Newbie

lodicox7

Okay, so I've been on this journey since January 2011, sidetracked by a back injury last summer and the holidays, but overall I've lost close to 25 pounds. I've been about 4-5 pounds above my lowest weight of 163 for a week or two after doing some traveling and eating poorly and can't seem to shake them. Before that, I had a hard time breaking 163, and I was discouraged so I stopped logging for a while. Anyway, now I'm back to logging and I've come across EMTWL and I'm intrigued.

I know my BMR is around 1560, and I calculated my TDEE at 2181. This puts my 15% down at 1854. MFP had me eating somewhere around 1360 cals/day, so I was likely in starvation mode. I started EMTWL yesterday and found it really difficult to eat all of my calories. With the exception of my dinner being somewhat high in sodium, I didn't do too badly for day 1 on this program, but I felt terribly full by the end of the day.

I have been doing C25K for exercise, and am currently on W4D1. I was doing the 30DS for a while, but my back couldn't handle it. On C25K rest days, I take my dog for a 1-2 mile walk. Additionally I drink 10-12 glasses of plain water a day.

How long did it take for you guys to adjust to eating more calories and how long after beginning did you start to see the scale move past that plateau point?

twinmomtwice4

I increased my calories slowly so it wasn't difficult for me physically. Emotionally, that was another story. I just felt like I was doing something wrong even though I knew it was the right thing to do. Does that even make sense? LOL

Now, I can't imagine to going back to a 1200 calorie diet. In fact, I just increased my calories again and I'm soooo happy about eating more!!

Initially, I lost weight almost immediately. But then after about 3 weeks, I got stuck gaining and losing the same 2 pounds. I think my body was having a hard time believing I wasn't going to deprive it of food so it just kept hanging on to the weight.

I stuck with it, though, and eventually busted through and now the weight is coming off beautifully. I even went on vacation last week and still managed to lose one pound!

So it took my body 6 weeks to finally "get it" and to trust that I will feed it properly. I was eating at 1800 calories last week and just upped to 2000 calories as of yesterday. I think I'll have to bump up one more time to get exactly where I need to be but for now, I'm happy and doing well!

ETA: I kept track of my measurements from the beginning and while I got stuck gaining/losing that same 2 pounds, I was losing inches. One week I gained back the 2 pounds, but dropped a pant size. Go figure!