How much more were you able to eat...?

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ShoShoyi
ShoShoyi Posts: 34 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
So I often hear stories about how people go on very low calorie diets (either below 1200 or some people may even consider at 1200 as a low calorie diet), lost the weight but it ended up being not only fat but a lot of muscle mass as well. Sometimes, once these people start maintaining, they overeat, and seeing as muscle burns more than fat, these people end up where they started as but with even less muscle mass. Thus to lose the same amount of fat, they end up having to take an even longer time or work harder.

My question is, for people who were able to build up muscle how much more calories were you able to eat then? Building muscle mass itself is already a hard task, and for women, even a couple pounds of muscle is a huge thing. What difference did this make to your BMR?

Replies

  • Ninkyou
    Ninkyou Posts: 6,666 Member
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    Not quite sure I understand what you're asking, but when I first started MFP I got the standard 1200. I did it for a week. I did well with it, but I found it kind of lacking, and after reading posts on the forums I decided to throw it out the window. Today my "goal" is 1530 calories. When I exercise, I typically burn 400-500 calories. And I'll eat most of those calories back. So in a typical day I'm eating close to 1900-2000 calories. I'm still losing weight (lost 2 lbs this week), at a healthy steady rate. From my understanding, increasing your protein will help with the muscle thing.... and also weight training.

    Hope that helps?
  • nickijo2003
    nickijo2003 Posts: 19 Member
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    I joined mfp last week and it set me at 1200 cal, my husband thinks this is too low and will make my body go into starvation mode especially when i exercise 5 times a week!!! I will stick at it till the end of the week and see what the scales say and how i feel
  • QuilterInVA
    QuilterInVA Posts: 672 Member
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    Stavation mode is a myth. If you make good food choices, 1200 calories is fine.
  • jdm_taco
    jdm_taco Posts: 999 Member
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    Are you asking how much more metabolism has increased in response to muscle gain?


    I have put on about 20-25 lbs of muscle the last few years. This has allowed me to eat maybe an additional 300-500 calories.


    Don't expect miracles to happen. People greatly overestimate the effect the addition of muscle has on metabolism.

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