Eating more to lose more?
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A lot of folks adding advice. That's good to see.
Someone did say that every time they've hit a 'plateau' it's been because they were eating more than they thought they were. This was my experience as well.
Keep monitoring your calories, stay on your goals, be honest with yourself. You'll get it.1 -
Why does everyone assume that packaged foods have more contents than labeled? That doesn't make much sense. I'm willing to accept that labeling and weighing at the factory are not going to be accurate 100% of the time,but certainly the bias would be the inclusion of LESS product than advertised. These companies don't make money by giving away free product after all.
I rarely eat bread, but every time I do, two weighed slices are at least 30kcal more than they should be if I went off the label. If I ate several sandwiches a day, those calories would add up.0 -
I will add my stats to see if this helps. I am 5'5". I started this journey at 161 lbs and am currently at 129 lbs. I have done 1300 calories this whole time. I do exercise 3-4x a week. I wear an Apple Watch that shows my average steps a day is around 12k. My average calorie burn is 1925 (active calorie average is 416).
You are over eating, your body is smaller therefore needs less calories.
Recalibrate your goal section on your profile. Tell it maintenance, load, then back to loosing 1.5-2lbs a week.
When I was 148lbs my intake was 1290, when I hit 130, my intake needed to be lowered to 1200 to keep loosing.0 -
Wow, a whole 15 calories per slice! Must be why everyone is on a stall around here.
Seriously, this is nickle and diming. After all, the TDEE on which you're basing you goal is already an ESTIMATE! You're certainly off by more than 30 calories.0 -
the only time this eat more to lose more works is when one has been in a pro-longed calorie deficit, which was caused ones metabolism to slow to a point where continuing to eat at a low calorie level is actually maintenance level. In these instances, a diet break is recommended of a month or so of slowly adding back x amount of calories per week ..but eventually math takes over and you can't keep eating more to lose more...
OP may fit into this category as it seems she has been consuming 1200 calories to drop all of her calories...
I am quoting the above post because a lot of people in this thread are missing what the OP is asking. The law of thermodynamics is not enough of a guide to weight loss, there is a balance of what your body needs to function, what is weight loss, what is maintenance, and what is weight gain. If you dabble too close to what your body needs to function, and sometimes dip below, you risk slowing your metabolism. You want to aim between what your body needs to function and maintenance. If you start dipping below what your body needs to function, you can stall your metabolism, you will start losing muscle mass and storing fat. I am not going to give advice, but what I personally would do in this situation, is raise my calorie intake to just below maintenance to jump start my metabolism again, then perhaps go less aggressive on my deficit for a while. A lot of people in this thread are missing the point. Eating more to lose weight doesn't mean go beyond what your body can burn off in a day, it means to lay off the aggressive deficit, and eat enough to keep your body going properly, which includes your metabolism, which has the final say when it comes to losing weight. If you are sure that you have correct portions and calories counted, then you can try a diet break like recommended above and see if that helps, don't go above maintenance though, unless instructed by a trainer or doctor.2 -
Weigh the prepackaged foods. Seriously. Weigh it all.
3 weeks may not be a plateau. You may just need a little more time.
Having said that, if your TDEE is around 1900, eat 1400, don't worry about the eating back, etc. because that is incorporated into your TDEE. Make sure you are getting adequate protein and nutrients, and see what happens.
I have similar stats(only taller), trying to lose the last few, and my daily goals are right around 1360-1500, depending on activity level.0 -
Wow, a whole 15 calories per slice! Must be why everyone is on a stall around here.
Seriously, this is nickle and diming. After all, the TDEE on which you're basing you goal is already an ESTIMATE! You're certainly off by more than 30 calories.
Sure. I have a granola breakfast cereal that comes in packages. If one were to assume that the package was a single serving size, the overage would be more than 240 calories. Reading the box and realizing that there are actually 2.5 servings per package, would still be off by over 60 calories per package (as compared to weighing the package). Add in overages on many of the other packaged goods, add in the inaccuracy of trackers (common, but not for all), those factors can easily wipe out a persons deficit.
Of course, if the OP doesn't want to weigh packaged items, she could just drop her daily calorie target by a couple hundred to compensate for the inaccuracies. I'm not disagreeing with your premise that this is all estimation anyway, so yes, one could drive themselves insane with the minutia. You've been around long enough to know how these discussions go.
What's your helpful advice for the OP?4 -
nutmegoreo wrote: »Wow, a whole 15 calories per slice! Must be why everyone is on a stall around here.
Seriously, this is nickle and diming. After all, the TDEE on which you're basing you goal is already an ESTIMATE! You're certainly off by more than 30 calories.
Sure. I have a granola breakfast cereal that comes in packages. If one were to assume that the package was a single serving size, the overage would be more than 240 calories. Reading the box and realizing that there are actually 2.5 servings per package, would still be off by over 60 calories per package (as compared to weighing the package). Add in overages on many of the other packaged goods, add in the inaccuracy of trackers (common, but not for all), those factors can easily wipe out a persons deficit.
Of course, if the OP doesn't want to weigh packaged items, she could just drop her daily calorie target by a couple hundred to compensate for the inaccuracies. I'm not disagreeing with your premise that this is all estimation anyway, so yes, one could drive themselves insane with the minutia. You've been around long enough to know how these discussions go.
What's your helpful advice for the OP?
Quit making sense, will ya?1 -
It's not an assumption. It's an observation from actually weighing prepackaged food. While you are correct that companies don't stand to profit from giving away free food, profit margins are pretty high on the food itself. It the packaging, shipping, etc that drives food cost up so including slightly larger portions in an attempt to lure more people into buying a product is actually profitable.Why does everyone assume that packaged foods have more contents than labeled? That doesn't make much sense. I'm willing to accept that labeling and weighing at the factory are not going to be accurate 100% of the time,but certainly the bias would be the inclusion of LESS product than advertised. These companies don't make money by giving away free product after all.
That's a very short sighted view. 15 calories per slice may seem insignificant but look at it this way. 2 slices a day every day for a month is 900 calories or 0.25 lbs of fat and that's just 1 food, a low calorie food at that. For higher calorie foods the error can be much more significant (and often is, seriously weigh prepackaged stuff and prepare to be disappointed). If you are near goal and losing 0.5 lbs per week is a realistic rate of loss, these minor things add up and can wipe out a sizable portion of your deficit.Wow, a whole 15 calories per slice! Must be why everyone is on a stall around here.
Seriously, this is nickle and diming. After all, the TDEE on which you're basing you goal is already an ESTIMATE! You're certainly off by more than 30 calories.
One more example are a greek yogurt bite I used to eat. The serving size is 9 bites (40gm) for 200 calories. Unfortunately 40 grams is actually only 6 bites. So every time I ate those, I was eating 100 calories more than I thought. That's 700 in a week and nearly 1 full lb of fat not lost at the end of the month if I ate them daily (which I pretty much did because they were delicious). And again, that's just 1 food...
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nutmegoreo wrote: »What's your helpful advice for the OP?
Ready to have your mind blown? Here goes. My advice:
Eat less food.
If you're not losing weight, you're eating too much. Regardless of how you track, what your diet plan is, how much exercise you do, whether you weigh your grains or rice or not, or how often you pray to the gods of fat and cellulite: if you aren't losing weight, you're eating too much.
My advice seems a lot simpler and more easy to stick to than some posted here.2 -
nutmegoreo wrote: »What's your helpful advice for the OP?
Ready to have your mind blown? Here goes. My advice:
Eat less food.
If you're not losing weight, you're eating too much. Regardless of how you track, what your diet plan is, how much exercise you do, whether you weigh your grains or rice or not, or how often you pray to the gods of fat and cellulite: if you aren't losing weight, you're eating too much.
My advice seems a lot simpler and more easy to stick to than some posted here.
That is another way and, yes, simpler. You should have said that in the first place.1 -
This is an overstatement of what actually happens. First of all, at no point will the body store fat (net fat storage, we are continuously storing and burning fat throughout the day) if the OP is eating fewer calories per day then she burns. This simply doesn't happen. Where would the excess calories needed to store fat (about 3500 calories per lb) come from if the OP is already eating less per day then she is burning. Surely you aren't trying to say the so much muscle is being catabolized that lbs of fat are being created? The body just doesn't do that even under the most extreme circumstances. This is why people who starve to death aren't fat, they are skin and bones. Sure metabolic slowdown occurs in anyone who undergoes prolonged periods of dieting but it never slows so much that fat loss should stop. Again, this is why people who are starving are not fat.the only time this eat more to lose more works is when one has been in a pro-longed calorie deficit, which was caused ones metabolism to slow to a point where continuing to eat at a low calorie level is actually maintenance level. In these instances, a diet break is recommended of a month or so of slowly adding back x amount of calories per week ..but eventually math takes over and you can't keep eating more to lose more...
OP may fit into this category as it seems she has been consuming 1200 calories to drop all of her calories...
I am quoting the above post because a lot of people in this thread are missing what the OP is asking. The law of thermodynamics is not enough of a guide to weight loss, there is a balance of what your body needs to function, what is weight loss, what is maintenance, and what is weight gain. If you dabble too close to what your body needs to function, and sometimes dip below, you risk slowing your metabolism. You want to aim between what your body needs to function and maintenance. If you start dipping below what your body needs to function, you can stall your metabolism, you will start losing muscle mass and storing fat. I am not going to give advice, but what I personally would do in this situation, is raise my calorie intake to just below maintenance to jump start my metabolism again, then perhaps go less aggressive on my deficit for a while. A lot of people in this thread are missing the point. Eating more to lose weight doesn't mean go beyond what your body can burn off in a day, it means to lay off the aggressive deficit, and eat enough to keep your body going properly, which includes your metabolism, which has the final say when it comes to losing weight. If you are sure that you have correct portions and calories counted, then you can try a diet break like recommended above and see if that helps, don't go above maintenance though, unless instructed by a trainer or doctor.
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nutmegoreo wrote: »What's your helpful advice for the OP?
Ready to have your mind blown? Here goes. My advice:
Eat less food.
If you're not losing weight, you're eating too much. Regardless of how you track, what your diet plan is, how much exercise you do, whether you weigh your grains or rice or not, or how often you pray to the gods of fat and cellulite: if you aren't losing weight, you're eating too much.
My advice seems a lot simpler and more easy to stick to than some posted here.
Not really mind blowing, but I agree with the sentiment.
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the only time this eat more to lose more works is when one has been in a pro-longed calorie deficit, which was caused ones metabolism to slow to a point where continuing to eat at a low calorie level is actually maintenance level. In these instances, a diet break is recommended of a month or so of slowly adding back x amount of calories per week ..but eventually math takes over and you can't keep eating more to lose more...
OP may fit into this category as it seems she has been consuming 1200 calories to drop all of her calories...
I am quoting the above post because a lot of people in this thread are missing what the OP is asking. The law of thermodynamics is not enough of a guide to weight loss, there is a balance of what your body needs to function, what is weight loss, what is maintenance, and what is weight gain. If you dabble too close to what your body needs to function, and sometimes dip below, you risk slowing your metabolism. You want to aim between what your body needs to function and maintenance. If you start dipping below what your body needs to function, you can stall your metabolism, you will start losing muscle mass and storing fat. I am not going to give advice, but what I personally would do in this situation, is raise my calorie intake to just below maintenance to jump start my metabolism again, then perhaps go less aggressive on my deficit for a while. A lot of people in this thread are missing the point. Eating more to lose weight doesn't mean go beyond what your body can burn off in a day, it means to lay off the aggressive deficit, and eat enough to keep your body going properly, which includes your metabolism, which has the final say when it comes to losing weight. If you are sure that you have correct portions and calories counted, then you can try a diet break like recommended above and see if that helps, don't go above maintenance though, unless instructed by a trainer or doctor.
Fat gain doesn't occur in a calorie deficit...
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whenever I hit a point where I don't lose I will intermittent fast but eat the same amount of calories. Try fasting for 21 hrs and consume your calories in 3. So if your last meal yesterday was at 10pm you don't eat until 7pm tonight. Have a big meal that will use up most of your calories for the day. Seems to do the trick for me for whatever odd reason1
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All things being equal, fasting will not spur fat loss. It's possible that the change in eating patterns might have an effect on water retention thus causing weight loss, but if calories remain the same, fat loss remains the same.QuHeCTiC24 wrote: »whenever I hit a point where I don't lose I will intermittent fast but eat the same amount of calories. Try fasting for 21 hrs and consume your calories in 3. So if your last meal yesterday was at 10pm you don't eat until 7pm tonight. Have a big meal that will use up most of your calories for the day. Seems to do the trick for me for whatever odd reason
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At 5'5", 160-130, 1300 calories the whole time...I personally suggest a diet break. I'm 5'4" and went from 163 to 128 (at one point). The physical and mental break of eating at maintenance for a couple weeks helped me get back into losing, possibly because it brought leptin levels back up a little, or maybe because it got me logging really accurately again because I sure as heck wasn't going to screw up maintenance calories.
How long have you been in a deficit exactly?3 -
Are you weighing your food and logging everything correctly? How much do you have to lose? The closer you are to your goal the slower the loss. To answer your initial question yes you can eat more and still lose, but it depends. Yes you can eat more than 1200 calories and lose because for most people that is not enough, but if you are already eating close to maintenance calories then no you will probably not lose.
Edit to add: Your weight it in a healthy range and this is why you are not losing. You are active and should be eating more than 1300 calories a day. So yes I would recommend changing your MFP goal to 0.5 pounds loss per week and see what it recommends.
Agree with this^^^
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You might not lose because you eat too little. If you eat low calorie, you will eventually hit a point where your body will decide it is starving thus preventing losing, it happened to me to. Good thing in this situation would be calculating you TDEE, and be honest with yourself when you do. How active are you? Eg. to maintain my weight, I work out almost everyday for more than an hour, my work hours wary, but my adivice is, don't count work expenditure into account, unless you work physically like in a warehouse or construction or factory. I maintain at around 2200-2500, depending on day. I tend to up my calories to maintain for a while eg two weeks, to entice weight loss again all you do is deduct around 200 cals, and this is pretty aggressive deduction in my opinion. What is your weight and hight? How much do you workout?No. Adding more calories would actually slow down your weight loss, not speed it up.
Depends on her daily needs, her workouts, her work, her activity, you don't know that it will slow it down, very very close minded opinion.
Ignore this mess. There is no such thing as starvation mode as this poster has described it. And there are numerous threads debunking this myth.4 -
Wow, a whole 15 calories per slice! Must be why everyone is on a stall around here.
Seriously, this is nickle and diming. After all, the TDEE on which you're basing you goal is already an ESTIMATE! You're certainly off by more than 30 calories.
My 72g per serve bread always weighs at least 85g, my 60g Quest bars, at least 65g, 40g pack of oats, usually 43-45g. I don't eat many pre-packaged foods so don't have a lot of comparisons to show you, but I'm assuming most are off. A few grams here and there doesn't sound like much, but add them all up at the end of the week and it could come to a considerable overage that you wouldn't be aware of if you trusted the label..
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but don't food manufactures get fined if their products weigh less than what is stated on the package? So it would be in their best interest if they over estimated rather than short change their customers.3
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