Increasing calories is stressful!

LiveOnceBeHappy · May 2022

I've been eating 1200 calories since August. I made goal a few weeks ago and then dipped below that by a couple pounds. I added just 50 calories. I've been walking a bunch lately and feel hungry. So I increased my calories to 1400. This is nerve racking! I know what to do: stick with 1400 for a week or two and see what happens. It's just I'm nervous!

alisonj223 · May 2022

Increase calories. You’ll feel better

LiveOnceBeHappy · May 2022

alisonj223 wrote: »

Increase calories. You’ll feel better

I ate 1200 calories, carefully measured, for 8 months and felt great. I lost 48 lbs. to get to 122 lbs. I need to increase, I think, because I'm now walking a lot more, and I don't want to continue to lose. I'm feeling a little stressed that I will gain any of it back!

AnnPT77 · May 2022

You can estimate your actual calorie needs based on your own individual logging data and loss over the past few weeks. Would that be reassuring?

This thread describes that method in detail, along with other methods:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10638211/how-to-find-your-maintenance-calorie-level/p1

Another thing to consider: Let's say you overshoot your maintenance calories by 100 per day (which you probably won't). If you did, it would take you more than a month to regain a pound of fat. If that did happen, you know how to lose a pound: You've proven it.

I completely understand how this can be anxiety-producing, but you don't want to keep losing, so keep in mind that there are guard rails here: You're not suddenly going to balloon up in weight because of a small change in calories. Some people even find that when they do go to carefully-estimated maintenance calories, their weight stabilizes for a bit, then they start gradually, slowly losing again, from adaptive thermogenesis starting to reverse!

It's going to be OK, as long as you stay calm, don't over-react to normal water weight fluctuations, and make gradual adjustments as you need them. It's gonna be good! 😊

sijomial · May 2022

LiveOnceBeHappy wrote: »

alisonj223 wrote: »

Increase calories. You’ll feel better

I ate 1200 calories, carefully measured, for 8 months and felt great. I lost 48 lbs. to get to 122 lbs. I need to increase, I think, because I'm now walking a lot more, and I don't want to continue to lose. I'm feeling a little stressed that I will gain any of it back!

Primarily you need to increase because you want to maintain instead of continuing to lose. The walking part will be a minor part in your changing needs.

The same rules that enabled you to use calorie counting to lose weight also work when maintaining or gaining weight.
You trusted the maths since August and you need to trust the maths now.
That 50cal/day increase is a tiny part of the 3500cals needed to regain a pound of fat - seventy days in a actual 50cal surplus which of course it won't be.

Beware the thought "any of it back" - maintenance isn't the same weight every day, every week, every month. You will have to get used to your totally normal weight fluctuation within a chosen weight range.
Eating so low since August means you will have masked your weight patterns and will have to relearn what is normal for you.
Yes some days you will see weight gain (it's not fat gain remember) and you mustn't over-react to what is a normal part of life. Other days you will see a decrease in weight - again not fat. It preferably becomes just data that builds into a trend and not cause for despair or celebration.

e.g. Normal for me after a long and hard ride including a very large deficit (I simply can't comfortably eat 5,000+ cals in a day) the next day I'm up 3 or 4lbs. Obviously not fat! Over the next couple of days without intervention those pounds have gone again.
Ditto the same 3 or 4lbs gained the day after a Chinese meal - again not 3 or 4lbs of fat so not a concern.

cwolfman13 · May 2022

LiveOnceBeHappy wrote: »

alisonj223 wrote: »

Increase calories. You’ll feel better

I ate 1200 calories, carefully measured, for 8 months and felt great. I lost 48 lbs. to get to 122 lbs. I need to increase, I think, because I'm now walking a lot more, and I don't want to continue to lose. I'm feeling a little stressed that I will gain any of it back!

Regardless of the walking you would need to eat more to maintain weight. 1200 calories is a weight loss calorie target...I don't know any woman who has that as a maintenance target. Most people gain a little scale weight when going to maintenance...this isn't fat...it is more inherent waste in your system from consuming more, and increased water weight from the body processing more calories.

rosiekin · May 2022

I totally understand your anxiety, and I think worrying about weight gain after maintenance is quite a common concern for lots of people. You don't say how tall you are, but eating 1200 calories for 8 months seems very low. If you are now just eating 1400 calories, and walking a lot, it is little wonder you are still losing. I know it can be satisfying to see more pounds drop off, but if you genuinely want to stabilise your weight, you will need to eat more.
When I reached my goal in 2014, I continued to lose weight for about a further 6 months. At goal, I decided to increase my calories slowly, about 100 extra a day for a month, then another 100 extra a day for the next month, and so on until my weight stabilised. That happened when I got to 2000 calories a day.
Please try not to let anxiety stop you from eating more... like me, you might be pleasantly surprised at just how many calories you can eat, and still maintain. Go for it!

Increasing calories is stressful!

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