Raising that calorie intake

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vim_n_vigor
vim_n_vigor Posts: 4,089 Member
in Motivation and Support
This is my experience. I am not going to add any links to scientific data, others are free to do so if they like. I am not going to say this is the best way, or the only way. If it interests you and you can relate in any way, maybe you can give it a try too.

I started on MFP last year. I had a lot going on in my life personally, professionally, and weight-wise. I jumped right it. I had my settings at sedentary and to lose 2 pounds a week. I am 5'4'' and 230 pounds at this point. I am given 1200 calories a day. I go with this. I am light headed, cranky (ok, downright *****!) I feel like crap. I am happy though that I am losing some weight. By the holidays, I got down to 211 pounds. I frequently binged and felt guilty about it. The holidays came, work picked up, I was overstressed, there was a ton of food, really good food around and I ate, ate, ate, ate. By January, I was back up to 225. Not so happy anymore. It took me until the middle of February to get myself out of my funk and back on track. I got a fitbit (I am not saying anyone needs to or even should get this, it is a tool that has helped me).

I still had myself set at sedentary, but changed to weight loss of 1.5 per week. I think that put me at 1450 or so calories a day. I was still bingeing, and unable to stay on track on the weekend. At the end of the first two weeks on my fitbit, I went back and looked at my burns each day. Even my rest days were well above sedentary. I upped my activity level to lightly active.

The next think I looked at was my bf%. I looked at calculators that took into account more than my height and weight. The others had me at about 50% bf with a goal weight in the 120's. When I take my measurements into account, my lean body mass is about 145 lbs ( so a goal weight in the 120's is not going to work for me, at least not in a healthy way). These calculators also have me at closer to 30% bf (still not good, but a heck of a lot better than 50%). So, since I am closer to my goal weight than I originally thought, I change my loss to 1 pound a week.

Now I am supposed to NET 1750 calories a day. With my exercise, I am reaching to the mid 2000's almost every day. I was terrified. Never have I eaten so much to try and lose weight. Well, I just upped to the 1750 at the beginning of the week. I feel like I have been eating non-stop. I have no urge to binge. I have plenty of calories each day for a treat. I don't need to cheat or to feel guilty. I have more energy and I feel great. I have also started to lose weight again. I just kept going back and forth the same 5 pounds before. Now I am steadily moving down. I won't win any races, but I'll feel good doing it!

I may up my calories again in a few weeks. I'll see how it goes. Good luck to you! Don't be scared to play around with your intake!
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Replies

  • LovelyLifter
    LovelyLifter Posts: 560 Member
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    Yeah Im slowly increasing mine 100 a week until I hit 1700 and then I will go from there ..... To be quite honest it scares the *kitten* outta me but I am hiding my scale and strictly measuring ...
  • Bevkus
    Bevkus Posts: 274 Member
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    totally agree..dont be afraid to try different things. Zig zaging calories, carb loading, water flooding...mix it up...keep the meta bolism guessing!
  • saturnine15
    saturnine15 Posts: 140
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    I have been feeling like garbage this past week and have had a stall in weight loss. I do not cheat. Ever. I work at home and control everything I buy and consume. Still a stall. I am upping my calories because I was bad and was netting far too few everyday and hit the wall. The warnings are not BS.
  • jenseye
    jenseye Posts: 166 Member
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    Good for you.
    Everyone is different and you gotta find out what works for you and it not be afraid to eat more or less depending on what is going on with you.
    Keep up the great work!
  • auroranflash
    auroranflash Posts: 3,569 Member
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    Glad you posted this. MFP started me at the dreaded 1200 and I was full of failure and defeat for the first six months, then I changed it to 1300 and kept losing/gaining the same 5lbs for another few months. Finally up to 1400 and started losing and keeping weight off, but then I realized I was eating below my BMR, and all of my healthy, fit, successful MFP friends were never eating below their BMR.

    Now I'm on a mission to up my calories every few weeks until I am eating a proper amount. It still looks like I am losing weight, it's been 2 weeks since upping my calories 100. I wish MFP didn't start out so low, or at least there were more steps when signing up to make sure people aren't eating below their BMR. It's not good for you and only sabotages you in the end.
  • KCoolBeanz
    KCoolBeanz Posts: 813 Member
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    That's really interesting, I've been thinking about doing that. I feel like I'm moving slowly (set at 1 pound per week), but I do notice some measurement differences. Like you, the idea of upping my calories terrifies me. I'm listed at sedentry, because my day job is *mostly* sitting, but I exercise 4-5 days a week, and pretty decently, I'd say. I've been kind of toying with the idea of moving myself up to lightly active, and leaving my exercise where it is, but I'm unsure. I'm terrified that I'm going to start packing weight on from it :/
  • TinkrBelz
    TinkrBelz Posts: 888 Member
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    I have been doing the same thing. I was doing 1200 calories and exercising. My MFP friends said I had to eat what I exercised. I was scared!! I had 1200 calories locked into my head.

    I changed my settings. I decided to set MFP to maintenance and to let my workouts be my deficit. So, that was at 1600. Well, last week, I just increased my calories again to 1780. My workouts (usually 400-500) is my deficit. It is working.

    I am eating more, losing weight (barley because I am basically at goal weight), and I am not starving all of the time!! What a good feeling to not be starving.

    OP...very good post!!
  • marycmeadows
    marycmeadows Posts: 1,691 Member
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    i have broken through a few plateaus by upping my calories.... Now I have lost 110.2lbs, and I typically eat 1800 calories on a non-workout day, and up t0 2200-2500 on work out days. I have one cheat day a week - I don't cheat terribly, but I eat stuff that I don't normally eat -- fruit, bread, sweets - just to have that calorie spike day. :)
  • xxxhelenaxxx
    xxxhelenaxxx Posts: 61 Member
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    I upped mine to 1500 because with planning for 1200 I wasn't able to workout as much as I wanted without FORCING myself to eat more. 1500 gives me just enough to plan for extra if I need to , but if I end up not hungry, I'm not eating below 1200ish.

    I can't wait to see what my results look like!!
  • vim_n_vigor
    vim_n_vigor Posts: 4,089 Member
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    That's really interesting, I've been thinking about doing that. I feel like I'm moving slowly (set at 1 pound per week), but I do notice some measurement differences. Like you, the idea of upping my calories terrifies me. I'm listed at sedentry, because my day job is *mostly* sitting, but I exercise 4-5 days a week, and pretty decently, I'd say. I've been kind of toying with the idea of moving myself up to lightly active, and leaving my exercise where it is, but I'm unsure. I'm terrified that I'm going to start packing weight on from it :/

    I would try upping to lightly active. You aren't sedentary if you are doing that much extra activity. I tried to have a sedentary day. I came close, but it is actually pretty hard to do.
  • miranda_mom
    miranda_mom Posts: 873 Member
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    I have had a similar experience. Before I joined MFP, I was doing aerobics almost every day and probably not eating enough calories. I couldn't figure out why I wasn't losing! Now, I eat almost all my calories and make sure I log things that don't seem important, like walks and housework. I still go to two Zumba classes a week and do maybe one or two other days of aerobics tapes but I am not exercising as much as I used to. And I've lost six pounds in three weeks!
  • broox80
    broox80 Posts: 1,195 Member
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    So, is it best to start out at 1200 and go up by 100 every few weeks, or should you just start out at like 1500?? I joined MFP in Jan and was doing so good. I was at 1200, but felt it was way too low. Then UH-OH I got knocked up!!!!!! So my weight loss journey is on hold for now. I didnt really know about the whole BMR or BMI thing until after I was unable to lose weight. I thought that when I start it up again that I would do 1500 cals a day and then eat back half of my exercise cals?????????
  • andiechick
    andiechick Posts: 916 Member
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    It's funny, but your post caught my eye right after I'd upped my cals after playing about working out my BMR properly. I'm hoping this is a more realistic level for me and it'll help me keep on track,

    Good luck to us all with our journeys ;0) x
  • vim_n_vigor
    vim_n_vigor Posts: 4,089 Member
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    I have been doing the same thing. I was doing 1200 calories and exercising. My MFP friends said I had to eat what I exercised. I was scared!! I had 1200 calories locked into my head.

    I changed my settings. I decided to set MFP to maintenance and to let my workouts be my deficit. So, that was at 1600. Well, last week, I just increased my calories again to 1780. My workouts (usually 400-500) is my deficit. It is working.

    I am eating more, losing weight (barley because I am basically at goal weight), and I am not starving all of the time!! What a good feeling to not be starving.

    OP...very good post!!

    Good for you! Keep it up and I hope you are feeling much better with that extra food!
  • vim_n_vigor
    vim_n_vigor Posts: 4,089 Member
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    So, is it best to start out at 1200 and go up by 100 every few weeks, or should you just start out at like 1500?? I joined MFP in Jan and was doing so good. I was at 1200, but felt it was way too low. Then UH-OH I got knocked up!!!!!! So my weight loss journey is on hold for now. I didnt really know about the whole BMR or BMI thing until after I was unable to lose weight. I thought that when I start it up again that I would do 1500 cals a day and then eat back half of my exercise cals?????????

    I would start a little bit higher - especially since you will be keeping up with a little one!
  • muppetsbear
    muppetsbear Posts: 80 Member
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    I kept trying to not eat my total calories for the day in the hope that it would help me loose extra weight but instead I stayed at the same weight and even started to gain. After a weekend in the city eating all the wrong foods and eating extra calories beyond my suggested limits I've started to loose again. So now I've used other calculaters that have given me new numbers and manually plugged them in to MFP. I'm starting to eat my full calories along with my usual excercising, I'll see how this wooks.
  • bigd65
    bigd65 Posts: 171 Member
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    Awesome post! You go ladies that is fantastic. Love it love it love it
  • fififox
    fififox Posts: 394 Member
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    I am sooooo stuck too. I just recently(a week ago) started exercising to try to combat this but wasn't eating back my calories. I took the decision since yesterday to up my calories. My setting is at sedentary too. I think I will change the setting to lightly active now having read this. It's a bit scary...should we expect a bit of a gain in the short term while our bodies get used to eating more? I started out exercising at 400 - 800cal burns a day, but decided to cut this from yesterday to about 350...I lowered my weekly loss goal to 0.5 so my allowance is 1330, exercise is 350ish....today my net so far is just about 1200, with about 120 calories left over....do you think this is o.k to start. Sorry op, don't want to hijack your thread, but I am just trying to understand everything posted above and see if I can apply it in sorting out my stall. Thanks for posting - exactly what I needed to see discussed right now!!!
  • vim_n_vigor
    vim_n_vigor Posts: 4,089 Member
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    I am sooooo stuck too. I just recently(a week ago) started exercising to try to combat this but wasn't eating back my calories. I took the decision since yesterday to up my calories. My setting is at sedentary too. I think I will change the setting to lightly active now having read this. It's a bit scary...should we expect a bit of a gain in the short term while our bodies get used to eating more? I started out exercising at 400 - 800cal burns a day, but decided to cut this from yesterday to about 350...I lowered my weekly loss goal to 0.5 so my allowance is 1330, exercise is 350ish....today my net so far is just about 1200, with about 120 calories left over....do you think this is o.k to start. Sorry op, don't want to hijack your thread, but I am just trying to understand everything posted above and see if I can apply it in sorting out my stall. Thanks for posting - exactly what I needed to see discussed right now!!!

    I did see a gain of a few pounds that hung on for about 3 weeks. I could see my body changing during that time, so I kept with it. Ultimately, I think this is where I need to be and I am on track now. Good luck!
  • gummibear2
    gummibear2 Posts: 14
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    Im really confused. so the calories that I burn off exercising,I need to eat that many back to lose weight?

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