Eat more weigh less folks - please help!

Yeah, I dont like the whole concept of eating more to weight less either. I mean, it'll either work or it won't work but it sucks that you can't look at the scale for so long and if it doesnt work, you'll feel like you've wasted a lot of time. You can try intermittent fasting. Not sure you've heard of it?

If does NOT suggest that you eat at 1200 calories either though.... it's not about how you get there, it's about how you fuel your body.... 15lbs is actually nothing to be honest.... you may not change in weight at all but your body will be smaller and you will be stronger. Figure out your TDEE and eat -20% from that. If it's a huge amount above what you are eating now then slowly up your calories. When you eat at -20% you do NOT eat your exercise calories back. Just eat the same amount each day regardless if you are working out or resting that day.

You can join the group "eat more to weigh less" or you can google their website and join.... another great read is IPOARM ( In place of a road map) same concept of eating..... all smart choices

One more thing.... do less cardio and lift heavy weights... your body will change and you will lose fat a lot quicker than just cardio

Heres how I do mine which helps me diet into the shape in my avi

I the following link to get my bmr (use to do the calculations but this is the closest calculator every time) = BMR

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/bmr_calculator.htm

Then select which category you come into with the following and multiply your BMR

Activity Factor Category Definition
1.2 Sedentary Little or no exercise and desk job
1.375 Lightly Active Light exercise or sports 1-3 days a week
1.55 Moderately Active Moderate exercise or sports 3-5 days a week
1.725 Very Active Hard exercise or sports 6-7 days a week4
1.9 Extremely Active Hard daily exercise or sports and physical job

Now that will give you your daily calorie requirement

You then take away 300-500 calories from that number which should put you into a calorie deficit.

Do not cut more then 500 calories a day from your requirements

It works for me

I dont really follow the "eat more, weight less" rule....it defo wouldn't work for me but it seems popular on MFP!

I think it's hard to give advise without looking at your food diary and exersice regime....you work out 4 times a week, but for how long and doing what?

In my experience (having lost 20lb in the past but then getting lazy) I do believe that 1200 is sufficient for the human body and exercise is the way forward....4 intense work outs a week on 1200 is never going to force your body into starvation mode IMO.

Sorry I havent got any advice on the thread title.....

*Holding breath for the abuse I might get from the "Eat More" crew.....*

1200 really doesn't have any meaning other than this... it's the minimum calorie level that seems to be sufficient for getting the proper mix of nutrients. what this means is that a bunch of folks worried solely about the nutritional aspect of diets have decided that as a general rule, nobody should eat below this amount without medical. supervision.

when it comes to the amount of energy your body needs, 1200 is too low for most people. certainly the vast majority of men, and even the majority of women.

what happens is this... if you eat too few calories for a prolonged period of time, your body attempts to adjust to the lower caloric intake. it does that by simultaneously trying to get more efficient with its use of those calories, while also redirecting where it uses those calories. this is why people on large calorie deficits will often start losing their hair. the body just doesn't consider hair growth or health to be a high priority metabolic function when it no longer has a surplus of calories to spend each day. the increased efficiency manifests itself as slowed weight loss (slowed fat loss!). this is what confuses people and makes them think that they are gaining fat. they are not. they are simply not losing it as quickly anymore.

none of this is starvation mode. starvation mode is something that happens when you are literally starving yourself of calories and your BF% is so low that your body starts to consume itself to stay alive. think of the WWII death camps and how many of those people looked when they were freed. some of them were so far gone that even feeding them copious amounts of food after liberation was not enough to save them. that's starvation mode.

what happens for the people on here is often called adaptive thermogenesis. that's basically a fancy way of saying that your BMR starts to drop due to a low calorie diet. the amount of this drop seems to be debated. some say it's not much more than 10%. others seem to think it can be larger. either way, this is what people often believe causes plateaus. the "eat more" crowd is not saying that eating more calories will cause you to lose weight per se... what they are saying is that you need to eat more if you find yourself in this situation in order to get your metabolism back on track, so that your weight loss can resume. it's really more of a "fix" for over-stressing your body by under-eating and a strategy for resuming your weight loss with a more suitable calorie deficit.

I dont really follow the "eat more, weight less" rule....it defo wouldn't work for me but it seems popular on MFP!

I think it's hard to give advise without looking at your food diary and exersice regime....you work out 4 times a week, but for how long and doing what?

In my experience (having lost 20lb in the past but then getting lazy) I do believe that 1200 is sufficient for the human body and exercise is the way forward....4 intense work outs a week on 1200 is never going to force your body into starvation mode IMO.

Sorry I havent got any advice on the thread title.....

*Holding breath for the abuse I might get from the "Eat More" crew.....*

1200 really doesn't have any meaning other than this... it's the minimum calorie level that seems to be sufficient for getting the proper mix of nutrients. what this means is that a bunch of folks worried solely about the nutritional aspect of diets have decided that as a general rule, nobody should eat below this amount without medical. supervision.

when it comes to the amount of energy your body needs, 1200 is too low for most people. certainly the vast majority of men, and even the majority of women.

what happens is this... if you eat too few calories for a prolonged period of time, your body attempts to adjust to the lower caloric intake. it does that by simultaneously trying to get more efficient with its use of those calories, while also redirecting where it uses those calories. this is why people on large calorie deficits will often start losing their hair. the body just doesn't consider hair growth or health to be a high priority metabolic function when it no longer has a surplus of calories to spend each day. the increased efficiency manifests itself as slowed weight loss (slowed fat loss!). this is what confuses people and makes them think that they are gaining fat. they are not. they are simply not losing it as quickly anymore.

none of this is starvation mode. starvation mode is something that happens when you are literally starving yourself of calories and your BF% is so low that your body starts to consume itself to stay alive. think of the WWII death camps and how many of those people looked when they were freed. some of them were so far gone that even feeding them copious amounts of food after liberation was not enough to save them. that's starvation mode.

what happens for the people on here is often called adaptive thermogenesis. that's basically a fancy way of saying that your BMR starts to drop due to a low calorie diet. the amount of this drop seems to be debated. some say it's not much more than 10%. others seem to think it can be larger. either way, this is what people often believe causes plateaus. the "eat more" crowd is not saying that eating more calories will cause you to lose weight per se... what they are saying is that you need to eat more if you find yourself in this situation in order to get your metabolism back on track, so that your weight loss can resume. it's really more of a "fix" for over-stressing your body by under-eating and a strategy for resuming your weight loss with a more suitable calorie deficit.

Agreed, but don't waste your breath on her, she eats under 1200 cals, complains about being tired and not having energy for the tough workouts she does (tbf they were pretty hard) and isn't open to things that are working for others who have studied nutrition.