Posts by flamaze13

I'm 18, currently weigh 132ish, and am 5'4. I want to get to 115 - I've been there before, so I know it's possible! I gained ten pounds from eating 1500 in two weeks...

I exercise when I can - I walk about 2 miles a day on average, do situps, sometimes run around.

I'm eating 1500; I was orignially eating 700-900.

Hey, do you think this is possible for me?

I’ve been in starvation mode for a crazy long time and now am eating 1500 calories... but I really want to lose the ten pounds I’ve tacked on. Is this even possible?

Use the 50% rule. I do not believe in eating anything fake because you "need sugar".

Many processed foods and desserts don’t have a good enough flavor to tempt me… I want the real thing. An apple tartin. Crème brulee. Flourless chocolate cake. Those things are incredibly hard to binge on because they are so rich eating too much makes one insanely sick. A little bit goes a long way, and when your mouth is screaming with mousse and cream, it is actually easier to put the fork down.

So savor. Very slowly. If you love it, there is no need to fight it to lose weight. After three bites our palates are generally bored anyway.

It entirely depends on how long it has been.

I am on day 11 of eating 1500 calories, and in that time frame I have gained 7 pounds.

I had been eating between 700-900 calories for over a year. When it started, I lost a lot of weight quickly, and I was honestly comfortable eating that amount. But, when I ate even a little bit over, my body snatched onto every calorie and stuck it on my thighs. In 4 months, about 7 days of “eating normally” tacked on 15 pounds. Not a huge exerciser, and I’m not a binge eater.  It doesn’t add up mathematically, but that’s what happened.

A lot of this is hunger. I was hungry in the beginning, but eventually I wasn’t. Change and shock cause weight loss, not numbers. When I got used to whatever number of calories, that’s what my metabolism slowed down to match.

I’m in the process of fixing it.

I have been at my maintenance for over a week now, and I am finally seeing the scale slow down. I still feel gross and sickly full, but that is to be expected since my body is used to about half the calories. I have heard that I shouldn’t be exercising off too much to the point where my net is at 800 calories either. I exercise when I can (busy college student), and eat really clean already.

You sound like you know what you are talking about! I am beginning to figure out why I put on twenty pounds from under eating, and developed a plan that is healthy to get back to my initial weight. I’m going to eat at maintenance for 40 days to get my metabolism back in order, then cycle in a range of 1000-1200 calories until I’m back. I’ll eat at maintenance a few days just so I don’t mess everything up again, and then eat a higher number of calories once I am at my weight. What do you think?

I can only hope, except when I upped my calories in the past to 1700, I gained 10 pounds immediately. I got scared and cut back again and it stayed :(

I'm at one week of eating my apparent "maintenance" calories - 1500 - and I've put on 7 pounds. I'm sure most of it's water, but I was already at a weight I was not happy with, and I want to get down to where I was six months ago. I've been told to keep at that level for a while before cutting back, so is this challenge still appropriate?

jrose15, in the 2 weeks did you gain weight like I am? I was eating 800-900 calories a day and actually gaining weight since before hand I was eating 700. I'm lost and frustrated.

I'm just like you. If you eat a lot of fresh foods, it is incredibley difficult to get a normal number of calories.

I like to have a bowl of healthy cereal - like Fiber One - with Soymilk. Or granola bars, or a lot of air-popped popcorn. Eating these seriously helps keep you regular :)

These are just some other ideas other than nuts and cheese.

AH! I fit into this category but am so confused about what I am doing wrong and need to do in order to lose 10 pounds!

I wasn't eating enough - I would have a final day's total of 900 calories. Then I increased to 1200 before exercise and maintained. I went to college and despite eating exactly the same I put on 15 pounds quickly out of seemingly nothing. I had a couple days when I over ate, but a couple days of very little eating to balance it out. Nevertheless, the weight stuck.

So now, I'm on a path to eat 1500 calories. Will it work? I don't know. I have no idea. But I am tired of restricting what I eat, especially when I am a fantastic cook.

Any help?

Yes, I'm pretty sure I'm accurate - I've been doing this for a while now and have a good grasp since it worked when I was maintaining. I ate very little for a while - probably about 700-900 calories a day as a final total when i worked out. Then around the holiday season I upped it to 1200-1300 and maintained. I tried to cut back to the orignal numbers but my weight stayed the same.

I can go look back at my journal for the two months in college and see that with exercise, I have some days that only totalled to 400 calories. I've been moving a lot and eating the same food - I live in an apartment and cook. I used to eat more at home!

I'm at the point where I am frustrated beyond belief, and feel like since I love to cook for crying out loud I'm just going to eat more and see what happens. I don't seem to follow the natural weight loss laws, so maybe I'm going to see the scale start to tip back down again...

I'm right there with you. And unlike the others saying "starvation mode", I'm going to say something practical.

Have you ever heard of Paul McKenna? He has some sensible advice. I can speak from personal experience. When you drive your body hard, for a long time, your metabolism slows down.

Don't plan out meals, aim for calories, exercise if you hate it, or any other sabatoging experience. Just wait until you are hungry. On a scale of one to ten, how hungry are you? Try to eat at a 3-4, stop at a 6-7. Enjoy your food slowly. Eat whatever you like. And stop whenever you might think you are full.

What does this do? Your body is not a calculator. It has an internal system that says: hey, I want food now. It doesn't say at ten o'clock, time for 100 calories. Think of how kids eat - that's natural. Over time, your metabolism fixes itself. When you eat according to a schedule, you override your own natural signals. And when you begin to tune into it, the body will understand and start sending out hunger signals more often. You'll be eating more - we're talking in a while, not immediately - and you'll weigh less! Nobody bossing you around except your own body.

Just trust yourself, seriously.

Yes. I went to the doctor who didn't explain anything at all, so I did my own research.

When you eat a signifigant amount more than you normally do at one sitting, your body releases a ton of insulin to get rid of the excess energy. It's like when kids get too much candy. I had my heart beat taken mid-attack, and it was up to 130 bpm. Your body is burning off the calories, making your body work harder.

I exercised to bring my heart rate up naturally after this started. Once you do some cardio, it will go away.

His system trained me to go back to normal... eating like a baby, and like my friends do: just when they are hungry.

I wish more people knew about it, because it's really the only way to go.

I play solitaire on my iPod, or Tetris on my phone.

I'd heard the French don't snack - at all. What if I'm hungry?