why does eating more = weight loss?

So, as your hormones become wonky and your metabolism is reduced your deficit is smaller and smaller than predicted--> your weight loss slows. By increasing your calories you restore proper hormone levels and weight loss can proceed.

^ This.

But from what I've heard, this isn't the way it works. Let's assume that your hormones are out of wack and metabolism has slowed such that TDEE is now 1000 cals (for sake of round numbers and easy conversation). By increasing cals slowly over the course of several weeks you being to "correct" your hormones, right? Know what else happens? you being to "repair" your metabolism. You go from a TDEE of 1000 to a TDEE of 1200. Then to 1500, and so on. So basically all you're doing is increasing your maintenance. You still won't (or at least shouldn't be) losing weight. And that's right from Layne Norton who is as expert on all this as anyone.

But if you increase your cals from 900 to 1200 and your TDEE becomes 1500, you are then eating at a 300 calorie a day deficit which would result in weight loss.

That's not how I understand it to work. The body is constantly searching for balance, for homeostasis. Eventually it adapts to 1000 cals daily and your TDEE becomes 1000. If you increase cals to 1200, your TDEE doesn't leapfrog it to 1500, it's adjusts to that 1200. When you increase to 1500, it adjusts to 1500.

The goal is to slowly increase back to healthy levels such that you can reduce cals and be back to a healthy deficit where you can lose weight. At 1000 cals, any weight loss you experience will be unhealthy.

Maybe I'm reading the paper wrong but can you point to me where it says something along the lines of a slower metabolism? From reading the intro and summary of the paper, adaptive thermogenesis is about how the body wants to maintain a specific weight, specifically a weight that one has maintained for a long time. Say, if someone was 300 pounds their whole life and decided to lose weight, adaptive thermogenesis kicks in and and makes them eat more to maintain a weight they've been a majority of their life. If there is something about a slowed metabolism, could you point me to it because i dont see it?

I don't know. I was only pointing out that in your hypotheticals the increase was an essential link in the causal chain that eventually produced weight loss.

Like here: "Increasing cals may give more energy which could lead to more intense workouts would could lead to weight loss, but then it's not the increase in cals that leads to weight loss, it's the increased intensity of the workouts."

Increased cals -> more energy -> intense workouts -> increased TDEE -> weight loss

Increased TDEE is the proximal cause, but if you remove "Increased cals" at the beginning, none of the other things happen and weight loss doesn't occur. So it's still causing weight loss.

No, the increased intensity is. If you increase cals but don't increase workout intensity, you won't suddenly start losing weight, will you? You could in theory get the same energy boost from a caffeine pill rather than an increase in cals. Then you still see the weight loss despite keeping cals steady. The intensity is causing the weight loss, the question is what's causing the increased intensity. Could be any number of things.

From my understanding, if you eat less than what your body needs, it holds on to everything you consume. Your body is trying to keep you alive from all the activities you are doing or not doing. And while you do lose weight at a high calories deficiency, you are most likely losing water weight and muscle mass because fat is used to store energy, and your body is trying to hold onto energy. The weight will come back as soon as you begin eating again, and because you've lost the muscle mass that burns fat, you'll have a difficult time losing it again. This can be another reason why people have a difficult time losing weights the second time around or why they would plateau after a long time eating at a high calories deficiency.

If you do not eat enough calories the body will go into starvation mode and hold on to fat no weight loss.

Eat more the body will begin metabolizing again at rate for your current weight and will burn off the fat stores once again as it is no longer in starvation mode..

I think there are people all over the world that would disagree with this. They eat very little calories and their bodies do not hold on to fat. Starving people do not have lots of body fat.

Starving people don't tend to have the the body fat in the first place. They haven't already screwed up their metabolism. I take your point, and I agree that if those dieters who are in starvation mode stayed there for many months/years, of course they'd lose weight.

But, we're talking about maybe 4 weeks of starving the body, for an overweight person whose metabolism isn't used to it. For these people during this time, they'll enter the starvation mode and they won't lose weight (or will find it difficult to, based on their bodies being used to having more).

I know it sounds messed up, but excluding genuine 3rd-world starvation, a lot of dieters find it easier to lose weight by eating slightly more to keep their bodies out of ketosis (starvation mode). It's a softer shift for their metabolism to have to make, thus making the process easier & more beneficial.

Disclaimer: OBVIOUSLY if they continued in ketosis (which isn't advised) for any great length of time (many months/years, without a single 'slip') they would eventually lose weight, but the body takes a long time to undo the damage that being overweight does to its metabolism.

I don't know. I was only pointing out that in your hypotheticals the increase was an essential link in the causal chain that eventually produced weight loss.

Like here: "Increasing cals may give more energy which could lead to more intense workouts would could lead to weight loss, but then it's not the increase in cals that leads to weight loss, it's the increased intensity of the workouts."

Increased cals -> more energy -> intense workouts -> increased TDEE -> weight loss

Increased TDEE is the proximal cause, but if you remove "Increased cals" at the beginning, none of the other things happen and weight loss doesn't occur. So it's still causing weight loss.

No, the increased intensity is. If you increase cals but don't increase workout intensity, you won't suddenly start losing weight, will you? You could in theory get the same energy boost from a caffeine pill rather than an increase in cals. Then you still see the weight loss despite keeping cals steady. The intensity is causing the weight loss, the question is what's causing the increased intensity. Could be any number of things.

We're basically talking about how many slices of bread are in a loaf. Depends on how thin you slice it. Same with causality here. You can arbitrarily make a finer distinction between "increased intensity" and "weight loss" and keep slicing ever thinner to say the new thing is the most direct cause.

I don't think anyone has suggested that increasing cals is the only thing that could trigger further weight loss. Sure there are multiple things that could cause it, like doing meth too. It's not an unconditional/unqualified statement.

You're right.

But the point of this thread was to question the rampant advise on this site that if you aren't seeing weight loss despite eating what many consider a low cal diet that you need to increase cals.

Rarely do people question how the person is estimating cals consumed/burned, how they got to 1200 cals per day, etc etc. The immediate response is always, "omfg, you need to eat more!" as of they will be dead in a week.

If people arent seeing the result they expect,maybe they should log more carefully, stop lying to themselves about that 1 piece of candy or that little bit of butter or the lady couple bites of their kids' pizza, etc.

Are there times when people need to eat more? Definitely. But 9 times out of 10 I'm betting the problem isn't the 1200 calorie goal but rather in their estimating and/or logging.

Agreed. Also, many people don't look at their averages. They are in deficit 4-5 days out of the week and blow it a couple days a week. This makes them feel like they are doing well, when in fact they are undoing their deficits on the bad days, thus yielding no true deficit on average. It is easier to do than many people realize, but 5 days of deficit a week still feels like adherence.

I went to a weight loss clinic and they did my RMR and gave me a number to hit. After a month, I had only lost one pound and was pissed. I called the doctor and he said to go 150 calories LOWER. I thought that amount would be crazy (1150) so instead I decided to track everything on a spreadsheet with my RMR in one column, calories expended during exercise in another, and total calories consumed in the third. When I did that, I saw that a couple bad days basically ERASED the entirety of my good days (Christmas, Christmas Eve, New Years Eve). I was over by almost 2000 calories each day. Now, I overestimate calories eaten, underestimate calories burned by exercise and use my RMR. I log EVERY DAY the totals I get from MFP but put them in my spreadsheet and it shows me my deficit. I've only had 3 days since then where I wasn't negative and I shoot for at least -500 each and every day. When it is there in black and white, it is hard to ignore. Go ahead and have a cheat day, but not recording it and wondering why you aren't losing weight isn't a good idea. Write it down, everything you ate, so at least you know where you are. If you maintain that calorie deficit over the week, you will, most likely lose weight.

OK on my fitnes pal it says I should eat 1200 calories and then it adds whatever I burn in excersize so that often puts it up too 1600 calories. Now my question is, do I eat the 1200 calories or 1600 to lose weight?

They say that cause they don't know what they are talking about basically. Very few folks on here are already very lean individuals and as such should not be worrying about muscle loss from eating too few calories. Presuming you are lifting and consuming adequate protein, you can easily lose more than 2lbs/week and keep your muscle tissue. The bigger you are the faster you can drop the fat. Fact is your metabolism doesn't slow very much, maybe 20% at most, it isn't like your body just shuts down. The only time you need to start being paranoid about muscle loss is when you are already lean.