BEYOND Frustrated!!!

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  • AdrieneJ
    AdrieneJ Posts: 141 Member
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    I doubt you are gaining fat when you eat more. I tend to retain water when I switch up my routine or change my calories. Iwould use the TDEE calculator and switch things up.

    Agreed!
  • twinketta
    twinketta Posts: 2,130 Member
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    I redid the BMR on Fat2Fit entering my goal weight and it says I should eat between 1800 and 2000 calories a day (I think I'm lightly active) and my BMR is between 1300 and 1550 a day. Wish me luck on raising my calories.

    1800 still seems like A LOT of food. I think I need to allow myself to try something new, because what I'm doing is obviously not working. I wanted to raise my calories a couple of months ago because I thought that might be the problem, but I had too many people tell me "calories in vs calories out" so I got scared.

    In honesty, you have had a lot of good replies with suggestions, Maybe try to move away from the negativity

    A lot of the replies you have had, you have responded in a negative way? Try to think more positive and react to some suggestions in a more positive way...take that into your eating/exercise?
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,867 Member
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    I redid the BMR on Fat2Fit entering my goal weight and it says I should eat between 1800 and 2000 calories a day (I think I'm lightly active) and my BMR is between 1300 and 1550 a day. Wish me luck on raising my calories.

    1800 still seems like A LOT of food. I think I need to allow myself to try something new, because what I'm doing is obviously not working. I wanted to raise my calories a couple of months ago because I thought that might be the problem, but I had too many people tell me "calories in vs calories out" so I got scared.

    I know it seems scary...when you've restricted yourself the way you have for so long, 1,700 or 1,800 calories seems crazy. It'll likely take your metabolism a few weeks to catch up to what's going on...it's been stalled for quite some time. Basically, when you eat at massive deficits (especially since you weren't eating back exercise calories) your metabolism stalls to conserve energy...essentially, your deficit becomes the new maintenance. When you kick it back up, it's not entirely unusual to gain a little because your metabolism is stuck at the lower level. Don't worry...in a few weeks, your metabolism should catch on to what you're doing and adjust itself accordingly.

    It is for this very reason that I eat to maintenance for a week or so every 6-8 weeks...just a friendly reminder to my body that this thing I'm doing isn't permanent and there's still food.
  • Jennifer217B
    Jennifer217B Posts: 38
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    Have you tried mixing up your exercise routines? If you haven't that could help. Our bodies adjust to an exercise routine at about six weeks and then we get muscle memory.
  • kkenny0146
    kkenny0146 Posts: 66 Member
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    It is that point in my year as a band director that stress just seems to pile on, as we go through preparations for Music Performance Assessment, or festivals. It has seemed that I gain weight or fail to lose every year around this tie just due to stress.

    I have found that drinking water and making sure to eat ( I went years without eating breakfast) has made a huge difference. I know sometimes our schedule does not condone good eating times, but I make sure to prepare healthy snacks when I know I have a longer day and eat either between classes or on my planning at the end of the day.

    I have also found that not taking work home with me has done wonders for my stress levels, and I do attribute it to helping me lose weight, and the end of the day I leave the work at school and focus on myself. If was hard to do this initially, but I was finding I was burning out by not doing it.

    I joined CrossFit in November and that has helped. Just high Intensity workouts, even when I have been at school from 7-5pm. It is those days when I need it most.

    Hope some of this helps :) good Luck!
  • melonclarinet
    melonclarinet Posts: 163 Member
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    Thank you all for your replies. Starting yesterday, I am upping my calories to 1400 (I was averaging about 1200-1300 before). This isn't a huge difference, but I will slowly move it up each week until I find a better point. I have vowed to be patient with this and stick out the upped calories for a while before saying it doesn't work.

    Tanks again for all of the support everyone!
  • melonclarinet
    melonclarinet Posts: 163 Member
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    Well, in case anyone read this...I upped my calories to 1400 and made sure to eat back enough to net at least 1200 a day. I lost almost 3 pounds!!! I'm going to keep it here for a bit and see what happens in the next couple of weeks. I'm excited to see it moving in the right direction again :)

    Thank you everyone!
  • sivapc
    sivapc Posts: 12
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    Wow I'm glad I found this chain. I've been reading everyone's responses to melon's frustrations - and I share her frustrations. I went to my doctor and had my thyroid checked, thinking perhaps my mediation was too low, but my levels were normal. I am not frustrated after 2 weeks of working at this - it's more like 2 years! I've gone back and forth keeping the food diary, getting frustrated and stopping. Initially the MFP 1200 - 1300 calorie goal worked when I started a couple years ago, but it stopped working, and I gained back the 8-ish pounds I'd initially lost. I got discouraged and stopped tracking (but kept up vigorous exercising and watching what I eat). That didn't work either, so I started tracking again semi-regularly. I've spent the afternoon reading about TDEE and BMR and so forth, so I'm going to up my goal to 20% of my TDEE, which is 1520 calories. I'm also going to try and track better and I sure hope this works because nothing else is. Congrats melon!

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