 to May 2011. In May, I upped again to 2200 and lost 5lbs in a week. I'm now eating between 2200-2500 (depending on how active I am that day or how hungry I am) and maintaining 145lbs. Awhile back, I upped to 3000 just to see what happens and got my weight down to 141lbs. I don't like how I feel when I NET 3000 calories, so I went back to 2200-2500 and what do you know? Right back up to 145lbs within a week or so.

Chevy, you have a Ferrarri for your metabolism!!! That's a crazy amount of calories for someone as small as you. :drinker: 3000 calories of healthy food is alot though.

Congrats on figuring that out Ashley!!

jldaley09

If I can figure out how to eat that many healthy calorie I am going to up mine. MFP has it set at 1600 and I usually only net about 1300 a day. I think Ill try going a little closer to 1600 and see if the weight comes off a little better. It seems like I lose some and then it pops up again and I spend another whole week just trying to get below the last weigh in.

baylorforever

I'm thinking about trying this because I've been doing under 1200 a day and I feel like I hit a plateu. Does anyone have any suggestions for healthy calories to eat that will get me up to 1500 a day?

jon_brady

@ frenchielover your rmr is your bodies most basic/lowest amount of calories needed to function if you do absolutely nothing so just getting out of bed is going to create a deficit. The more active you are the greater the deficit. Just be aware of your activity because if the deficit is too large it will throw you back into starvation mode and you will need to up your calories again. the post about 20% above sounds right especially if you are an active person

hill2302

@ frenchielover your rmr is your bodies most basic/lowest amount of calories needed to function if you do absolutely nothing so just getting out of bed is going to create a deficit. The more active you are the greater the deficit. Just be aware of your activity because if the deficit is too large it will throw you back into starvation mode and you will need to up your calories again. the post about 20% above sounds right especially if you are an active person

This is what MFP does for you when you put in your vital infomation though. Under TOOLS, you can find out what you BMR is and when you put in your activity level, it adds a percentage to your BMR to figure out what your maintenace caloric number would be. Then it subtracts some from that, depending on your weekly weight loss goal.

meli_medina

I'm thinking about trying this because I've been doing under 1200 a day and I feel like I hit a plateu. Does anyone have any suggestions for healthy calories to eat that will get me up to 1500 a day?

Almonds, yogurt, peanut butter, cheese...

Household06

Interesting thoughts! I just started yesterday so, for now, I'll stick with the 1200 cal intake as suggested by MFP. We'll see what happens and if I reach a plateau, I'll def try upping my cal intake.

Thanks for the info everyone!

BeachGurl815

Bump - this is really interesting.

swiftfox82

Yeah that happens to me sometimes if your body thinks that there is a famine going on it will hold on to all you give it the same thing with water and bloating

Mommawarrior

You must eat to lose properly! Good job. Keep up the good work!

Maris165

Awesome! Depending on how the scale reads tomorrow, I may just be changing things up. Thanks for the info!!

Lesliecs

From what I learned on Fat2FitRadio podcasts the magic number of calories for losing weight is eating at 20% above your BMR. I was really scared to increase mine that high. But I'm surprised that it really worked!

Good for you Ashley! That's awesome!

I am really on the fence here. All along I thought 1200 was MY number and that is what I needed to eat.... if I use the 20% above BMR calculation, I should up my calories to about 1560. But I'm SCARE to do it! In the past 3 weeks since I started, I've lost 6 lbs.... and I don't want to screw it up and gain it back! But..... in the past few days I haven't lost anything, still using the 1200 calories (usually less). Decisions Decisions!!!!

TexasNana41

bump

ebelliss

today was my first day eating at a 0.5lb per week loss, and honestly this is the first night I am going to sleep feeling satisfied, energized, not bloated, and not dreaming about breakfast tomorrow morning. i'm looking forward to weighing in next week and hopefully seeing some results.

Pebble321

You know, this is one of the best things that I have learnt using MFP - that I don't have to starve myself to lose weight and get healthy.

It just seems too counter-intuitive to eat more to lose weight, but in reality I know that I'm not eating more calories than when I was consuming a family block of chocolate in a day, but I am full up with (mostly) healthier food choices.

I see so many people eating 1200 cals and no extra for exercise, and I just don't know how they survive. I'm really happy that I've learnt that I don't have to do this. I eat 1400 - 1600 net calories a day and keep losing weight!

Yooperm35

From what I learned on Fat2FitRadio podcasts the magic number of calories for losing weight is eating at 20% above your BMR. I was really scared to increase mine that high. But I'm surprised that it really worked!

Good for you Ashley! That's awesome!

I am really on the fence here. All along I thought 1200 was MY number and that is what I needed to eat.... if I use the 20% above BMR calculation, I should up my calories to about 1560. But I'm SCARE to do it! In the past 3 weeks since I started, I've lost 6 lbs.... and I don't want to screw it up and gain it back! But..... in the past few days I haven't lost anything, still using the 1200 calories (usually less). Decisions Decisions!!!!

I was afraid to try to up my calories, because I 'might' gain my weight back - but then I thought 5 weeks at a standstill is ridiculous, and if I see a gain, I'll just cut back a little. I'm ready to try anything, I guess

pa_jorg

You know, this is one of the best things that I have learnt using MFP - that I don't have to starve myself to lose weight and get healthy.

It just seems too counter-intuitive to eat more to lose weight, but in reality I know that I'm not eating more calories than when I was consuming a family block of chocolate in a day, but I am full up with (mostly) healthier food choices.

I see so many people eating 1200 cals and no extra for exercise, and I just don't know how they survive. I'm really happy that I've learnt that I don't have to do this. I eat 1400 - 1600 net calories a day and keep losing weight!

Well said!

iamahealthychick

Bump

Erica0718

BUMP

Ghlt4

Bump!

Lesliecs

From what I learned on Fat2FitRadio podcasts the magic number of calories for losing weight is eating at 20% above your BMR. I was really scared to increase mine that high. But I'm surprised that it really worked!

Good for you Ashley! That's awesome!

I am really on the fence here. All along I thought 1200 was MY number and that is what I needed to eat.... if I use the 20% above BMR calculation, I should up my calories to about 1560. But I'm SCARE to do it! In the past 3 weeks since I started, I've lost 6 lbs.... and I don't want to screw it up and gain it back! But..... in the past few days I haven't lost anything, still using the 1200 calories (usually less). Decisions Decisions!!!!

I was afraid to try to up my calories, because I 'might' gain my weight back - but then I thought 5 weeks at a standstill is ridiculous, and if I see a gain, I'll just cut back a little. I'm ready to try anything, I guess

I think you're right! I am going to try and up mine and watch closely to see how it goes. Thanks to everyone for their insight! This has been a very informative post!

KBomar2

I'm glad to hear it worked for you. I just told my husband I think I need to up my calories because I stalled out and can't take any more off and I'm starting to get frustrated. I hope it works for me too!!

Lesliecs

Well, I decided to up my, but not the 20%. We'll see how that works. I can always change it one way or the other! good luck to everyone else who is in the same boat as me! (Well, good luck to EVERYONE!) :happy:

aholtz1

Bump ***this is interesting, Want to learn more about this ****

Butterfly310

THIS IS SO GREAT!! Thank you so much!

Hi sorry this is so long winded I copied it from a blog I did while at a fitness retreat this a way to find out just how many calories you need a day

I think that I talked about ones resting metabolic rate before, thats the number of calories your body burns just to stay alive. So if you layed in bed for 24 hours and figured the calories you burned doing that . That is your resting metabolic rate(rmr). I am sure most of have heard or will be surprised to hear that you have to eat to lose weight. What I have learned here is that if you don't eat at least your rmr in calories a day your metabolism will slow down to compensate and try to hold on to what you are eating even more.
You lose weight by creating a calorie deficit. So you should eat your rmr calories everyday and be physically active to create that deficit. One might ask can I exercise too much and the answer is yes and that will show up in performance. If you are exercising so much that you start feeling weak or rundown you either need to cut back on the exercise or up your calories. You have to listen to your body and act accordingly.

Now you are probably thinking OK that is all well and good but how do I know what my rmr is. Well it just so happens there are two ways to find this out. You can go to a gym that has a rmr machine and pay 50-100 dollars to be tested or you can use this formula and the results will be very close to the same. Ok figuring this out takes a few steps. First here are a few conversions for you.

Weight in kilograms=weight in lbs divided by 2.2
height in centimeters =height in inches times 2.54

here is the formula.
(9.99 x weight in kilograms) + (6.25 x height in cetimeters) -(4.92 x age in years) + 5 or -161=rmr.
At the end the formula is different depending on your gender if you are male add 5. if you are female subtract 161. Be sure when you calculate this that you do what is in the ( ) first.

Hope it helps

bentobee

Yay! Good for you!

I recently did the same thing - I was stuck at 232 for weeks. I raised my calories from 1700 to 2000 for two weeks. Three days in I lost 2.5 pounds! I just lowered my calories back down - I'm now a few days back at 1700 and have lost a few more! Woohooo!

abeks

bump

mammacano

Bump!!

brit49

Bump

lucyhoneychurch

My weight loss has slowed down and being miserable when I've almost reached my daily 1200 by midday totally sucks. I'm going to try this (upping my daily calories), continue to shred and rip and see what happens for a week. This post was really helpful. Thanks!