Major sucess with higher calories!

Thank you for this post. It sure seems counterintuitive to eat less, but we need to eat what our bodies need to maintain and then not overdue it. Best wishes on your journey.

I also went to http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/ and my result was that I should be eating at least 1800-2100 calories a day. HOLY CRAP. I eat around 1200-1500 right now, and I can't imagine eating more.

That said, I know it isn't that easy, because before I joined MFP, I was eating around 2000 calories a day on average, and I wasn't losing weight, I was gaining it -- and I eat insanely healthy, no junk food, no fake food, very little processed food. And I was training for a half marathon four days a week, and doing strength training two days a week, and I have four kids -- so by definition, I was active!

It can't be as simple as "eat more calories" or "do more exercise." That means I was eating the wrong things and working out the wrong stuff.

What I'm hearing from folks who are having success after plateauing is that they:

1. Increased calories BUT ALSO changed their ratios so that they were eating significantly more protein than fat AND in most cases they ate more whole foods and less processed foods,

2. And they significantly changed their workout routines AND in many cases started lifting HEAVY things.

Does that sound about right? Because I am working my butt off to lose those last ten pounds, and it is taking F O R E V E R, LOL.

BUMP

Yeah, I feel like there should be more to it as well. it seems like if you increase your calories but workout the same then you'd gain weight back?

I am curious to hear more from people who are eating over what is considered maintenance levels, but at goal weight. All this is a very new idea for me.

To Dan, Bales, or Lemon,
I did my math...BMR 1347, TDEE 1616.4. I used the Fat to Fit calculator and it's telling me that I can eat 2007 calories to get to my goal weight. But that is above my TDEE? Is that right? I am 5'7'', 130lbs. I am trying to get nice and lean. I think I've gotten skinny fat from a 1200 calorie a day diet. I love to exercise. I'm currently doing 3 mile interval runs and 30 day shred 5 to 6 days a week. I know I'm not eating enough. I have only been netting 850 calories. I am big time lacking energy. And you are suggesting 30% fat, 30% protein, and (gasp) 40% carbs? Set me straight. I will follow it to the gospel! And Bales, I notice you say not to just start eating all the extra calories at once. Spread it out?
Thanks ahead of time!

Something didn't work right.
That page that reports your BMR and the chart for Activity Levels and Daily Calories. There is only 2 sets of figures, not 3.

There is no way your suggestion was 1616, unless you are looking at Sedentary level, and you would be at Very Active level with that workout routine.

Dan's method is picking that level that applies, and as the site mentions, you eat there, and because that includes exercise in the total already, you don't eat back exercise calories logged, or log them as 1 cal.

To calc what your real deficit would be, you add 20% to that level figure to get your estimated real TDEE.
Now you have TDEE minus what you are eating, and for you that is almost 1lb weekly.

You will be shocked at the Very Active level, but you can pick a number inbetween Moderate and Very Active if you aren't 6-7 days, but more 5-6.

And yes, the case studies I've seen on suppressed metabolism had them adding back about 200 per day for a week.
If the gap was as big as yours, they also stopped exercise for a week and just walked. Letting the body figure out it could raise metabolism, rather than storing it as a gift in case the insanity continued.

it's true.. i was at 1240 calories and the scale wouldn't budge. I upped the calories to 1540 and lost over a lb in a week.

Heydales,

Would you look on page 16 and see if my calculations are correct? Thanks

eenoi28....

thank you.... I just was coming on to say that I'm freaking out because after upping my calories over the last two weeks I've gained a little. I really needed to know someone else had that experience as well and that it DID turn around and go back in the right direction.

I can't say that I'm not still a little freaked out with this, but I've known mentally for a long time that I needed to eat more but it sure can cause a bit of anxiety after so many years of 'eating less to lose weight'.

I keep telling myself: Lean bodies need more fuel! Lean bodies need more fuel! Repeat...

Here's hoping I can finally get rid of this last ten pounds or so.

Eating enough calories is a major thing in weight loss. If you don't end up NETTING at least 1200 (although, I think you should be eating at least 1500 calories a day to lose weight healthfully), you'll be setting yourself up for failure. 800-900 calories a day is basically low enough to signal to your body that you're starving, which tells it that it needs to conserve energy and hold onto every calorie. That's why you were gaining. Evolution has made the body that way for survival, since we couldn't always get enough food when we were hunter-gatherers originally. We have to think about the remarkable human body and how it does all it can to preserve our lives and take care of us, to keep us functioning. If we think that way, I think more of us will be less likely to mistreat it and treat it like the precious treasure it is.