Women who eat more than 1800 calories a day !!!!

_stephanie0

this page needs a BUMP!!

mishkat

I'm at 1700 but netting about 1500-1650 so I can lose the extra weight I gained during vacation. Hopefully after these small injuries I can go back to being more active so I can try to bump to 1800 as I planned a few weeks ago.

aj_31

Looking for any extra insight. I'm starting my 7th week eating 15% of my TDEE. I have a BMF with an average TDEE of a little under 3100. I've been eating around 2500 a day (although this weekend was a disaster). I've gained 8lbs (last I checked) up inches in my hips and waist. I thought this was my final thing to try...and it isn't working either. So low calories I lose and stall. High calories I gain and stall. I look and feel awful. I take a low dose anti-depressant for pain mgt for IC that I have. It's only 50mg though. I have lost on it...but always stalled at the low 150's. I feel like nothing NOTHING is working. I've given it a solid ride. 7 weeks. I'm meeting with a trainer this week to give me my own strength related workouts (to add to the 7 classes I already teach...sigh). And I'll see if that works. I'm just exhausted trying to figure this out and not having any results.

Hey! I'm on week9 and up about 6.5-8lbs. I am doing 15% cut too...although I think I might need a full reset at TDEE for a few weeks. I am also discouraged and have comtemplated many times dropping my cals back down BUT I know this is the best thing for my body. I would recommend a reset for you, especially if you have been at low calories for a long time.
I haven't quite got enough nerve to do mine yet. I am just kind of coasting along where I am because it is maintaining the gain I'm just not mentality prepared to jump in this time of year.
Sorry I can't be more help, but just know you are not alone!!
Kate

I'm in the same situation. I've gained between 6-10 lbs depending on the day. I was down to 168 a few weeks ago but after 2 weekends away and drinking/eating not 100% on plan I'm back up to 172-173. It is so fraustrating. I workout 4-5x a week and I mainly lift weights. I probably net between 1400-1600 cals a day and I'm not losing. WTH! Maybe I need to eat 2400 a day so I net between 1600-2000 a day. I don't know.

tahinilove

Realise I'm old to this thread but it's great!

Currently I eat over 3000 a day for a slow bulk. Our metabolisms are better than we think. Just give them time and patients

Chinadorian

this thread is really great! makes me less nervous to eat.... there's no need to deny the appetite, just feed it good healthy stuff!

I just starting eating 1900 today...thought I was "Eating more" by eating 1350 lol but after reading up and coming to the proper conclusions that i needed to eat more, I am looking forward to someday posting some sweet pictures to show my progress!

Slimat30

I'm a 2000 cal girl and 127lbs

jfrankic

Averaging 2000 a day (1850-2150) and losing a pound a week, maintaining LBM. This girl does not go hungry!! I will likely increase soon.

Get educated ladies!! And eat. :-D

Chinadorian

I FINALLY broke my plateau after adding calories. Thank you guys for all your support. I feel so much better now.

you should also take measurements, if im not losing lbs, i know i am at least losing inches SOMEWHERE on my body...sometimes the scale is a bit woowoo.

itgeekwoman

I eat 1800+ cals a day. I'm not at my goal yet but I am working out lifting 3-5 x a week and putting cardio in the mix. I was at 1200 for 9 months and couldn't drop below 165. I've put on weight in the past few weeks, but that is to be expected until my body starts to realize I'm not going to starve it again.

I'm giving myself until after Christmas. Eating when I'm hungry and making sure I eat enough cals, then I'll bump down a bit to see if I can drop some more inches.

Chinadorian

I've started working out why am I still gaining weight!

You might be interested in reading this

Article taken from:
http://www.columbussports.com/content/writers/dan_falkenberg/ive-started-working-out-why-am-i-still-gaining-weight.shtml


Sorry admins if this is too long but I found the orginal format hard to read.


By Dan Falkenberg
Here’s a question I hear all the time, and to be honest, even though I know why it happens, it can still be disheartening to see your client so disappointed because after a few weeks of working out very hard, he hasn’t lost any weight but has actually gained weight instead! This may have even happened to you and left you standing on the scale with a confused look on your face. I think this is a big contributor to why so many people aren’t successful at weight loss programs. Sure, some are just plain lazy and don’t exercise with enough intensity, but some become so discouraged with the scales that they simply just give up. Whatever you do, don’t give up! Here’s why.

I hope by now that we all know that losing fat takes time and effort. For many, simply hopping onto a treadmill and walking for 20 to 30 minutes isn’t going to cut it; for a very small number of people yes, but for many no. Most of us have to have a very structured and intense program to be successful at dropping the fat.

Here’s the first step to success. Are you ready? Ignore the scale. Here’s the first step to success. Are you ready? Ignore the scale. That’s right. Don’t even step onto a scale for the first month of your exercise program. I know it’ll be hard, but don’t do it. I know some of you are scale addicts; well, consider this Day 1 of your scale detox program. Remember, a successful “weight” loss program is based on the number of lbs. of fat burned off, not the number of overall lbs. burned off. This is why you see programs out there that guarantee 6 lbs. lost in 6 days. You know what they’re guaranteeing? They’re guaranteeing an eventual 6-10, or more, lbs. being put back on.

The “yo-yo” effect, I’m sure a lot of you have heard of it before. The “yo-yo” effect is when your body loses weight, then gains weight, then loses weight, and so on. That’s what these types of guarantees are. Sure, some overly obese individuals can lose more than 2 lbs. of fat in a week, but the majority can’t. Losing 6 lbs. is mostly muscle and water, which is a horrible thing. Muscle is vital to your body, so when it loses it, it wants to get it right back, and a lot of times, it’ll put muscle back on and bring excess fat storage with it. This can leave you having more body fat than when you originally started a “weight” loss program.

Alright, so we’ve established that all weight is not the same. Losing a pound of muscle isn’t good for the body, while losing a pound of fat is (in most cases). Also, hopefully it’s clear why scales aren’t always the best indicator of fat loss. When I evaluate a client’s success, figuring out her body fat percentage is a lot more meaningful to me than seeing the number on the scale. If her body fat stays the same, but she’s smaller on the scale, then that tells me she’s either lost muscle or water. If her body fat is the same, but she’s bigger on the scale, then that tells me that she most likely is retaining water. When both her body fat percentage and weight on the scale drop, then I know that she’s actually losing body fat and achieving success.

For every gram of glycogen stored, approximately 3 grams of water are stored with it. For those of you who can’t seem to shake your scale addiction, here’s why you need to be prepared for what you’ll see at the start of your weight loss program.

Like I said earlier, it can be very discouraging when you step onto the scale and see that you haven’t lost any weight and may have evened gained weight. As long as you don’t give up and are doing the right things with eating right and working out hard enough, your body fat will slowly start to come off. You just need to be patient. Don’t give up.

When you first start an exercise program, your body is basically thrown a curve ball. Your body is used to having to use a certain amount of energy throughout the day, but now that you’re exercising, your body figures out that it needs a greater energy supply. So what happens?

If you remember, your body’s source of energy comes from glucose. Carbohydrates are broken down into glucose, the glucose is used to make energy, and your body performs how it needs to. Well, your body also has a “reserve tank” for excess glucose. Instead of storing all the excess glucose as fat, your body stores some of the excess glucose in an easier form to break down for energy; it’s called glycogen. Glycogen is long chains of glucose molecules that are stored in our muscles and liver.

Working out too intensely can cause muscle tears to become overly inflamed to the point where the mini-tears start to swell with fluid. Your body adapts to how much glycogen it needs to store in order to have enough “energy” on stand-by for when your blood sugar starts to drop because there isn’t enough glucose in the bloodstream from the food you last ate. When we start to exercise, our bodies require more energy and become more efficient at getting that energy, so as a result, our bodies start to store more glycogen. Here’s the kicker. For every gram of glycogen stored, approximately 3 grams of water are stored with it. This means that now your body has a larger amount of water and glycogen stored in the muscles and liver, and as a result, your body weight can go up by a few lbs.

Picture a piece of bread or pasta noodle. What happens when you put them in water? They’re like sponges. They soak up the water and expand. The same can be said with glycogen. Glycogen is a carb, and it sucks up water just like any other carb.

Here’s another culprit. If you go from not working out to working out very hard, your muscles will most likely be sore for the next 2 or 3 days. This is because when you work out, you essentially create mini-tears in your muscles. Working out too intensely can cause these tears to become overly inflamed to the point where the mini-tears start to swell with fluid. This excess fluid in the muscles can cause an initial, excess weight gain. By starting out an exercise program slowly and working your way up, you reduce the likelihood of tearing your muscles too much. To some extent, though, muscle soreness will occur when you first start exercising, but the amount of soreness and inflammation can be controlled by gradually working into a fitness program.

If you continue to stick to your weight loss program and don’t become discouraged by the initial weight gain that may result, you’ll slowly start to see the weight come off for good. Rest assured, even though you may be retaining water during that first month of working out, your body is still burning off fat. After a month’s time, that excess water weight and glycogen will still be there, but your body will have started to burn off enough fat to overcome the water weight gains, and you’ll start to see a difference on the scale.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the individuals who are the most successful with permanent weight loss are those who don’t see results in the first month. One thing I’ve noticed about my most successful clients, the majority of them actually gained a pound or two during the first month of exercising. My clients who weren’t very successful were those that maintained the same weight during the first month, the second month, and so on. Why? I’d have to say it’s because my most successful clients were working so intensely that they experienced extra glycogen and water storage. My clients who wouldn’t put in the effort didn’t need extra glycogen stored, so they didn’t see any initial weight gains.

You see, my successful clients saw an extra pound or two on the scale during the first month, but as the program went on, that extra glycogen storage meant their bodies had the extra fuel to stay revved up and burning off excess calories. It also meant that of the food they ate, less was going into fat storage and more was going into “high-octane” glycogen storage. Less fat storage equals faster weight loss.

So here’s my advice. Don’t be scared of delayed results within the first month. Your body is going through an adaptation process, and it requires some time to prepare itself for its new lifestyle. Keep your exercise intensity up, your eating habits right, and you’ll slowly start to see your fat loss results overcome your new glycogen and water storage results. You’ll slowly start to see that success you set out to achieve.

Dan Falkenberg is the cofounder of Your Live Trainers. He can be reached at DanFalkenberg.com.

Join a community of readers who’ve discovered Dan’s enlightening, monthly newsletter packed full of exercise tips, healthy recipes, and exercise video demonstrations to help improve your fitness! To top it off, it’s free, and you can unsubscribe anytime.

I need your help! I'm in the process of publishing my first book, and I want to hear from you. If you were to buy a health and fitness book, what would you want in it? What areas of health and fitness would you want it to talk about? How many pages would you want the book to be? Any feedback you could give in the comments section would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, and have a great day!


http://www.columbussports.com/content/writers/dan_falkenberg/ive-started-working-out-why-am-i-still-gaining-weight.shtml

very cool

catintheshell

bump!

LaMujerMasBonitaDelMundo

BUMP because I have some days in a week where I eat 2,000 calories. My MFP maintenance daily goal is 1600 but I find out that I still lose weight with this number of calories.

TinaBean007

bump!

itali614

Bump...This and the previous thread to it are interesting to me. I was eating a minimum of 1800 calories per day and excersizing and losing a minimum of one pound per day and then quit nursing and lowered my calories. I continued to exersize (Insanity) daily and lost very little or little pockets of weight until I lost nothing several weeks in a row and even gained. After being discouraged I put my BMR as my goal calories and I haven't been as diligent exersizing and have lost almost every day. I only enter weight weekly and now only if there is a loss. But I can't wait to enter this weeks weight!

Jaymefirst

Interesting...bump to find original thread

Dopie2

Ok I don't get it..... I thought I had to cut back my calories and exercise and for every 3500 calories I either burned doing exercise or didn't eat I would lose 1 lb. I am new at this and apparently need to do some research...
I am 5' 7"
ST 174 lbs
CW 170 lbs
GW 150 lbs
keeping my calories under 1200 (but wondering if I should up my calories)
and doing 40 minutes cardio and started some light weight training 4-5 days per week
The 1st week I lost 4 lbs and seemed to have energy, the 2nd week I had a some bad stuff goingon personally and didn't concentrate on anything except keeping my calories around 1200 and this week I have NO energy. Not sure if it is because I am not eating enough or maybe just the really rough week I had last week?
Any suggestions?

al369

I set mine to 1900 based on a deficit of my actual TDEE. I usually get 1500-1800 but only net 1200-1400 due to working out. I think I may need to up my calories some more because I keep losing faster than I intend to and I'm still so exhausted!

Chinadorian

Ok I don't get it..... I thought I had to cut back my calories and exercise and for every 3500 calories I either burned doing exercise or didn't eat I would lose 1 lb. I am new at this and apparently need to do some research...
I am 5' 7"
ST 174 lbs
CW 170 lbs
GW 150 lbs
keeping my calories under 1200 (but wondering if I should up my calories)
and doing 40 minutes cardio and started some light weight training 4-5 days per week
The 1st week I lost 4 lbs and seemed to have energy, the 2nd week I had a some bad stuff goingon personally and didn't concentrate on anything except keeping my calories around 1200 and this week I have NO energy. Not sure if it is because I am not eating enough or maybe just the really rough week I had last week?
Any suggestions?

Dopie: give it time! You cant really assess ANYTHING in just 3 weeks time...
but it definitely sounds like you should up your calories, especially since you seem to be very faithful with your workouts. Enjoy the extra calories for energy and also for helping you burn the fat!

AmyP619

I was also an avid 1200-1300 calorie a day eater. It worked for me for the first handful of months, so why would I want to eat more? My weight loss stalled BIG time for like a month. I was scared to up my calories because I didn't want to gain, but I noticed the minute I started eating around 1500-1600 calories the weight started falling off again...ODD..but true! A lot of your posts on here make me think I could be eating even more. In fact, I know I could be since my BMR is around 1760 and my TDEE is around 2200, but I didn't want to push it. I may try eating a little more and see if that helps, but just the increase that I did do seems to be working already!! Who doesn't LOVE being able to eat eat eat and still lose weight?!?!?

KeriA

Ok I don't get it..... I thought I had to cut back my calories and exercise and for every 3500 calories I either burned doing exercise or didn't eat I would lose 1 lb. I am new at this and apparently need to do some research...
I am 5' 7"
ST 174 lbs
CW 170 lbs
GW 150 lbs
keeping my calories under 1200 (but wondering if I should up my calories)
and doing 40 minutes cardio and started some light weight training 4-5 days per week
The 1st week I lost 4 lbs and seemed to have energy, the 2nd week I had a some bad stuff goingon personally and didn't concentrate on anything except keeping my calories around 1200 and this week I have NO energy. Not sure if it is because I am not eating enough or maybe just the really rough week I had last week?
Any suggestions?

Yes find out what your BMR is and calculate your TDEE. Eat somewhere between them. If you are eating lower than your TDEE you will lose. I am eating at about a 15% cut from what I estimate as my TDEE. If you eat lower than your BMR you will eventually stall out. There are alot of calculators out there. You also need your age to use most calculators and TDEE depends on your activity level.

awerewka

Bump

SammiFrancs

bump

MtnVegan

I thought I was the only one who couldn't exist on 1200-1400 calories a day!

Mutant13

I've just gone up to 1810, im 128lb and 5"9. Trying to gain some lean mass and drop my body fat %

Not sure If I should be eating a little more yet, I'm going to give it a couple of weeks.

SkimFlatWhite68

I'm going to read this thread later... It looks like something that I need to give my attention.

I recently posted a topic at: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/887029-44yo-needs-to-lose-22kg-how-many-cals-do-i-eat If anyone can shed any light, or offer an opinion it would be greatly appreciated.

So - then I reduced my calories from about 1680 to 1550. But my BMR is only 1500. 4 days later, it's not working for me. Every time I think about it, I just can't believe that this number is right.... It's not enough food, surely. I'm still 82kg and a size 14 (Australian). I go to the gym 5 days a week: 3 weight training sessions, 2 cardio, walk almost an hour 5 days a week.

Then I read IPOARM AGAIN (!!) and today I've upped my calories up to 1850. This completely freaks me out, but I just feel that with 22kg yet to lose I should not be stalled where I am. I have gained weight in the last fortnight, and yes, I am feeling better, and I know that I have lost size in the last 8 weeks, I really feel like it should be more than it is, and not stalling already.

I eat well, and not sure how I'll get another 300 calories in with good food, but I think it might be the answer for me. I'm willing to experiment on myself and I figure I can't keep putting my calories DOWN all the time or in a couple of months I'll be in the 1200 club and I KNOW that isn't enough.

I want this to be for a lifetime!!! It's not a diet - so I want to be wise about it.

Anyway, glad to find this thread - I will read through it tonight when I get home from work. Happy to get any advice I can.

wigglypeaches

I didn't even know this thread existed until now! I'm typically eating between 1900-2300 calories. I'm 5' 10", 141 lbs, and I've been steadily losing for about a year, just slowly. Now I'm lifting, Kraving, and turning my focus to maintenance and building muscle.

On the other hand, I also didn't start tracking until long after I'd starting exercising, and I've only had about 20lbs to lose altogether. A lot of my focus has been on making better decisions about what I eat, and introducing more protein and fiber to my diet.

That's all!

kathymc54

bump

kittymoney

bump to read when feeling better

WRXymama

Bump to browse later. Ive been on a plateau and have been more active. I'm guessing I need to up my cals to compensate for the higher activity. HUGE THANKS EVERYONE!!!

Chipmunk222

Bump for later