More calories???
 

So this week on Biggest Loser, Bob pushed that the brown team needed to eat more calories to lose weight. And they did lose more weight. Now I know that they are burning about 10,000 calories a day, so does this apply to us too?

I have checked out some calculators and they say I should eat between 1800 and 2100 calories a day to lose 2 pounds a week. That seems SO high, I eat about 1200 a day. I know that's probably too low but I am not sure how much to eat.

Has anyone experienced upping their caloric intake and losing more weight?

Me...no. I have never personally experienced this particular phenomenon.

However, I know of several people who were holding on to weight simply because their bodies needed more fuel in order to burn more.

Glory87 comes to mind. Check out her goal story. She hit what she thought was her goal until she started eating more and 10 more pounds melted off of her.

I hadn't lost any weight for nearly 2 months and upped my calories and have lost 1-2 pounds since. I'm still skeptical because it just seems wrong. I still feel guility eating more. I'll give it another 1-2 weeks and see.

I have been struggling with undereating. I noticed my weight loss increasing when I increased to 1400-1500 cals instead of 700-900 cals.

Calorie cycling seems to work better than eating the same calories/day. I might try that next week.

thanks junebug I will check it out.

sm177- How many calories were/are you eating?

How much exercise do you do? I can lose a lot more if I lower my calories (3-4lbs a week) to 1200, but I still lose 1-2lbs a week on 400 calories more. Days I'm working out I'll eat 100 more or so calories too (which SHOULD be everyday but .. ya know lol).
I eat the higher number because I'd get super hungry otherwise, and I like my treats everyday lol.

I was eating around 1400, now I'm eating around 1600-1700. I'm also running more. The whole thing is so frustrating. I'm never sure what to do, like last week I had one of these giant cookies 4 days out of the week, and each time I thought mannn I'm disgusting, they must have at least 400-500 cals in them. Then I saw a loss at the end of the week for the first time in a looong time. I feel like an athletic person, why can't I "just eat" like one?

I was eating 1,000 - 1,200 calories, but right now I shift between 1,400 - 1,800. I noticed I can lose almost 4lbs on a good week by doing this. Before I would lose 2 at the most.

Eating more can help. You just need to discover what works for you.

I normally workout 6 days a week. I have been sick so nothing this week :(

I do not lose 3-4 a week at 1200 calories and working out (I wish) I lose 1-2 a week if I am perfect! I might try eating more like 1400-1600 to see if that works. I am not really hungry at 1200 so I hope I don't gain weight!

I think 1,400 - 1,600 is a great start for your weight and level of exercise. You might even be able to get away with 1,600 - 1,800. Experiment. If you don't like the results at 1,400 ~ up your intake. But try it for a few weeks first.

If you have trouble hitting that many calories try eat healthy foods that have a nice bulk of calories (like peanut butter, nuts, pasta, avocados, whole grain breads).

You're so close to your goal that i don't think you even CAN lose more than 1-2 pounds every 2-3 weeks :shrug:

jahjah you are probably right. I also don't want to kill my metabolism. When I am in maintenance I don't want to gain weight by just looking at cheese :lol:

I was eating about 1500-1700 calories and working out 3 times a week and I lost 10lbs in three months (including not counting at all during a few weeks of thanksgiving and christmas holiday eating).

In the new year, I decided to lower my cals to 1200-1400 and work out 5 times a week and lost only 1.5lbs in 6 weeks!

Since then, I've posted the same concern about why i'm not losing as quickly as i used to and i've been told to up my calories and i also saw the biggest loser suggestion to eat more. I read up online as well about this and it seems that if your caloric intake is 50% less than your burnt, you're likely to go into "starvation mode" even if it's over 1200 cals. it all depends on the balance. i've decided to up my calories back to 1500 and see what happens!

Hmmm... eating a little MORE to lose weight never occurred to me, but now that you've all mentioned it, I have actually been surprised to have lost more weight in weeks when I ate more, and totally expected to have stayed the same, if not gained. Maybe there's something to this. I've been averaging 1,200 - 1,500 cal/day for a while, except for the occasional aforementioned bad-eating/surprise-weight-loss week here and there when I just couldn't stand being hungry anymore and ate about 1,900 cal/day.

I used to eat 1200 calories per day and then stopped losing weight (I burned more than that working out on my heart rate monitor....) then I got mad and switched to 1000 calories and that was AWFUL! It was not enough to function. Then I saw a post that said if you're eating 1000 calories to lose weight... maintenance will be awful. You can't eat 1200 calories for the rest of your life... and who wants to???? I eat 1400-1600 a day and workout just as hard and see a 3 lb loss. But the biggest thing is that I can FUNCTION and I'm a lot more happy!