Please give me some advice!!!!

skyhealth

I am at my current goal weight of 106lbs and height of 5"3 and want to maintain at that level or gain some muscle as I have that "skinny fat look".

The thing is I have been only eating around 1200-1300 calories a day for the
past year now and I feel like if I increase that I will gain the weight all back. I don't know what I should do next but I know that eating 1200-1300 calories isn't a lifestyle thats maintainable. I'm scared of increasing so I just wanted some suggestions on what to do to maintain my weight and get out of being skinny fat.

I have been reading dans road map and eat more to weigh less and came up with the numbers on light exercise as I get usually 2 hours of moderate weight training per week and the rest a sedetary job:
Mifflin-St Jeor
BMR: 1246
TDEE: 1713

Katch-McArdle 23% body fat
BMR: 1168
TDEE: 1606

I don't know what numbers to use. My mind says use the Katch-McArdle because it is lower but i'm not sure, so I just wanted some suggestions on what I should do to maintain my weight, if I should go by these models, how should i go about increasing and how do I loose the skinny fat look.

katevarner

You don't need to make any huge jumps regardless, particularly since you are so worried about gaining weight. Try just adding 150 calories or so at the beginning and see how it goes. If you continue to lose or don't gain, then in a couple of weeks, add some more. None of the calculators are exactly right, so you'll just have to play with it a while to see what your actual TDEE is.

If you want to gain muscle, you can even eat a little above TDEE as long as you are working out. Some of the weight you gain will not be muscle, tho, as you can't really gain just muscle, but if you get closer to the level of LBM you want, then you can cut your calories back to lose the added fat.

Congratulations on reaching your goal! Now the hard part begins.

TavistockToad

the difference between those 2 figures is about 100 cals.. 100 cals really wont matter.

i cant suggest anythign other than eat more... as you say, you cant eat 1200 cals for ever.

up your cals by 100 per week till you get to 1600 and see how you get on.

as for the skinny fat. you need a really good strength programme 3x per week.

jesz124

This in my mind is exactly the reason why trying to lose weight on a 1200 cal diet is a bad bad idea. It leaves you so little room for maneuver.

I don't have any experience with your problem as such so can't give you any first hand advice but I would suggest firstly when you have decided what figure to use for your TDEE increase your daily calories slowly until you reach TDEE. Keep an eye on how you feel and your weight.

Keep your protein high and drink plenty of water and just see how it goes. Good luck x

charliehefferon

bump for later - I'm pretty much in the same position!

shivaslives

Any of these numbers will work for you but it will take a little time for your body to adjust; make sure you give it that time and don't get too discouraged or distraught. the bottom line is that you need to give your body the fuel it needs for the workouts and to build the muscle.
There are two other important factors to take into consideration. 1. you may want to dial up your protein percentage if you are trying to build muscle. The default setting for MFP is 15% of your calories which will likely be adequate, but moving it up to 20% will ensure you are getting enough to build some muscle and won't do any damage. The trick is picking whether you're going to take that 5% from the fats or the carbohydrates. 2. Adding some muscle will cause you to gain some weight if you don't have enough fat to take off to balance it. You have to be okay with that. Even if you do replace the fat with muscle, you may put the muscle on first, and then take the fat off after. This is were body fat percentage becomes much more important that weight loss and I think is a much better measurement when in maintenance mode. It will show you getting leaner even if you put on a little weight.
Good luck.

Iwantatinytum

If you change your settings in your profile from weight loss to maintenance won't it tell you what you should now be consuming?

skyhealth

Thanks for the replies! I may try increasing 100 a week and see what happens

Any more suggestions or any suggestions on what I can do about getting rid of the skinny fat look?