I ate more...and lost!

so this past week i ate a bit more than usual.  i'm trying to stay at 1200-1400 calories per day.  i know this calorie amount is controversial, but i started losing with it, and stayed losing at this pace until i hit a plateau.  i don't exercise at all and work in an office all day, making me pretty much sedentary.

so yeah, i ate a little extra a few days last week...one day it was an office party with cake...another day i had some pizza...you know, just treating it in a very laid-back manner.  friday night i even had about 3 beers.

lo-and-behold...saturday i weighed myself (even after those beers and the water retention)...and i had lost 1.5 pounds...finally going under 130!!  now i'm at 128.5.

i really think that it is because i ate more...maybe i get more exercise than i realize. 

my point is, if anyone is completely stuck or cannot seem to lose any weight, try upping your calories.  this advice has been given time and time again but it really really works (at least for me).  unless you are in starvation, you will not gain.  try it for a week!!  this is the second time that eating more has caused me to lose weight.  i think i will try to aim for something closer to 1400-1500.

YAYY! 

Alcohol dehydrates you. It could be water weight...sadly to say.

maybe the extra energy let you put a little 'oomph' into your daily exercise~ not bad at all!

if you are going to increase calories again, maybe try to avoid doing it with pizza beer and cake - wouldn't want to see this backfire on ya! :)

anything over 1300 seems high for 128 pounds tho ~ certainly if you are still trying to lose weight.

check the scales in another week or so, and those pounds may just creep on. zig zagging calories is proved to shake up your metabolism and bust thru a plateau - but after a ZIG there has to be a ZAG

http://www.articlesbase.com/fitness-articles/ zig-zag-calories-for-weight-loss-74803.html

ilisa:  water weight would make me weigh more because of water retention, wouldn't it?

spookychic: LOL i know.  these were just some slips and i don't plan on doing it this way again ;)

im always 2lbs lighter after a night of drinking, but give it a day and poof its back.  I hope not for you, let us know :)

hmm.  that's odd, in the past a night of drinking has made me weight MORE.  not sure i understand.

thanks spookychic...i will look in to that.  maybe zig-zagging is the way to go.

Isnt it amazing how it works? This has been my way of explaining that I have lost 100+ but yet no one seems to want to do it.... I agree with the above statement.... Maybe you needed the calories so you lost, but I would avoid eating those choices... I eat more good foods more often....But its true it works!!!!

yeah i think ppl are just scared to try it.  i did accidentally.  by the way loosingthepounds:  you look MAHHvelous!!!!

notalone and loosingthepounds, can you explain in more details why and under what condition would eating more help you lose?

My boyfriend is getting frustrated because he really eats little but is not losing as he should've. And I'm worried he's eating too little but he won't listen. Hope I can explain to him with your theory.

Thanks. 

ying:

how much is he eating?  i'm no expert on this so maybe someone else can explain it better.  your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the calories that your body needs just to survive.  for example, breathing, circulation, metabolism etc.  if you eat less than this bare minimum, your metabolism slows down to adjust to it so that it can get everything done.

by eating more, you keep your metabolism active and ensure that all your bodily functions are being completed at a normal pace.

now i'm not sure why eating more would make you lose weight.  maybe because when you eat less, your body holds on to more of the calories and stores them as fat since you're not getting the bare minimum to survive.

can anyone else explain this better?

spookychick-

thanks for the article post - very interesting.  I had a similar experience to notalone a few weeks ago - thought it was an anomoly, or that the previous week's cardio was catching up, but now I think it was the zig-zag!

notalone; not sure how to explain this as metabolism and low-cal lifestyle is hotly discussed these days... but imho, 'starvation mode' is debatable as myth ~ yet, eating more of the RIGHT things gives you more energy, ups your metabolism and fuels your brain so your mood is elevated - all of which bolster weight-loss.

i know, "starvation mode" is thrown around a lot and not everyone can really explain it that well.  so i'm not sure how to explain why this happens.

basically your body likes being fat.

being fat is awesome to it. because it has saved its fat for later.

your body's objective: SURVIVE

it doesnt care if your butt is big. thats for later if you need it.
when its stressed out but overcutting cals. it thinks its not going to be getting food like it used to. the amt that gave you energy to get up and go and feel good and gain wt....it thinks you are approaching a season of famine. but it wants you to live through that. so it reduces your metabolism so you can not be as hungry and everything will work on less calories so you dont die or feel sick.

you body sees high calorie cuts and undereating long term as that season of famine.

normal diet cuts are 500 cals from maintain level.
extreme is 1000 cals.

and then there are the rules of 1200 for women and 1800 for men.
(that may be adjusted if you are not avg ht - to be discussed with your doctor though)

losing more than 1-2 lbs a week will stress it because you are cutting too many cals.

500 cut = 1 lb a week (500x7=3500)
1000cut - 2 lbs a week(1000x7=7000)
3500 cals needed to burn off to lose 1 lb

when you lose more than 2 lbs a week your body starts to attack lean muscle tissue. another metab slow down. it does that to slow you metab so you wont be so hungry as your undereating shows there isnt food around. or you arent good enough at getting it.
so its going to help you get over that by reducing your needs.

the end result of undereating. even if you do keep it up.
really high body fat. tons of stalls when losing.
nurtritional problems, bone loss.

its trying to keep the damage from happening by lowering your needs.
_____________________________

my boyfriend was p.o.ed at not losing at 1200. we have just been eating the same things. i just noticed that he was eating like that the last week as he complained. i told him to get his salad at lunch and i have been adding more food to his plate at dinner.
now hes at 2000ish. lost two pounds.

his cal needs are about 3000

your boyfriend can have a couple low cal days here and there.
but he really needs to trick the body into relaxing by giving it the illusion that hes not dieting by making some days higher calorie.
as long as he doesnt eat over maintain level he wont gain any real wt. he only will see a few pound fluxes that are normal with water wt changes.

one more thing:

i forgot to mention that i have been having green tea after lunch every day religiously.  maybe that has helped...?

The starvation mode thing is kind of a myth, at least it was for me. I was eating below the magic 1,500 calorie a day number that men supposedly must eat to stay alive. Obviously it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that an overweight man who eats less than 1,500 calories a day will lose weight, and I lost a lot of weight really quickly.

That being said, the loss was not totally healthy. I lost a lot of muscle mass, but most of the loss was definitely fat.

I'm not trying to encourage anyone to eat less than 1,500 or 1,200 calories a day. It was definitely not a pleasant experience for me to eat 1,200 calories a day.

my question is, if you do start losing muscle mass, do you feel a difference physically (for example, feeling run down)?  can you see it by looking at yourself in the mirror? 

Both.

It doesn't really process until you start to feel it though. And unless you have an eating disorder, you start eating more to avoid feeling like garbage all the time. 

Thanks a lot curses_to_anathema for your post, now at least I understand pretty well the theory behind the starvation mode myth. I guess it's still a "myth" because different people can be affected quite differently by it. My boyfriend doesn't log in food he's eating, but I'm guessing it's only around 1400-1500, cuz he's just eating a little bit more than I am (1200 cals). And he's 6''1, 217lbs. I guess he IS in the starvation mode then. I'll tell him about all of it and hopefully he will listen to me.

I read that Zig-Zagging calories article, that might've explained why occasionally eating more can help you lose. I think it makes great sense.

dm84, are you still eating less than 1,500 calories? If not, did you gain any weight back?

Hear is an article I found explaining what "Starvation mode" is and how it works... It does explain that it depends on your body's metabolism, but it also explains how it works.. I posted a thread on it by itself hoping others can see it. take a look!!!

Curses~~ It explains as you did but with a little more detail.. your right on!

Article on calories needed to lose weight