Experimenting with my calories....

S

Striving4Health

Cathlete
When I first started losing weight I focused on cleaing up my calories and cutting down on calories. That worked really well, because I didn't cut them down too far.

Eighty pounds later I'm having trouble eating ENOUGH calories and not losing weight at a steady rate anymore. x( I've lost a pound or two here and there, but continue to average a 3- 6 inch loss each month. I've struggled with this for months- way too long. During this time I've eaten cleanly at least 90% of the time and exercised consistently, so I don't think either of these aspects are hindering a steady weight loss.

I've had this gnawing feeling for months that I should up my clean calories, but haven't really acted on it for a worthwhile amount of time. Even though intellectually I understand that my body NEEDS a certain amount of calories to support itself and provide me the energy for my workouts (especially Cathe's! :p ), but I'm still a bit afraid of gaining weight. I've been eating an average of 1700 - 1800 calories a day which just isnt enough to stimulate loss for my current weight. According to Fitday I need at least 1700 for my basal needs and 2400 to maintain my current weight.

Over this past weekend, I've decided to swallow my fear and act on my gut feeling. I started yesterday and it went really well. I'm going to be eating between 2000 and 2200 calories a day for 2 weeks and then I'll re-evaluate.

Any thoughts, comments, etc? I'd really like to hear from you, there's a wealth of knowledge here. :)

Connie :D
 
Hi Connie,

First of all - I think it's excellent that you're maintaining your determination to finish what you started. That's KEY!

I'm in your exact same situation, and recently upped my calories by from 1300 to 1600 by adding more protein to my diet. It's really hard to add calories when you're eating 100% clean food. I'm also taking care to eat a 40P/40C/20F ratio of macronutrients, which takes a lot of getting used to.

I weighed once when I started this - and had gained a few pounds. Then again a few weeks later I'd lost them. I don't notice a tremendous change since I started eating more - but also I've only managed to average about 1,400 calories, so I'm not doing such a great job of upping the calories. I'm going to add a whey protein smoothie per day to get my numbers up.

And I agree with you - it IS scary when you've put so much effort into losing. I toyed around with the "Physique Transformation" website - but they wanted to up me to 3,000 calories and eliminate all cardio for 10 weeks. Now THAT was scary!!!

I read a bunch of books, and signed up with Global Health and Fitness online, so now I feel pretty confident that I'm doing everything right. Tom Venuto's e-book "Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle" is an excellent resource for understanding why "starving" doesn't work. Right now I'm reading Cliff Sheats' "Lean Bodies" - which is excellent. It also preaches the eat more to lose theory and teaches you why.

In spite of all this knowledge, I'm still confused because I was never "starving" when I was undereating. But I was tired all the time. My energy is definitely up since I started this. How funny - I used to feel guilty for eating, now I feel guilty for NOT eating.

In a nutshell, my guidelines for doing this are:

Keep macronutrients balanced,
Avoiding simple carbs except fruit
Eat fruit and complex carbs earlier in the day (I try to stop by 4pm)
Eat your last meal, which should consist of protein and fibrous carbs, at least 3 hours before bed.
LOTS of water
Keep a food journal (I use the Fitday software)
Cathe, Cathe, and more Cathe :)

I saw your "newbies/intermediates/weight lossees" thread - count me in. We can support each other in our quest to win our battles!:)

Joni
 
Hi Joni!

Thank you for writing!! I have to tell you something funny- I read your response a bit earlier in the day and somehow got the numbers mixed up- instead of 40/40/20 I was thinking 40/20/20. I have spent ALL day thinking about how in the world I could eat that way. LOL LOL Duh! :7

I've been aiming for about 45c/25p/30f. I think I might try the 40/40/20 thing though. I make sure that I'm eating mostly good fats, though.

I'll going to check out those books. I haven't read either of those. Actually the last nutrition/diet book I read was Eat, Drink and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical Guide to Healthy Eat by Dr. Willet. It's excellent for general knowledge, but I think I'd really benefit from a exercise perspective. I didn't phrase that all very well, but I hope you get my drift...;)

I never felt like I was starving either. I agree that it's weird. And I, too, feel guilty when I don't eat enough! If I wake up late in the mornings my whole eating schedule is thrown off and I usually don't end up eating enough.

I'm already doing most of the things you suggested, yeah!!! :) I haven't been cutting out complex carbs late in the day- but I can start, it shouldn't be a big problem for me. I do eat about 1.5 hours before bed...I don't know if I can change this one. If I don't eat then I wake up in the wee hours of the morning just starving to death. x( Maybe since I'll be eating more during the day this won't happen...I'll experiment with it.

Welcome to the newbie thread!!

Connie :D
 
I just wanted to say congratulations on your weight loss.

I think you have gotten some good suggestions already. Just wanted to mention that another thing you could try is eating the bulk of your calories earlier in the day, and taper off as the day goes on. I used to do WW, and that was one of the suggestions when people stalled.

Also calorie cycling. I think that is what it is called. Seems like I read about it some on this board about a year ago. You cycle calories up and down each day so that the average daily caloric intake is about the same, or slightly less, to keep on losing weight...but you cycle between higher calorie days and fairly low days, to keep your metabolism from slowing down. I THINK that the link was titled "You burn the fat first...right?" I generated the question and some other folks chimed in with that concept.

Here is the link
http://69.0.137.118/dc/dcboard.php?...ic_id=79564&mesg_id=79564&listing_type=search

Jen
 
Thank you so much, Jen! :)

I've heard about calorie cycling, and think it makes good sense. I just might work this into my food plan after my initial "experiment" is over- I can't add too many variables or I'll get confused. ;)

Thanks again,

Connie :D
 
Hi Connie,

Just wanted to let you know that I'm almost finished reading "Lean Bodies" by Cliff Sheats, and it's okay but I would recommend Tom Venuto's e-book and website over this one. Tom's is a lot of $$ ($39.00) but I refer back to it constantly, so to me it was worth it. I printed it out and put it in a binder. http://www.fitren.com/

I agree about the calorie cycling method, and actually had planned to start doing it myself once I got my calories up - it's just that I'm still struggling to get my calories up! It's also recommended in the Global Health and Fitness plan. Check out: http://www.fitren.com/resudoc.cfm?doc=personal and http://www.global-fitness.com/

Isn't it frustrating? The old equation "fewer calories in - more calories out" just does not work! I thought for sure if I ate really clean and worked out diligently I'd get off this plateau - nope. Takes more than a clean diet and hard work it seems! Grrr...

We'll get there though! :)
 
gosh if I ate even close to 1700 to 2400 calories a day, I would be back to the weight I started with 2 yrs ago....
How tall are ya? how much do ya weigh?

Rhonda
 
LOL, I thought I might get a comment like this. ;) I'm working on losing weight. I started at 285 and I'm now down to 203. I'm 5 foot 3 inches tall. It's understandable that this sounds strange to some of you. We all come from different backgrounds and have different needs at different times. I'm looking forward to the day when 1700 calories is too much for me, too. ;)

Connie
 
I used to think that if I increased my calories I'd regain too - because I successfully lost a LOT of weight eating about 1300 calories/day and working out regularly. But then the scale stopped moving. I'm 5'9" and have been between 180-185 for the past 2 years. I want to lose another 2 sizes, but no matter what I do, the scale won't move. Over the past year I tried no carb, low carb, more cardio, less cardio, more resistance training, less food, clean food - the only thing I haven't tried is increasing calories, especially protein, to get my metabolism back in gear.

Connie and I will be the guinea "pigs"! And we'll "pig out" on the perfect combinations of protein/carbs/fats. It would be SO much easier if we could just increase our cake and cookie intake!! I'd have noooo problem with upping calories if M&Ms were on the menu!

Others on this board have had success breaking plateaus by eating more - chime in ya'll! We need to know we're not undoing all of our hard work!!
 
I work with a mentally retarded woman, she is 39, will be 40 in Oct... we have her eating 1150 to 1500 calories a day... she is 5'4" and this seems to be working for her, of course we can't get her to drink water and we have to be creative about exercise...
But she is losing weight........ by the way she weighs 265 as of the 1st of this month, down from 278 the past 2 months, she started at 303 in Oct..... its slowly coming off..... Rhonda
 
I may wind up experimenting with Ms. Fit if all this doesn't work. Hope it's going well for you! Sounds like it's so far so good. The only thing is - I just don't think I could give up dairy. I guess I can give up anything short term, but I love my Cabot lowfat white cheddar and my plain yogurt...skim milk....sigh...
 
Connie, you can also try zig-zagging your calories. I'm doing that right now because I'm where you are, at a sticky point.

This week I started eating 1700-1750 calories for three days and then on the fourth day I'll up it to 2200 or more. Then I'll go back to the 1700-1750 for three days and so on.

Sometimes mixing it up a bit shocks your metabolism and your weight loss will then continue.
Debbie in OH
 
Hi Debbie, thanks for the tip! That's something that I've done unintentionally for quite awhile. :p :7 Perhaps it would be a good idea to do it on purpose and see what happens. I think my metabolism definately needs some shocking. In fact I realized today that in the past year I've changed up my workout routines quite a bit, but I haven't really done much shaking up with my nutrition. I think I thought I had that figured out. Silly me!

Connie :D
 
I love Cabot's lowfat cheese, too! In fact, that's pretty much the only cheese that I eat. I've come to be very fond of this particular kind of organic yogurt, so I feel like that's borderline dairy. I gave up regular milk for organic soymilk- and I don't miss the regular stuff at all anymore. I'm not anti-dairy, but I do try to keep it lowfat and organic or at least one or the other. ;) :p :7

Connie
 
Thank you, Joni, for your support! I sure wish that increasing our cake and cookie intake would work, lol. ;) Too bad I'm committed to this No Sweets in June thing. :p

Hopefully some others will chime in and support us, and if they don't oh well. We've all got to do what we feel is right for us- of course using educated wisdom. ;)

Connie
 
UGH.x( x( Experiment update:

I'm at least at the end of the 1st month of my experiment. Since at least the beginning of May (can't remember the exact start date) I increased calories, cleaned up my diet a LOT, added more lean protein, increased my workouts, lift heavier, stay within the 40P/40C/20F macronutrient ratio,

I got on the scale this morning. I know, I know - the scale is not our friend - but I was curious to see whether it had moved at all. Nope. I gained 2 pounds at the beginning and it's stayed there ever since. I wouldn't complain if I thought my clothes were looser, but they fit about the same.

The only thing is that, on average, I haven't managed to increase my calories by more than 100-200 each day. So from 1300 to an avg. of 1400-1500. It's scary to add even more since I'm still not losing weight, but I think that's what I'm going to do. And I'm going to cycle calories more per Debbie's suggestion.

The experiment continues!!

Connie - don't give up too soon. Seems these strategies take time to work.

The only other variable I can change is to add early a.m. cardio before breakfast. I hear it's very effective, but my weight loss obsession is at its weakest at 5:30 a.m.
 
Are your foods clean? Are you eating 5-6 small meals that include lean protein, complex carbs and some fat? When is your last starchy carb of the day?
 
Hi Candi -

Yep - if my food were any cleaner it would be sterile. And I do try to include all 3 (LP, CCs, and good fat) with each meal - but I'm not very good at it yet. Seems there's often at least 1 element missing. My day looks something like:

7am - 1 c. shredded wheat-n-bran + 1 c. skim milk

10am - sugar free yogurt + a piece of fruit + 1 tbsp natural peanut butter

12pm - 2 boiled eggs + tossed salad with low fat dressing

2pm - 1 tbsp peanut butter + apple

4pm - Protein shake (whey + yogurt + berries usually)

8-8:30pm - veggies (salad, soup, stirfry) with tofu or cottage cheese, whole wheat pita sandwich with LF cheese and alfalfa sprouts

Could be that I'm eating too late. I start my workouts around 7pm. I should probably come home and eat "dinner" at 4pm and have the protein shake post-workout.
 
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