Have Most Started Eating More When You Plateaued?

Raddichio

I'm wondering when in the weight loss process you switched over to eating more. Was it when you hit a plateau that you couldn't seem to break? Or did you up your food intake when you were still losing? I have been steadily losing (usually 2 lbs per week, with a couple 1 lb losses) and eating my BMR. I think I need to go ahead and start increasing calories to avoid hitting the plateau or being stuck eating very low calories just to maintain; but it is difficult to contemplate when I've been losing a reasonable amount and feeling okay. Has anyone else started eating more when still losing weight each week? Did it make a difference in how much you gained or how long you gained before you started losing again? Or is there just no one size fits all and each person has to just jump in and see how it works out?

oonga

I had reached my 60kg by the time i turn 40 goal. Originally i thought that was middle of my healthy weight range.
Then i realised i was shorter than i originally had thought and so my goal weight changed.
I was still losing just slower,mostly around 500g towards the end. I was fine with that loss as i knew it would slow down so close to goal.

The thing that convinced me that 1200cal gross regardless of some of the big burns i do was that i was always tired, but more than that My TTOM was doing really weird things, and being on the pill i have always been incredibly regular! When i had breakthrough bleeding for a month! and i NEVER had that before, i knew something was wrong!

Its been a month since i have increased my calories, i have basically maintained in that time, which i am happy with at this stage. However i also think i am going to have to end up at around 1800 or 1900cals, so far i have worked up to 1700cals LOL
I do have more on my high burn days so that i Net BMR.

Good luck with your journey and I don't think there is ANYTHING in life that is a one size fits all LOL
Even clothing that says one size fits is a big lie

sonyachan

I have been losing pretty well, though I never did the whole 1200 calorie thing. I was almost always netting 1500 a day. Now I'm up to netting 1800 a day (eating around 2000+ calories a day) for the last week or so. I did gain about 6 pounds of water weight, but I also was way over on my sodium, AND it's that TOM....so, I'm not sure how my eating changed it. I have been doing more strength training too, which causes wt gain at first. I feel a little bloated, but all in all I don't feel any different in my clothes, don't feel like I gained 6 pounds. Take your measurements and focus on that. You're right, there is no one size fits all here. You have to be in it for the healthy benefits of it and just stick to it. It will work. Good luck!

ANewLucia

I'm wondering when in the weight loss process you switched over to eating more. Was it when you hit a plateau that you couldn't seem to break? Or did you up your food intake when you were still losing? I have been steadily losing (usually 2 lbs per week, with a couple 1 lb losses) and eating my BMR. I think I need to go ahead and start increasing calories to avoid hitting the plateau or being stuck eating very low calories just to maintain; but it is difficult to contemplate when I've been losing a reasonable amount and feeling okay. Has anyone else started eating more when still losing weight each week? Did it make a difference in how much you gained or how long you gained before you started losing again? Or is there just no one size fits all and each person has to just jump in and see how it works out?

I was stalled for months which is why I knew something wasn't right. If I had learned all this before...losing or not, I would have started eating more. Why slow down the metabolism to burn lower and go through all the headaches of plateauing, feeling fatigued, etc.

DoodleDaft

I didn't plateau but neither was I on a tiny calorie allowance either, I lost 13 lbs at 1600 a day but since switching to 1800 have only lost just over 2 lbs however I wanted to start lifting heavier weights and felt I needed to fuel my workouts, everything I read about eating more made sense. This time I want to lose weight for good and from previous experience I've found that very low cal diets are not sustainable.

rubybeach

I stalled and/or would lose and gain the same few pounds for months......... Just started eating more 2 weeks ago.

SmileyJ23

I had stalled first with the sale losses and then inches as well. And I KNOW I was eating right and working out 5-6 days a week burning tons of cals. So then I saw a MFP pal mention they eat more and to check out this group and i did Its been about 2 weeks for me now.

Zylayna

I posted the following in the 'Introduction of New Members' when I first joined the group...my reasons to up calories was a combination of several things, not just weight loss trouble (since posting this in the intro sticky I am now consuming 2000/day and on high burn days making sure I net my BMR at least):

I'm a very active 38 year old mother that has been struggling to lose weight for YEARS. The past 3 years I've been to dr's, nutritionists, personal trainers, etc and not one of them checked to see what I was netting for calories. I was even complaining of constant tiredness, depression, insomnia, etc. I was given medications for all of it. Needless to say, I gained even more weight from those!

Finally in a fit of frustration I cold-turkey'd off all the meds (which made my dr. raise her eyebrows at me) and told her to find another solution because this wasn't working for me. I needed to lose weight and feel better, not just medicate and gain more!

1 month later I stumbled onto MFP in my personal search for a solution on the internet and discovered this whole new concept of net calories and eating enough. I discovered that I was averaging a NET calorie/day of 600-800 because of the intense exercise I was doing and the VLCD I was using. (around 1200)

I have slowly started to up my calories after figuring out my BMR (1490) and TDEE (2130-2370) to 1500 Net minimum. This has been very scary for me. Thankfully I have not gained tons of weight but I have also not really lost much yet either as I've been upping net cals by about 100/week and I assume my body is trying to adjust and hopefully repair it's metabolism that I've so horribly destroyed over decades of abuse.

My depression is gone, I am no longer tired all the time and I'm sleeping like a baby for starters though!

twinmomtwice4

My decision to eat more was based on the fact that I took off 35 pounds last year working out hard in the gym 5-6 days a week. I had to discontinue my gym membership and fell back into my old patterns and gained 20 pounds back. I noticed I was getting flabby again and did not want all my hard work from last year to go completely down the drain.

Got back on the weight loss wagon again but I was determined to do it differently this time. Even though I lost 35 pounds and my trainer was pleading with me to eat more than 1400 calories a day, I refused to do it. And look what happened....I gained more than half of the weight back and lost muscle in the process.

So I looked into this site and found this group and immediately knew this was the plan for me...eat more to lose weight. Something just clicked all of a sudden. Nothing my trainer ever said to me last year convinced me to increase my calories but the ladies in this group have done an excellent job of explaining why it's important to lift weights and eat more than 1200 calories.

I also cannot maintain eating that low of calories. I'm miserable and end up binging in the long run.

I want to be tight and toned...fit and healthy. I don't want to be a "skinny fat" version of my old self. And, lastly, I want this to stick. No more losing weight, gaining it back, losing it again. I'm done with the yo-yo'ing forever.

rmk20togo

I've had been stalled for months and months and months so I increased my calories and guess what? I'M STILL STALLED but I'm not starving, still maintaining, and my workouts rock.

d3mon4ngel

I've still been losing, averaging just over 1lb a week using the calorie limits that MFP calculated for me. As of yesterday, my calorie goal was 1350 to lose 1lb a week (little shorty! ). As of this morning I've set it to close to what fat2fitradio recommends as my maintenance TDEE for my goal weight. It may mean that I will lose weight slower than cutting my calories right down, but at least I will be getting used to the amount of food that I will be able to consume when I reach that goal. I think that this is half the battle. I figured it's no good me getting used to eating hardly anything, then upping it to maintenance and having to learn how much I can eat all over again.