scared..increased my calories. Anyone done this?

Hi
About 3 weeks ago I hit a plateau and was only losing about a pound a week and one week I gained a pound! At that point I had increased exercising from about 3x a week to 5 or 6x times a week...at the gym for an hour each time. I didn't increase my calories and kept just a little under each day. The past two weeks I've eaten a little more each day...still not going over my allowance each day but going into some of what was added due to exercise. I lost 4 pounds last week! So, while I can't tell you the reason I lost more was because of the increase in my calories I think it does have something to do with it. I've read if you do too much exercise and don't eat a little more your body will shut down and not let go of the pounds.
Keep going!!

I'm in kind of the same boat right, I've been going for 5 months with a very slow weight loss thus far. I work out 4-5 days a week, plus I try to lead a pretty active lifestyle, (tennis, biking, swimming). I've cut out gluten almost entirely, no bread, no pasta, no grains, no corn, no dairy.

I eat meat, seafood and veggies almost exclusively, with the occasional chunk of cheese, Timbit or bagel. I've started this after trying the low fat milk, low fat cheese, low fat yogurt, whole grain bread, low fat, low carb, fake sugar, palm size meat serving diet that I was offered. It didn't work so I'm changing, it has been about a month and a half and my trainer keeps telling me I must eat more. He wants me around 200 g of protein a day and approx. 3000 cal per day, I'm right around 100 g and 2000 calories and I'm having better but still slow results, he is getting frustrated that I'm not following his advise but it is so hard for me to believe I'll lose weight when I start eating more. For my last 2 week weigh period I did increase to 2500 cal and around 150 g and i was down 4 lbs, I'm trying this 2 week period to get up to 3000 and 200 g it is hard but I'm almost there each day, so if this thread is still going I'll post my results next weekend.
I track EVERYTHING I put in my body and try to mark my exercise as precisely as possible so I can review this 6 month journey I'm on and see what worked and didn't and then I'm going to implement that for my next 6 months.

Over the last 3-4 months I've gone from eating 1200 calories a day and exercising my butt off to eating 1500-2000 calories most days & exercising less.

Yeah, I'm losing more now than I was before eating 600-700 fewer calories. For the first time since September 8th (when I joined MFP), I'm losing exactly the amount of weight I should be losing based on the calorie deficits I'm creating (1.5 pounds/week). I was losing faster last fall, but I was creating humongous calorie deficits (sometimes 2000-3000 calorie deficits each day) and the weight I was losing wasn't matching those deficits because my metabolism was slowing down until I eventually stopped losing weight and started gaining. That's when I decided to increase my calories to 1400. I started losing weight a couple weeks later and then plateaued again. Increased my calories again, plateaued again, and then increased a final time to 1290 base +100% of my exercise calories and have been losing appropriately and steadily since then (for 5 weeks now).

If you're increasing your calories drastically (and 25% more is pretty drastic, IMO), you may see a very slight gain for a week or two as your body adjusts. Please give your body the time it needs to adjust and don't freak out about it. Keep eating more for a month or 2 before you determine it's not working for you.

. Also many people over estimate how many calories they actually burn and how many calories they are consuming.

Very great point! I find a digital kitchen scale is essential to determine proper portion sizes so that you can estimate your calories consumed as accurately as possible. For example, I can pack a lot more ice cream in to a 1/2 cup measuring cup than 60g (which is the weight portion size noted on my carton) or a lot more peanut butter into a tablespoon than 16g. Meat should be portioned raw, unless otherwise noted. And a heart rate monitor is a good way to keep your exercise intensity in check so you can be sure you're not overestimating how hard you're actually working. If you're not pouring sweat and breathing heavily, you're not working out "vigorously."

As an example, I used to eat 1200 plus my exercise calories. All in all, about 1500 calories. Then, I started playing around. I added in 100 calories, so after exercise, I was eating about 1600 calories. I still lost the same amount of weight. Bonus food, and still losing weight, what's wrong with that? Then, I tried doing it again, and was eating about 1700 calories a day. My weight loss slowed a bit, although I was still losing about 1/2 pound a week.

I then started a class called Health Seekers through the Y. Within the class, I had appointments with registered dieticians at the hospital. They set me at a 1500 calorie a day diet, with no bonus for exercise. In the first 6 weeks, I lost 10 lbs. Then the dietician set me at 1450 calories (evidently their calculations work that for every 10 lbs lost, you drop 50 calories, because a smaller body needs less energy to run). The last 6 weeks of the class, I lost 6 lbs. In the month and a half since the class ended, I've lost nothing. I told the dietician that I didn't think I was eating enough calories. I started having cravings and binges, and really didn't feel like I was eating enough.

I went last week, and had a calorimetry test done. It's where they measure your oxygen intake and carbon dioxide output for a period of time. From those numbers, they can figure out what your metabolism is. I sat with the dietician on Friday, and got the wonderful news that I had NOT been eating enough. My REE (resting energy expenditure (I think)) was 1586 calories. So... My caloric intake just got moved to 1600 a day. Which was what I had figured out on my own before all the classes and talks with the dietician:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Sorry about the long post, but yes, I believe that you can easily raise your daily calorie intake. I would just do it by 100 for a couple of weeks and see how it goes. If you're still losing, try raising by another 100. You will eventually hit a point where the weight loss slows. At that point, just drop it back down 100 to where you were at when you were still losing.

Keep us posted!