Who didn't lose weight until they upped their calories?

cwolfman13

I still need to be convinced of this whole "not enough calories" thing. I still go back to the cliche "you don't see any fat Etheopians". It just doesn't make sense. If you don't have enough calories, your body will use what it has for energy. This is why professional atthletes, college athletes, high school athletes, people in third world countries who have to walk 4 miles a day just to get water for their family, active children, marathon runners, gym rats, etc. etc etc. are all lean. This whole concept of having too much of a caloric deficit is rediculous, and another excuse for people to eat more and sit on their *kitten*. Move, move, move. That's all there is to it. You can't be a highly active person, eat a clean diet, and be fat. Our bodies just don't work like that. As long as you are getting enough nutrition and working your butt off, you will be lean. Period. If your not losing fat, move more, lift more. Eat enough to meet your macro and micro requirements and stay the course. It will come off. It can't not.

Interesting...because I lost 35 Lbs eating more to lose...and I don't sit on my *kitten* at all as you can see from my photo. Perhaps you miss the whole point of it all...eating more to lose is all about having enough of a deficit to lose FAT, but preserve lean body mass and have more consistent and steady weight loss rather than just trying to dump a bunch of pounds over night.

Also, you can have a calorie deficit that, at least temporarily, stalls your metabolism. Yes, eventually you will start losing again, but people plateau for a very long time. Eat more weigh less isn't about stuffing yourself with **** and sitting on your *kitten*...if you look at the individuals who practice this, they are some of the fittest and leanest on MFP.

OP...I'd also suggest that you really take a look at your calories in/out estimates. Many people just underestimate consumption because they eyeball servings and don't weigh and measure food...also over-estimating calorie burn when you're using the MFP method and eating back those exercise calories...you should leave a margin of error in there...my rule when I was doing MFP was no less than 50% and up to 75% of my exercise calories to make sure that activity was being properly fueled, but not overestimating the burn from that activity.

silverlining84

Now that i'm at my goal weight i'm bumping my calories up. I've been averaging about 1400 while losing weight. This week i'm bumping it up to 1600-1700 and then the week after increase even more.

OtiWanKenobi

I was on almost a year long plateau eating 1400 cals and exercising 5 - 6 days a week.

I gained weight at first of raising my cals..the first two weeks I gained almost 8 lbs. I hid the scale, took my measurements and pics and weighed myself after a month. The weight I gained came off plus 3 lbs more after 1 month.

Stick with it. Have patience...it takes 4 - 6 weeks for your body to adjust if you've been eating on a really high deficit for a long time. I had been for 2 years.

Here's a link to my post of my 2 month progress after raising my calories and lifting weights:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/978680-before-after-2-mo-pic-tdee-20-lifting-heavy

Cockney365

I still need to be convinced of this whole "not enough calories" thing. I still go back to the cliche "you don't see any fat Etheopians". It just doesn't make sense. If you don't have enough calories, your body will use what it has for energy. This is why professional atthletes, college athletes, high school athletes, people in third world countries who have to walk 4 miles a day just to get water for their family, active children, marathon runners, gym rats, etc. etc etc. are all lean. This whole concept of having too much of a caloric deficit is rediculous, and another excuse for people to eat more and sit on their *kitten*. Move, move, move. That's all there is to it. You can't be a highly active person, eat a clean diet, and be fat. Our bodies just don't work like that. As long as you are getting enough nutrition and working your butt off, you will be lean. Period. If your not losing fat, move more, lift more. Eat enough to meet your macro and micro requirements and stay the course. It will come off. It can't not.

I agree

None of us are on this website because we want to eat loads and sit sown all day and lose weight, because we know if that were possible, we wouldn't be on this website.

I started MFP at 192lbs on January 1st 2013, wanted to lose 2lbs a week. I'm 5'7 and was 30 years old (am now 31). Started on the recommended 1200 calories a day, never went hungry, just ate sensibly, lost 17lbs. Then I stalled. Bear in mind I used to go to the gym 3 times a week, play netball twice a week, kettlebell class once a week, so my exercise pattern didn't change over this entire time. I started reading and found the whole TDEE-20% thing, upped my calories to 1700, added weightlifting (no bulkiness here), and gave it a try. For the first few weeks, nothing changed. However, since then I have lost a pound each week, but I still go to the gym 2-3 times a week and play netball twice a week and I eat more without overeating. My TDEE is around 2100-2200 calories and this is the MINIMUM I should eat if I want to maintain my current weight, which I don't. Dropping 400-500 calories is hardly a small deficit, yet I am still losing doing the same exercise. I'm just not losing 2lbs a week, which is fine with me because as long as the number on the scale goes down, my bodyfat level goes down, my measurements go down and my clothes sizes go down and they all STAY down, I don't care.

Professional athletes are lean because they are...professional athletes who train 900 hours a day and eat whatever they like because they burn it off. My friend is a semi-pro triathlete and on training days can eat anything upto 4000 calories. He has 12% body fat. So the idea that athletes are lean simply because they move more than they eat, and therefore the same rule should apply to all of us, is crazy. I can almost guarantee that most people don't do 6 hours of training in the pool, on the bike or on the road 4 days a week, and therefore of course if normal people ate 4000 calories a day, they'd need a double wide coffin fairly soon. My body fat level is atrocious, and it'd be great if my body could just eat all my fat and make me thinner but it'd pretty soon eat all my muscle fibres with it (as my body will use what it has for energy) and I'd just be a skeleton. Not really the look I am going for.

Eat a sensible amount of reasonably clean food, make sure it fits your macros, continue to move but don't starve yourself. 1200 calories is a huge drop from what most people should be eating to maintain and less than you'd get if you were in a coma. Try it out, for a month, continue making sensible choices, and if it really doesn't work, at least you can say you've tried. I was skeptical but... every week the scale says it works.

hfox9707

I hear when you are lifting heavy weights, you need to eat more, especially protein.

mycupyourcake

I still need to be convinced of this whole "not enough calories" thing. I still go back to the cliche "you don't see any fat Etheopians". It just doesn't make sense. If you don't have enough calories, your body will use what it has for energy. This is why professional atthletes, college athletes, high school athletes, people in third world countries who have to walk 4 miles a day just to get water for their family, active children, marathon runners, gym rats, etc. etc etc. are all lean. This whole concept of having too much of a caloric deficit is rediculous, and another excuse for people to eat more and sit on their *kitten*. Move, move, move. That's all there is to it. You can't be a highly active person, eat a clean diet, and be fat. Our bodies just don't work like that. As long as you are getting enough nutrition and working your butt off, you will be lean. Period. If your not losing fat, move more, lift more. Eat enough to meet your macro and micro requirements and stay the course. It will come off. It can't not.

Interesting...because I lost 35 Lbs eating more to lose...and I don't sit on my *kitten* at all as you can see from my photo. Perhaps you miss the whole point of it all...eating more to lose is all about having enough of a deficit to lose FAT, but preserve lean body mass and have more consistent and steady weight loss rather than just trying to dump a bunch of pounds over night.

Also, you can have a calorie deficit that, at least temporarily, stalls your metabolism. Yes, eventually you will start losing again, but people plateau for a very long time. Eat more weigh less isn't about stuffing yourself with **** and sitting on your *kitten*...if you look at the individuals who practice this, they are some of the fittest and leanest on MFP.

OP...I'd also suggest that you really take a look at your calories in/out estimates. Many people just underestimate consumption because they eyeball servings and don't weigh and measure food...also over-estimating calorie burn when you're using the MFP method and eating back those exercise calories...you should leave a margin of error in there...my rule when I was doing MFP was no less than 50% and up to 75% of my exercise calories to make sure that activity was being properly fueled, but not overestimating the burn from that activity.

Wonderful. Thank you.

wildechild74

bump

pluckabee

I still need to be convinced of this whole "not enough calories" thing. I still go back to the cliche "you don't see any fat Etheopians". It just doesn't make sense. If you don't have enough calories, your body will use what it has for energy. This is why professional atthletes, college athletes, high school athletes, people in third world countries who have to walk 4 miles a day just to get water for their family, active children, marathon runners, gym rats, etc. etc etc. are all lean. This whole concept of having too much of a caloric deficit is rediculous, and another excuse for people to eat more and sit on their *kitten*. Move, move, move. That's all there is to it. You can't be a highly active person, eat a clean diet, and be fat. Our bodies just don't work like that. As long as you are getting enough nutrition and working your butt off, you will be lean. Period. If your not losing fat, move more, lift more. Eat enough to meet your macro and micro requirements and stay the course. It will come off. It can't not.

I agree

None of us are on this website because we want to eat loads and sit sown all day and lose weight, because we know if that were possible, we wouldn't be on this website.

Professional athletes are lean because they are...professional athletes who train 900 hours a day and eat whatever they like because they burn it off. My friend is a semi-pro triathlete and on training days can eat anything upto 4000 calories. He has 12% body fat. So the idea that athletes are lean simply because they move more than they eat, and therefore the same rule should apply to all of us, is crazy. I can almost guarantee that most people don't do 6 hours of training in the pool, on the bike or on the road 4 days a week, and therefore of course if normal people ate 4000 calories a day, they'd need a double wide coffin fairly soon. My body fat level is atrocious, and it'd be great if my body could just eat all my fat and make me thinner but it'd pretty soon eat all my muscle fibres with it (as my body will use what it has for energy) and I'd just be a skeleton. Not really the look I am going for.

Thanks for this! kept opening this thread and trying to reply to the previously stated bull**** but kept getting too angry to form a good answer.

I think people that come on this forum and claim that there is no possible way weight loss can stall if you eat too little are just trying to shame people and make them feel bad about themselves

mk9562

I recently increased mine from stalling. At first I slightly gained. But it's slowly coming off. I had been eating low calories for 18 months, so now it's a matter of re starting my metabolism.
Your macros matter too.
I'm at 40% carbs, 30% fat and 30% protein. I'm reaching those golds 90% of the time.

You need to gradually increase and give it time.
It took 3 weeks for me.

CallMeCupcakeDammit

I'm going to share a couple of links about eating too low

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/3047-700-calories-a-day-and-not-losing

and this is a good one, too

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/475726-very-low-calorie-diets-and-metabolic-damage

AmyRhubarb

I lost weight before upping cals, but I really started losing FAT once I went to TDEE minus 20%. Best move I ever made. I'm 45 years old, 5'8", and was set at 1800 cals a day for about a year. Reached goal weight doing that (135lbs, and lost many inches and a full pants size) and upped to 1950 a day - don't even care about my weight anymore, just trying to lower my body fat percentage a bit more. :bigsmile:

jerber160

bump

aliciaje

Didn't read any of the above replies, but I have a bit of experience with this.

Started January 3, 2013 at 1560 calories @ 5'4, 180. Eating back most exercise calories, and I would net about 1450 per day. Was losing consistently 1lb per week for 3 months.

I decided to lower it to 1450 starting the beginning of April, and would net about 1350 per day. Only lost 1.5lbs in 3 weeks.

Brought it back UP to 1590, and trying to net that every day now and I have back to losing 1lb per week, and this week so far I am already down 2lbs!

DanielleRN8

Upping my calories was one of the best things I did. I eat anywhere between 1,800-2,300 calories a day and I have maintained my weight while losing body fat. Definitely eat more if you want to gain muscle mass and lose body fat.

hap2010

I am one of those people. 5'6.5" starting weight 151. I was eating 1200 calories a day and eating back most of my exercise calories. In the beginning I was losing 1-1.5 pounds a week. Then it slowed to 1, then 1/2 a pound a week. Then it almost completely stopped. In April, I lost 1.5 pounds the entire month. I was so frustrated. Then I figured out my TDEE and set my calories at TDEE-15% because I am within 10 pounds of my goal weight. The first 4 days were scary since the scale actually went up 3 pounds but then on the 5th day, I dropped those 3 pounds back off. The very next day, I was down another pound. In the second week of eating at 1600, I dropped the same amount of weight that I lost all last month. In another couple pounds I am going to adjust my calories again since I will be within 5 pounds of my goal weight.

I should also mention that in addition to the increased calories, I have added a lot more strength training to my exercise than before. I am currently strength training 6 days a week for 30 minutes, cardio I usually get about 3 hours a week (mostly walking or hiking)

fruitninja93

bump

so many encouraging messages here! Its just a case of taking that first step, going against everything I've ever been told about diets, and seeing where that takes me! Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences - really useful!

running_shoe

All I can tell you is what worked for me. Initially, I told MFP I wanted to lose 1 pound a week. It set me at 1,200 calories. This is the amount WW used to give me, and I knew I would be very hungry - getting dizzy and headaches hungry. The same thing happened as on WW, I lost 7 or 8 pounds in the first few weeks, and then plateaued. My pattern had been to keep at it for about eight weeks, not having lost any more weight, and then quit, exhausted by being so hungry. I was reading about the success of upping calories, so, I reset my goal to 0.5 pounds a week and got about 300 more calories. I immediately started losing weight again, and ultimately lost 15 pounds in 12 weeks, BETTER than a pound a week.

I believe it is a delicate balance. It doesn't just follow that eating less leads to weight loss, healthy or otherwise.

Oh, and I DO eat my exercise calories.

My advice is to just try it. What, really, have you got to lose?

OneDimSim

I'm going to share a couple of links about eating too low

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/3047-700-calories-a-day-and-not-losing

and this is a good one, too

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/475726-very-low-calorie-diets-and-metabolic-damage

Thanks so much for the links...good stuff! There was one other trainer with a story like the 2nd link...he upped his client to 2200 per day! Eventually settled into about 1700 while she was losing I think, then she can maintain on ~2000 - pretty decent and liveable amount!

I do wonder if the science changes as amount of BF goes up - like those above 40 BMI - most of the posters seem like they were trying to "change" composition to muscle or have not too terribly much to lose? Either way....interesting discussion for sure.

popsicklestar

I have really similar stats to you. I'm 35 and 5'7''. I weighed 166 when I started losing weight, and now weigh 143. My goal weight is 137, maybe 135, not sure yet. Before I started mfp, I did a month where I cut out sugar, artificial sugar, dairy, alcohol, red meat, gluten, soy, and restricted carbs to 1/2 cup servings. I lost 10 pounds that way without counting any calories. I started mfp at 1200+exercise calories and did that for a month. I lost a lot more weight, but it wasn't really enough food for me, so I've been slowly increasing my calories as I lose more weight. I'm at 1400+exercise calories now and am going to keep raising it closer to my maintenance as I near my goal.

dewsmom78

I've been eating my TDEE - 20% for 3 months (1500 calories per day), haven't lost a pound. I'm now reducing it to 1350 to see if that helps. I also workout 6 days a week.