Eat More to Weigh Less? I THINK NOT!

Sweet_Gurl_Next_Door

I basicially eat 3 mini meals and 2 snacks sometimes 3 if I have a lot of calories left over. I went from netting 900-1,100 to netting between 1300-1400 calories. if I am not hungry I don't eat extra things. try setting your calories to losing 1 pound a week perhaps. eat more to weigh less is working for me

EvgeniZyntx

If I logged on days with low calories, usually it's because I ate something that I have no idea how to log (example: my friend made dinner, and she doesn't know what she put in it and doesn't look at calories) or I went somewhere that doesn't have a nutrition chart OR I just wasn't hungry. And if I'm not hungry, I'm not going to stuff myself because that's just uncomfortable for me.
And I've been doing this for more than two weeks.

Machafin: I strive to meet my macros, especially protein. I try to add things into foods to get to that point; sometimes, it just doesn't work and I end up over or under. certain things.

My Command Fitness Leader said to try juicing...I just don't have a juicer. But a friend of mine does so I might try that. I'm also looking in to getting a personal trainer.

So you are saying you really didn't REALLY follow your calories or eat more. How do you meet your macros and stay on course, if you aren't tracking.

You can try strawberry ketones, juicing, a personal trainer, shred, crossfit, lifting or whatever. Weight loss is

- eat below your TDEE
- then a bunch of other stuff

So track first and don't complicate it beyond that. If you aren't tracking, sure you can lose weight, but clearly NOT tracking ISN'T working for you.

Get a scale, too.

Elzecat

I agree that this is BS.
The only time you need to eat more is when you exercise. Even then, I try to eat to keep going - protein or whatever - and be healthy.
This is one piece of advice I REFUSE to listen to because my experience shows that when I eat more, I weigh more!!! AND I want to eat more.
I will continue to eat what I do and not worry about THAT advice.
Doin' JUST FINE here, thanks

"Eat More" doesn't necessarily mean eat more food or eat when you aren't hungry. It means eat more *calories*. So instead of having carrot sticks as a snack, you might have celery with a little bit of peanut butter instead. You aren't eating more food, just more calories.

WHATTTTTTTT :indifferent:

I think they meant more nutrient-dense foods by that. But...I could be wrong.

Elzecat

This is a horrible suggestion that I normally wouldn't make, but if it will help you keep your position...

Flush your system, using a warm salt flush. Combine two teaspoons of non-iodized sea salt with 1L of warm water, drink it, and prepare to have your guts turn inside out. Seriously, do it at night, when you have no where to be.

Then eat very low carb/high protein with all of the water in the world until your weigh in. If you're still too high, sauna and don't rehydrate before your weigh in. You should be able to drop 5lbs in a week using this, but expect it to come right back when you rebuild glycogen stores.

This is dumb, not healthy, potentially dangerous, and absolutely not something you should do long term or repeatedly. I would never suggest anyone do it if it weren't for a very good reason.

Good luck!

TERRIBLE ADVICE.

Elzecat

3dogs is giving you the best advice in this thread--you should really thank her and think about what she's saying. You have to consistently log your calories or you simply have no idea what the numbers are, period. You can't say you tried EM2WL and it didn't work when you didn't follow the program. Follow the program as stated (not your own bizarre version of it) for a month or two and see what happens. Perhaps it will work for you, too.

If you refuse to consistently and accurately log your food intake, I'm not sure how anyone can advise or help you. It's impossible for anyone to estimate what your empty food logs may or may not total. And who knows how many calories you possibly burned...it's all very mysterious.

My suggestion is that you really buckle down, track everything accurately, and see what happens.

FTW. It's a bit like saying "I trained for a marathon and didn't get past the first mile" then admitting you didn't actually do any running while training.

Unless you are actually logging what you eat you have no idea what your calorie intake is.

Buy a set of kitchen scales - weigh and measure everything and log it. If you are eating out, estimate what is in the meal (fairly easy to look and think "X amount of pasta, x amount of turkey, x amount of oil" etc. It's what I do).

Note to the OP: If you go on a forum complaining about how a particular way of eating didn't work for you, but you didn't actually log consistently, measure your portions, OR follow that way of eating properly...you probably shouldn't be arguing with all the people trying to help. They're just pointing out that the concept of "eat more to weigh less" works for most people IF it is followed properly. If staying in shape (under a certain weight/body fat percentage?) is a requirement of your job, maybe you need to work on this for longer and be consistent--I didn't see you post when your weigh-in is, but short of fasting or a miracle cleanse of some sort (which don't actually exist)--you're probably not going to get the results you desire. I wish you good luck and I hope you do read the posts by 3dogs and the others and consider all the good advice you've been given. (with the exception of the salt flush/sauna suggestion...that's NOT good advice.)

lwagnitz

I had this same problem. I was eating around 1300 cals/day, then upped to 1600 and I gained all but 3 lbs of the almost 20 I lost in a month and a half.

tenintwenty

If you just need to drop five lbs temporarily for a weigh in- do it the cheater way dehydrate yourself. Take some diurex and go for a long run, and just sweat out as much water as you can. Also do a BM, and this should have you down by 5 lbs. Everyone is going to say... oh that's so bad for you... but whatever... that's what boxers and wrestlers do for weigh-ins, and it won't kill you.

Kst76

Everybody is different. I burn around 700 calories every time I workout ,so close to 3500 per week. I eat 1200 to 1500 cal. A day. I am loosing weight doing this and feel great.

xxtaliaxx

If I never measured before using a scale, I don't see why I should start now. I mean, I understand what you guys are saying because I'm not seeing results but I'm not going to buy a bunch of stuff to try and lose weight. I know everyone on here who has lost weight does not own a scale.

deksgrl

I basicially eat 3 mini meals and 2 snacks sometimes 3 if I have a lot of calories left over. I went from netting 900-1,100 to netting between 1300-1400 calories. if I am not hungry I don't eat extra things. try setting your calories to losing 1 pound a week perhaps. eat more to weigh less is working for me

She can't expect to lose 1 pound a week, she is only 11 pounds away from her goal.

EvgeniZyntx

If I never measured before using a scale, I don't see why I should start now. I mean, I understand what you guys are saying because I'm not seeing results but I'm not going to buy a bunch of stuff to try and lose weight. I know everyone on here who has lost weight does not own a scale.

Well, do you want to know if you are eating 1600 or 2000? A scale costs less than 20 bucks and will help with that. But you prefer to get a PT, then get a PT....

A lot of people have given you good advice on tracking and logging your calories. I've read all the reasons why you think that isn't the solution. What can I say?

Like I wrote, a lot of people can lose weight without tracking, calorie counting or scales. Just like a lot of people can exercise without a gym. We are proposing effective tools and shortcuts or you can continue to guesstimate your way - but that really isn't working, is it?

My brother has lost 100 lbs of weight without anything other than willpower - he does not eat out, no MFP, no scale and he brings his meals everywhere. That would not be my solution. But perhaps you can try that. It's a bad solution but gadget free and counting free.

I wish you luck and success on your test. Peace.

Sarauk2sf

If I never measured before using a scale, I don't see why I should start now. I mean, I understand what you guys are saying because I'm not seeing results but I'm not going to buy a bunch of stuff to try and lose weight. I know everyone on here who has lost weight does not own a scale.

Because you are not seeing the results you want. I am not sure why you are resisting the idea. Most people here measure at least and many weigh their food. However, the biggest issue you have, is that you do not log most of the time anyway, so unless you change that, I kind of agree with you - why bother.

And a digital scales costs less than $20.

MotivatedBeka3

Bump to read later.

PikaKnight

If I never measured before using a scale, I don't see why I should start now. I mean, I understand what you guys are saying because I'm not seeing results but I'm not going to buy a bunch of stuff to try and lose weight. I know everyone on here who has lost weight does not own a scale.

Because you are not seeing the results you want. I am not sure why you are resisting the idea. Most people here measure at least and many weigh their food. However, the biggest issue you have, is that you do not log most of the time anyway, so unless you change that, I kind of agree with you - why bother.

And a digital scales costs less than $20.

My food scale was around $26, but I saw ones for about $10-$12 too.
And I'm with Sara. If you aren't going to commit and take the steps to really get a handle on what you are eating, portions, etc - then why bother.

LoraF83

If I never measured before using a scale, I don't see why I should start now. I mean, I understand what you guys are saying because I'm not seeing results but I'm not going to buy a bunch of stuff to try and lose weight. I know everyone on here who has lost weight does not own a scale.

You should start now because you're not losing weight anymore. Actually, you should start logging and THEN start weighing and measuring.

There's a phrase I like to use in situations like this:

"Don't be surprised by the results you don't get from the work you didn't do."

nz_deevaa

If you want ALL guess work to be removed from the equation the get either a BodyBugg or a BodyMedia FIT armband and keep your daily deficit at 500 or 1000 calories, probably 500 for you. That's 1lb/week loss. You'll be surprised how inaccurate most people are at calculating their daily burn vs. intake. Gym machines are extremely inaccurate at caloric burns.

I was thinking about getting one of these. I did spinning yesterday and it told me that I burned 452 calories in an hour. At first I was like SWEET! But then I realized it didn't ask for my weight or anything. I did see a lot of people with watches and arm/waist bands at Spinning so I think I'm going to invest in one

Hang on.

You are willing to invest in a HRM or a BodyBugg to track your spin calories, but not a food scale to track your food calories?

1. track consistently and accurately for 4-6 wks.

2. Evaluate your results, adjust accordingly to get the results you want.

3. Profit.

Cat_Lifts

Upping calories to loose weight is completely counter intuitive...

Find your sweet spot, but lower your calories. My sister is 5"1' and her 1lb calorie goal (and she's been loosing consistently) is 1200 net cal. That also happens to be the lowest total daily consumed that you should ever go for health reasons and to avoid putting your body into starvation mode where your metabolism will begin to slow down.

You're eating maintenance right now.

My TDEE is around 2400 and my BMR is somewhere around 1600

2400 is maintenance, and she's eating (supposedly) below that. Therefore, not maintenance. Depending on your sister's amount to lose (whether she's fairly obese or a child), 1200 is still pretty low. Definitely below BMR I'm assuming, but there is no height/weight ratio you gave us of your sister's stats.

DontStopB_Leakin

If you want ALL guess work to be removed from the equation the get either a BodyBugg or a BodyMedia FIT armband and keep your daily deficit at 500 or 1000 calories, probably 500 for you. That's 1lb/week loss. You'll be surprised how inaccurate most people are at calculating their daily burn vs. intake. Gym machines are extremely inaccurate at caloric burns.

I was thinking about getting one of these. I did spinning yesterday and it told me that I burned 452 calories in an hour. At first I was like SWEET! But then I realized it didn't ask for my weight or anything. I did see a lot of people with watches and arm/waist bands at Spinning so I think I'm going to invest in one

Hang on.

You are willing to invest in a HRM or a BodyBugg to track your spin calories, but not a food scale to track your food calories?

1. track consistently and accurately for 4-6 wks.

2. Evaluate your results, adjust accordingly to get the results you want.

3. Profit.

This.

cubbies77

I agree that this is BS.
The only time you need to eat more is when you exercise. Even then, I try to eat to keep going - protein or whatever - and be healthy.
This is one piece of advice I REFUSE to listen to because my experience shows that when I eat more, I weigh more!!! AND I want to eat more.
I will continue to eat what I do and not worry about THAT advice.
Doin' JUST FINE here, thanks

"Eat More" doesn't necessarily mean eat more food or eat when you aren't hungry. It means eat more *calories*. So instead of having carrot sticks as a snack, you might have celery with a little bit of peanut butter instead. You aren't eating more food, just more calories.

WHATTTTTTTT :indifferent:

I think they meant more nutrient-dense foods by that. But...I could be wrong.

I meant volume.

A spoonful of peanut butter has, say, 200 calories.

Or you could eat half a pint of blueberries for 100 calories.

So, if you eat a spoonful of peanut butter instead of half a pint of blueberries, you're eating less food but more calories. That's what I mean when I say eating more to weigh less doesn't always mean eat more FOOD. It means eat more CALORIES.

LoraF83

I agree that this is BS.
The only time you need to eat more is when you exercise. Even then, I try to eat to keep going - protein or whatever - and be healthy.
This is one piece of advice I REFUSE to listen to because my experience shows that when I eat more, I weigh more!!! AND I want to eat more.
I will continue to eat what I do and not worry about THAT advice.
Doin' JUST FINE here, thanks

"Eat More" doesn't necessarily mean eat more food or eat when you aren't hungry. It means eat more *calories*. So instead of having carrot sticks as a snack, you might have celery with a little bit of peanut butter instead. You aren't eating more food, just more calories.

WHATTTTTTTT :indifferent:

I think they meant more nutrient-dense foods by that. But...I could be wrong.

I meant volume.

A spoonful of peanut butter has, say, 200 calories.

Or you could eat half a pint of blueberries for 100 calories.

So, if you eat a spoonful of peanut butter instead of half a pint of blueberries, you're eating less food but more calories. That's what I mean when I say eating more to weigh less doesn't always mean eat more FOOD. It means eat more CALORIES.

No, sorry. The whole "eat more to weigh less" thing is about calories.