Weight loss with MORE calories

LucyT4dieting

When I entered my information into MPF, I was given a 1200 calorie diet. I keep reading about people who are struggling to lose weight with 1200 calories being given advice to eat MORE! I don't understand how eating more calories will make you lose. I've been losing weight pretty steadily, and have one more pound to go to get to goal. I already adjusted my calories to 1250, but I'd like to add more. I'm just afraid to do that. I'm only 5'2" tall, and at almost 60 years old, my metabolism isn't all that fast. I find it hard to exercise every day since I work full time, but I do make a point at walking on a treadmill every other day. Any suggestions/and or similar experiences will help.

_Thanatos_

It may seem counter productive but that's the way it goes. At some point you're going to stop losing weight and the only way to lose more is to reduce your deficit a bit. You'll lose weight more slowly but it's better than losing nothing at all.

Chief_Rocka

So if I'm reading this correctly, you lost 13 lbs, you're 1lb away from your goal, and you want to change things?

gatorginger

bump

TheCaren

So if I'm reading this correctly, you lost 13 lbs, you're 1lb away from your goal, and you want to change things?

^^^ Yeah, this.

AmyP619

I upped my calories from 1200-1300 to 1400-1600 a couple of weeks ago, and I've been losing pretty steadily since then!! after being in a major plateau, too! It does work. I was very skeptical and scared to up them, but I did and I'm glad I did.

gatorginger

This is my journey and eating more has worked great for me. I took baby steps and only increased my calories to 100 more a day and stayed at that level for at least 2 weeks and got up to 1500 and thought that was going to be my mainteance level then all of a sudden I started losing again so I am now eating 1700 and will probably be increasing that in the near future. So take baby steps and keep a record of what your doing it helps. I only do very very moderate exercise of walking maybe 4 times a week for 20 minutes and I got to my goal weight

2/27/12 started with myfitnesspal at 146 pounds eating 1000 calories a day

5/25/12 weighing in at 128.8 increased my calories to 1100 a day

6/8/12 weighing in at 126.4 increased my calories to 1200 a day

7/6/12 weighing in at 124.8 increased my calories to 1300 a day

7/20/12 weighing in at 124.6 increased my calories to 1400 a day

8/3/12 weighing in at 124.4 increased my calories to 1500 a day

10/10/12 weighing in at 124.3 increased my calories to 1700 a day

erinsueburns

It is more about changing the goal. Many of the people you see being told to eat more have a goal of more than a pound per week, which is excessive calorie reduction for someone with a limited number of pounds left to lose. You might see someone with a BMR of over 1500 for instance, eating less than 1200 calories per day. So for instance, with only one pound left to go, you might be better of setting your goal at half or even a quarter of a pound per week.

Take a look at your BMR and eating at LEAST that might be a good place to start.

Sarge516

Depends how much you exercise.

I started at 285 lbs with my settings to "lose 1.5 lbs/week" which gave me about 1700 cal/day, and as I lost weight, MFP auto dropped that to around 1500 cal/day when I got down to around 200 lbs. I felt like crap. I was feeling light headed during hard exercise, and had no energy. I was doing about 5 hours of cardio/week, and about 2-3 strength training hours/week.

I set it to "lose 1 lb/week" and ate a few more carbs, and I felt better. Once I dropped to my goal weight (-95 lbs), I changed my goal to "lose 0.5 lbs/week" and that increased my calorie goal to about 1970 cal/day. I can maintain that, and I have no more light-headedness when working out hard. I did lose the last few pounds after I increased my calorie allowance though. So, it can happen.

LucyT4dieting

So if I'm reading this correctly, you lost 13 lbs, you're 1lb away from your goal, and you want to change things?

I would like to up my calorie intake a bit, but wanted to make sure it wouldn't impede my weight loss.

gingerveg

I've upped my calories and have not lost anything yet but I haven't gained anything either (and I usually fluctuate a few pounds up so it might actually be a loss I just don't know it yet). I'm at 1400 and I'm going to stay here until I either go up or down in weight. If I lose weight I will up my calories again by 100. I sort of zigzag my calories too (not really on purpose). And this week is fairly unusual because I have been netting 1200-1400 even with workouts so I can bank my calories for thanksgiving (hopefully it will all even out to about 1400 at the end of this week). I'm a vegetarian so the food I eat doesn't tend to be high calorie so some days it is actually hard to meet my goals. I know that pisses people here off to read that, but it is true for some of us. I like to eat, but I also make a lot of my food from scratch and I am trying to stay on a budget. So I am hoping my maintenance is not some ridiculously high number of calories like 2000 because my food bill will go up and I'll have to spend even more time prepping and cooking. Sure I could eat junk and hit 2000 easy, but that's not generally how I roll.

So anyway, if you want to know how it goes check back in with me in a month. I should also add I am 39 y/o and 5'4" so 100 calories means way more to my body than a 6' 180lbs dude in his 20s.

GomesDavid

Upping the calories is great for building muscle! You want to make sure you're only burning fat during your workouts and not muscle tissue.