Metabolism help please!?

Sloth_Life wrote: »

Hi everyone! First time posting here. I am in desperate need of some advice. For years I have struggled with my weight. I have spent so long on super calorie restrictive/ very low refined carbs that my body really just got used to that being the norm. If I ate more the 500-700 calories per day or anything different than like chicken breast, keto bread, and eggs, fruit and veggies etc, I would rapidly gain weight. I've done research, and it said to eat the amount of calories you're supposed to eat regularly in order to fix your metabolism. (I eat healthy, have for years, so luckily that's not an issue as well.) So I tried that, and I just keep gaining weight, no matter what I do. My only goal is to honestly just be able to eat a normal healthy diet like other people without the weight gain. And to lose the 10lbs that I've gained when I was trying to learn how to fix this mess. So 137. If I lose more, cool, but it's not a need. I am 36yr old female, 147.9lbs and 5'4". I am eating about 1350 calories as of now, not sure if this is too much, just right, or too little. I just know I am tired of eating healthy and gaining weight lol. Any advice is so welcome please, I could really use some insight on this. Thank you!

Eating super low calories can reduce calorie needs in future below predicted levels, yes. Losing weight repeatedly that way will tend to do the same. Therefore, you could possibly - not definitely - require fewer calories than MFP, another calorie calculator, or even a fitness tracker suggest. It's highly, highly unlikely that your weight-maintenance calories are as low as 500-700 calories. Even if you are severely hypothyroid without knowing it, it would be very, very unlikely to drive your calorie needs that low. (But if you haven't had blood tests for that or other issues, and believe you need only that few calories to hold weight steady, it would be a good idea to talk with your doctor, because that calorie level is so very low.)

With your demographics, we'd expect an average woman to burn about 1700 calories daily, if her life involved little/no exercise, a desk job, and some moderate walking to get daily life chores done. (I don't know if that describes your life, since you didn't say anything about job, home chores, or exercise. I got that estimate here: https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/)

For that average person who IS as described just above, eating 1350 calories would be expected to lose about 3 pounds a month. If you truly have a history of under-eating, it could be somewhat slower for you. For sure, knowing whether it's true for you - or whether any estimate is true for you - would require sticking with it for 4-6 weeks, or if you have menstrual cycles, at least one whole cycle so you can compare body weight at the same relative point in at least 2 different cycles.

It takes that long for a sensible weight loss rate to show reasonably clearly in average weekly weight change; shorter time span results tend to be distorted by perfectly normal water retention and food-waste fluctuations of multiple pounds from one day to the next.

You wrote "If I ate more the 500-700 calories per day or anything different than like chicken breast, keto bread, and eggs, fruit and veggies etc, I would rapidly gain weight." I'm wondering what kind of time span we're talking about there. There are a variety of ways to eat healthy. Depending on which veggies/fruits you're talking about, I wonder whether you were going from quite a low carb eating style to one with more carbs.

Simply increasing food intake tends to add some scale weight from additional food waste in the digestive tract. That and/or increasing carbs especially tends to increase scale weight immediately for reasons that have zero to do with fat regain. Instead, it's the increased waste in the digestive tract, plus increased water needed to digest the extra carbohydrates, since carbs require more water to digest/metabolize.

There's nothing wrong with eating low carb, but there's also nothing wrong with sensible increase in carbs . . . "sensible" taking into account what food sources we're talking about, calorie level, plus any relevant health conditions the person may have that could require careful management of carbs (such as diabetes or insulin resistance).

Too often, we see people here add calories to aim toward weight maintenance who see that quick - even overnight - multi-pound scale jump from water/waste, think it's fat gain, then cut calories severely again to avoid that "gain". That's not a path of thriving. I don't know whether that's part of the scenario for you, because you don't say anything about the timeline involved.

When you increase calories, high odds there'll be a scale jump. It may be temporary, or in some cases could be a new normal if the waste/water levels stay up a bit. But at the right calorie level, it isn't fat. It's important IMO to expect that jump, and wait it out at the new calorie level for that same 4-6 weeks/one cycle timespan to see what happens to the average weekly trend, not just that short-term jump. If a too-high calorie increase is the problem - which one can estimate based on recent weight loss rate before the calorie increase - that's not likely to show up on the scale overnight, but be more like fat weight creeping on slowly over a week or few.

Often, those of us who have been in maintenance for a while suggest that someone newly going to maintenance set a maintenance weight range of a few pounds. That's because steady weight is really weight that meanders up and down a little because of normal water/waste fluctuations. We'd then suggest the person lose down to the lower end of that range before increasing calories. We also say to expect the scale jump, and not stress about it, but hang in there for the month or so to see averages.

If someone is very stressed by that scale jump, the drama may be minimized somewhat by adding back calories quite slowly, such as 50-100 calories per day for a week or so, then another small increment, until reaching what one estimates to be maintenance calories. There may still be a tiny scale jump each time when adding calories, but smaller. Someone who overshoots maintenance calories by 100 daily can expect it to take somewhat over a month to gain a pound of fat, so the risk isn't huge from doing that. Approaching goal after loss, most of us know how to lose a pound, right?

We might be able to give you more nuanced advice if we knew what kind of timelines you were talking about here, and other details. For example, you mention gaining 10 pounds: Over what time period? With what size of calorie increase, ideally saying what were the before and after average calorie levels?

I think you can work your way through this, but it could take some continuing patience and perseverance, realistically.

Best wishes!