Eating at TDEE level and gaining weight

cristina9980

I've read so many threads on this topic and it just makes me more confused.

When I originally signed up for MFP it set the generic 1200 calorie goal. I read a lot about TDEE and thought I would give it a try. I found a calculator online and put in my stats. It gave me a BMR of 1460 and TEDD of 2008. I workout about 3 days a week. I wear a HRM and my calorie burns vary. I may burn 300 calories on my weekday workouts and closer to 1500 on Saturdays when I do my long runs (I am preparing for a half marathon in 2.5 weeks).

If I understand correctly I should subtract 20% from the 2008. That gives me about 1606 calories. I did this for a couple of weeks and ended up gaining almost 5 pounds. I went back in and reset everything and am working on the 1200 calorie guideline again.

What am I doing wrong? What am I not understanding here? I was doing WW and had a lot of success but had to stop due to financial reasons, so I'm trying this now. It was so easy when I counted points for my food. And didnt' eat back my activity points. Any guidance would be much appreciated.

SirBonerFart

if you are gaining weight you are eating more than your TDEE
What MFP gives you is a estimate

psuLemon

How long did you do WW and how long where you on 1200 calories? If you did it for awhile, your RMR probably adapted to burn less calories, lowering our overall TDEE. It is fairly common for those who do low calorie diets for extended periods of time and WW is definitely a LCD. So you might have to build up on eating more calories. It's not to say you can't eat more, it's just going to take time.

Can you open your diary too?

SirBonerFart

How long did you do WW and how long where you on 1200 calories? If you did it for awhile, your RMR probably adapted to burn less calories, lowering our overall TDEE. It is fairly common for those who do low calorie diets for extended periods of time and WW is definitely a LCD. So you might have to build up on eating more calories. It's not to say you can't eat more, it's just going to take time.

Can you open your diary too?

I think its far more likely the OP is not logging properly (i.e. measuring etc) than some kind of massive adaptation to 1200 calories

cristina9980

I was on WW for 2 years after I had my son. Before I got pregnant I had been on for about 2 years as well. The first time I lost about 40 pounds, gained it back when I was pregnant and then lost it again. Maybe my body is just used to it. Honestly, I eat pretty much what I used to eat when I was doing WW. The only difference is what we didn't count fresh fruit or most vegetables up to a certain point. My leader's rule of thumb was you didn't have to count them until you hit your goal of 5 servings a day. Anything over that you should count.

I don't feel sluggish, tired or hungry when I eat about 1200 calories a day. So, is it really that bad to eat 1200 on a day when you don't work out and a little more on the days you do...depending on what kind of workout you do??

Bakerchk

Your diary is closed so I can't comment on what you are consuming but it's possible if you are consuming a high amount of sodium that you could be retaining water?

1600 calories a day sounds good. I wouldn't drop down to 1200, but that's just my advice. When I started I was at 1200 calories and I lost for about 2 months, then plateaued for 3 months and then started to gain. I would stick to the TDEE recommendation. When you add your exercise into MFP it will up that number a little, but I'd still stay at the 1600 range.

It's possible to gain for a few weeks for reasons unknown (or reasons were aren't paying attention to) but I doubt that if you are eating a healthy diet, you will continue to gain.

Xiaolongbao

if you are gaining weight you are eating more than your TDEE
What MFP gives you is a estimate

This. Without super high tech equipment (which virtually none of us have access to) all the calculators are just estimates. So you have to use some common sense and trial and error.

I never understand people who say they felt good, weren't hungry and were losing weight but then changed what they were doing because a bunch of random strangers on the internet told them to. Seriously 1200 is NOT a magic number. If it works for you then stick with it. Eat healthy, exercise. Personally I find it a struggle to go under 2000 calories a day but if I could be happy on 1200 and feel good I'd sure as hell do it.

Markguns

I've read so many threads on this topic and it just makes me more confused.

When I originally signed up for MFP it set the generic 1200 calorie goal. I read a lot about TDEE and thought I would give it a try. I found a calculator online and put in my stats. It gave me a BMR of 1460 and TEDD of 2008. I workout about 3 days a week. I wear a HRM and my calorie burns vary. I may burn 300 calories on my weekday workouts and closer to 1500 on Saturdays when I do my long runs (I am preparing for a half marathon in 2.5 weeks).

If I understand correctly I should subtract 20% from the 2008. That gives me about 1606 calories. I did this for a couple of weeks and ended up gaining almost 5 pounds. I went back in and reset everything and am working on the 1200 calorie guideline again.

What am I doing wrong? What am I not understanding here? I was doing WW and had a lot of success but had to stop due to financial reasons, so I'm trying this now. It was so easy when I counted points for my food. And didnt' eat back my activity points. Any guidance would be much appreciated.

try this spreadsheet...

The article:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/750920-spreadsheet-for-bmr-tdee-deficit-macro-calcs-hrm-zones
The spread sheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Amt7QBR9-c6MdGVTbGswLUUzUHNVVUlNSW9wZWloeUE

cristina9980

I have opened up my diary. I have been really good about tracking this last week. Before that I was still writing it in my WW book but not necessarily posting it here.

Someone mentioned maybe I'm not tracking accurately. I am a WW veteran. That is the first thing they teach you. I religiously weigh and measure all my food. When I track that I had one serving of my salad dressing, believe me...I had 33 grams of salad dressing. That is the serving size on the bottle. The 3 oz of steak last night were measured on a scale. The half cup of beans were measured in a measuring cup. It gets really annoying because it takes me a lot longer to get my plate ready because I weigh and measure EVERYTHING, but I know that for years my eyes lied to me about what a serving size is. This is the only way I can make sure it's right.

I have another question...lets say I stick to the 1200 calories a day, if I exercise would I need to eat it? What about if I increase it to 1600...would I need to eat back the calories I burn?

Warchortle

You're eating more than you are expending or you're insulin sensitive and you're eating more carbs (sugar) than protein. I set my TDEE to sedentary because I'm a student and sit a lot and then figure my maintenance on sedentary. Eat around that maintenance and use my workouts to push me under my maintenance. I think people who theory craft their TDEE make themselves crazy.

Warchortle

Switch to eating whole protein sources. Seems like a lot of your diet is starches. I would eat at least 100g of protein minimum.

Xiaolongbao

I have another question...lets say I stick to the 1200 calories a day, if I exercise would I need to eat it? What about if I increase it to 1600...would I need to eat back the calories I burn?

If you stick to 1200 then you'd want to eat your exercise back. Or at least a chunk of them.

ILiftHeavyAcrylics

When you went to the TDEE method did you try to eat back your exercise calories or did you include them in your TDEE calculation?

Did you gain 5 lbs over just a couple of days or gradually over the course of 2 full weeks?

TheStephil

It's hard to say since you weren't accurately recording in your MFP diary.

Honestly though, measuring with measuring cups is going to just be an estimate and a poor one at that. Measure a serving of beans with a measuring cup then weigh it. Most likely, the amount in the measuring cup is going to weigh more than the serving size of grams/oz.

Also, your body needs time to adjust to this change. When I moved up from 1,200 to TDEE - 20% I started in 100-200 increases per week until I got to 1600. I'm now up to 1700-1800 depending on my activity and will shortly be increasing that to 1800-2000. I could never go back to 1,200. I am waaay too cranky

TheStephil

I have another question...lets say I stick to the 1200 calories a day, if I exercise would I need to eat it? What about if I increase it to 1600...would I need to eat back the calories I burn?

Eat back your exercise calories. In my experience, 1,200 + exercise calories equals about TDEE-25%

ILiftHeavyAcrylics

I just looked through your diary. You've got a ton of blank days and I don't see a day over 1385 calories. You've got to have an accurate food diary before you can really say whether your goal is working.

cristina9980

When you went to the TDEE method did you try to eat back your exercise calories or did you include them in your TDEE calculation?

Did you gain 5 lbs over just a couple of days or gradually over the course of 2 full weeks?

I was not eating the exercise calories back.

I had gained the 5 pounds steadily over the two weeks.

ILiftHeavyAcrylics

When you went to the TDEE method did you try to eat back your exercise calories or did you include them in your TDEE calculation?

Did you gain 5 lbs over just a couple of days or gradually over the course of 2 full weeks?

I was not eating the exercise calories back.

I had gained the 5 pounds steadily over the two weeks.

In that case I'd scale it back a bit. I'd still probably want more than 1200, I used to eat 1420 when I was losing. If you decide to stick with 1200 at least make sure you're eating back your exercise calories.

ETA: you still are going to want the most accurate log you can get, so that when you evaluate your results after a few weeks you can see an honest picture of what you've been doing.

cristina9980

Switch to eating whole protein sources. Seems like a lot of your diet is starches. I would eat at least 100g of protein minimum.

I think I have it set to 50% carbs a day right now. I have done a lot of research on training for half marathons and for the amount of training we have been doing, up until last week when I hit a roadblock and didn't have time, I should be eating about 50% carbs. Maybe once the half marathon is over and I'm cutting back on my running I will change it. Then again, I start training for my metric century on the bike and another half marathon in November, so I'm continuously training for something. It seems I'm hardly ever exercising just to exercise...usually I have an event I'm getting ready for

cristina9980

When you went to the TDEE method did you try to eat back your exercise calories or did you include them in your TDEE calculation?

Did you gain 5 lbs over just a couple of days or gradually over the course of 2 full weeks?

I was not eating the exercise calories back.

I had gained the 5 pounds steadily over the two weeks.

In that case I'd scale it back a bit. I'd still probably want more than 1200, I used to eat 1420 when I was losing. If you decide to stick with 1200 at least make sure you're eating back your exercise calories.

Maybe I'll try increasing it slowly. I'll stay at 1200 until next Monday...gives me a week at that number. Then add 100, and then another 100, until I get to 1400 or so.

misssiri

How many days per week are you running? And do you really only eat 1700 on your long run days? If that is the case you would only be netting 200 calories. I can easily put down 2500+ on long run days. I would kill people if I ate less than 2000. If you are training for a marathon, you probably are running fairly high mileage weekly and are probably not eating enough. Maybe you shouldn't cut at all until the race is over? You need all the energy in the food right now.

cristina9980

How many days per week are you running? And do you really only eat 1700 on your long run days? If that is the case you would only be netting 200 calories. I can easily put down 2500+ on long run days. I would kill people if I ate less than 2000. If you are training for a marathon, you probably are running fairly high mileage weekly and are probably not eating enough. Maybe you shouldn't cut at all until the race is over? You need all the energy in the food right now.

First let me be realistic...I wouldn't call myself a runner by any means. We are joggers...my running pal and I. We are right under 13 min miles so I don't burn as many calories as other people may. We try to do 4-5 miles a couple of times a week in the evening and our long runs are on Saturdays. The farthest we have gone is 10 miles. We tend to do intervals, run 0.8, walk 0.2. I'm a little more hungry than normal those days but I'm usually not starving.

RoseDarrett

I lost my baby weight over 30 pounds before joining MFP on my own.I didn't log,didn't track,just ate well.When I joined it gave me the generic 1200 as well.I was ok with it.I wasn't hungry and I was losing.However I was doing the Insanity workout and the nutrition guide told me to eat more,also my weight loss stalled.It was hard to up my calories,it was a struggle for me.Now I eat between 1400 and 1600.I'm 5'2 so that's a lot of food for me.I could seriously just live off bananas,I found though that really reaching my macros helped,especially the protein.I try to reach my protein everyday.

I did gain,the first 4 weeks or so,I got really upset about it,so I stopped weighing,then after those weeks I started losing again.You need to give it time and be patient.Hard I know especially when the scale keeps going up.Give your body a chance to catch up,weighing my food as well helped.

Good luck!!!

nicolo333

I WAS JUST ABOUT TO POST SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!!! I was eating at my TDEE and all i did was gain weight. like seriously very irritating...if anyone can help me MESSAGE MEEE

psuLemon

How long did you do WW and how long where you on 1200 calories? If you did it for awhile, your RMR probably adapted to burn less calories, lowering our overall TDEE. It is fairly common for those who do low calorie diets for extended periods of time and WW is definitely a LCD. So you might have to build up on eating more calories. It's not to say you can't eat more, it's just going to take time.

Can you open your diary too?

I think its far more likely the OP is not logging properly (i.e. measuring etc) than some kind of massive adaptation to 1200 calories

Normally I would agree with you, but 2yrs + of WW, I would say it is highly possible.



OP, I didn't realize you were training for a marathon and eating more carbs. It's quiet possible, the additional carbs + longer runs are forcing your body to store more water. And while training for a marathon, you do not want to under eat otherwise you will hurt your performance. Realistically, 1500-1700 calories daily is what will provide you good energy. I would definitely not suggest 1200 as a consideration. I would suggest waiting a few more weeks to see if the weight gain/loss level's out.

257_Lag

We recently moved my sister from 1200 to 1600 (TDEE-20) and nothing happened for almost 4 weeks and then she lost 2 lbs in a week. Her first loss in 5 months. She had previously lost 35 lbs in a year on WW but quit when it quit working. Now she is losing a steady 1/2 lb a week. You might just need to give it some time if you are confident in your TDEE calculations.

kdiamond

It will would be really hard to gain 5 pounds in 2 weeks if you were eating 1600 calories a day. Impossible actually.

I agree with others, you need to accurately track your calories for a good amount of time.

You most likely saw an increase because you were retaining water.

I can see a 2 pound increase in one day after a strenuous leg workout. It is just water, the next day it will be back to normal. You really shouldn't weigh yourself more than once a week, at the same time (in the morning before consuming anything).

My advice is to stick to 1600 for a good 6-8 weeks and then reassess. 1200 is too low for someone exercising, or for anyone under the age of 80 in my opinion.

KristyHumphrey

bump