Caloric Increase

bmartin024
bmartin024 Posts: 1 Member
edited March 2022 in Health and Weight Loss
So I just found out that I want reading enough to lose weight; eating 1700 calories when it should have been around 2400. So I increase the amount over time, say using the reverse diet principle, or just bump it up to the needed amount?

Replies

  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,092 Member
    Eating too little to lose weight really isn't a thing. Otherwise starving to death would be impossible.
  • JBanx256
    JBanx256 Posts: 1,479 Member
    lynn_glenmont wrote: »
    Eating too little to lose weight really isn't a thing. Otherwise starving to death would be impossible.

    ^^^^ This. Look at people in third-world countries that are stricken by severe drought or famine, or at POW's in forced labor camps. Are they getting fatter or are they....wait for it...STARVING TO DEATH? Hmm. Yeah. What you (OP) are suggesting, simply is not a real thing.
  • RockingWithLJ
    RockingWithLJ Posts: 243 Member
    edited April 2022
    OP, I read what you said then read the comments because I didn't understand it fully and I'm lost. If I'm understanding at the way that I think it was meant to be understood , I never found increasing or decreasing calories on the same equivalency as reducing or increasing medications so I say just jump to where you need to be and be good.
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,739 Member
    Ok, now that we're clear starvation mode isn't a thing, OP, are you stalled in your weight loss? For how long? Before you go adding more calories, are you weighing and logging everything you eat?
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,242 Member
    RockingWithLJ wrote: »
    OP, I read what you said then read the comments because I didn't understand it fully and I'm lost. If I'm understanding at the way that I think it was meant to be understood , I never found increasing or decreasing calories on the same equivalency as reducing or increasing medications so I say just jump to where you need to be and be good.

    A reverse diet would attempt to find / probe /reach the upper boundary of maintenance. Since you're eating more while wanting to maintain weight stability, you may want to make a single leap to the lowest possible boundary value. But after that you would only be bumping up by a 100 Cal or so a week, backing off a bit if seeing a gain and generally trying to find that upper boundary without gaining or losing (much) weight (ideally none; but who lives in an ideal world).

    Whether this is the best idea or would do anything good for the OP is up for debate and since the original post doesn't contain any backstory there exists no real indication that this is a good move.
  • willboywonder
    willboywonder Posts: 137 Member
    Good luck in your goals.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,416 Member
    1700 might be the right number, and 2400 might be.

    Since we know virtually nothing about you (weight, age, gender, activity level such as job, whether or not you exercise,) then we can't really be of any help on the actual number.

    However, yes, you can go up or down in your range all at once or gradually.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,204 Member
    bmartin024 wrote: »
    So I just found out that I want reading enough to lose weight; eating 1700 calories when it should have been around 2400. So I increase the amount over time, say using the reverse diet principle, or just bump it up to the needed amount?

    Since we've established that eating too little to lose weight is not likely, let's move on from there.

    What actually can be possible IMO, within a narrow range, is one of these three things, or a combination:

    1. Undereating so severely, in pursuit of fast weight loss, that one becomes fatigued, drags through the day, moves less (even fidgeting can burn low hundreds of calories per day), feels cold (lowered body temp by a fraction of a degree), slows hair growth (maybe it eventually starts thinning), etc. That can make a person lose weight more slowly than expected at a given calorie level, maybe in the rare case even turn what should be a weight-loss level of intake into a maintenance level of intake. More importantly, it can trash that person's health.

    2. Yo yo dieting many times, over years, in extreme ways, such that there's progressive loss of lean mass, and progressive increase of habits of passivity and reduced movement. Those things lower routine daily-life calorie expenditure.

    3. Undereating in pursuit of fast loss, while getting stressed an anxious about it, maybe exercising in extreme ways that are physically stressful, maybe in a life context that's stressful in other ways, and thereby increasing cortisol-related water retention. The water retention may mask fat loss on the bodyweight scale, to some extent. More about that in the link below:

    https://bodyrecomposition.com/research/dietary-restraint-cortisol-levels

    Some people think some of these effects can be avoided, moderated or reversed via refeeds, maintenance breaks, so-called reverse dieting (increasing calories gradually in the hope of improving spontaneous energy expenditure, basically).

    More about some of that here:

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10604863/of-refeeds-and-diet-breaks/p1

    OP, we don't know enough about you to give you sensible advice. We don't even know whether you're still trying to lose weight, or want to maintain current weight, at this point. If you want advice, please answer the questions others have asked above, plus tell us what your current objectives are, besides just "eating more".
  • johnbody99
    johnbody99 Posts: 1 Member
    bmartin024 wrote: »
    So I just found out that I want reading enough to lose weight; eating 1700 calories when it should have been around 2400. So I increase the amount over time, say using the reverse diet principle, or just bump it up to the needed amount?

    thats pure crash diet which would do more harm than good.

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