Question Re: Transitioning from Very Low Cals Back to Health

BlueLikeJazz

In my intro post today, I talked a bit about what I've been doing the past month or so but I'll do a quick summary here:

For the past 5 weeks, I've been eating around 1000 calories a day six days a week and eating maintenance level calories on Saturdays (my "Free" day). I've also been exercising 6 or 7 days a week so my net intake was around 600 on every day but Saturday.

I was desperate when the new year began to get this weight off, and quickly, and now that I'm a month into it, I've realized that #1 It's just not going to work, I've stopped losing, #2 I won't be able to eat this way forever, I'm way too crabby! and #3 ummm I love food so eating more would be nice.

I'm coming to terms with the fact that, yes, I do have a lot of weight to lose and it's going to take some time to lose it. I lost 70 lbs in a healthy way my senior year of high school, so I know I can do it again and that putting my body into starvation mode definitely isn't going to do the trick.


SO, here's my question:

Should I immediately begin eating what MFP is recommending for me?
Or is it possible to combat some of the weight I may inevitably gain from switching from such low cals to something more reasonable by doing an incremental increase?

I need to increase my intake by about 700 calories in order to be where MFP says I need to be, so I was considering increasing my daily intake by 150 calories each week so that I'd be where I should be in about a month. I'm already discouraged by the number stalling on the scale so I'm afraid to go up by 700 calories right away for fear that I'm going to have a big gain.

On the other hand, keeping my net calories under 1200 for the next 3 weeks while I'm transitioning upward might be more detrimental to my metabolism in the long run than just biting the bullet and upping my intake by 700 right away.

Any advice on this?

LivyJo

I would say go for it right away. you body is starving and you need to get it out of starvation mode ASAP! Give it the food it needs, and the lbs will start coming off....

thisemmabites

I'd put the scale away for at least on month. Get to eating those calories.

monica1515

How many calories should you be consuming daily to be healthy?

BlueLikeJazz

How many calories should you be consuming daily to be healthy?

MFP says I should be eating 1390 a day (before any exercise is added in) in order to lose 2 lbs a week. So with my current net intake of 600 calories most days, it's actually closer to a jump of 800 calories....oyyy the scale is going to hate me for awhile, I'm guessing.

BlueLikeJazz

Just thought I'd update this in case anyone new who was doing the same thing I did stumbles on it:

The same day I originally posted this I decided to get to eating the amount I should be and just get it over with instead of bumping up my intake incrementally.

I gained 5 lbs from Sunday to Wednesday! I didn't get discouraged though and just did my best to cheerfully stick with it. I weighed in this morning and was back down 4.4 of the 5 I gained so it didn't take long to level out. I'm excited to get back to losing now!

It was hard to eat so much more at first, both mentally and physically, but I think as I go along I'll learn to incorporate some good fats to make up any extra cals I need to eat up. Finding the balance between eating very unhealthy foods in very large amounts (me 3 months ago) and eating very healthy foods in too small amounts (last month) is what I'm working on now, but I'm getting there! My fiber intake has been awesome from all the veggies I've been eating to try and use up my extra cals.