I gain weight if I eat above 1000 calories

You should really see a doctor about your weight loss. Everyone would have a doctor on board, for a variety of different reasons. This is one reason - you need to know if there is a problem or not.

Bodies adapt. They work with what they have. Sometimes it means adaptations in one area that cause another area problems...they do what they do. It's really interesting to read about how they adapt through weight loss and starvation, but nobody really knows all of it, everyone is unique and dieting isn't exactly the same as actually starving, so take all the Starvation Mode stuff with a grain (or two grains or a big pile) of salt.

Go make sure there is nothing wrong with you. Then relax, because a stall doesn't mean it's over.

I am in the exact same boat, it is a struggle for me to eat over 1000 calories regularly, I usually just don't have much of an appetite, and I have still gained about 10 pounds in the last few months. I don't exercise much, but my job is fairly active, I do work around the house and walk my dogs. Wish I knew why I'm gaining weight!

nosweetpea wrote: »

I thank you all for your help. I am 65 I walk some but I had a bad meniscus tear and had to have surgery, my knee is still not right. I had such high hope to get back to walking a couple miles a day but it is what it is. I have been trying to lose with and without MFP but every time l eat more than 900 calories I gain weight period.. I told my Dr. he told if that's what it takes to lose than that's what it takes. I'm down from 280 to 247 but It's because I'm eating around 800 to 900 calories a day. I drink plenty of fluid. Tea mostly, green tea with nothing in it and of course water too. That's all I drink. Sometimes I put lemon juice in either one of them just for flavor. Oh, I measure everything or I take the readings from the package like I did with the hot dog. For a month before I came back to MFP I was eating 1100 to 1200 calories thinking things would get a kick start but if you can go back a year in my journal I have to get back down to were I was when I stopped. I was around 244 back then but I'll be back again. I will be taking everyone's advice and seek professional help. I just read somewhere that you can mess up your metabolism by yoyo dieting which I did when I was younger...Xocharm younger. Now I am just trying hard to get fit. The weight loss is really just an added benefit. I'll be calling around for a new dr. Monday. Thanks everyone.

In the strictest sense, that (the bolded) doesn't happen. What we can do, via decades of yo-yo dieting, is gradually degrade our body composition (lower percentage of muscle, plus higher percentage of fat at any given weight), and establish habits of reduced activity that get started through fatigue and under-nutrition, and become our routine habits (and I don't mean just exercise activity, but also incidental things we do in daily life: Those amount to more calorie burn than most people think).

The fortunate thing is that both of those things are under our control, so we can improve them: Body composition improves with strength exercise, daily life calorie expenditure by moving more throughout our day, not necessarily vigorously.

Here is a thread about strength exercise:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10332083/which-lifting-program-is-the-best-for-you/p1

That thread includes bodyweight exercise programs, not just weight lifting programs. Please understand that "lifting heavy" means lifting an amount that is challenging for us personally, but still manageable. If that's not a large amount at first, that's completely fine and normal.

This is a thread about increasing daily-life activity:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss/p1

I empathize with the challenges of exercise with physical limitations: I, too, have pretty cr*ppy knees. With careful experimentation, you may find certain activities that don't aggravate your condition, and - if fortunate - may, over time, even improve it. Many people with joint issues benefit from pool exercise (because buoyancy supports some of the body weight), if you have access to a pool. YouTube has many videos of seated exercises, some of them quite vigorous, if you're up to that. Many YMCAs (or other gym/adult ed/senior-center programs if not near a Y) offer special exercise classes for people who are aging or have physical limitations, typically taught by instructors who have skills at adapting exercises to individuals' current capabilities (as long as one communicates clearly about those).

Like others, I wonder if your "always gain at over 1000 calories" is a matter of water weight and digestive contents. At consistent eating habits (high or low or anywhere in between), our body holds a certain normal/average amount of water weight (exact amount differs by person), and tends toward a certain average amount of digestive system contents (waste) in transit through our body. If we increase our eating by a couple of hundred calories, there's pretty much no way to do that without eating some more carbohydrates, sodium, or indigestible residue (like fiber) than we were eating on 200 fewer calories . . . even if the addition is still a perfectly healthy and appropriate amount of carbohydrates, sodium, and indigestibles.

Each additional gram of carbs we eat causes us to hold onto 3-4 grams of water for a day or few - it's just part of digesting the carbs, not true fat gain, but it will show up as a scale increase. Eating additional sodium causes our body to hold onto a bit of extra water weight, too, to balance out electrolytes in our body. Again, this is just how a healthy body operates, and it's not fat gain, but it will cause a little bit of a jump in scale weight. Similarly, the extra waste in transit through our digestive system will show up on the scale. Sure, it's "weight gain", but it's not fat gain, so there's no reason to worry about it. If we wait it out (week or so) it will level out at that new amount of calorie intake, and - if eating at a calorie deficit - we'll start seeing loss on the scale again. (Virtually anyone will lose at higher than 1000 calories.)

It is possible to lose weight at our age (I'm 63, lost around 50 pounds, down to a healthy weight, at age 59-60, and have stayed at a healthy weight for the nearly 4 years since). It may take a bit more insight and patience, but often insight and patience are things that improve as we age; in terms of persistence and strategizing, age can therefore be a plus.

You can do this, and you'll be glad you did: Best wishes! :flowerforyou:

Nobody gains weight on 1,000 calories. Maybe my cat, that's it.

Oh wait, old thread.