Struggling with Losing - Upping Calories Not Working. :(

cwolfman13

WOW....a whole week you gave it...impressive, very impressive...

seriously, Rome wasn't built in a day. Weight loss is slow...when it says 1 Lb per week or whatever, it isn't linear...actually 1 Lb per week. Sometimes you will have no loss..sometimes very small...sometimes bigger losses and so on. Also, weight loss is difficult to see on a scale over a short period of time due to the fact that your body can have natural fluctuations of 2-5 Lbs easy...sometimes more. So, it is quite possible to lose a Lb of fat in a week but not see that Lb show up on a scale because maybe you're retaining 3 Lbs of water or glycogen...or maybe you just need to drop a deuce.

My advice is stick to something....if you do the 1200 calorie thing, eat your exercise calories back. it works if you do it right.

jen81uk

I had this too. Upped them lost a few lbs then plateau'd. I've stopped eating back my exercise calories, unless I'm really hungry as I always felt full and I'd go over before I did the exercise to get it back in the eve, I just aim for 1500 now (not net). I've also upped my exercise this week and have been doing it in the morning instead of after work and I have loads more energy. We shall see if this works but I feel leaner. I have lost inches so have you measured? cos I am trying to tone so have to remind myself that the lbs may not show on the scales. xx

ellaloveslove

Im sure you've already heard this, but it's not necessarily how MANY calories, but the TYPE of calories--if that makes sense. I'm no professional, and I'm only speaking from personal experience (I'm training for figure competitions); however, if you fill your day with odd macronutrients, then you will definitely FEEL like your body starving, even when technically 1200 calories won't necessarily put you in starvation mode.

I can't see your food diary so I'm not certain what your day looks like, but 2 rules of thumb I SWEAR by:
1. Fill up on protein in the morning, and it's okay to have good carbs. I know everyone hears this day in and day out, but it's sooo true and vital to not feeling like you're killing yourself as the day progresses. My typical breakfast is: 2 egg whites, 1 cup special k (or 3/4 c special k protein) with 1 cup unsweetened almond milk.
2. Eat every 2-3 hours--trust me...if you beat your body to the "hungry" feeling, it'll do wonders for both your mental AND physical state.

Feel free to ask any questions--I've run the gamut of highs and lows and know what works for me--so if I can help just a little, I'm happy to do so!

^^ umm no.

A calorie is a calorie. A calorie deficit makes you lose weight. However, eating good whole food is better for you nutritionally and will keep you full longer. It'll also cut down on cravings.

Less is not more in terms of calories. You probably aren't eating enough.

My advice is. Find your TDEE and eat -10 to 15% of it (Because you don't have much less to lose). There are two ways to calculate your TDEE: One that takes exercise into account automatically and one you eat your calories back. Be patient after changing your habits, it takes time. Also weight loss will be slower the closer you get to your goals.

^^I agree with everyone of your posts on this thread joleen, excellent advice

JoanB5

I am 5' 3" and my BMR is 1106 (hospital checked!), my TDEE is just over 1400, so in order to lose anything, I have to eat around 1300 calories a day. As long as I fill up with high fiber or high protein foods, I never have a problem feeling full.
<edited for spelling corrections.

Yes! For smaller women, it is often necessary initially unless you lift heavy starting out. I wasn't ready for that. Still am not.

500 under TDEE to lose a pound a week, eat back exercise calories. That should have gotten you up to 1400-1500 calories working out at the level you suggested. Use a heart monitor if you need to in order to make sure you are eating back what you are burning. Make sure you are getting enough protein and fiber.

I had to have 5-6 evenly spaced meals/snakcs ready at all times, on hand, healthy (or healthier) snacks to bridge between meals if I was going to be away from home. I took carrots, apples, granola bars, and I logged every bite. If I was going to the effort, I wanted to see results.

As a person is getting used to a new diet, they will feel cranky and hungry. It's a phase, like changing any habit. Just try to deal with it, after a week or so, it levels off. You can take some maintenance days until your body gets used to it.

I would have suggested just a 200 calorie increase if 1200 didn't work for you. With exercise like zumba, my friend often logs 500 calories or so. That's 1800 calories to eat a day. That ought to be working.

JoanB5

WOW....a whole week you gave it...impressive, very impressive...

seriously, Rome wasn't built in a day. Weight loss is slow...when it says 1 Lb per week or whatever, it isn't linear...actually 1 Lb per week. Sometimes you will have no loss..sometimes very small...sometimes bigger losses and so on. Also, weight loss is difficult to see on a scale over a short period of time due to the fact that your body can have natural fluctuations of 2-5 Lbs easy...sometimes more. So, it is quite possible to lose a Lb of fat in a week but not see that Lb show up on a scale because maybe you're retaining 3 Lbs of water or glycogen...or maybe you just need to drop a deuce.

My advice is stick to something....if you do the 1200 calorie thing, eat your exercise calories back. it works if you do it right.

Very true, all of it. I didn't lose anything for a month, then suddenly dropped my last 5-7 lbs. and had to start eating more to slow it down.

OMGeeeHorses

Check out IN PLACE OF A ROAD MAP..its helped me loose my weight first day I lost 5lbs and now it seems everyday i am loosing 1lb or so

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/937709-in-place-of-a-road-map-ver-3-0 - by HelloItsDan


Also FYI that I got from a nutritionist, she told me for myself anyways ( so try at your own choice) that random calorie intakes will help loose weight as well so say Monday I was 1200, Tuesday should be 1500 then drop to 1300 for Wednesday and then back to 1400 for Thursday and so on..I mean it did help me kick start my metabolism to loose weight and then I kinda just stuck to 1800 being the highest with my TDEE and just will not go above or below 1300 now.

krhn

You can't expect to lose weight if you make your caloric intake the same as your maintenance... You only up the calories to kick start your metabolism and drop back your calories to continue the weight loss ...
Maybe this time just drop to 1300 kcal to see if that curbs your starvation :bigsmile:

Good luck:flowerforyou:

jourdanerin

1200 calories seems low. Look into the TDEE - 20% route.
There is no magical answer that will work for everyone. I started losing right away then after about 6 weeks, hit a "plateau" and haven't lost another pound for almost a month now!

Keep at what you are doing and you will eventually see results.

You say you "cheat" once a day, try cutting that down to 2 -3 times a week?

As for being hungry - it helped me to snack every few hours. @ first it was hard to do without going over my calories but then I started picking lower calories snacks (baby carrots, cucumbers, laughing cow cheese wedge (35calories), small apple, etc etc) and did much better.

Just a suggestion. I'm no expert (rather new to this whole process too).

jadelunar

I just wanted to add that we actually burn calories when our bodies break down the food we eat. "Each macronutrient takes a different amount of energy to breakdown, absorb, and use. Protein is the most complex macronutrient and, therefore, takes the most energy." Carbohydrates are the next, and fat is the least complex to break down. For example, we would burn about 30% of the protein calories we take in, when our body processes it. Fat calories only cause us to burn about 2-3% of those calories. Feel free to Google the "Thermic effect of food." There's a tremendous amount of information about it online.

Try increasing your protein intake if you haven't already. It will help you stay fuller longer and you should burn slightly more calories overall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermic_effect_of_food

ruwise

I just put your numbers into the fat 2 fit calculator and it says

sedentary (little or no exercise, desk job) 1660
Lightly Active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk) 1902
Moderately Active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk) 2144
Very Active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk) 2386
Extremely Active (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.) 2628

So I'd guess you need to eat more and not less.

srk369

Hi, I agree with the advice to find your TDEE based on activity and subract 20%. You are about where I was when I started. I am 5' 2" and started at 152. I am now 136. The thing I haven't seen is that if you do the TDEE-20% and and account correctly for your activity level, then you aren't looking at NET calories, which is what you said you were eating. I know for me, I can only eat 1600 NET on very high activity days. My BMR (several estimates, all different) is between 1133-1273 and based on Mod. Activty my TDEE-20% is between 1577-1772. I set my daily calories at 1650. I eat more on the weekends when my activity level is higher than normal (9 mile hike this past weekend). I used the NET when I was using the MFP setting of 1200 and eating back my exercise calories but that got to be too difficult for me to go up and down everyday based on exercise. I workout at night and sometimes I don't know what I'm going to burn for the day. Good luck!

GroMorPlant

I know everyones all about lots of calories. And i get that to be healthy you need your nutrients. but i think a huge problem with weight loss, or lack there of, is portion control. try cutting everything you eat in half. you will lose weight. losing weight is actually extremely simple. 3500 calories= 1 pound. so if you burn more than you take in you will lose weight, very simple. (not very easy though).

GroMorPlant

every body is different, and for me, upping calories always caused weight gain, cutting calories always caused weight loss. very simple. but that is my body and my experience. and it has been a huge success for me and i feel great!

257_Lag

My sister was eating at 1250 and was stuck for about 5 months. She had lost 30 lbs through weight watchers during the prior 6 months.

Through what I have learned on this site I got her to up her intake to 1600 and eat her back at least half her exercise. (I recommended eating back all her exercise but she won't do it) She didn't move for 4 weeks but then lost 2 lbs in a week and is now trending 1/2 lb per week which is what our target was. We are thrilled!

55in13

Be careful about believing things that don't have anything but anecdotes behind them. Go searching for the science behind the "starvation mode" and you will find out there are no studies that find that people lose weight faster eating more calories. It is absolutely true that when the calorie deficit is really high your body will react by slowing metabolism. But it is gradual and there is no point at which eating fewer calories will cause you to have a lower deficit. There may be a point at which eating 100 less calories per day only increases your deficit by 50, but eating less calories per day always increases the calorie deficit. ALWAYS.

forbiddendonut

Thank you so much everyone for your responses! I'm just now reading this post because my son had a stomach bug last week, and I was busy obsessively disinfecting everything all week, trying to keep the rest of us healthy. Something very interesting happened during this time. I went 3 days with no appetite dealing with all of this, so I pretty much only ate to fuel my body, and ate 1100-1200 calories those days. Well, in just 3 days I lost 2 POUNDS. I went back up to 1500 for the remaining days, but stayed at that weight.

So I think it's pretty clear that I am just one of those people that needs to have a big deficit to lose. I am going to really focus on eating quality calories (low cal, filling foods like fruits, veggies, soup, etc.) and continue trying to reach that 1200 while not being miserable.

And I do want to clarify that when I say I'm eating 1200 calories, that's net. I plug in sedentary for my calorie calculations, and then wear a pedometer to make sure I get my 10,000 steps, so I eat back those walking calories, as well as any extra workouts. I don't do a lot of strength training right now, so I'm pretty sure I'm not gaining muscle, but I will try to add that as well. So I usually end up eating something like 1800 calories a day and then burning 300 calories. I just need to dial it back to 1500 calories a day, while still burning 300 calories (or more!).

I feel pretty good about this plan. I think I might finally be on track. Now I just need to figure out the best way to eat those calories! I'd love it if any of you that have public food diaries would friend me so that I can get more ideas!

Thanks everyone!!!

srk369

Sounds like a good plan. Best of luck to you!