Eat More to Weigh Less - really?
Replies
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Sounds too good to be true doesn't it? Isn't that what got us here in the first place - eating more than our TDEE?
I don't get this re-set thing either. Our bodies don't work like that. there isn't a re-set button that kick starts some kind of burning calories quicker machine that has somehow gone on standy-by. Or am I wrong?
Surely all we need to do is balance our Protein and Fat needs for our ideal weight, calculate our TDEE and eat a moderate deficit to see a steady decrease in fat weight; doing some form of strength training to maintain muscle demand.
- and why is it when I look at the EM2WL group, the information there invites me out to an external website where I am invited to donate money to access any of the further information?
I am ..... suspicious.
Yeah, you and a few other people. But we will be shouted down. Watch!0 -
Exactly this and if you visit the site there are literally reams of information which really only boild down to the two simple statements above, which are already freely available on MFP.
That is because two members of MFP have expanded the EM2WL movement from here to facebook and beyond. They offer a ton of resources and now than what was originally started on MFP. At least that is how I understand it.0 -
It didn't exactly work for me. I was eating my TDEE - 20% but then I was eating my exercise calories. So I was messed up and because of it, didn't lose any weight. Your TDEE includes exercise. So figure out your TDEE and cut 20%. Don't eat back any exercise calories and you should lose weight.
Here's a good website to figure TDEE:
http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/
Hang on - but your TDEE does not include exercise in MFP if you are adding exercise in as extra activities every day in Cardiovascular, so you should eat those back (or at least some of them) and expect to lose weight still.
If you have added exercise into your base TDEE then yes, I agree you shouldn't eat them back as they are already factored in.0 -
Sounds too good to be true doesn't it? Isn't that what got us here in the first place - eating more than our TDEE?
I don't get this re-set thing either. Our bodies don't work like that. there isn't a re-set button that kick starts some kind of burning calories quicker machine that has somehow gone on standy-by. Or am I wrong?
Surely all we need to do is balance our Protein, Fat and Carbohydrate needs for our ideal weight, calculate our TDEE and eat a moderate deficit to see a steady decrease in fat weight; doing some form of strength training to maintain muscle demand.
- and why is it when I look at the EM2WL group, the information there invites me out to an external website where I am invited to donate money to access any of the further information?
I am ..... suspicious.
Fixed it for ya.
Well done my friend!0 -
I could be wrong, but I think the "eat more to weigh less" thing isn't advocating you eat as muchas you want or over your TDEE, but that you can actually eat a decent amount of calories and not sit at 1000-1200 as has been the traditional "diet" pushed by women's magazines or whoever in the past.
I'm going to cautiously agree. I've been at this consistently since the second week of January. As of Thursday I'd lost a whopping total of 4.5 pounds on a 1300 to 1400 cal. diet. Some weeks my weight was way up, others were down, a little. Last week, I was over my total calorie goal for the week by a couple hundred, which was unusual for me. Usually I'm pretty close.
On Saturday I started a new heavy lifting program. As part of that program, I've upped my calories, with a lot of trepedation, to 1500 on non-workout days and 1700 on workout days. Some would say heavy lifting = sore muscles = water weight gain, right? Well, as of this morning, I'm unofficially (I don't track my weight more than once a week) down 1.5 pounds.
Who knows what my official weight will be on Thursday and whether I can keep up the pace going forward, but it has made me wonder if my over-calorie week last week, combined with the increase in my calorie goal this week didn't "reset" my body in some way.
I peeked and see that you don't have much weight to lose. That will make it slower for you and certainly eating more won't help you lose those last few pounds, which are always difficult. I don't see how that will happen on 1600 cals per day, which seems like a good maintenance level, but what do I know.0 -
It didn't exactly work for me. I was eating my TDEE - 20% but then I was eating my exercise calories. So I was messed up and because of it, didn't lose any weight. Your TDEE includes exercise. So figure out your TDEE and cut 20%. Don't eat back any exercise calories and you should lose weight.
Here's a good website to figure TDEE:
http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/
Hang on - but your TDEE does not include exercise in MFP if you are adding exercise in as extra activities every day in Cardiovascular, so you should eat those back (or at least some of them) and expect to lose weight still.
If you have added exercise into your base TDEE then yes, I agree you shouldn't eat them back as they are already factored in.
It's partially a terminology thing and partially a usage thing.
Terminology:
TDEE, by it's definition, does include exercise. So if you aren't factoring in exercise when you calculate, you aren't calculating a TDEE.
Useage:
You're right, most people don't factor in exercise to the activity level when setting up their MFP profile. But there is no reason they can't do that. I haven't played around with it that much as I'm using custom goals, but as long as the calculations/activity level multipliers go high enough, there's no reason someone couldn't be highly active to include workouts 6-7 days a week, thus getting a true TDEE from MFP.0 -
Sounds too good to be true doesn't it? Isn't that what got us here in the first place - eating more than our TDEE?
I don't get this re-set thing either. Our bodies don't work like that. there isn't a re-set button that kick starts some kind of burning calories quicker machine that has somehow gone on standy-by. Or am I wrong?
Surely all we need to do is balance our Protein and Fat needs for our ideal weight, calculate our TDEE and eat a moderate deficit to see a steady decrease in fat weight; doing some form of strength training to maintain muscle demand.
- and why is it when I look at the EM2WL group, the information there invites me out to an external website where I am invited to donate money to access any of the further information?
I am ..... suspicious.
I agree with all the responses you have gotten about this as far as they encourage eating at a smaller deficit. However, I am confused about your statement:
" and why is it when I look at the EM2WL group, the information there invites me out to an external website where I am invited to donate money to access any of the further information?"
I have been on the website and all of the information is available free to anyone. You don't have to donate anything. There is a statement on the bottom of the web page that says something about the "info being free but hosting a website is not free so if you would like to make a donation, you can." I have not made a donation, and I have been on their forums and blogs and asked questions and I have never been prompted or pressured to give money.0 -
I could be wrong, but I think the "eat more to weigh less" thing isn't advocating you eat as muchas you want or over your TDEE, but that you can actually eat a decent amount of calories and not sit at 1000-1200 as has been the traditional "diet" pushed by women's magazines or whoever in the past.
I'm going to cautiously agree. I've been at this consistently since the second week of January. As of Thursday I'd lost a whopping total of 4.5 pounds on a 1300 to 1400 cal. diet. Some weeks my weight was way up, others were down, a little. Last week, I was over my total calorie goal for the week by a couple hundred, which was unusual for me. Usually I'm pretty close.
On Saturday I started a new heavy lifting program. As part of that program, I've upped my calories, with a lot of trepedation, to 1500 on non-workout days and 1700 on workout days. Some would say heavy lifting = sore muscles = water weight gain, right? Well, as of this morning, I'm unofficially (I don't track my weight more than once a week) down 1.5 pounds.
Who knows what my official weight will be on Thursday and whether I can keep up the pace going forward, but it has made me wonder if my over-calorie week last week, combined with the increase in my calorie goal this week didn't "reset" my body in some way.
I peeked and see that you don't have much weight to lose. That will make it slower for you and certainly eating more won't help you lose those last few pounds, which are always difficult. I don't see how that will happen on 1600 cals per day, which seems like a good maintenance level, but what do I know.
It happens because a lot of people don't have to eat at a large deficit to lose. I maintain at 2400 calories and lost my last ten taking in 1900 to 2000 cals a day. I would rather maintain at 2500 seeing as though I lost most of my weight eating 1500 to 1600 cals a day.0 -
I think it does get confusing because there are different groups (EM2WL, IPOARM, etc.), but I think what they are all saying is pretty simple - work out how many calories you burn in a day (TDEE) and then eat 80% - 90% of those calories.
It gets more complicated, because working out exactly how many calories you burn isn't straightforward. And then it gets even more complicated because MFP is set up to work a certain way - it gives an estimate of how many calories you burn WITHOUT exercise, then gives you a blanket deficit of 250 - 1000 calories (depending on how much you set it to make you lose). Then you eat back exercise calories in full to maintain the same daily deficit, regardless of exercise.
In the end, I think the major difference between the two is that MFP is a blanket deficit, whereas TDEE - 20% is tailored to your personal stats, and is a percentage, so a bigger, more active person will have a larger deficit than a smaller, less active one, so should lose weight more quickly.
In practice, you could have much the same deficit on MFP as you do with TDEE - 20%, by setting MFP to 1/2 lb or 1 lb a week.
I imagine that MFP is probably a little less accurate (lots of room for mistakes either in the initial calculation of your non-exercise burn, or in the estimates of exercise calories).0 -
Our bodies are amazing. When it senses you're eating too little to maintain weight it slows your metabolism to stay alive. For me, personally, I've always found that when I'm stuck at a weight, it's a good time.to moderately indulge whatever food craving I'd been having. I don't go too crazy, but eat more calories than I have been for one day (or one meal) only. My body seems reassured that It doesn't need to maintain "starvation" mode metabolism and I almost always lose weight immediately after that. I have a very efficient body...always preparing for famine and deprivation by squirreleling away every little calorie and acorn it finds in a fat cell somewhere. So the occasional overeating puts it at ease. Works for me.0
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I was skeptical too... and still have days where I'm tempted to plumet myself back down to 1000-1200 calories. But, I DO know that my metabolism is thrashed, and the reset makes sense to me. Now, actually accomplishing a reset... that's my current struggle. I hope to one day be a example for resets that worked
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I agree with all the responses you have gotten about this as far as they encourage eating at a smaller deficit. However, I am confused about your statement:
" and why is it when I look at the EM2WL group, the information there invites me out to an external website where I am invited to donate money to access any of the further information?"
I have been on the website and all of the information is available free to anyone. You don't have to donate anything. There is a statement on the bottom of the web page that says something about the "info being free but hosting a website is not free so if you would like to make a donation, you can." I have not made a donation, and I have been on their forums and blogs and asked questions and I have never been prompted or pressured to give money.
I refer to the EM2WL Starter Kit - a download e-book at $5.00. I doubt this e-book contains anything more than MFP offers for free. Freedom of choice though - no problem.0 -
Ok - so i am acronym challenged...
TDEE?
EM2WL?
IPOARM?
What do these stand for?0 -
Ok - so i am acronym challenged...
TDEE?
EM2WL?
IPOARM?
What do these stand for?
TDEE: Total Daily Energy Expiditure... it's all the energy used (cals needed) by yoru body to do everything you ask it to do throughout a day... breath, pump blood, digest food, clean the house, run errands, move furniture, lift, cardio, etc.
EM2WL: Eat More To Weigh Less... it's a philosophy... see the bulk of this tread for mroe info.
IPOARM: In Place Of A Roadmap... it's a thread/approach that helps simply all this for people. Search for it for more info.0 -
Thank you for all responses.
This venture has left me leaning more towards TDEE -20%, but I have a clearer picture of the way ahead for me.
I hope it was/will be useful for others and all best to all.0 -
I understand your reservations. I think that eat more to weigh less gets misinterpreted a lot and possibly doesn't get explained often enough. I follow and advocate the TDEE-20% approach. As for exercise calories, as long as you only eat them once it's fine. So either include exercise in TDEE and don't eat back calories, or don't include it and then eat them back later. It's just personal preference.
The other issue I've seen with EM2WL is that there are some who don't understand the context (that you still need to eat under your TDEE) and who just assume the answer is always to increase calories. That's not always the case. If a person is eating at a reasonable level and not losing weight then other options should be considered, like inaccurate logging.
Hopefully you've gotten the info you were looking for.0 -
Ok I think I understand TDEE, but nowhere in this thread does anyone actually say how to figure it out...
So TDEE is BMR + energy burned in exercise.
To lose weight, you need to figure your daily TDEE and subtract 20%...then eat only that many calories a day.
Or if you want to do it the easier way, you let MFP calculate it and eat back the calories you burn in exercise...
Is that correct?0 -
If my BMR is 1460, and I eat that…then I burn 500 calories, I will have the net of 960. However, I have eaten 1460 calories…and just because I burned 500 of them in exercise, my body knows that it was eaten. So would I not be over eating if I ate those extra 500 cals? Please help. I do a Seal team outdoor training, Monday – Friday, and run 5+ miles on Saturday! I found myself to be so hungry, but dealing with it, until night where I find myself bingeing. : (
My friend shared with me with a Eat-Clean book, that is really doable! So, I have been doing this is for 4 weeks, applying all the principles, and I have went from 150 to 157 …and now I just feel fat, my waist went up an inch, my clothes feel tighter, I have been drinking up to 6 liters of water a day, measuring, and counting. Since I have been eating this way, I no longer binge…but I have gained weight! Should I up my calories more? One website said my BMR is 1460, another said 1551, and another said 1750!!!! MY GOODNESS!!!
I have been eating my burned calories…and equal to eating 2000+ cals a day! Should I lower my cals?
Should my net equal to 1460, 1551, or 1750…or should my net equal 960? The body has already registered these cals eaten…right? Why eat them back?
I know I have messed my metabolize up eating this way…I want to do what is right!0 -
Ok I think I understand TDEE, but nowhere in this thread does anyone actually say how to figure it out...
So TDEE is BMR + energy burned in exercise.
To lose weight, you need to figure your daily TDEE and subtract 20%...then eat only that many calories a day.
Or if you want to do it the easier way, you let MFP calculate it and eat back the calories you burn in exercise...
Is that correct?
Yeah that's it. Although if you set MFP to 2 lbs per week it's not going to be TDEE-20% for the most part. Set it to 1 lb and it should be close.
As for how to figure it out go to goals and it should show you "calories burned daily" and that's your TDEE. It's BMR multipled by an activity multiplier.0 -
If my BMR is 1460, and I eat that…then I burn 500 calories, I will have the net of 960. However, I have eaten 1460 calories…and just because I burned 500 of them in exercise, my body knows that it was eaten. So would I not be over eating if I ate those extra 500 cals? Please help. I do a Seal team outdoor training, Monday – Friday, and run 5+ miles on Saturday! I found myself to be so hungry, but dealing with it, until night where I find myself bingeing. : (
My friend shared with me with a Eat-Clean book, that is really doable! So, I have been doing this is for 4 weeks, applying all the principles, and I have went from 150 to 157 …and now I just feel fat, my waist went up an inch, my clothes feel tighter, I have been drinking up to 6 liters of water a day, measuring, and counting. Since I have been eating this way, I no longer binge…but I have gained weight! Should I up my calories more? One website said my BMR is 1460, another said 1551, and another said 1750!!!! MY GOODNESS!!!
I have been eating my burned calories…and equal to eating 2000+ cals a day! Should I lower my cals?
Should my net equal to 1460, 1551, or 1750…or should my net equal 960? The body has already registered these cals eaten…right? Why eat them back?
I know I have messed my metabolize up eating this way…I want to do what is right!
You're eating them back because 1460 is the deficit you should be eating at. It's probably a 500 calorie deficit, if you chose 1 lb per week loss. So if you burn 500 off then your deficit gets a lot bigger, which means you're at risk of losing more muscle and stalling out. You want to net your goal. Since MFP's calorie burns are often off though many people (myself included) eat back half so there's a margin of error.0 -
Not eating enough and depriving your body of what it needs and what you want to eat is going to make you feel deprived and when you binge you'll eat more, and that excess will turn to fat.
Not eating enough and working out is going to slow your metabolism and cost you lean muscle mass. Muscle is more available to the body as an energy source than fat, and won't rebuild if you're not eating enough.
Strength training and eating enough calories to maintain your lean muscle mass is going to help put you into a fat burning mode. The muscle will have enough calories to rebuild when you work out, and your metabolism won't slow, and your daily expended energy will tend to come from your fat reserves and not your lean muscle mass.
There is a lot of science behind this, but that's the basics.0 -
Ok I think I understand TDEE, but nowhere in this thread does anyone actually say how to figure it out...
So TDEE is BMR + energy burned in exercise.
To lose weight, you need to figure your daily TDEE and subtract 20%...then eat only that many calories a day.
Or if you want to do it the easier way, you let MFP calculate it and eat back the calories you burn in exercise...
Is that correct?
Yes, except that the TDEE is BMR + your day to day calorie burn above BMR (work, etc.) + exercise. I'm mentioning that because I think the middle bit can be forgotten about. The figure MFP uses supposedly includes the first two parts, but not the third.
If you want to you could use the first two parts and subtract 20%, but then add in your exercise calories - 20% too. The difference is that it's a percentage deficit rather than a fixed amount.
I think this summary is very clear: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/943139-weight-loss-cheat-sheet-ipoarm0 -
Ok I think I understand TDEE, but nowhere in this thread does anyone actually say how to figure it out...
So TDEE is BMR + energy burned in exercise.
To lose weight, you need to figure your daily TDEE and subtract 20%...then eat only that many calories a day.
Or if you want to do it the easier way, you let MFP calculate it and eat back the calories you burn in exercise...
Is that correct?
Yes, except that the TDEE is BMR + your day to day calorie burn above BMR (work, etc.) + exercise. I'm mentioning that because I think the middle bit can be forgotten about. The figure MFP uses supposedly includes the first two parts, but not the third.
If you want to you could use the first two parts and subtract 20%, but then add in your exercise calories - 20% too. The difference is that it's a percentage deficit rather than a fixed amount.
I think this summary is very clear: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/943139-weight-loss-cheat-sheet-ipoarm
THANK YOU for that link!! that helps immensely!0 -
Just keep up the exercise as well.0
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Hopefully you've gotten the info you were looking for.
I've got it - thank you.0
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