Trouble getting to my daily intake..

Right, so i'm new here, for the past year i've lost weight by cutting down my calorie intake and exercising, dunno how much i lost, a lot i'd say, probably 50-60 pounds, I'm now at 130 pounds and according to CC i should eat about 2400 and probably more to maintain !

Yet i have trouble getting to 2000, i seem to be maintaining at around 1800 or so with a lot of activities. Go to the gym 3 times/week, 20mins cardio and 40 mins resistance training, walk 40mins at least 5 times/week and 2 days where i walk 80mins per day to go to school.

I'm not afraid of gaining weight.. scale doesn't scare me, in fact i could weight 200 pounds as long as I don't have a huge belly like i used to have it's all that matters. So yeah, in a sense i might be afraid to eat more.

I'm not starving, i eat when i'm hungry, sometimes not or else i wouldn't eat a lot in a day and i stop when i feel satisfied. i also found that i seem to gain weight when i go in the 2000 calories/day.. which is weird, because clearly being a 20 years old male quite active should require a lot more than that.

Even from this website http://www.bcm.edu/cnrc/bodycomp/bmiz2.html it says i'd need about 2700 which i'm quite far from.

So is this normal ? like my body got used to eat less, i never went below 1500 calories/day.. if i did it wasn't my fault, as i had a knee surgery (meniscular tear) a few months ago, so was 2 weeks or so in the house at not really moving, and being in pain. food wasn't on my mind at this time.

I would really like to eat around 2500 calories as i love eating but knowing that i gain when i eat that much i tend to stop myself. I see my friends who are inactive eat way much more than me.. usually junk food, drink a lot of beers, yet they always stays the same.

any ideas/thoughts ? I'm considering consulting a nutrionnist soon, good idea ?

You will not gain eating 2500-2700 calories (if you do it is because you are underweight and need to gain) and it is the correct maintenance amount for you. You are currently on a slow-starvation diet.

Below is something I regularly post to explain how the damage piles up over time. As you are extremely active you can assume it applies to you even if you get up to 1800 calories because that still creates a deficit that does damage to you.

Here's a tour through what happening to your body now at restriction of 1200-1600 calories:

1. It lays down what little fat it can around the vital organs as protection (which actually increases risks for heart disease in later life); 
2. it pilfers calcium from bones leading to osteoporosis in later life;
3. it slows the metabolism to try to eek as much as it can from the little calories it can get (which leads to pre-metabolic syndrome/diabetes -- which surprises a lot of habitual under-eaters because they assume those are only diseases of the obese, not so);
4. it ignores the huge piggy glucose demands from the prefrontal cortex (which leads toslowed thought and poor judgment);
5. it ups the gluccocorticoids* in the body (stress response) which in turn shrinks the hippocampus in the brain and that causes more gluccocorticoids in the body (vicious circle) and wrecks your memory capability possibly leading to dementia in later life;
6. it starts scrimping on the red blood cell count (anemia and profound fatigue).

*gluccocorticoids are legendary in their ability to cause serious auto-immune diseases (such as rheumatoid arthritis, inflammation of the circulatory system), hardening of the arteries, severe immuno-suppression (constant colds, flus, secondary infections)... and they also worsen all the conditions you develop with chronic under-eating.

So the answer is, yes you can maintain your weight and nothing else.

You also don't give you height so are you underweight already at 130? In which case, you are doing even more damage and will need to gain first which will mean stopping all the exercise and eating 2500 or more every day until you hit a safe weight.

Original Post by an_toin3:

 I'm considering consulting a nutrionnist soon, good idea ?

Great idea!  Sooner than later, too!

I thought that I was eating enough only I was actually not eating enough, I just upped my calories, and actually cut out some excersize and I think I feel better actually. I was supprised because I just ate when I was hungry but it still was not enough. not every day was the same, some days i did get enough but during the week i didn't. So now I am eating more, and i upped my strenght training cause I want to get stronger and do 11 pullups I can do 5 right now. my bf never works out and he eats like a pig, he is about 145 and he looks great, you are 130, maybe you could put on some weight and do some strength training and cut out some cardio, and put on some muscle. but yeah 2000 is not enough for a 20 year old male, I am 19 yr. old female 110 pounds and I need 1700-1900 cal. and I know I go over that on the weekend, so you can definetly eat more!

Original Post by hedgren:

You will not gain eating 2500-2700 calories (if you do it is because you are underweight and need to gain) and it is the correct maintenance amount for you. You are currently on a slow-starvation diet.

Below is something I regularly post to explain how the damage piles up over time. As you are extremely active you can assume it applies to you even if you get up to 1800 calories because that still creates a deficit that does damage to you.

Here's a tour through what happening to your body now at restriction of 1200-1600 calories:

1. It lays down what little fat it can around the vital organs as protection (which actually increases risks for heart disease in later life); 
2. it pilfers calcium from bones leading to osteoporosis in later life;
3. it slows the metabolism to try to eek as much as it can from the little calories it can get (which leads to pre-metabolic syndrome/diabetes -- which surprises a lot of habitual under-eaters because they assume those are only diseases of the obese, not so);
4. it ignores the huge piggy glucose demands from the prefrontal cortex (which leads toslowed thought and poor judgment);
5. it ups the gluccocorticoids* in the body (stress response) which in turn shrinks the hippocampus in the brain and that causes more gluccocorticoids in the body (vicious circle) and wrecks your memory capability possibly leading to dementia in later life;
6. it starts scrimping on the red blood cell count (anemia and profound fatigue).

*gluccocorticoids are legendary in their ability to cause serious auto-immune diseases (such as rheumatoid arthritis, inflammation of the circulatory system), hardening of the arteries, severe immuno-suppression (constant colds, flus, secondary infections)... and they also worsen all the conditions you develop with chronic under-eating.

So the answer is, yes you can maintain your weight and nothing else.

You also don't give you height so are you underweight already at 130? In which case, you are doing even more damage and will need to gain first which will mean stopping all the exercise and eating 2500 or more every day until you hit a safe weight.

Thank you for that awesome answer, guess i'll up my portions size or just add another meal in the evening after my gym workout. Also i'm 5'6" my BMI is around 21-22, so not underweight !

Anyway, i actually would like to weight 140.., i just don't want to gain those 10 pounds from fat, i suppose by sticking with some resistance training it will help avoid the belly !?

Original Post by an_toin3:

Anyway, i actually would like to weight 140.., i just don't want to gain those 10 pounds from fat, i suppose by sticking with some resistance training it will help avoid the belly !?

Lifting heavy will help, just remember that it burns a fair amount of calories, and you'll need to increase your intake to account for that (and make sure you are getting enough protein).