Plateau=Brainwave=lower my cals to 1200

nadiakim

I'm really feeling your pain. When I first started back on the right track in January I was eating super clean no carbs except fruit and lentils, split peas and chick peas. I lost 10 lbs by the end of the month. Then plateaued for a month. When I started tracking I realized I was eating way below 1000 cal and netting less because of exercise. So I upped mine to 1200 and ate back exercise calories. Still another month went by and no weight loss. So I tried eating more and uppped them to 1400 and ate back all my exercise calories. Another month went by and still no weight loss. So I read all the comments about needing to eat more and did the bmr calculator. So I ended up upping my calories being careful of carb, protein, fat and sugar intake. So here I was at 2000 calories a day with 6 days of exercise. And the end of the month the results? I gained 10 lbs!!!! So extremely frustrated I threw my hands up. I have no idea what I am going to do now. The only thing I can say. Is to try different things, maybe see your dr. to get your blood work done and rule out anything medical and keep trying. Something has to give right? Good luck.

One thing to consider. When eating for extended periods of times below BMR, VLCD type diet, you may need to reset your metabolism. While I might get flamed by the 1200 calories or less a day crowd, I know what works for me an quite a few other people.

Likely over the course of a month, you probably did not gain fat weight but quite a bit of water weight retention and glycogen storage due to the increased food intake. Your metabolism did not have a chance to catch up.

Think about it...did you eat 35,000 calories, on top of your normal calorie intake in one month? Thast whats needed to gain 10lbs of fat in one month

That does make sense. I honestly couldnt figure out what the heck had happend. From what I had read they said no more than a month to reset the metabolism. Perhaps longer for me. I'm going to try eating at BMR for the next month and see what happens. Thanks

Emilit_uk

Perfect. Fasting for a year! That sounds like the perfect way to live a healthy lifestyle.....lets all do that. FFS this is the reason I keep off the main forums...

Nobody is advocating it as a lifestyle, and few of us are starting out at his initial weight or anywhere near it. He did lose the weight and sustain it. Maybe that doesn't fit your preconception so has to be rejected angrily.

I just happened to be reading it. Made his lifestyle an awful lot healthier FWIW.

Then why bring it up at all on a post where someone is asking for advice on how many calories they should be eating? And yes actually it does make me angry the amoun of poor advice people give om nutrition, it's damned unhealthy, and in some cases leads to eating disorders.

In my late teens I did the whole low calorie, lets trick my body imto feeling full by drinking water/chewing gum, blah blah blah. I would never have had the strength back then to do what I can do now. I'm not advocating going out and eating whatever you want to lose weight guys, just
EAT CLEAN cut out the junk, and once in a while, give yourself a break and have a treat! You are not going to gain 10lb over night because you ate one cookie!

I'm not a stand alone case here, there are groups with women who have had success with a lot more weight loss than I have that have not been starving themselves. You may feel fine on 1200 calories, your body may get used to it, but you will screw your metabolism.

Still, do whatever you feel happy doing, I just choose my role models a little more carefully. But then i've never been motivated to look be 'skinny' like some half starved model, which so many people seem to aspire to these days. l much prefer to look healthy and athletic, and feel happy and energetic!

wedjul05

Sorry people, only getting time to read all the replies now and respond.

Well so what I'm going to do/take advise: lower my carbs, increase protein, cut the crap (which isn't huge tbh, I don't see why 99 cals on a small bar won't hurt IF it fits in my daily cals but the again, it is empty cals but then again it keeps me sane!!!), change my gym programme and see how I get on.

I do rem eating alot of plain chicken/turkey with plain veg. I got results but I don't see this as sustainable for me anyway. I like my food wayyyyyyy too much to eat this plain all the time. I will find a happy medium I'm sure.

I ate pasta today so that's prob thrown my carbs out the window. Had a huge brekkie/lunch which I normally dont' do but I am going to the gym tonight so that will be about a 700-800 cals burn.

Thanks for the feedback. Much appreciated.

sgthaggard

I was just reading about a guy who fasted for over a year (that's zero calories) and five years later had kept the weight off.

It's hard to gain weight when you're a corpse.