Hesitant to up my calories..

LKD87

I have been eating between about 1200 calories for quite while now, but everything I have been reading recently suggests that I need to up my calories. I'm at a point now that I'm looking to maintain and/or build muscle, but I am terrified of upping my calories and putting weight back on. I know obviously if I intend to gain muscle I need to increase my caloric intake, but I'm still a bit hesitant... Thoughts?

deevatude

what is a few pounds of water going to do to u? lol

u look really small, so i would say dont worry about it. U can always up it gradually. ur not going to gain 10 pounds of fat.

annehart00

Up your calories slowly and monitor your measurements (scales can lie* when it comes to small gains). If you start to get bigger, cut back down. That being said, as long as you eat at maintenance it shouldn't be a problem.

* could be water weight or muscle gain

heybales

I have been eating between about 1200 calories for quite while now, but everything I have been reading recently suggests that I need to up my calories. I'm at a point now that I'm looking to maintain and/or build muscle, but I am terrified of upping my calories and putting weight back on. I know obviously if I intend to gain muscle I need to increase my caloric intake, but I'm still a bit hesitant... Thoughts?

Have you still been losing at 1200, weight or measurements, or has it stalled?

If still losing, that means you have a deficit, and the amount of loss tells you about what that deficit is. 1lb weekly means you have about 500 daily deficit.

So you could increase calories by 500 with current routine and not have any problems.
Or whatever the amount works out to be.

So usually will gain water weight, associated with topping off carb store's completely.

If you had stopped losing, then that just means your metabolism has finally caught up with you and you are actually eating at maintenance already, unless you increase your activity and need to eat more.

Bad thing there is, if metabolism is suppressed, trying to get the body to build muscle when it is already lacking for basic energy to keep metabolism where it is already is, won't happen.

In which case best to try to raise the metabolism back up. This is where you'll find out what seemed like good weight loss eating at 1200 backfires and you actually spend more time trying to recover, and what was good loss amounts averaged out turns out not so good.

Kind of like folks that lost 20 lbs really fast eating at huge deficit for 8 weeks, but then stalled for 4-6 months. That 20 lb loss over 8 months doesn't sound so good anymore now.