research behind eating more to lose more?

The thing is - you aren't losing 2-4 lbs of fat a week. Only the very very obese (VERY obese) will burn fat at that rate. What you are losing is muscle. The more muscle you lose, the more total weight you will have to lose to get the body composition you want (aka look good naked).

i don't think this is necessarily true. If you are doing strength training and exercising, I fail to see how you will lose the muscle.

I've said a few times, I don't depend on MFP to tell me how many calories to eat back. Partly because I don't trust the amount of calories it ASSUMES that I burn with various activities. I have a bodymedia fit that tells me how many calories I burn in a day, and base what I eat off of that. I also listen to my body. If I'm hungry, I eat. If I'm not, I don't. Well, sometimes I do, but I try not to because that's what made me overweight to start with - eating when I wasn't hungry.

interesting, though I'm also scared to eat more cos when I have the pounds just go back on and I spent the next week trying to get back to where I was before I followed someones advice to eat more to lose more.

eating lower cals/low carb I am consistently losing a pound a week most weeks (except for TOTM lose nothing week before then 2-3 week after)... so am i doing what's right for me if I'm still losing even though slowly? .. I'm managing 4-5lbs a month on average

I'm exercising nearly every day too, mix of limited cardio, limited weights (due to physical disability) and pilates floor routines for toning.

The thing is - you aren't losing 2-4 lbs of fat a week. Only the very very obese (VERY obese) will burn fat at that rate. What you are losing is muscle. The more muscle you lose, the more total weight you will have to lose to get the body composition you want (aka look good naked).

i don't think this is necessarily true. If you are doing strength training and exercising, I fail to see how you will lose the muscle.

I've said a few times, I don't depend on MFP to tell me how many calories to eat back. Partly because I don't trust the amount of calories it ASSUMES that I burn with various activities. I have a bodymedia fit that tells me how many calories I burn in a day, and base what I eat off of that. I also listen to my body. If I'm hungry, I eat. If I'm not, I don't. Well, sometimes I do, but I try not to because that's what made me overweight to start with - eating when I wasn't hungry.

Since you have a body media, do me a favor and post your weight and cooresponding body fat %. By doing this, you can test your theory. It's very common for people to think they aren't losing lean muscle mass, but it's actually very difficult to maintain lean muscle mass while losing weight, especially as you approach the lower end of the spectrum in terms of body fat.

An interesting article that relates to this discussion. Human participants were divided into one of four groups. One group maintained. One group reduced their net calories to 25% below their maintenance levels using diet alone. One group reduced their net calories to 25% below their maintenance using diet + exercise. And one group ate a very low calorie diet (890 calories/day).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16595757

The take home message of this particular study is that chronic calorie restriction reduces your metabolism. The reduction is greater than what would be expected based on just the change in body composition . The group that exercised experienced less metabolic change. To my surprise, the group that ate a very low calorie diet, experienced less of a metabolic change than the group that ate 25% below their maintenance. This could be due to the fact that the VLC dieters were switched to maintenance about half-way through when they lost a substantial amount of weight.

The length of the study was six months.

I did not do a thorough search on Pubmed, but you can. It's not hard- though guessing the right search terms can be. I entered "calorie restriction muscle mass", which gave me several studies looking into sarcopenia, which was not exactly what I wanted.

I might drop other science articles into this thread if I find anything else that's interesting... or I might not.

In my opinion, one of the best reasons to "eat more to lose more" is that it's easier to stick with your diet. You're not as grumpy. You can eat out occasionally. You don't have to deal with brain-fog, hunger-pains, etc... You don't have to be quite as careful about what you eat. That's why I eat more. I love food. I hate dieting.

Just to add my input...I am 5'4" and in may 2009, I weighed 258 pounds and decided to take control of my life. I began losing on a very low calorie diet (900-1200 per day) and walking a lot (my job was in security so I was on my feet all day). In December 2010, I weighed 142 but felt so tired, depressed, and anxious. Physically, I was suffering too, my hair started falling out and I felt weak alot of the time and I wasn't sleeping well at all. I went to the Dr. in February 2011 and was told I wasn't eating enough and that I should eat at least 1800 calories. Well, I was so intimidated by this number that I would only go as high as 1700 a day, but then what did I do...I increased the intensity (added running and heavy circuit training) and duration of my workouts...and what happeded? I stopped losing and actually started gaining which I know now is easily explained by the fact that I exercise hard six days a week and live a fairly active life overall given that my BMI is around 1500 I realize that eating 1700 at max rarely and burning between 300-500 calories per workout and then factor in the calories from my active lifestyle, I was asking my body to run on a net calorie amount between 600 and 900 per day....a number way too low for my body. Now, I have decided to eat more and in the last two days have eaten between 1900 and 2000 calories (meaning that I am netting at least 1200) and have already lost two pounds. I already feel like I have more energy and slept better the last two nights. Now maybe its all coincidence or psychological, but if the trend continues I will be convinced that you need to eat more to lose more especially when you have that final amount (10, 15, or 20) to lose. All I know is that for the first time in a long time I feel better and am seeing the scale move in the opposite direction. Now, don't take my advice for anything, but just figured I would share my story so far. Good Luck to everyone! I will try to keep you updated if trend continues for me.