people who have had success by upping their calories!

I started at 1200 and lost 20lbs.

On my last fifteen pounds, I went UP to 1500 and lost four pounds in two and a half weeks. WHOA!

So I'm eating between 1400--1600 now and have now lost 25lbs total.

On the last 8lbs and thinking of moving to a solid 1600, maybe 1800.

I work out five to six days a week, currently doing Insanity.

Im 5'1" and 34 years old.

Increasing calories worked for me and I was SUCH a non-believer! I'm converted now.

Before i was at 1350, last week upped it to 1800 and lost 3lbs. last week. i don't expect to lose that much every week, but i say it looks promising for now.

I stagger my calories to keep my body in confusion and keep me from plateau. I also eat a ton though

ok people help me...I want to lose around 10 lbs. and I would like to average at least a 1lb a week. It tells me I should stick to 1200 calories which I have been trying to do. I also exercise 6 days a week usually run 3 days a week and do a brisk walk on the other 3 burning probably about 300-400 calories a day. What calorie intake should I shoot for? What is the bmr and amr that I see mentioned?

BMR= Basal Metabolic Rate and it's the amount of calories your body would burn if you stayed in bed all day long doing nothing but breathing etc. It's been said that you should never eat under your BMR. Go to the 'TOOLS' tab, and use the BMR calculator there.

And i have no idea what AMR is, but would like to know if that should be the upper limit on calorie intake!

Here is a copy of the post I made a month ago! Don't be afraid to eat! I have lost another 2% body fat since then! Good luck to you all!

Good morning! I just had to post about the success I have had with eating a higher calorie diet!

I started here at MFP the 1st of January and was given the 1200 calorie plan most of us get set up with. I exercised 4 times a week and at the end of the month, I had gained 3#! Sooo discouraged!

I read through the forums, looking for clues. Looking for hope. I read a few peoples posts about eating enough to lose weight and I thought they had lost their minds. I mean, you have to starve to lose weight right? Even at 1200 calories, I was only netting about 800-900 because I wasn't eating back my exercise calories. In my mind, I figured the weight ought to be falling off of me! How wrong I was!!

I contacted helloitsdan and had him run my numbers to see what was up. He immediately set me up with the minimum of 1800 calories and said my TDEE was 2250. No way! I cried most of the night. It seemed so absurd to think that if I wasn't losing wieght at 800-1000 calories a day, that I would at 1800. Thankfully, I listened and was a good student!

Today marks my 1 month of eating this higher calorie diet and I won't ever go back! As of today, I have lost 4.4#, 6" off various measurements, most off my hips and thighs, and my BF% went from 28% to 24.6%!! Just think what next month may hold!

Anyone who is struggling with a VLCD and isn't finding sucess, please up your calories. You'll have more energy to work out and you won't be hungry!

Good luck to all of you on your weightloss and fitness journeys!

Kathy

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i am trying to lose about 20 pounds or so (i'm about 145-150 right now) and it reccomended i eat 1200 a day so do you think i should up this? or just eat more on a day that i am working out?

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BMR= Basal Metabolic Rate and it's the amount of calories your body would burn if you stayed in bed all day long doing nothing but breathing etc. It's been said that you should never eat under your BMR. Go to the 'TOOLS' tab, and use the BMR calculator there.

And i have no idea what AMR is, but would like to know if that should be the upper limit on calorie intake!

Active Metabolic Rate - BMR plus all your other daily activity, otherwise called TDEE, Total Daily Energy Expenditure.

That total would be the daily maintenance calories to not gain or lose.

So of course MFP uses non-exercise maintenance calories.

Obviously a selection out of 4 or 5 activity levels can't nail that, when you slide into goal weight just have to experiment to find it.
And it changes depending on how active you are of course, where as your avg BMR will be about the same, barring it being suppressed.

So that would be the upper limit where you would gain weight if you went over. Of course, you'd have to go over 500 cal per day if you really saw a 1lb a week gain.

That's why anyone that sees weight gain by eating these paltry in comparison calories, is not gaining real weight.
Energy stores being topped off, water weight, ect. Perhaps a little fat because body thinks insanity will continue so it stocks up.

The other issue is if you really plateau'd for several weeks, and no inches dropping, you are eating at maintenance level because BMR was suppressed so badly. Yes, 1200 can become maintenance level actually.

I got these results in 2 1/2 months by eating 6-7 meals, and 1700-1900 cals/day on average. My first couple of weeks I tried that 1200 calorie stuff, and I've never been so cranky and miserable. I'm 5' 7", and I've lost 3 lbs since the "during" picture (currently 149), and I will lose about 15 more. I will do it by EATING and training hard. Others may choose a different path and that's fine, but I feel FANTASTIC eating like this, and I can maintain this forever! LOVE IT!!

Wow, you look awsome!! Any specific workout/diet plan you are following to get such good results? Is your food diary open? I love to see what others eat. I am good with my food until the weekend comes so I am working on that now that my husband also wants to lose a few pounds. I know that'll help us both on the weekends. Great job though!

Thanks so much. I'll open up my diary, but don't expect to see perfection in there!! lol You'll see some candy and cookie dough sprinkled in with the lean proteins, veggies, fruits, and grains. I'm truly looking to make a lifestyle change, and I can't be too crazy strict and hope to maintain this That being said, this is basically what I do:

I try to mix protein, carbs and fat in each meal. I eat 6-7 small meals each day and eat on average 1700-1900 calories. I try to get 50% carbs, 30% protein (125-150gm), and 20% fat. I drink protein shakes 2x/day to help me get all that protein.

As for workouts, I mostly do elliptical machine for cardio (45-60 min a day), and I lift weights 5 times a week. I just like the elliptical because it's convenient and easy on my knees, but you can just do whatever you like. I do my upper body workouts at the gym, and I've chosen to work my legs 4x a week at home with a DVD called the Butt Bible Level 3. I do my home workouts while my little boy sleeps, and it's really great "me time". The video is just strength training for legs, but it has a lot of moves that are too embarrassing to do in public. Lol. It also is filled with every kind of lunge and squat you can think of, and my legs get SORE!! If you search MFP forr "Butt Bible Results", you'll see what inspired me to buy it! Anyway, you can obviously do legs at the gym. I'm doing mine like this because they are quite large, and I'm trying to get them leaner and smaller. My husband is a personal trainer and ex-bodybuilder, and he helped me design this program for my particular goals.

For abs, I just started another video called Perfect Abs 4x/week--there's nothing magical about it, it's just several different 8-min ab workouts. I could easily do this at the gym, but for some weird reason I hate working abs, and its just easier for me to do at home with a video.

As far as upper body, I do 4-5 exercises for each bodypart. I usually do supersets (2 exercises back to back, and then a 30-sec rest) I do 4 sets of 10-15 reps each. I try to lift heavy, heavy, but without "cheating" or swinging the weights around. I do free weights and machines, and I never do the same routine twice. I stick with basic exercises, and I really do not like trendy, fancy, "look at me" kind of exercises. :noway: My workout split is like this:

Mon: Back/calves
Tues: Chest
Wed: biceps
Thurs: Shoulders
Fri: triceps

As I said, I work legs and abs at home several times each week, and I do cardio after every weight session, and on my days off from lifting. I rarely take a day off from cardio, but if i'm tired, I will.

I know the New Rules of Weight Lifting for Women is super popular and that's fantastic. I've VERY supportive of my friends who do it. However, I have lifted super heavy in the past, and I ALWAYS end up injured, with injuries that take MONTHS to heal. Sooooo, this time I'm opting for moderately heavy weights in the 10-15 rep range, with strict form, little rest (30 sec tops), and I've been stretching at night to help keep me injury free. Everyone has to find what works for them. There are many paths to fitness, this is just the one that I'm walking :happy:

If you have other questions, please don't hesitate to ask. I'd say "good luck" but since there's no luck in this I'll just say "keep up the hard work!!" Whatever you do, do it with focus and INTENSITY, and you will get results! :flowerforyou:

Last week I starting to up my calories. Went from 1200 cal to 1500 cal per day. Still find it hard to hit the 1500 cal per day on a daily basis, but I am trying. I was up 2 lbs this week . I am not going to get upset by it. I am giving it another week and keep my workout intensity as it has been and see what happens. I work out generally 4-5x weekly. I do cardio, ( spinning, interval running, rowing) and circuit training using weights and body weight. Not sure if I need to adjust that more of not, but we will see.

Nice to read* You can eat and not starve:-) great read!