I Think I Need to Eat More...Expert Advice Needed

FWIW I'm 5'1" and about 115 lbs. I struggled with anorexia for almost a decade - being afraid of food, afraid to eat, afraid of gaining weight, etc. It was miserable and consumed my life. Then a couple years ago I discovered weight lifting. I started with light dumbbells and bodyweight moves until I was comfortable with the basics and then moved to the bar. (I also have bad balance and sumo squats work for me). Suddenly I started to see food as fuel instead of my enemy. I wasn't afraid to eat because I knew that the better I ate, the more I could lift. If I started panicking and stopped eating, my lifts would tank. And as the muscles started to show I LOVED my new look - I was a flabby 95 lbs and a 'toned' 112 lbs and the difference was amazing. I'm now a few lbs above what I'd like to be but I took a break from calorie counting and working out to get some things in life sorted out and deal with my obsession with my weight and appearance. I feel so much better and more refreshed and I'm ready to eat well because it makes my body feel good and exercize because I love it (instead of fearing food and working out as punishment for being 'fat'). Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is try setting non-appearance/weight-based goals - to run a certain distance, master a certain lift, hit a new yoga pose - and then see food as your fuel for that (calories help me run faster, lift heavier, hold that pose longer). It might take your mind off the worry - which as someone who's been down that path is a big red flag for an impending eating disorder. Then take a look at your figure after you've been at that for a bit and re-evaluate how you feel about it. Best wishes for your journey, you can do this!

DoreenaV1975 wrote: »

futuremanda wrote: »

DoreenaV1975 wrote: »

Everything I have read on this site says that if I am gaining weight, I am taking in too many calories.

Then you haven't been reading very closely. It takes 3500 calories above your maintenance to put on 1 lb of fat. Have you been eating like 5,000 to 12,000 calories a day? No? Then you didn't put on 1-3 lbs of fat in a couple of days.

You put on water. Water comes back off. It goes up and down. It's neither here nor there, your body is going to fluctuate in water throughout the day, across days, forever. Ignore fluctuations like this.

If your weight climbs as an overall trend over a period of time... like many weeks or months... then you are putting on fat. I promise you, at 1100 calories, you are not putting on fat.

And DO try to wrap your head around the idea that it's not the sheer amount of fat on your body that determines how you look, it is your body composition (the whole context of your body makeup). Try browsing mybodygallery.com for your height, age, and weight, and you will see women who look very different even with similar stats. Some of this is due to body composition (i.e. they have more muscle). It may take some reading and browsing and lurking, but this could be the best thing you ever do for yourself, so keep an open mind!

Okay sorry...
I guess what I meant to say is that whenever somebody complains about not losing weight or gaining weight it seems to me that the answer "is you are taking to many calories"... you know the whole CICO thing.

And yes, you're correct I am not eating 3500 calories a day.

Again, I'm sorry to sound like a crazy person but other than my starvation days, this is the first time something has worked for me and I don't want it to "not work" anymore!

Sorry if I sounded harsh! I didn't intend to impart any "tone" like that at all.

I personally find the math behind weight gain/loss/maintenance very empowering. You can have a bad feeling when you step on the scale and see a number you don't like... and your weapon against that is reason. I'm just trying to help give you tools to feel better... because I think that's your real problem. You're doing great, and I'm confident you'll lose the weight you want to lose, and I hope you look into strength training, because I think you have body goals that will be best served (by FAR) in that manner. But the fear is going to stand in the way of you living your life to the fullest no matter what you weigh, you know?

And you don't sound crazy! I just see three paths. 1) You work through the feelings and find good balance and success. 2) You keep on until you can't take it anymore, quit, gain weight back, get unhappier, etc. 3) You get worse, and eventually develop an ED.

The CICO thing is math. Mathematically, you're not gaining fat. And mathematically, this won't stop working, ever. I can't remember your stats, so I input into a calculator a girl my age, 5 foot 2, 100 lbs, sedentary. If that girl wanted to stay 100 lbs, even at sedentary, even with NO exercise, she could eat ~1350 a day. Go play with some calculators and see how small you'd have to get before eating something like 1200 calories would not result in weight loss or would result in weight gain. (If I input my stats, 1200 would be sedentary maintenance if I weighed 60 lbs. I'm safe.)

So whatever number you see on the scale is almost certainly water fluctuations (which may also hide losses for you -- you are small at this point and looking for small, slow losses, so water retention will mean that the scale is actually not your best bet for checking your progress anymore). I think there are apps that will help sort through the data -- but you'll still need data, over time, for the app. (No worrying about short term numbers, basically.)

And as an aside, I have depression and anxiety. So I do know about thoughts/fears that aren't correct/logical and ways you can try to keep them from actually ruining your life by dictating your actions. I'm not trying to imply you are crazy or make you feel bad for having fears!!

You're probably putting in too aggressive of a weight loss goal. If you put that you want to lose a pound per week or two pounds per week you're going to get a really low number, because you shouldn't be trying to lose that much. My opinion, as you already know, is that you shouldn't be trying to lose any at all. But AT MOST you should be looking to lose half a pound per week.

I'm getting 1513 calories as maintenance for you with no exercise, so with a 15% cut, which is really still too steep imo, you're going to be at 1286. The problem with a small cut like that is that your logging pretty much has to be spot on, because it's easy to underestimate and end up with no deficit at all.

DoreenaV1975 wrote: »

@futuremanda - No worries! I didn't get a harsh vibe from you at all...just a "no nonsense" vibe, LOL! I appreciate your responses! But I really must be entering my data wrong in the calculators because I don't get those numbers at all! In fact I re-entered them last night, when I had time to myself (instead of yesterday when I was doing it in between projects at work) and it was telling me I needed to eat less than 1200... so that part I am still REALLY confused about!! I'm obviously doing something wrong or just not understanding what they are telling me after entering my data correctly!
My stats are: 5ft2, 116.5lbs (as of this morning's weigh in), Sedentary
Sedentary because although I plan to exercise every day, some times plans don't work out and I don't want that figuring into my calorie goal

Are you using calculators that give set weight loss goals? So here's one I use just to get a ballpark. (There are different calculators that use different formulas, and everyone is a bit different -- but ballpark is good enough to start.)

http://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html

When I run your numbers, on sedentary, I get:

You need 1,385 Calories/day to maintain your weight.
You need 885 Calories/day to lose 1 lb per week.
You need 385 Calories/day to lose 2 lb per week.
You need 1,885 Calories/day to gain 1 lb per week.
You need 2,385 Calories/day to gain 2 lb per week.

So anything less than 1385 will not result in weight gain. And that's before exercise.

Anything less will result in weight loss. Now, you're small. So you can see, you're not going to get 1 lb a week healthily, and you shouldn't aim to (you'd lose body bits you don't want to lose, and get malnourished).

And you can also see that inaccuracies will be more significant than if you were a much larger person.

And your individual body may differ a bit -- maybe it's really 1300 maintenance, or 1425, or something. But it should be pretty close. And exercise would make that higher, as would just moving more throughout the day.

Let me run maintenance on a thinner you. Let's say sedentary 110 lbs. Maintenance: 1353

So eating 1100 and burning SOME extra calories throughout the week means you are not gaining fat. You may lose slowly, and your normal water fluctuations (typically 1-5 lbs) may be bigger than your losses, making them hard to see on the scale except over a few months. But you're losing fat.

At 1100 from 1385, that's a daily deficit of 285. That would take 12 days or so to lose 1 lb, so in a month, you may lose 2 lbs, give or take. This obviously depends on adherence -- people eat more around holidays and things -- and accuracy. But you WILL lose.

And at goal weight, you'll be able to eat closer to 1350-1400, even more if you keep working out, or bump your lifestyle up from sedentary (meaning taking more steps throughout your day -- more than about 5k).

Well, I'm only 5'4" and mine's quite a bit higher. Benefits of being heavier more than being taller I think. Don't be too depressed over it-- exercise can make a big difference and so can being more active in general throughout the day. My sedentary TDEE is only 1500something according to the calculator that @futuremanda used (1660 according to MFP and Scooby). In reality if I'm sedentary my TDEE is more like 1700. With exercise (lifting 4 days per week, occasional walking) and daily activity I usually eat between 1800 and 2200 calories. And mine is low compared to a lot of the ladies on my friend list.

DoreenaV1975 wrote: »

@futuremanda Thank you. And even though I have been surviving on less, it's funny how depressing only being able to eat 1350-1400 calories (sedentary) a day seems, LOL! Oh well!!!
Again, thank you for your assistance!

Oh, packaged stuff can be really wrong. You might want to do a pass of things you eat often and see if anything is off. (Bread especially. I've also heard meat can be way off.)

It does sound depressing! But even being lightly active and not exercising at all (so moving more in your day, but no workouts) would bump you to 1550 at 110. And strength training would bump you up over time too. And any exercise, of course! You can totally change that number for the better, you just have to lead a more active life, which you can work on incrementally, and in any manner you like.

My main points were more: 1) You can stop worrying that you're putting on fat or not losing fat, no matter what the scale says. You are not eating over maintenance. Even errors would be so little over maintenance that the worst that could happen is that you lose more slowly even than 0.5 lb a week. (Unless you slack off on weighing and such.)

and 2) Get used to the idea that this will just take awhile, and the scale may not show you your losses on time. It WILL happen though!

Absorbing that the 5 lbs may take 2+ months, that it'll definitely happen, that the scale is not very helpful, and that your end weight will actually be a range of up to 5 lbs and not a set number (because of water), should help you relax a bit.

blessedwbest121 wrote: »

After I had my son I was on a 1200 calorie diet and working out an hour everyday. I would step on the scale and NOTHING! Maybe a pound or two here and there. Then I discovered an article that explained my situation perfect. In a nutshell, eating too little can stop you from losing.

If only starving people had read that article before they died!

DoreenaV1975 wrote: »

Arliah wrote: »

DoreenaV1975 wrote: »

htimpaired wrote: »

Why are you trying to lose? Your BMI is 21.2 which is right smack in the middle of a healthy range.

How do you know what my BMI is? Don't you need to "measure" me to know this?

Nope. Height and weight, and ta-da, here's your BMI.
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm

In regards to your real issue, that is having too much flab, lifting will get you the results you are looking for. Are you doing that already?

No... I've dabbled but that's it.
My main problem areas are my butt and thighs and my stomach. How does lifting help that? I thought lifting was for arms?

definitely educate yourself more on what strength training actually does for you

pick up some weights and eat a bit more food and you'll be impressed by the results