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

LilMissDB

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.

I don't really agree with this. Back when I was a crazy gym junkie, I ate 1500kcal per day and worked out (hard) 6-8 hours per day. I was in my healthy weight range but I had some fat and I was maintaining my weight for a good 5 years. There must have been some kind of metabolic adjustment to allow this kind of activity with so little calories?

mtabdou

I would love some advice on this topic, myself! I'm a 5ft tall female, currently weigh 141 pounds with a goal weight of 125. MFP suggests 1200 calories a day, which I try to stick to. (1200 Net, so I do eat a bit more on exercise days). I currently do cardio 4x a week, strength 3x a week. The past few times I've started this process, I get so frustrated within a month or so because I don't see any weight loss progress. I've been tempted to up my calories, but I'm scared to put on even more weight. TDEE - 20% is about 1750 calories - much more than I've been eating recently. Any ideas?

hatkinson87

I started at 1280 in January (2 pounds a week) and did that for a couple of months, then I went up to 1560 (1 1/2 pounds a week) and did that for about a month. I didn't really see any difference with those two calorie goals. I ended up getting sick with a stomach bug for three days back in Feb and ended up losing 8 pounds (coupled with 2 pounds I had lost back in Jan) during that time. I've kept off 10 pounds since that time. I upped my calories to 1730 a day and I exercise regularly every day (alternating between 30DS and walking/jogging 3-4 miles every other day). I just recently upped my calories and had lost 2 pounds since last week.

My starting weight was 235 and I've fluctuated between 225 and 226 since Feb. As of today I'm down to 224! I know that had I stuck with 1280 a day, I may have lost a good deal of weight, but I just found myself going over every day and was getting so frustrated. I think the best thing to do is test out the different goals that MFP has when you set up the account and see which works best for you. I tend to eat back half (or all some days :ohwell: ) of my exercise calories and that seems to be the best for me. One of my biggest wins in my weight loss battle is what KIND of calories I'm eating. I try to stay away from processed foods and eat good cals (like kale, almonds, red potatoes, sweet potatoes, quinoa) and that seems to make a huge difference!

I'm not an expert by any means, but I felt like I should share what works for me! Hope that helps!! :happy:

Binkie1955

Measuring Caloric intake to manage weight doesn't work, that's been amply demonstrated, see the research in Good Calories Bad Calories. The body adjusts the metabolism through homeostasis too quickly for calorie control to be effective in managing weight (or at least fat). If you wish to reduce fat you must reduce the amount of insulin circulating in your bloodstream since insulin is the only adipose active hormone (i.e. insulin converts things to stored fat). so to reduce your fat reduce the amount of insulin floating around. carbohydrates stimulate the pancreas to produce insulin. hence the logic of low carbohydrate diets. you can indulge calories but you can't indulge carbohydrates. see http://www.dragaonordestino.net/Drachenwut_Blog_DragaoNordestino/Ernaehrung/Ernaehrung_arquivos/Notes-to-Good-Calories-Bad-Calories.pdf

good luck.:happy:

MeIShouldB

Eating more has helped me over 2 plateaus.

Ladyinwaiting4

I have stalled when eating 1200 calories and am on my second day right now I am doing the metabolic reset I was netting 900-1,000 calories and the increased to 1200, then 1400 calories. I've not weighed on the scale yet I can tell you I am feeling better and already seeing a difference. we have the same goal weight of 135 pounds. I am 2 inches shorter than you are

mycupyourcake

Measuring Caloric intake to manage weight doesn't work, that's been amply demonstrated, see the research in Good Calories Bad Calories. The body adjusts the metabolism through homeostasis too quickly for calorie control to be effective in managing weight (or at least fat). If you wish to reduce fat you must reduce the amount of insulin circulating in your bloodstream since insulin is the only adipose active hormone (i.e. insulin converts things to stored fat). so to reduce your fat reduce the amount of insulin floating around. carbohydrates stimulate the pancreas to produce insulin. hence the logic of low carbohydrate diets. you can indulge calories but you can't indulge carbohydrates. see http://www.dragaonordestino.net/Drachenwut_Blog_DragaoNordestino/Ernaehrung/Ernaehrung_arquivos/Notes-to-Good-Calories-Bad-Calories.pdf

good luck.:happy:

I don't overindulge carbs by far. In fact I don't eat cereal, bread and rarely rice or potatoes. If it is true that you have to be low carb to lose weight, how do you explain the people that lose weight (and yes fat) while eating 40% carbs?

eabaker

Starving yourself cannot make sense, no one wants to maintain a starvation diet.

eabaker

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.

Professional athletes eat plenty; they need to because they need to fuel their activities & because they don't have ample fat stores to sustain them. Starving people are.... starving. People having too much of a calorie deficit is ridiculous? I don't know what your body runs on, but mine needs food to survive. I can tell you that there IS such a thing as too much of a calorie deficit & it is as unhealthy as it is pointless.

I totally agree with this! My 5'1" 105# daughter can eat more than me when she is actively involved in school sports. In the off-season her caloric needs decrease, as does her appetite. She's never been overweight so her body's metabolism is likely not off-wack the way mine is.

BTW - I lost 30# increasing my meal plan from 3 to 5 meals a day, taking away processed foods, and watching what I eat. I am currently at 1500 calories +/- a day. When I'm naughty and eat things I shouldn't the scale shows it When I'm good I maintain quite nicely. You could say I've plateaued, but I know if I kick it back in gear and start working out more on my current 1500 I would start to lose again.

duckiec

Doing this now, and anxious, so interested in hearing responses.

Was doing average of 1250-1350/day (total by doing lower weekdays, higher weekends) for months. Lost 25+ but the scale is starting to get stuck, and I'm starting to feel worn out. Still, it was nice to see the scale go down 2lbs a week.

Bumping it up to 1400 minimum/day, still having higher weekends, so it will average around 1500/day. Also changing the exercise up a bit- moving from 30ds (which did NOTHING for me?!) plus cardio, to cardio (c25k & Zumba) and more body-resistance strength sessions. Training for a obstacle 5k, so trying to focus on being strong and healthy for that... though I want this weight to keep going down, too!

Also helping- got a Fitbit Flex that tells me my approx TDEE, so I know if I stay 500-1000 cals under that daily, I should have some loss that week, even if it doesn't show up on the scale right away. Hopefully.

chellec23

I was eating under 1500 calories almost every day for 2-3 weeks and the scale didn't budge. It wasn't until I started eating 1700 (which is my daily goal) that the scale started to move. Now I'm down 9 lbs.

RoseTears143

I'm the same height as you, have a lot more to lose but I didn't lose when I tried eating at 1200 cals or so which is what MFP had set for me a long time ago when I originally joined. I followed the formula that came with insanity and started eating based on that (Harrison-Benedict formula) and it had me eating betweem 2000-2400 cals/day and i started to drop weight relatively easily. This was before I knew anything about BMR and TDEE and all of that goodness. Currently I eat anywhere from 1700-2200 depending on what I do for that day...I have the BodyMedia armband and my app for that tells me my burned cals and it's linked here so it imports what I eat to that app and I know exactly how much mroe I can eat for the day and still maintain my deficit for the day to meet my weekly goals.

But yes, eating enough (or not enough) willd efinitely affect your weight loss.

girlfromOklahoma

The best fat burning tool you have is your metabolism. You are never going to burn as many calories in the gym as you do in your daily functions of life (breathing, digesting food, etc.) Therefore, you need to make sure you are fueling your metabolism by eating the proper amount of calories. I have had great sucess eating closer to 1500 - 1600 calories a day compared to when I was eating 1200 a day. I truly think it's because eating 1200 a day was slowing my metabolism.

RCMPWannaBe

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.

You can hardly compare professional athletes with people in third world countries that don't have enough to eat... can you?

Professional athletes eat plenty; they need to because they need to fuel their activities & because they don't have ample fat stores to sustain them. Starving people are.... starving. People having too much of a calorie deficit is ridiculous? I don't know what your body runs on, but mine needs food to survive. I can tell you that there IS such a thing as too much of a calorie deficit & it is as unhealthy as it is pointless.

This. My cousin is a fitness model and she eats like a horse (all healthy and proper portions), but she's got a BF% of about 15-16. She can't be wrong

srk369

I would love some advice on this topic, myself! I'm a 5ft tall female, currently weigh 141 pounds with a goal weight of 125. MFP suggests 1200 calories a day, which I try to stick to. (1200 Net, so I do eat a bit more on exercise days). I currently do cardio 4x a week, strength 3x a week. The past few times I've started this process, I get so frustrated within a month or so because I don't see any weight loss progress. I've been tempted to up my calories, but I'm scared to put on even more weight. TDEE - 20% is about 1750 calories - much more than I've been eating recently. Any ideas?

If you are netting 1200 after exercise, I would think you would be close to the 1750 Gross already on some days. I am about your size, 5' 2" CW 134 and when I started MFP I was doing 1200 + exercise but it was too difficult on a day off to go back down to 1200. Now I am set to around 1650 so that I have a consistent number daily (although I do go over at least 1-2 times a week). I use my fitbit to determine my TDEE and use -15% since I'm getting closer to my goal weight. I have lost 18lbs since the start of the year.

RCMPWannaBe

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.

What are you eating? It's hard to have suggestions when we can't see your diary.

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

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.

The more fat you have, the lower in calories you can afford to go in the beginning, because there's a lot of stored energy. I don't know what the safe amount of time is to stay on a very low calorie diet (VLCD) before it starts to affect not only skeletal muscle, but cardiac muscle. But honestly, why would someone want to eat that little if they didn't have to? MFP started me at 1200, and I could barely make it through my workouts. I wasn't going to dumb down my workouts for the sake of calorie restriction. I like my ice cream too much.

Steve says this about VLCD's in that 3rd link:

This isn't an argument for people to start following VLCD as most will fail miserably. Once you factor in the psychology aspects of them, they're just not right for most long term fat loss plans. In addition, the lower your energy intake is, the more careful you have to be about nutritional adequacy. Meaning it becomes very easy to shortchange yourself of particular facets of nutrition, which can ultimately tap into "health."

There's a group for Eat More to Weigh Less if that hasn't already been mentioned here. I've had this tab open for a while, so it's possible.

nickip91

I was on 1250 and my weight loss stagnated after about 6 months. Uped my calories to 1450 and the weight began coming off again straight away. Who knew eating more could help with weight loss!?

__Di__

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.

Not going to get into any arguments with anybody on this thread but THIS ^ I totally agree with.

If I could eat more and lose weight, I wouldn't have needed to go on a diet/weighloss plan/etc etc etc in the first place.

As to answering the OP original question, everytime I eat more, I put weight back on, so for me, it doesn't work doing it that way and never has,

ChitownFoodie

Ironically, me! I say its ironic because I intended on maintaining and according to most calculators and MFP my TDEE was only about 1390. I ate about that and maintained for 6 months or so. Then, I wanted to GAIN weight. I ate at 1,500 then 1,800, then 2,000...but never gained any weight. I did that for a couple months. After a long streak of eating higher calories and maintaining, I unintentionally ate at an average of 1,800 for a week and lost weight! At the time I was only 95lbs. I had to go on a crazy bulk averaging 2,700 a day just to gain. It took about 5 months to gain 7lbs. Now I maintain between 102-105 eating 1,900-2,700 a day.