why does eating more = weight loss?

mitsi94

bump... want to read this later and share it with my sister who is struggling with whether to increase her calories or not

KristineW78

Eating more in interval - fakes out your body
So don't eat more all the time but switch the calorie intake 1200 1500 2000 1200 1500 2000 etc
I dunno, when I eat the same low calories daily then splurge on a random day I am almost guaranteed to wake up and weigh less the next day *lol*

Trilby16

So, as your hormones become wonky and your metabolism is reduced your deficit is smaller and smaller than predicted--> your weight loss slows. By increasing your calories you restore proper hormone levels and weight loss can proceed.

^ This.

But from what I've heard, this isn't the way it works. Let's assume that your hormones are out of wack and metabolism has slowed such that TDEE is now 1000 cals (for sake of round numbers and easy conversation). By increasing cals slowly over the course of several weeks you being to "correct" your hormones, right? Know what else happens? you being to "repair" your metabolism. You go from a TDEE of 1000 to a TDEE of 1200. Then to 1500, and so on. So basically all you're doing is increasing your maintenance. You still won't (or at least shouldn't be) losing weight. And that's right from Layne Norton who is as expert on all this as anyone.

But if you increase your cals from 900 to 1200 and your TDEE becomes 1500, you are then eating at a 300 calorie a day deficit which would result in weight loss.

That's not how I understand it to work. The body is constantly searching for balance, for homeostasis. Eventually it adapts to 1000 cals daily and your TDEE becomes 1000. If you increase cals to 1200, your TDEE doesn't leapfrog it to 1500, it's adjusts to that 1200. When you increase to 1500, it adjusts to 1500.

The goal is to slowly increase back to healthy levels such that you can reduce cals and be back to a healthy deficit where you can lose weight. At 1000 cals, any weight loss you experience will be unhealthy.

If it were true that your body could magically adjust to ever-higher amounts of calories, no one would be fat.

degan2011

Eating more in interval - fakes out your body
So don't eat more all the time but switch the calorie intake 1200 1500 2000 1200 1500 2000 etc
I dunno, when I eat the same low calories daily then splurge on a random day I am almost guaranteed to wake up and weigh less the next day *lol*

this happens to me too. for some reason I tend to weigh less after a big splerge day. (specially when I was eating a 1200 cal diet) not so much now that I have levelled off at netting around 1600.

CarieLashley

bump

degan2011

If it were true that your body could magically adjust to ever-higher amounts of calories, no one would be fat.

that is an over simlification, and don't forget that everyone is saying a "healthy" level of calories not an ever-increasing amount of cals. ( that is how most of us got here in the first place.):laugh:

myofibril

Maybe I'm reading the paper wrong but can you point to me where it says something along the lines of a slower metabolism? From reading the intro and summary of the paper, adaptive thermogenesis is about how the body wants to maintain a specific weight, specifically a weight that one has maintained for a long time. Say, if someone was 300 pounds their whole life and decided to lose weight, adaptive thermogenesis kicks in and and makes them eat more to maintain a weight they've been a majority of their life. If there is something about a slowed metabolism, could you point me to it because i dont see it?

My apologies, I gave you the link to the recent follow up paper which discusses the controversies around adaptive thermogenesis rather than the original study which is here:

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/68/3/599.full.pdf

Look at the introduction section for an overview of the point.

csuhar

Seems like every thread I see asking about why someone isn't seeing results, the answer is always to eat more. The second someone says they are netting, or *GASP* grossing 1200 cals, the knee-jerk reaction is to tell them to eat more.

I get the more general health issues (nutrition, body composition, etc)... I'm not asking about those.

But if someone is eating 1200 cals and not seeing weight come off, why should they be eating more? Help me understand what's going on in the body... the science part of all this. Assuming their estimates are reasonably close (cals eaten, cals burned, tdee, etc etc), how does eating more = more weight loss?

SInce lots of people have dealt with the science aspect, I'd like to address the idea of how "the knee-jerk reaction is to tell them to eat more".

Personally, where I think this comes from is another couple of knee jerk reactions.

In some ways, it seems the default answer to wanting to loose weight is to eat as little as you possibly can stand. Now, I've known where my BMR and TDEE are since long before I came to MFP, so I've not seen this, myself, but I get the feeling that the systems here have identified 1200 calories a day as the least you can eat while maintaining basic health.

So I think what may happen is lots of people are eating the least amount they can without the system screaming at them (or at least it seems that way). So that's knee-jerk reaction #1: eating as little as you can. Knee-jerk reaction #2 seems to be that, when someone looks for advice, observers key in on the 1200 level, assume this individual recklessly chose the smallest number of calories the system will tolerate, and went with that. Knee-jerk reaction #3 is what you bring up here: telling them they need to eat more.

I think the people mean well, but I think they could phrase it better. Some will do more as far as looking at calculators and trying to crunch actual numbers, some won't.

LiftAllThePizzas

I don't know. I was only pointing out that in your hypotheticals the increase was an essential link in the causal chain that eventually produced weight loss.

Like here: "Increasing cals may give more energy which could lead to more intense workouts would could lead to weight loss, but then it's not the increase in cals that leads to weight loss, it's the increased intensity of the workouts."

Increased cals -> more energy -> intense workouts -> increased TDEE -> weight loss

Increased TDEE is the proximal cause, but if you remove "Increased cals" at the beginning, none of the other things happen and weight loss doesn't occur. So it's still causing weight loss.

No, the increased intensity is. If you increase cals but don't increase workout intensity, you won't suddenly start losing weight, will you? You could in theory get the same energy boost from a caffeine pill rather than an increase in cals. Then you still see the weight loss despite keeping cals steady. The intensity is causing the weight loss, the question is what's causing the increased intensity. Could be any number of things.

We're basically talking about how many slices of bread are in a loaf. Depends on how thin you slice it. Same with causality here. You can arbitrarily make a finer distinction between "increased intensity" and "weight loss" and keep slicing ever thinner to say the new thing is the most direct cause.

I don't think anyone has suggested that increasing cals is the only thing that could trigger further weight loss. Sure there are multiple things that could cause it, like doing meth too. It's not an unconditional/unqualified statement.

wmoomoo

From my understanding, if you eat less than what your body needs, it holds on to everything you consume. Your body is trying to keep you alive from all the activities you are doing or not doing. And while you do lose weight at a high calories deficiency, you are most likely losing water weight and muscle mass because fat is used to store energy, and your body is trying to hold onto energy. The weight will come back as soon as you begin eating again, and because you've lost the muscle mass that burns fat, you'll have a difficult time losing it again. This can be another reason why people have a difficult time losing weights the second time around or why they would plateau after a long time eating at a high calories deficiency.

grim_traveller

From my understanding, if you eat less than what your body needs, it holds on to everything you consume. Your body is trying to keep you alive from all the activities you are doing or not doing. And while you do lose weight at a high calories deficiency, you are most likely losing water weight and muscle mass because fat is used to store energy, and your body is trying to hold onto energy. The weight will come back as soon as you begin eating again, and because you've lost the muscle mass that burns fat, you'll have a difficult time losing it again. This can be another reason why people have a difficult time losing weights the second time around or why they would plateau after a long time eating at a high calories deficiency.

No. The purpose of body fat is to store energy the body can't currently use, in order to use that energy when the body doesn't eat enough. When you have a caloric deficiency, your body does not skip fat and burn muscle. It burns the fat first. That's why it is there. Especially if you are obese or overweight. You may lose a very small amount of lean body mass, but until you reach about five percent body mass, for men, the body will always consume fat before anything else.

grim_traveller

And again, your body will add water weight on a long term high calorie deficit, not lose water weight.

professorRAT

If you do not eat enough calories the body will go into starvation mode and hold on to fat no weight loss.

Eat more the body will begin metabolizing again at rate for your current weight and will burn off the fat stores once again as it is no longer in starvation mode..

I think there are people all over the world that would disagree with this. They eat very little calories and their bodies do not hold on to fat. Starving people do not have lots of body fat.

Starving people don't tend to have the the body fat in the first place. They haven't already screwed up their metabolism. I take your point, and I agree that if those dieters who are in starvation mode stayed there for many months/years, of course they'd lose weight.

But, we're talking about maybe 4 weeks of starving the body, for an overweight person whose metabolism isn't used to it. For these people during this time, they'll enter the starvation mode and they won't lose weight (or will find it difficult to, based on their bodies being used to having more).

I know it sounds messed up, but excluding genuine 3rd-world starvation, a lot of dieters find it easier to lose weight by eating slightly more to keep their bodies out of ketosis (starvation mode). It's a softer shift for their metabolism to have to make, thus making the process easier & more beneficial.

Disclaimer: OBVIOUSLY if they continued in ketosis (which isn't advised) for any great length of time (many months/years, without a single 'slip') they would eventually lose weight, but the body takes a long time to undo the damage that being overweight does to its metabolism.

Yes. That was exactly my point. Starving people have no fat, no muscle, etc. But that extreme was meant to illustrate this point: if you took a non-starving person and gave them too few calories, would their body's metabolism just adjust at some point? No matter how low the calories were dropped? So yes, you understood my point when you said "if those dieters who are in starvation mode stayed there for many months/years, of course they'd lose weight." Yeah, not in a good way, but weight nonetheless. Good explanation and thanks for getting my point!

I also understand there are body composition issues, but that was clearly stated as not being part of the question asked.

I was able to lose a few pounds going from 1400-1700 calories a day to 1700-2000 calories a day. I don't think it was because my metabolism was damaged. I have never really been overweight, just a bit more fat than I would like to have (vanity). Tracking showed me that I was able to be more consistent and adhere better with the higher calorie target. Thus, my average calorie deficit actually went UP after increasing my calorie target. I would bet this happens often. Perhaps more often than true metabolic damage, but of course that is hard to say for sure. My loss started within just 2-3 weeks of the change in target.

jacksonpt

I don't know. I was only pointing out that in your hypotheticals the increase was an essential link in the causal chain that eventually produced weight loss.

Like here: "Increasing cals may give more energy which could lead to more intense workouts would could lead to weight loss, but then it's not the increase in cals that leads to weight loss, it's the increased intensity of the workouts."

Increased cals -> more energy -> intense workouts -> increased TDEE -> weight loss

Increased TDEE is the proximal cause, but if you remove "Increased cals" at the beginning, none of the other things happen and weight loss doesn't occur. So it's still causing weight loss.

No, the increased intensity is. If you increase cals but don't increase workout intensity, you won't suddenly start losing weight, will you? You could in theory get the same energy boost from a caffeine pill rather than an increase in cals. Then you still see the weight loss despite keeping cals steady. The intensity is causing the weight loss, the question is what's causing the increased intensity. Could be any number of things.

We're basically talking about how many slices of bread are in a loaf. Depends on how thin you slice it. Same with causality here. You can arbitrarily make a finer distinction between "increased intensity" and "weight loss" and keep slicing ever thinner to say the new thing is the most direct cause.

I don't think anyone has suggested that increasing cals is the only thing that could trigger further weight loss. Sure there are multiple things that could cause it, like doing meth too. It's not an unconditional/unqualified statement.

You're right.

But the point of this thread was to question the rampant advise on this site that if you aren't seeing weight loss despite eating what many consider a low cal diet that you need to increase cals.

Rarely do people question how the person is estimating cals consumed/burned, how they got to 1200 cals per day, etc etc. The immediate response is always, "omfg, you need to eat more!" as of they will be dead in a week.

If people arent seeing the result they expect,maybe they should log more carefully, stop lying to themselves about that 1 piece of candy or that little bit of butter or the last couple bites of their kids' pizza, how many cals they are really burning during their etymological session, how hard they are really pushing in the gym, etc.

Are there times when people need to eat more? Definitely. But 9 times out of 10 I'm betting the problem isn't the 1200 calorie goal but rather in their estimating and/or logging.


But my beliefs aside, no one has shown that an increase in cals leads directly to more weight loss for the average dieter.

love4fitnesslove4food_wechange

Taking their word to be true, 1200 calories ISN'T ENOUGH.

professorRAT

I don't know. I was only pointing out that in your hypotheticals the increase was an essential link in the causal chain that eventually produced weight loss.

Like here: "Increasing cals may give more energy which could lead to more intense workouts would could lead to weight loss, but then it's not the increase in cals that leads to weight loss, it's the increased intensity of the workouts."

Increased cals -> more energy -> intense workouts -> increased TDEE -> weight loss

Increased TDEE is the proximal cause, but if you remove "Increased cals" at the beginning, none of the other things happen and weight loss doesn't occur. So it's still causing weight loss.

No, the increased intensity is. If you increase cals but don't increase workout intensity, you won't suddenly start losing weight, will you? You could in theory get the same energy boost from a caffeine pill rather than an increase in cals. Then you still see the weight loss despite keeping cals steady. The intensity is causing the weight loss, the question is what's causing the increased intensity. Could be any number of things.

We're basically talking about how many slices of bread are in a loaf. Depends on how thin you slice it. Same with causality here. You can arbitrarily make a finer distinction between "increased intensity" and "weight loss" and keep slicing ever thinner to say the new thing is the most direct cause.

I don't think anyone has suggested that increasing cals is the only thing that could trigger further weight loss. Sure there are multiple things that could cause it, like doing meth too. It's not an unconditional/unqualified statement.

You're right.

But the point of this thread was to question the rampant advise on this site that if you aren't seeing weight loss despite eating what many consider a low cal diet that you need to increase cals.

Rarely do people question how the person is estimating cals consumed/burned, how they got to 1200 cals per day, etc etc. The immediate response is always, "omfg, you need to eat more!" as of they will be dead in a week.

If people arent seeing the result they expect,maybe they should log more carefully, stop lying to themselves about that 1 piece of candy or that little bit of butter or the lady couple bites of their kids' pizza, etc.

Are there times when people need to eat more? Definitely. But 9 times out of 10 I'm betting the problem isn't the 1200 calorie goal but rather in their estimating and/or logging.

Agreed. Also, many people don't look at their averages. They are in deficit 4-5 days out of the week and blow it a couple days a week. This makes them feel like they are doing well, when in fact they are undoing their deficits on the bad days, thus yielding no true deficit on average. It is easier to do than many people realize, but 5 days of deficit a week still feels like adherence.

jacksonpt

I don't know. I was only pointing out that in your hypotheticals the increase was an essential link in the causal chain that eventually produced weight loss.

Like here: "Increasing cals may give more energy which could lead to more intense workouts would could lead to weight loss, but then it's not the increase in cals that leads to weight loss, it's the increased intensity of the workouts."

Increased cals -> more energy -> intense workouts -> increased TDEE -> weight loss

Increased TDEE is the proximal cause, but if you remove "Increased cals" at the beginning, none of the other things happen and weight loss doesn't occur. So it's still causing weight loss.

No, the increased intensity is. If you increase cals but don't increase workout intensity, you won't suddenly start losing weight, will you? You could in theory get the same energy boost from a caffeine pill rather than an increase in cals. Then you still see the weight loss despite keeping cals steady. The intensity is causing the weight loss, the question is what's causing the increased intensity. Could be any number of things.

We're basically talking about how many slices of bread are in a loaf. Depends on how thin you slice it. Same with causality here. You can arbitrarily make a finer distinction between "increased intensity" and "weight loss" and keep slicing ever thinner to say the new thing is the most direct cause.

I don't think anyone has suggested that increasing cals is the only thing that could trigger further weight loss. Sure there are multiple things that could cause it, like doing meth too. It's not an unconditional/unqualified statement.

You're right.

But the point of this thread was to question the rampant advise on this site that if you aren't seeing weight loss despite eating what many consider a low cal diet that you need to increase cals.

Rarely do people question how the person is estimating cals consumed/burned, how they got to 1200 cals per day, etc etc. The immediate response is always, "omfg, you need to eat more!" as of they will be dead in a week.

If people arent seeing the result they expect,maybe they should log more carefully, stop lying to themselves about that 1 piece of candy or that little bit of butter or the lady couple bites of their kids' pizza, etc.

Are there times when people need to eat more? Definitely. But 9 times out of 10 I'm betting the problem isn't the 1200 calorie goal but rather in their estimating and/or logging.

Agreed. Also, many people don't look at their averages. They are in deficit 4-5 days out of the week and blow it a couple days a week. This makes them feel like they are doing well, when in fact they are undoing their deficits on the bad days, thus yielding no true deficit on average. It is easier to do than many people realize, but 5 days of deficit a week still feels like adherence.

Very true.

mgsimon

I don't know. I was only pointing out that in your hypotheticals the increase was an essential link in the causal chain that eventually produced weight loss.

Like here: "Increasing cals may give more energy which could lead to more intense workouts would could lead to weight loss, but then it's not the increase in cals that leads to weight loss, it's the increased intensity of the workouts."

Increased cals -> more energy -> intense workouts -> increased TDEE -> weight loss

Increased TDEE is the proximal cause, but if you remove "Increased cals" at the beginning, none of the other things happen and weight loss doesn't occur. So it's still causing weight loss.

No, the increased intensity is. If you increase cals but don't increase workout intensity, you won't suddenly start losing weight, will you? You could in theory get the same energy boost from a caffeine pill rather than an increase in cals. Then you still see the weight loss despite keeping cals steady. The intensity is causing the weight loss, the question is what's causing the increased intensity. Could be any number of things.

We're basically talking about how many slices of bread are in a loaf. Depends on how thin you slice it. Same with causality here. You can arbitrarily make a finer distinction between "increased intensity" and "weight loss" and keep slicing ever thinner to say the new thing is the most direct cause.

I don't think anyone has suggested that increasing cals is the only thing that could trigger further weight loss. Sure there are multiple things that could cause it, like doing meth too. It's not an unconditional/unqualified statement.

You're right.

But the point of this thread was to question the rampant advise on this site that if you aren't seeing weight loss despite eating what many consider a low cal diet that you need to increase cals.

Rarely do people question how the person is estimating cals consumed/burned, how they got to 1200 cals per day, etc etc. The immediate response is always, "omfg, you need to eat more!" as of they will be dead in a week.

If people arent seeing the result they expect,maybe they should log more carefully, stop lying to themselves about that 1 piece of candy or that little bit of butter or the lady couple bites of their kids' pizza, etc.

Are there times when people need to eat more? Definitely. But 9 times out of 10 I'm betting the problem isn't the 1200 calorie goal but rather in their estimating and/or logging.

Agreed. Also, many people don't look at their averages. They are in deficit 4-5 days out of the week and blow it a couple days a week. This makes them feel like they are doing well, when in fact they are undoing their deficits on the bad days, thus yielding no true deficit on average. It is easier to do than many people realize, but 5 days of deficit a week still feels like adherence.

I went to a weight loss clinic and they did my RMR and gave me a number to hit. After a month, I had only lost one pound and was pissed. I called the doctor and he said to go 150 calories LOWER. I thought that amount would be crazy (1150) so instead I decided to track everything on a spreadsheet with my RMR in one column, calories expended during exercise in another, and total calories consumed in the third. When I did that, I saw that a couple bad days basically ERASED the entirety of my good days (Christmas, Christmas Eve, New Years Eve). I was over by almost 2000 calories each day. Now, I overestimate calories eaten, underestimate calories burned by exercise and use my RMR. I log EVERY DAY the totals I get from MFP but put them in my spreadsheet and it shows me my deficit. I've only had 3 days since then where I wasn't negative and I shoot for at least -500 each and every day. When it is there in black and white, it is hard to ignore. Go ahead and have a cheat day, but not recording it and wondering why you aren't losing weight isn't a good idea. Write it down, everything you ate, so at least you know where you are. If you maintain that calorie deficit over the week, you will, most likely lose weight.

professorRAT

I don't know. I was only pointing out that in your hypotheticals the increase was an essential link in the causal chain that eventually produced weight loss.

Like here: "Increasing cals may give more energy which could lead to more intense workouts would could lead to weight loss, but then it's not the increase in cals that leads to weight loss, it's the increased intensity of the workouts."

Increased cals -> more energy -> intense workouts -> increased TDEE -> weight loss

Increased TDEE is the proximal cause, but if you remove "Increased cals" at the beginning, none of the other things happen and weight loss doesn't occur. So it's still causing weight loss.

No, the increased intensity is. If you increase cals but don't increase workout intensity, you won't suddenly start losing weight, will you? You could in theory get the same energy boost from a caffeine pill rather than an increase in cals. Then you still see the weight loss despite keeping cals steady. The intensity is causing the weight loss, the question is what's causing the increased intensity. Could be any number of things.

We're basically talking about how many slices of bread are in a loaf. Depends on how thin you slice it. Same with causality here. You can arbitrarily make a finer distinction between "increased intensity" and "weight loss" and keep slicing ever thinner to say the new thing is the most direct cause.

I don't think anyone has suggested that increasing cals is the only thing that could trigger further weight loss. Sure there are multiple things that could cause it, like doing meth too. It's not an unconditional/unqualified statement.

You're right.

But the point of this thread was to question the rampant advise on this site that if you aren't seeing weight loss despite eating what many consider a low cal diet that you need to increase cals.

Rarely do people question how the person is estimating cals consumed/burned, how they got to 1200 cals per day, etc etc. The immediate response is always, "omfg, you need to eat more!" as of they will be dead in a week.

If people arent seeing the result they expect,maybe they should log more carefully, stop lying to themselves about that 1 piece of candy or that little bit of butter or the lady couple bites of their kids' pizza, etc.

Are there times when people need to eat more? Definitely. But 9 times out of 10 I'm betting the problem isn't the 1200 calorie goal but rather in their estimating and/or logging.

Agreed. Also, many people don't look at their averages. They are in deficit 4-5 days out of the week and blow it a couple days a week. This makes them feel like they are doing well, when in fact they are undoing their deficits on the bad days, thus yielding no true deficit on average. It is easier to do than many people realize, but 5 days of deficit a week still feels like adherence.

I went to a weight loss clinic and they did my RMR and gave me a number to hit. After a month, I had only lost one pound and was pissed. I called the doctor and he said to go 150 calories LOWER. I thought that amount would be crazy (1150) so instead I decided to track everything on a spreadsheet with my RMR in one column, calories expended during exercise in another, and total calories consumed in the third. When I did that, I saw that a couple bad days basically ERASED the entirety of my good days (Christmas, Christmas Eve, New Years Eve). I was over by almost 2000 calories each day. Now, I overestimate calories eaten, underestimate calories burned by exercise and use my RMR. I log EVERY DAY the totals I get from MFP but put them in my spreadsheet and it shows me my deficit. I've only had 3 days since then where I wasn't negative and I shoot for at least -500 each and every day. When it is there in black and white, it is hard to ignore. Go ahead and have a cheat day, but not recording it and wondering why you aren't losing weight isn't a good idea. Write it down, everything you ate, so at least you know where you are. If you maintain that calorie deficit over the week, you will, most likely lose weight.

YES! :drinker:

friggie

OK on my fitnes pal it says I should eat 1200 calories and then it adds whatever I burn in excersize so that often puts it up too 1600 calories. Now my question is, do I eat the 1200 calories or 1600 to lose weight?