Lost weight by increasing calories? Please Respond

How many calories are you eating currently? When I manually calculate my BMR and go from there to figure out how many calories I should eat to lose 1lb per week, it's around 1900. I'm not very good at explaining how it works to eat more calories and still lose weight, but this blog is great. Good luck!

http://www.thegetinshapegirl.com/you-cannot-cancel-out-food-with-cardio/

I was stuck for 10 months!! I started eating more cals 2 weeks ago..and have not gained. Too soon for me to tell how it is working yet. Good luck! Check out EM2WL (eat more 2 weigh less..lots of info there!)

Your body needs fuel. Remember that your body will burn muscle tissue and food energy before it burns fat. Give your body what it craves. The increase in quality calorie intake will also help rebuild torn down muscle tissue. When there is more muscle tissue your body will burn calories efficiently and more often.

Fuel the fitness furnace. Burn bright and hot! Ready go!

What happens is that if you don't have enough carbs and calories to burn your body will start to produce ketones. Ketones can be found in your blood or urine and are there to replace carbs/protein missing from your diet. When you are low on carbs your body starts to eat away protein/muscle tissue to keep energized and often you lose more lean mass than fat or at least more lean mass than most want to lose. It is after this that ketones come into play because that can only happen for a while when your system becomes defensive, so to speak, and tries to save your fat and muscle in case of an emergency (lol sounds funny in my head, but still). It is important to eat your BMR and somewhere around your TDEE in order to make sure you have enough calories to support your bodies vital activities, such as sending blood through your system, keeping your brain working and heart functioning, not even included general exercise each day. Your BMR is what you would need even if you were in a coma or catatonic state because it is the calories/energy your body needs just to survive without using up what is saved in your system. So, you should make sure when you exercise that you eat back some of your calories if you end up with a lot of space to spare. I know some people don't believe in this, but when I was pregnant I did not eat enough and doctors found ketones in my urine. Ketones are produced by your body and can damage your liver and kidneys if you continue to "starve" or eat too little for too long of a time. It depends on the person, but for me it only took a couple of weeks for ketones to show up in my system. You could try to add 150 or so calories and see if it makes a difference. Lots of luck to you.

P.S. & I didn't answer your question, YES. I actually lost weight while pregnant, then maintained and at random gained because of not enough calories until I upped my intake! Every time I would up my intake I would drop the extra weight and then some more of it. I had this occur one time when not pregnant as well, but the results were not as dramatic. I started to lose weight again after I upped my calories. I upped my calories about 200 or so per day and it worked. Just some information from wikipedia to explain the details

"If the diet is changed from a highly glycemic (carb filled) diet to a diet that does not provide sufficient carbohydrate to replenish glycogen stores, the body goes through a set of stages to enter ketosis. During the initial stages of this process, blood glucose levels are maintained through gluconeogenesis, and the adult brain does not burn ketones. However, the brain makes immediate use of ketones for lipid synthesis in the brain. After about 48 hours of this process, the brain starts burning ketones in order to more directly use the energy from the fat stores that are being depended upon, and to reserve the glucose only for its absolute needs, thus avoiding the depletion of the body's protein store in the muscles."

If the extra calories ur consuming are good ones like veg and some fruits.
the calories you get from eating things like cucumber carrot or celery Sticks actually work as a negitive and U lose weight eating more of them
The calories U get from these foods you actually burn more eating them digesting and discarding them out ur system than the actual calories they give U. So make sensible choices when upping ur intake. Plus eating this kind of foods little and often also keep ur metabolism ticking over!

Hope this helps

If calories are low fat/no fat you should lose weight. I found that when I eat wholesome, low fat foods weight comes off.

This depends on the person because I just posted about a study and the low fat group lost the least, while low carb lost the most, but raised the risk of heart disease and the one with a more balanced diet with some fat & protein and mostly carbs lost in the middle of the other two and did not have the risk of heart disease. Also, most foods, even vegetables and fruits, do not burn off more calories than theyre worth from what I was told.

So, I've hit a plateau and I think that it maybe due to the fact that I'm not eating enough calories. I generally exercise off about 400 calories a day and have about a 500 calorie deficit each day. I'm thinking that I should start eating to up to the high range of calories, but I'm scared that I will gain. Has anyone beat a plateau or lost more weight by increasing their calories? I need the courage!

To tell you to eat more is wrong.

To tell you to eat less is wrong.

To find the exact amount of calories for you to be in a sustainable calorie deficit is correct. Some people can handle a deeper calorie deficit than others. Some people have emotional eating disorders and it comes into play. Even a small deficit puts your body in a state of flux with hormones and such and everyone is different. Neither is right or wrong, it just is. The more stress you have the more your hunger hormones get turned on and that comes into play with what kind of calorie deficit you can handle.

You just need to find the correct calories for YOU to be healthy and sustainable and and still lose weight. It might require some experimentation and tremendous patience. You can always notch up and down by 100 until you find what is sustainable and still allows you to lose weight.

Your body loses weight in chunks, not linear. I have found that you can do everything right and your weight loss seems to plateau but if you are patient and keep exercising and eating at a deficit (however slight) you will lose it, it will suddenly "whoosh". There are so many variables for the scale; water retention, digestion, hormones, allergies, sodium, carbs, water intake, DOMS, inflammation, the list goes on. People mistakenly think they lose or gain weight when they eat more or less because of these fluctuations.

Losing weight requires tremendous patience. You will not lose it when you want it or where you want it. The body does its thing. Some apparent plateaus can last a month or so. You cannot make it happen faster. You must focus on two things; calories and exercise. Nothing else matters. Scales and metrics don't matter. The day in and day out grind of exercise and calories are all that matters. It is not very exciting until things fall into place. You get your victories and you ride one victory to the next.

The scale is a trend tool. The scale is good but put it away and only check once a week and only use it as a trend tool. It will fluctuate, it does not matter. Take front side and back progress pictures at least once a month. You will see differences that the metrics won't tell you and it's that little bit of NSV that will keep you going until the next victory.

Exercise is to make your lean body mass pretty, strong, and healthy (especially lifting weights).

A calorie deficit is to lose fat. A calorie budget keeps your fat level where you need to be, either losing fat or maintaining.

Nothing else really matters much.

Hmmm....interesting topic. I've read dozens of posts that would lead a person to believe that all they must do is simply take their TDEE and subtract a reasonable deficit and magically watch the fat "fall off" a person. All the while eating two or possibly three times the amount of calories one is used to. I believe californiagirl hit the nail on the head. She, in my opinion, should be listened to. I too am in a horrible plateau. I need to lose fat. Lost 15 lbs then boom! Plateau. For about 3 months now. When I was in my twenties I would simply stop eating for a few days and back on track I would be. In my forties I see rules of the body have changed.--insert laughter here!!! Calorie manipulation and exercise are key. We all need to find the right combination that works for us.

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You're going to have to eat back up to maintenance at some point, regardless of what calorie number that is. If you let paranoia control you, what's going to happen if you reach your goal and consider upping to maintain? If you lose at higher calories, why would you want to sabotage your RMR which will make it even more challenging to maintain weight later as you age?

How long has it been since you have not seen a loss?

SO you know that gif I used before? It may need to make an appearance. I feel a storm coming. HAHA.

<snip>I know some people don't believe in this, but when I was pregnant I did not eat enough and doctors found ketones in my urine. <snip>

I believe you.

When the average person wakes up in the morning it would not surprise me to find ketones in the urine.

It doesn't matter what they have been eating the previous day, it's what the body does naturally to keep itself alive.

Ketones in the urine is also a rubbish way of determining how many ketones you are producing by the way. You probably had way more than you were detecting, those are just the ones lost.

<snip>Ketones are produced by your body and can damage your liver and kidneys if you continue to "starve" or eat too little for too long of a time.<snip>

Ketones are not toxic in any way, they are a naturally occurring fuel source that is used in the absence of dietary carbohydrate.

People on ketogenic diets are not falling over and getting sick, ketogenic diets have been prescribed for decades as a therapeutic aid to all manner of medical conditions.

But I guess there are a lot of misconceptions out there spread by people who constantly parrot this toxic ketone stuff, including doctors.

Don't confuse ketosis with ketoacidosis, which is a serious condition. Levels of ketones in the latter are WAY higher than those that can be achieved by dietary modification alone.

You're going to have to eat back up to maintenance at some point, regardless of what calorie number that is. If you let paranoia control you, what's going to happen if you reach your goal and consider upping to maintain? If you lose at higher calories, why would you want to sabotage your RMR which will make it even more challenging to maintain weight later as you age?

My theory has no science to it like a lot that has been said here, but I had a lot of luck "spiking' my calorie intake once a week or so, paired with more days of exercise. My thinking (and I had heard this, but don't know the research behind it) was that the spike puts your body into a mode of needing to deal with/burn more. The next day or two, good exercise paired going back down to the usual calorie count, helped for me. I could have just been lucky though.

By "spike", I'm talking maybe a 25%-50% increase just for that one day.

thanks for all the great info!!