people who LOST weight eating MORE

bump

Yes, MFP started me at 1200 calories, and I hardly lost any weight after the first couple weeks. I tried eating calories back, not eating them back...but I couldn't lose much of anything as long as my net was under 1200.

So, a friend suggest adding a couple hundred. I raised mine to 1380 (0.5 lbs per week goal), and always eat my calories back to net above 1200, and I have been consistently losing ever since.

So should a person NOT eat their exercise calories? Im alittle confused on that part.

Since I started I've netted at 1500-1600 calories a day. I exercise three days a week so the off days I'm counting my calories by the decimals.
This is really classified as 'undereating' as my caloric requirements have been calculated at 1900, but I honestly don't feel that hungry. I was nervous that I was undereating and just convincing myself I was not hungry (which could have been dangerous), but I honestly can say that I eat enough... there's just no way I'd have the energy to work, cook, exercise and do everything else without enough energy so I must have hit the right number.

So my weight loss has been consistent at losing 1.2kg a week. I think this reflects not going too low in calories, and then too high but finding the right balance and trusting myself in the outset.

So don't be afraid to eat guys. Just know that if you're hungry, you should eat but if you take the time to honestly eat proportionately, and then truly ask yourself if you NEED more food... you'll always find the right answer!

EDIT: More important than anything else to determine if you're hungry or not is to wait at LEAST 20 minutes for consuming more. I thought this was bogus but it appears that your body does take time to send signals from your stomach to your brain telling you that you are full... if you eat a normal sized meal, and wait 20 mins for it to settle.. I promise that 9 times out of 10 you'll never get that other plate!

So, were you undereating initially and then wised up? What was your intake? What did you raise it to?

How was weight loss before/after raising your calories?

I think this might help people who are afraid to up their calories--despite netting less than 1200...sometimes substantially less while working out.

i had an anxiety feeling to it which i can see this is most peoples problems, its a mental thing, but i just made myself eat more, its all about willpower, the same as eating less. in the end, do you really want to be unhealthy you can get caught up in feeling good about yourself the less you eat, feeling so in control which is what i hear lots of ed sufferers/ex-sufferers say. this kind of anxiety can lead to eating disorders and such.. i can see why these things happen, if i wasnt so headstrong and i didnt make myself eat more, you know it could have happened to me. with most people it doesnt lead to this and i may seem to be going in to hard, but guys you just pplain need to eat more. before i found mfp, i was focussing on 'eating healthy & less to lose weight', i had no intention of starving myself, but iwas only eating about 1000cal a day but didnt know it! and i only had 10kg(22lb) to lose. when i got on here i was eating 1300 (to lose one pound a week, i didnt get that was too much then), then before i knew it or even realised what was going on i had lost the weight, then i started eating 1400, got hungry and kicked through the anxiety of eating more, at 1500, got hungry kicked through it again, was eating about 1600-1800 and i think that was ok for a bit but then i started exercising more so i had to eat even more. up to 2000. now i workout heaps and have realised i burn even more doing day to day things. i now eat about 2100-2300 a day including exercise!

i am 5'1 and 105-110 lbs (158cm 48-50kg)

I think I can add myself to the list... sorta. I started dieting on 1500 calories a day, which when you added in exercise, was closer to 1200 net. On big exercise days, it was only 1000 net. I lost weight steadily, but my metabolism slowed with the weight loss and calorie restriction (normal) and the weight started coming off slower and slower. Since starting MFP, I've actually increased my calorie intake. I eat closer to 1800 now (1500 net). My weight didn't go anywhere for about a month, but I *think* I'm over that now and am losing again.

I'm interested to hear responses. I'm 5'4" and eating 1200 calories now, but I was thinking of upping it to 1300.

Bumping to read later... I'm in the process of doing this now and am TERRIFIED to gain weight!! I'm also trying to gain muscle though so... I want to lose about 5 pounds and lose fat. Seems like it would be simple, but it's not!

Whenever I plateau, I mix it up a little. Eat your top calorie limit or more for several days, then several hundred less for a couple of days. It usually bumps me out of a rut. The way it was explained to me, too little calories make your body think you are starving and reacts by slowing down your metabolism. So giving yourself a little extra (and stick to good healthy food) you can break out of that mode.

bump

It is really important to know your real BMR, exercise can make calculating this very unreliable. You may want to try not exercising for a week to get a better feeling of what you really are burning per day. I recently hit a weight plateau but being an idiot I sort of forgot that as my weight drops that calorie goal needs to go down as well. So in my case I was not losing weight because I was eating too much.

Dropped by 200 calories and back on track, good thing is I felt like I was forcing myself to eat to get my calories when I was staying at the same weight...probably should have taken that as a cue

I just find it hard to believe. When I ate 1200 cals net a day, I lost around 0.8 lbs a week. When I upped to 1340, I lost about 0.6 lbs a week. I upped again to 1500 cals net (where I am now) and I have been maintaining for 2 months on that (bear in mind I have lost around 30 lbs altogether, so my caloric requirements are a lot lower now than they were when I started - I started off maintaining on 1700 cals). So raising calories has had exactly the expected effect on me - my weight loss slowed and stopped as I ate more.

I have a BodyMedia Fit, so I am able to more accurately know how many calories I am burning and what my daily deficit is. My deficit last week was around 2500 a day or so, which is pretty large. I was eating around 600-900 cals a day on average last week. I lost 2.6 lbs which I was happy with, but I have a lot to loose, and very well could be seeing bigger losses. This week I am going to try to focus on staying more towards 1000-1100 cals a day with a defecit at 2000 or under and see if it speeds up my loss. I never eat back my calories from exercize. The one week I ate more around 1000 cals a day I loss 5.8 lbs that week. So we shall see. I will say, it's really been hard trying to eat more though! Never thought I would say that!!

I'm constantly eating, staying under my MFP calorie reccomendation, but constantly eating. Stuff like apples, berries, raw fresh veggies, nonfat greek yogurt, chicken. I'm able to keep my calories under or at 1200 doing this and I'm never hungry since I've always got a snack sitting rigt next to me or in my purse. I always assumed that this is what was meant when people said "eating more", that it wasnt referring to adding calories, but to eating more frequently to boost your metabolism. Was my understanding of "eating more" really completely off?

It's really two things:

1) You're body needs to replenish itself with nutrients from food, especially if you're putting arduous exercise into the equation. So you should 'eat more' than your caloric requirement by 'eating back' some calories exerted in exercise, to build your muscles and allow a proper recovery. I personally eat very little calories back from exercise, netting at about 1/4 of the exercise I pull, but I do eat more when I exercise.
2) 'Eat more' is also more frequently. It's important to start up your metabolism in the morning as early as possible and keep it going with frequent food supply, but small foods like yoghurts, apples, etc. A rule of thumb is to aim for 6 small meals a day, 2-3 hours in between.

These aren't set it concrete, but at least worked ideal for me in my weight loss.

YEARS ago, I foolishly tried to stay around 800 calories a day. I got down to around 130# but felt so horrible that I realized, "I can eat whatever I want and stay around 145, or starve to weight less... I'd rather eat more!" So I gained it back, and then some extra when my parents died and I lost my job and was diagnosed with depression. (Go figure... who wouldn't be depressed?!)

When I first started on MFP, like everyone else, I wanted to lose 2# a week and got 1200 calories. Always ate my exercise calories. About a month into it, I realized that it wasn't physically possible for me to lose 2# a week. At 1200 calories, the most I could lose would be 1.3#, and that was just on paper. In reality, I lost 1# a week, except when I had a stomach flu. If I was only going to lose 1# a week anyway, I decided I might as well change my settings to reflect that, and got about 1350 calories. Immediately, I started losing 1.5# a week most weeks!

When I lost 20#, putting me at 140, I changed my settings to .5# a week, getting around 1500 calories and lost that .5 pounds a week as promised, reaching my initial goal of 135 in June. I wasn't quite ready to go on maintenance, so I decided to only log Monday through Friday, keeping my same calorie goal. I did up my protein around this time, and noticed a HUGE difference in the way I felt. More energy, faster, stronger, felt full longer. And that month, I lost about 5 pounds while only trying, half-heartedly, to lose 2.

Since then, I've lost another 5 and I'm maintaining now.

I'm surprised at how *easy* it was to lose weight once I realized I had to eat more. I see people say how it's hard work and how they're struggling... I never struggled. I never felt hungry or deprived. I worked hard, but it wasn't hard work, if that makes sense. I busted my butt, and enjoyed every second of it. I still had pizza, wine, boneless buffalo wings, chocolate, vodka, ice cream... I just made sure I earned it.

During the time I lost weight, I typically had about 1800 calories total a day. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Now than I'm maintaining, I'm usually around 2000-2100.