Down 66 lbs... w/ Progress Pics & Stats (New Mom)

Thanks!

Thank you all!! I was hesitant to go "all the way" with the eating more idea, but I'm soooooooo glad I stuck with it and gave it a try with even further upping my calories. I really can't believe how easy it's been for me. This is the "over-eater's" dream "diet" because you're never hungry. I'm always trying hard to eat enough daily and eat every 3 hours. I now have balanced meals as much as I can (carb / protein / veggie or fruit and healthy fat at every meal) which seems to have turned my life around as well.

Can someone explain to me why increasing your calories helps you to keep losing weight?? What is the trick there?! It's very confusing to me...

Plainly put, you've gotta trick your body into thinking it's not on a diet (slow and steady loss) in order to keep the pace going and avoid plateaus. If your caloric deficit is too great either by eating too little, or exercising too much, or a combination of both, or even eating too few of meals and then binging you're going to tell your body to shift it's metabolism into a lower gear to more or less retain your energy stores. After all, your body's job is to keep you alive and if it thinks it's going to starve, it will catch on.

Pretty much everyone will lose weight on a very low calorie diet (1200 or less) at first, but it seems like after a good amount of weight comes off, say 5-10-20-30 lbs or so, then things come to a screeching halt. Why does this happen? Because your body adapts... it's smart. Remember, it's job is to keep you alive! The average female needs about 2000 calories to survive, and the average male 2500... a 500 calorie deficit from those figures is plenty, either by exercising daily or by eating less, or a combination of the two. Sometimes the difference between losing weight and not is as simple as a couple hundred calories... at least that's what I've noticed... 1500 calories is not too far from1200, is it???

I see this as a very sustainable lifestyle change and I don't have any desire to go back to the "old me" ever again. I can still have my semi cheat day occasionally, but I keep those calories under my current maintenance goal (about 500 cals extra allowance) so I can enjoy myself but remain in control and not kill my efforts.

Without getting too technical, my suggestion to everyone out there struggling would be to give yourself a break... set your goal to 1 lb loss or even .5 lb loss... whatever gets you off of the 1200 calorie nightmare merry-go-round, and examine your exercise deficit too... a "double deficit" can harm your metabolism just as much.. be sure you're getting enough extra fuel for the workouts you're doing- Remember, the idea is to trick the body into letting go of everything it's trying so desperately to hold onto. :happy:

If you want to know more, I have a blog on my page with several links to readings on here that have really opened my eyes.

Happy losing everyone!!
:bigsmile:

Another success I just discovered - I measured my body fat % (not BMI) a while back at 41.1%... Now, I'm at 38%! This means I'm no longer in the OBESE category. I'm so happy!!