why does eating more = weight loss?
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bump... want to read this later and share it with my sister who is struggling with whether to increase her calories or not0
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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*0 -
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.0 -
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 1600.0 -
bump0
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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:0 -
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.0 -
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.0 -
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 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.
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. 0 -
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.0
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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.0 -
And again, your body will add water weight on a long term high calorie deficit, not lose water weight.0
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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.0 -
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 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.
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.0 -
Taking their word to be true, 1200 calories ISN'T ENOUGH.0
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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 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.
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.0 -
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 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.
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.0 -
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 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.
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.0 -
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 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.
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:0 -
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?0
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ok, so this is what I am struggling with....I am worried that the exercise I am logging is over estimating how many calories I am burning (if I go by what my elliptical says MFP is over estimating by half). So when I am trying to get to my 1200 net I worried that I am actually eating too much....does all that rambling make sense? Thanks in advance to anyone willing to comment!0
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Agreed. The things you mentioned are going to be true in some cases. I dunno what proportion of them, whether it's 9 out of 10 or 1 in 10, or whatever. I'm sure there are more confounding factors too. Food isn't just calories. 1800 calories worth of food contains 150% as much vitamins and minerals as 1200 calories worth of food. When you mess with those you start getting into having problems regulating cellular, organ level, or systemic functions, or the ability to produce enough neurotransmitters or deal with them, etc.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.
I have not read a whole lot of those threads but in the few I have seen, the person is often set to 1200 but is only eating 900 and thinking this is even more of a good thing than 1200. I think the best response to any thread is going to be different depending on the individual circumstances of that thread.
I would be curious to see science applied to that hypothesis as well. I don't see it happening any time soon though, since there's no supplement or product to be sold or piles of money to be made, regardless of whether it turns out to be true or false. (Or more likely, true under certain circumstances but false under other circumstances.)But my beliefs aside, no one has shown that an increase in cals leads directly to more weight loss for the average dieter.0 -
There are actually two things to consider there.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?
1- is it telling you to eat 1200 based on a goal of losing 1 pound a week, or a goal of losing 2 pounds a week? The reason this always should be asked is because almost everyone is ambitious and overrides the recommended setting of 1 lb a week. (I did it too! But then I felt like absolute crap so I changed it.) Also, whether or not it is a good idea to try to lose 2 pounds a week depends a lot on how much excess body fat you have.
2- MFP does not give you credit for exercising unless you specifically log it. If you tell it, "I will gladly exercise Tuesday for a hamburger today," it still doesn't count that toward your goal. Once you have burned off the calories and logged them, yes you should eat them back. If MFP is overestimating your burn, which apparently happens to a lot of people, then you can try eating back half of what it says. (I think a lot of this may come from the fact that it just lists things like "light effort, moderate effort, vigorous effort" and people have very different ideas of what is "vigorous.")0 -
It seems to be unpopular with many here to state the obvious; those things which align with the laws of physics.
It is all calories in vs calories out.
If you are not weighing and/or measuring your food, or if you are eating at restaurants or cafeterias where you have to estimate calories, you don't _really_ know calories in.
As for calories out -- this can get complicated, but if you slow down and do less when you are hungry, then you are undoing the good of your caloric restriction.
Here is the part that people just don't want to admit: Losing weight means letting those fat cells starve to death. They are begging to be fed. There is no weight loss without a little bit (or a lot) of hungry.
And while I'm at it -- starvation mode is a myth for those of us with normal, or above normal body fat levels. Look it up. Look at the research where the phenomenon was discovered. It happened ONLY when body fat percentages went below 5%.
Now, that doesn't mean you should be eating ultra-low calories a day -- we do need adequate macro and micro nutrients, but 1200 calories is _not_ a magic number.
Last but not least, research has shown that for those new, or relatively new to an exercise regimen, fat loss can occur at the same time we are building muscle. Once you get relatively fit, or no longer classified as "overweight" or "obese" this ability diminishes as we get stronger and thinner.0 -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHHzie6XRGk&sns=em
This is a 20+ min video from Lane Norton about metabolic damage.
He does talk about contest prep but it applies to everyone.
Listen to what he is saying because some people who are living with a suppressed metabolism from under eating can slowly come out of that hole and have a better metabolic rate just by slowly increasing what they are eating.0 -
If it were true that your body could magically adjust to ever-higher amounts of calories, no one would be fat.
There are people that do that, they are called hardgainers0 -
They say that cause they don't know what they are talking about basically. Very few folks on here are already very lean individuals and as such should not be worrying about muscle loss from eating too few calories. Presuming you are lifting and consuming adequate protein, you can easily lose more than 2lbs/week and keep your muscle tissue. The bigger you are the faster you can drop the fat. Fact is your metabolism doesn't slow very much, maybe 20% at most, it isn't like your body just shuts down. The only time you need to start being paranoid about muscle loss is when you are already lean.
Thank you! You can't go into "starvation mode" if you have extra fat stores. The body will ALWAYS use fat as energy.0 -
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?
Think of our bodies as a fire pit. Load it with kindling, light it, and it burns for just a little bit, then goes out. Add firewood, and the fire grows. The more wood, the higher and hotter the fire, the more energy is consumed by the fire's flames. Before long, it's a raging fire producing a lot of heat and eating itself faster.
Now, add crappy food, and it just smothers the fire.0 -
I'm no expert, but I've been dong this for 30+ days now, and I've observed that if I eat a little more, I lose a little more. As an experiment, for one week I didn't eat back my exercise calories (and went to bed really hungry every night), and I only lost half a pound. The next week I ate back all my exercise calories and even went over my calorie limit on three days and I dropped more than three pounds. I have no idea why; just reporting my experience.0
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I agree with everything else you said, but not this. It seems to vary between individuals, and I know personally I can experience several types of hunger, some good, some types are unpleasant. But I haven't had any more hunger on a 500 calorie deficit than I had when I was just eating whatever/whenever.There is no weight loss without a little bit (or a lot) of hungry.0
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