Couldnt have said it better than Perkylu did:)

I highly recommend the reset. By just upping them slowly, you still arent doing your body much good. Its still crying for more food..Especially since you came from a VLCD previous, you will find it will take a while for your body to trust you again. By jumping right up to your TDEE, your body will adjust much faster than going slowly up.

Hope this helps. We are all here for you.

That is a good point. I actually was thinking I was building trust, but the way you say it I hear more like I'm just prolonging the mistrust... Hmmm, I wonder what my max gain would be if I went even farther up with my cals.

If it weren't for this trip in September I wouldn't be worried about it. I'm just going to be in a swimsuit most of that week and really don't want to be supersized...lol

Catherine

Hi Catherine,
I have a question....and please, please don't take this in the wrong way as I am asking only out of sincere interest: Did you gain weight over the past 10 years while mainly just taking in 700-900 cals a day? Or were there binges at times -- or just times during each week where you went over that amount? IF you have indeed gained on such a low amount, then that clears up my mind in regards to the benefits of resetting our metabolisms! I'm considering doing this....but we have a Hawaii vacation in early December! I will get it figured out...
Anyhow, best of luck to you! :-)

No offense taken ☺ There are many other factors that play into my weight gain over those 10 years, but this is the only factor remaining. I’m also hypothyroid, I was also pregnant 4 times (although those were my best weight times! LOL) and my weight has always been a roller coaster, not a steady incline. I’ve been on Armour getting my thyroid support for over three years (after spending 2 years on Syntheroid with ZERO improvement) I’m no longer getting pregnant every year and half to two years, which has it’s own set of joy! LOL

Let me point out that I didn’t track calories then, I just food journaled. I used portion estimating that was in line with the visual guidelines of fist sized amounts. I’ve always been very healthy eater when possible to choose that. Very minimal, if any, packaged/processed foods, local farms (although not all of them are organic), etc… Our worst food intake was when we eat in restaurants.

I’m not a binger in the sense that I would crave large quantities after periods of low cals. I ate every day without thinking “low cal” or “resist” or “things I can have later” I just ate what I wanted when I wanted and stopped eating when I was full – I also eat very slow, I have been the slowest eater at the table my entire life. However, if we sat down to watch a movie and I wanted chips, I ate as many as I wanted. I didn’t think about how many was I eating (chips are my weakness, or fries, but not sweets much here). I could eat nearly an entire bag of chips myself! The only reason it wasn’t the whole bag was because my sons and husband would get some! LOL

When I go back and calculate what I was logging for my food intake I was shocked to see how low the cals were on the whole – minus the occasional family night movie. Those weren’t every weekend, but about once a month we all wanted to watch a movie if we didn’t have any obligation that Friday.

I started doing that b/c I was gaining weight even though I knew I didn’t eat much. It was mind boggling. I would take my food journal to my doc and he would agree that I wasn’t eating enough at all to merit my weight gain (this was after my last pregnancy and I had lost all of my last pregnancy weight by the time we were at this point).

The food journal helped lead us to the hypothyroid problem. That combined with the other symptoms we talked about led to the blood test. Then he pulled my blood test results from my OB for prepregancy blood work up and saw that I had been hypothyroid for years (the reasons I had pre-preg blood work have nothing to do with weight - I was a surrogate and so we had every test imaginable done pre-preg! LOL)

Now, let me move to post –pregnancies and just examine the last five years.

Yes, I have had weight gain on such low cals per day.

At one point I gained over 30 pounds between October and February. When I went to my doc I was just in tears. I showed him my food log (I’m actually quite consistent at my overall week) I could not fathom why I was gaining such a large amount weight.
I was also spending at least one hour and often two hours in the gym when I joined in a 45 minute class of something (aerobics, spinning, whatever was available at that time). I was working out seriously, not eating much, and STILL GAINING!

Now that I have learned about BMR and my net cals, etc… I see that during those times I was seriously low on my net cals.
For anyone who ever questioned starvation mode, I’ve said repeatedly since I’ve learned what happened to me, it is absolutely 1000% true! Everything I was eating was being stored and I was gaining weight even on low cals, healthy food, regular “right” exercise (we had a trainer at our Y who would work out with you for free for your first 6 times to help you get on the right plan for your needs and make sure you were doing the exercises correctly).

I know you didn’t ask for my novel here, I’m sooo sorry. I just started typing and here I am at the end of a short story! LOL
Hopefully there is something in there that will have benefitted you in some way…

Btw, my weight was back down this morning by nearly 2 pounds. I know it fluctuates day to day, but I don’t get bothered by the daily ups and downs, it’s trends I’m looking at. Sort of like the stock market… lol

I know my method of creeping up my cals isn’t normal, but it is working for me to get me on the right road of higher cals without big weight gain between now and the trip we have in September.

I am absolutely going to do a reset when I’m back from our Sept vacation. I know my body needs it. I’m grateful my body is responding well to my creeping up method. Im getting sooo many of the “side” benefits (my fatigue is lifting, my hair loss is slowing…)

I will get to my goal, but I don’t think it is going to be the way everyone else gets there. ☺

Catherine:)

Take your time to get there. It is mentally not. Easy to jump to TDEE coming from such a low calorie diet.
I am glad you found your way to this group and I we will help you along the way whenever you need anything.
If you feel ready to do your reset after yourt trip that is awesome. A FitBit will certainly help to determine your daily burn.
You will see it is such a liberating feeling, if you finally can turn your back to low cals.
Wishing you all the best

Thanks so much

I'm glad I found this group, as well!! I am still amazed from time to time at what garbage people choose to put into their bodies. I know I didn't have my amounts right, but I've always wanted to be healthy. I truly wasn't trying to be a very low cal eater, I just didn't listen to my body accurately. You mentioned about being able to finally turn my back on low cals. That's interesting because I do find myself working at making sure I eat more to get to my goals, not as much having a hard time staying under my goals! LOL I do not think I would be able to do it without something soooo easy and helpful as MFP on my phone!!!

Even when I have a hard time estimating, like this week. We are eating dinner at our church every day this week during VBS and I'm using the scanner to zap the ingredients and "build" my dinner even while I'm away! Then, because it is very different from my norm, I saw how far over I went today and I'm truly wanting to be consistent as I creep my cals up, so I had time to add in some laps around the church with a friend and keep my net cals on target! I want to send my body the right message

I was just reading about the fitbit before coming back to the boards. I do think it will be a great help. I'm concerned it won't help me accurately measure my cals burned for some activities that I track regularly. I play the piano and use the numbers I get from http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc to use on MFP.

Since my goal is make sure I stay above my BMR and I'm working on upping my cals, I want to be sure that I'm not underestimating calories burned on the activities I do the most. House work and cooking/food prep time are two other areas that aren't big physical movers, but exert enough over long enough time that I want to account for them as accurately as possible. How on earth is the fitbit going to determine calories burned for those?

I might be one who needs two different things for these different activities. Any thoughts anyone?

Thanks again, everyone!!

The FitBit measures your movements and steps, and while you are cooking, cleaning etc, it will record that.
You would be surprised, how much you are burning.
On non workout days, just by taking care of the house and garden and running after the girls, I am burning up to 2400 kcal, on workout days, even more. I had no idea, I moved that much.
For the exercises I am using my HRM, which gives more accurate readings when the exercising.
As for playing the piano-I really don't know how you could track it. Probably with a BodyMedia device.
They are more expensive though and need a monthly subscription.
Many on here do have them as well.

An HRM is what I was planning to get to see what exactly I'm burning at the piano. The calculators are probably pretty accurate b/c they are consistent between different ones. Maybe I'll borrow an HRM from a friend to get a picture of my non-typical actiities, but buy a fitbit to see about my TDEE.

Thx again for your input

I just wanted to throw out a cheer that I'm less than half a pound from my weight prior to the bump I knew it wouldn't stay long-term, but yes, it was a let down to see it. Since the high I posted about originally, it's been a steady decline back to where it should be.

I look at the trends, not the fluctuations. I'm going to stay put at my current cals until after our trip in Sept and then I'll be ready to do a full reset.

Thanks everyone for all your great support. I love this group

Catherine