Increase cals?

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crystal8208
crystal8208 Posts: 284 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hello All. I was set up on 1500 calories (per MFP b/c I don't know how to manually set it). I lost 10 pounds in a month. Then I stalled for nearly a month. Last week was TOM and I didn't feel well, so I didn't go to the gym, and I went over my calories for the week and voila, I broke my stall and lost a pound. Should I increase my calories? I told MFP, that I increased my gym time from 2x to 3x per week and it tried to lower my cals. So, I set it at 3x per week and lose 1 pound per week. This increased my cals to about 1700. Is this what I should do based on this past week success?

Started: 230
Current: 219 (was stalled at 220 for a month)
Age: 23
Work at a desk job. Do aerobic classes 2x (60mins) a week. Lift weights 2x (45mins) per week. Usually bike or elliptical 1x per week (45mins).

Replies

  • melsinct
    melsinct Posts: 3,512 Member
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    1700 sounds completely reasonable with your level of activity. Unfortunately, MFP is only a guide and many of us (myself included) need to tweak it to make it work for us. Give it a go for another week or two of increased calories and if it keeps working, stick with it! I lost a total of 30 pounds and had to increase my calories 3 times in order to keep losing weight.
  • crystal8208
    crystal8208 Posts: 284 Member
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    Thanks for the quick reply. I'd love to know how to set it manually. How do I do this?
  • crystal8208
    crystal8208 Posts: 284 Member
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    Anyone else have thoughts?
  • ladyraven68
    ladyraven68 Posts: 2,003 Member
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    Anyone else have thoughts?

    Go to Goals

    Change Goals

    Custom

    and then you can change your calories and your macros to your own settings.
  • MaggieMay131
    MaggieMay131 Posts: 211 Member
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    Yep, I'd say try increasing and see how it goes. It's all about personal experimentation to see what works for you! Personally I feel MFP settings are usually too low - I'm pretty close to my "goal weight" and eat between 1800-2000 cals a day. Good luck!!
  • carts1179
    carts1179 Posts: 15 Member
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    my wife hit a plateau when she was dropping pounds and was also successful going from 1200-1400 calories per day to 1700-2000 calories a day.
  • marycmeadows
    marycmeadows Posts: 1,691 Member
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    I have broken a few plateaus by increasing my calories......
    sw 303.4 (1/1/11)
    cw 198.4 (down 105lbs)
    gw 160
  • Savyna
    Savyna Posts: 789 Member
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    Some people call when you have an increase of calories (from the regular you've been having) spiking. Some call it cheat days but I call it spiking, its supposed to shock and confuse the body who might have gotten used to eating and functioning at a certain level of calories and by eating some bigger numbers it works a bit harder again to digest it (idk the scientific vocab for that but thats how I interpret it). Spiking in my diet has helped me with losing weight as well.
  • kolkol
    kolkol Posts: 300 Member
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    I have broken a few plateaus by increasing my calories......
    sw 303.4 (1/1/11)
    cw 198.4 (down 105lbs)
    gw 160

    How many calories would you increase them each time? Im thinking of doing this but Im in a competition and kinda of afraid I could be different. I dont know whether I should try 200 at first. I dont think 100 would be enough of an increase.
  • crystal8208
    crystal8208 Posts: 284 Member
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    Thanks for all the replies. And to the person who told me how to set it manually!!! Thank you thank you thank you! I'm increasing by 200 and we'll see how it goes! :flowerforyou:
  • auntiebabs
    auntiebabs Posts: 1,754 Member
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    You may not need in increase your calories everyday... but I found the occasional spike to be helpful.

    I gave myself a range

    ROCK BOTTOM : 1200 cal
    TARGET: MFP goal (Lose 1 lb a week until MFP gave me 1200 cal, then switched to lose 1/2 lb a week)
    TOP of RANGE: Maintain GOAL WEIGHT (for me was 1600 cal)
    SAFETY VALVE: Maintain CURRENT WEIGHT (remember to recalculate this as you lose)

    I'd do 3-5 days right around my target, then a day at the top of my range.
    My natural tendency is to zig-zag.

    Now that I'm on maintain trying to define a new range for myself, so that I don't feel like a failure if I don't hit my number exactly everyday.

    -B

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