someone, explain how eating more = weightloss? please

stephanj

I was just reading about this concept in my Turbofire - Power through a plateau. As your body gets into better shape, it will begin to burn more calories. In turn, you may need to increase the calories you eat to maintain your fitness goals and avoid seeing a plateau in your results. In the simplest sense, when your body's out of shape and has more fat and less muscle, your metabolism is slow. As you begin to eat less, you lose fat, since your body converts it into fuel. Add exercise to this equation and now you start building muscle, which also speeds up your fat loss. More muscle requires more calories to maintain. If you don't eat more, your workouts will suffer and so will your results.

As you get more fit and lose weight - your body is going through a plateau and needs more fuel to increase the intensity of your workouts.

Hope this helps - very interesting concept

Eureka! This actually does make sense to me! I have been working out super hard lately and totally lagging In energy. I am going to up it carefully to the point where I feel energetic again. Thanks!

LadyOfOceanBreeze

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

The minimum amount you'll burn in a day is BMR. The actual amount you burn in a day is called TDEE around here (Total Daily Energy Expenditure), which includes exercise AND a whole bunch of other activities like showering, eating, driving, moving around an office, changing diapers, sex, and whatever else you do in a day.

If you eat more than BMR but less than TDEE you will lose weight.

So some of us want to eat closer to our actual TDEE to lose weight (I like a ~400 cal/day deficit, personally) to lose weight slowly and without much effort while preserving lean muscle mass. Others choose to eat closer to BMR... or less.

Many people decide they want to lose weight and are bombarded with messages about eating 1200 calories/day, eating 500 calories plus HCG injections, eating 300 calories plus B vitamin injections or whatever... the truth is, as long as what you eat is somewhat less than what you burn, you'll lose weight.

It doesn't have to be super restrictive. Just tracked accurately.

It all totally confuses me. Maybe that is why I am not doing as well as I want. LOL.

I'm with you. I don't understand it either - I've even tried to read up on it. I used to think I was good with numbers, but now my head hurts.:sad:

pjstar31

Teh only issue with this is your body doesn't always follow the math. And as you lose quickly, a lot of the lost will be muscle. When you lose muscle, you slow your metabolism which will cause your body to plateau faster. So you have to ask if a few short term gains are worth the long term issues.

I doubt "a lot of the lost will be muscle" because as long as I continue my protein intake and exercise my body will continue building muscle. The more likely scenario is that a lot of what will be lost will be fat .... and I got a crap load of that to spare!

LadyOfOceanBreeze

THIS!!!!!

I was just reading about this concept in my Turbofire - Power through a plateau. As your body gets into better shape, it will begin to burn more calories. In turn, you may need to increase the calories you eat to maintain your fitness goals and avoid seeing a plateau in your results. In the simplest sense, when your body's out of shape and has more fat and less muscle, your metabolism is slow. As you begin to eat less, you lose fat, since your body converts it into fuel. Add exercise to this equation and now you start building muscle, which also speeds up your fat loss. More muscle requires more calories to maintain. If you don't eat more, your workouts will suffer and so will your results.

As you get more fit and lose weight - your body is going through a plateau and needs more fuel to increase the intensity of your workouts.

Hope this helps - very interesting concept

Eureka! This actually does make sense to me! I have been working out super hard lately and totally lagging In energy. I am going to up it carefully to the point where I feel energetic again. Thanks!

Kmsnomaha

Bump for reading later

Nutrition1st

The concept to me means that most people under eat. And finally society is learning that under eating is just as unhealthy as over eating. When you don't eat enough calories, your body stores the majority of your meals as fat. When you over eat, your body stores what it can't burn as fat. In fitness and nutrition, it's impossible to give blanket statements. I can only speak from my experience. At 300 lbs I ate 1 meal a day. When I got down to 185 I was eating far more than ever before. But they were measured, calculated meals at the right time of day. I see over 400 clients a month between training and nutrition consulting. I can honestly say that 75% of the people I work with (weight loss, muscle gain, athletes) had no idea that they were not getting enough calories per day.

mcarter99

I don't think America's problem is that most of us undereat.

Your body really doesn't have some switch where it goes to storing calories as fat based on how much you're eating. There is a kernel of truth- you might lower your BMR due to thyroid effects or reduced LBM. But you don't go from burning all your intake at 2500/day (non-diet) to STORING all your intake at 1500/day. Maybe at 2500, your body used up 1550 in BMR. Maybe at 1500 your body uses 1450 in BMR. You're burning 100 calories/day less in BMR but your body is still burning your intake calories, not shuttling them into fat cells. It has to burn them. It can't go on without burning up either your daily intake or your stored fat. It doesn't grow more fat at a deficit. Nothing can grow at a deficit. It has to shrink.

jog8s

This is something I have noticed with myself, that I don't eat enough. Go figure, Im over weight cause I don't eat enough?!? I understand they why, my hard part is the eating part, Im full after eating what I do eat, how can I add more?

drusilla126

I didn't understand it at first either. It's counterintuitive to everything you hear about weight loss. It's all "you can drop to 1200 calories and be fine" and "cut 3500 calories to lose a pound" out there. When I started I was keeping as close to 1200 calories as I could but exercising on top of that. Basically giving myself 900 calories NET to live on. Not good. I lost weight but I also noticed I soon had barely enough energy to get out of bed and where when I started I was gaining muscle and feeling awesome that feeling had gone and I wasn't as strong. Which makes sense because my BMR was around 1800. BMR is the number of calories your body needs to perform its basic functions (blinking, breathing etc.) So you need to eat at least that. This number is unique to you and takes into account your age, height and weight. There are websites that will calculate it for you you just put in your info. Like this one: http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

The goal is to eat less than your Total Daily Energy Expendature though. If you're in that range of above BMR but below TDEE you should lose weight healthily and steadily. I hope some of that made sense. I'm just starting to get it myself.

I had fooled myself into thinking what I was doing was maintainable for life. Yeah right! Turns out I was on a crash diet basically. I'm greatful I caught on as early as I did.

rowdylibrarian

I think it's starting to sink in!

mcarter99

It's like Santa Claus. Those who want to believe, do. You can tell them all you want to disprove it. You can point out that the experts in the field don't believe it, and it's a big field. They go on believing. It's rather sweet.

futuremalestripper

then why are all the kids in Africa... the ones you see on "feed the children" ads... all are bone? their bodies have gone for how long with out food?

I know the body can survive at least 40 days without food, water much less... I doubt one day is going to make that big of a difference.

Maybe you should create your own diet and put it in late night infomercials.
"African Child Starvation Diet - now for adults too! Get that boney malnurished body you've always wanted!"

... Starvation mode is a saying that mutated from fat burning mode and glycemic index. Your body will be more likely to turn your calories directly to fat in certain scenarios. If you maintain a certain blood sugar level (through what, when, and how much you eat) you can minimize those scenarios and keep your body into more of a fat burning mode. Everything stupid comes from some fact once upon a time, it just gets diluted (a lot).

Prahasaurus

Basically, you need to eat at least 1200 calories a day because anything less than that kicks your body into survival mode. Your body will think there is some kind of famine and hold on to every shred of fat it can and slow your metabolism way down to try and keep you alive because it thinks you are in danger of dying. That's why you need to eat more.

As has been discussed MANY MANY times on this site, "starvation mode" is not an easy state to achieve.

If you're not posting from Sub Sahara Africa, I'd say it's highly unlikely that you are in "Starvation Mode" or "survival mode."

If you continue to gain wait, I'd say you are in "too many Oreos mode."

--P

psuLemon

Teh only issue with this is your body doesn't always follow the math. And as you lose quickly, a lot of the lost will be muscle. When you lose muscle, you slow your metabolism which will cause your body to plateau faster. So you have to ask if a few short term gains are worth the long term issues.

I doubt "a lot of the lost will be muscle" because as long as I continue my protein intake and exercise my body will continue building muscle. The more likely scenario is that a lot of what will be lost will be fat .... and I got a crap load of that to spare!

Your body will NOT build new muscle mass (even with heavy weight training) if you are in a calorie deficit. It just isn't possible. You need energy to create mass, it's that simple. Also, if you track your body fat and weight concurrently, you can tell if you will lose lean body mass. I have seen as much as 50% of the weight loss from lean body mass. So someone losing 30 lbs, lost 15 lbs from lean body mass. And this was from a VLCD.

psuLemon

This is something I have noticed with myself, that I don't eat enough. Go figure, Im over weight cause I don't eat enough?!? I understand they why, my hard part is the eating part, Im full after eating what I do eat, how can I add more?

Simple, you can adjust your hunger signals and eat higher calorie foods. When you cook meat, cook it in extra virgin olive oil, you can eat spoonfuls of peanut butter (my personal favorite) or you can eat nuts. Also, if you start to eat more frequently, your body will adjust and increase your hunger signals.

pjstar31

I have seen as much as 50% of the weight loss from lean body mass. So someone losing 30 lbs, lost 15 lbs from lean body mass. And this was from a VLCD.

At 300+ pounds I'll take weight loss in any shape or form. I've lived most of my life fat and unhealthy so I think I'll be fine with living the rest of my life thinner and unhealthy.

mcarter99

I totally hear ya, and bravo for your honesty. Losing lean body mass is inevitable and even necessary and desirable to a certain extent. You can do what you can to mitigate it but some people can't attack every issue at once.

My feeling is - When your scale weight is ruining your life and health, attack it if you WANT to. You don't have to *****foot around with .5lb/week goals and hitting the PB jar 'for your health'.

Not that the slow method isn't terrific. But there is justification for being less conservative sometimes, too.

psuLemon

I have seen as much as 50% of the weight loss from lean body mass. So someone losing 30 lbs, lost 15 lbs from lean body mass. And this was from a VLCD.

At 300+ pounds I'll take weight loss in any shape or form. I've lived most of my life fat and unhealthy so I think I'll be fine with living the rest of my life thinner and unhealthy.

And a person at your current weight could sustain a large deficit. The only suggestion is once you plateau, which will be inevitable, then add more calories.

GodsGirl37

actually not always on those that don't eat being sticks. I had the opposite effect. I ate between 1,000-1100 calories sometimes lower than that. I went from a nice 125 pounds to a whopping 250 pounds. I was not overeating. my body was starving and it stored to fat. then when I began eat more to weigh less here on mfp I've been 4 days in already went from 191 pounds to 183 pounds where I am now. I still have to tweak my eating a bit and learn to make healthier eating choices but I am losing. I also up my work outs and included strength training.

stupidloser

It's not how much you eat, it's what you eat. Happiness=pizza and a 6-pack of beer