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

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?

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:

Eating more has helped me over 2 plateaus.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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,

I started losing regularly when I upped mine. Slowly, but surely.

Would you mind telling me what your first calorie set point was at and what you upped it to?

Me too - It was 1200 and I stalled for 5 months. Upped it to 1700 and starting losing again almost immediately. Now I am 12 days into upping them again to 2000 after a 3 month plateau.

Me me me! I used to refuse to go over 1200 calories.. ugh. Now I just eat more but do more too and it's so much better, my old eating plan seems so obviously bad now! :embarassed:

Check out the Eat More to Weigh Less group

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also the Eat, Train Progress group. Great folks moderating and great information. Be sure to read the stickies so you understand what each group is trying to tell you.

FYI - at 1200 calories I didn't lose a pound. At 1700 and eating back my exercise calories I lost 29. 5'3" started at 177 now at 153 and building muscle like noone's business!

EAT, TRAIN, PROGRESS
Yes, it's that simple.

^^ This ---- I went 10 weeks trying to eat 1200-1300 calories even though my BMR was 1527 and Calories Burned Daily averages 2200. 3 of those weeks when I felt like I "fell off the wagon" and ate 1700+, I lost, when I cut back, I gained. I started tracking to find a pattern. Last week I consistently forced myself to eat at 1700/day even if it was finishing out the day with a hand full of almonds to get the calories up and without exercising all week, drinking 64 oz of water daily and eating my macros, I lost 3#. Doing the same thing this week but with exercising and eating back exercise so I don't net under my BMR. I think the problem is most people up their calories and then show a gain then drop them right back down. Your body is going to hold on to every little bit extra you give it in the beginning because it knows you're going to cut back again but if you fool it and keep it up there, it will start slowly letting go.

I'm 5'6 currently 168 ish lbs. I started at @220 and have been upping my calories starting from 1200 - 1400- 1600 - 1800 pretty well every time I stalled for more than a couple weeks. Right now I have my NET goal set to just above my BMR at 1307. I used the "roadmap" to figure out my sedentary calories (because I do not do the same activity daily so I can not use TDEE reliably) I eat back every single calorie that I earn via activity which normally puts me somewhere between 1600-1900 calories + (gross)

I did have to come down a touch because my BMR was actually lower than I thought - based on my losses and calories consumed over the past 9 months. I now have it to a great point where I am losing .5-1lb / week (which is perfect for me). If you are set to your BMR then you need to be eating back a good chunk of your calories from exercise. You also need to understand that you should NOT lose 2lbs/ week when you only have 20lbs to lose in the first place. A healthy rate for you is no more than about .5 / week (10% cut from your TDEE)