told to eat more to lose weight - NOT WORKING!

pollyreeve
pollyreeve Posts: 1
edited September 24 in Motivation and Support
Hey all! I hope you can help! I'm 25, 5'9 and 145lbs, and trying to lose the last 8 - 10 pounds before my wedding this summer, but the scale seems to be going the wrong way with every week that goes by! To give you a bit of history, a month ago I had a nutrition appointment with a trainer at my gym, who told me my BMR was 1450, that i needed to eat a minimum of 1600 cals a day to lose weight, and 2000 to maintain. I exercise 4 days a week, for 45 minutes, doing interval runs and cycling, with 10 mins of weights when I have time.

For over 3 years I have been stuck on the cycle of eating 1000 - 1200 cals a day Mon- Thurs, then the weekend comes and I'm probably averaging 2500-3000 cals a day thanks to wine and meals out. The result was that I would lose a pound, then gain most of it back at the weekend.

So this past month ii've been eating the 1600 a day like I have been told to and eating more like 2200 at the weekends, but the scale keeps going up! So far i am up 6 lbs, and i'm not sure how much longer to keep going on this regime - will the scale ever stop increasing?

Has anyone else had any experience of having to up the calories to lose weight? I'm not sure how many more increases on the scale (and the tape measure) I can take - i thought this was meant to speed up the weight loss?

Thanks in advance for your replies, I really appreciate it.

Replies

  • Vicky14174
    Vicky14174 Posts: 715 Member
    you need to open your diary so we can better see what you are doing. it's like trying to give directions in the dark if we can't see what your doing.
  • dian1227
    dian1227 Posts: 122 Member
    I agree with Vicky, if you would not feel too weird by opening your food diary, maybe we can help you figure out whats up.

    Blessings,

    Diane
  • david081
    david081 Posts: 489 Member
    Eat more to lose weight! I just don't believe that phrase in the dieting world! - Check it out, do some factual on-line research... It is the calorie deficit that will result in weight loss - corroborate everything though, there are some strange ideas about! Also try varying your exercise
  • wolfchild59
    wolfchild59 Posts: 2,608 Member
    I'd say stop the weekend splurges. Cut back the alcohol and don't eat out or overly munch/eat on the weekends. Just as you're adding additional calories, you're probably also adding a lot of sodium from eating out so you're gonna be showing weight retention gain every single week. Ultimately you just have to ask yourself, what's more important, looking amazing for your wedding or that glass of wine/plate of pasta/big dessert/whatever?

    Also, if you jumped straight up from 1000-1200 calories to 1600-2200 calories you may also be seeing a gain just from your body not knowing how to adjust to the increase. Most things I read about increasing your caloric intake is to do it slowly. About 100 calories at a time over a couple weeks until you get up to the new level.

    I can speak from personal experience that increasing calories can help weight loss as I've done it myself with successful results. But I'm also pretty strict with myself and only have the very occasional single splurge meal, typically for a special event like a birthday or anniversary. And I plan for the meal in advance by working out extra that day to give a larger caloric buffer so if I do go over, it's not by much. Everytime I feel like breaking down and just going to a favorite restaurant or munching through a bag of chips I mentally weigh the momentary satisfaction (and resulting disappointment on the scale) against the long term satisfaction of finally reaching my weight goal. And I'm proud to say that in almost a full year of being on MFP I've never had a single uncontrolled or unplanned binge or splurge because the desire to reach my goal always wins that debate.
  • Selaen
    Selaen Posts: 31 Member
    I agree with the above; open your diary for us to see and it'll be easier to tell what's going on when we actually know what you're doing!

    It could be so many things; eating the wrong types of foods, wrong calorie amounts for foods, gaining weight but toning up...... Without more info, it's pretty difficult to tell!
  • Painten
    Painten Posts: 499 Member
    I had a nutrition appointment with a trainer at my gym, who told me my BMR was 1450, that i needed to eat a minimum of 1600 cals a day to lose weight, and 2000 to maintain.
    So this past month ii've been eating the 1600 a day like I have been told to and eating more like 2200 at the weekends, but the scale keeps going up!

    I could be wrong but i think that might be your problem right there
This discussion has been closed.

Categories