Just a question, can anyone help?
 

Hi. I'm new to this forum. I'm 19 years old, and I have a weight loss problem. I'm athletic and muscular, and very active and I eat only 1200-1500 calories per day, without losing weight. However, the other day I went to a restaurant and ate a cheesy quesdeilla... I thought weight gain for sure! however the next day I had definity lost weight, not just on the scale but also my pants were looser. this was very odd, because i didn't get a lot of excersize that day either. I was just wondering if anyone else has this problem and if they could shed some light on what is happening here. Thanks a lot!

I'm guessing you are one of the chronic scale steppers (like me haha) Try to find the average weight you are after a week or two. I can gain 5 lbs or more in one day...and for my own body I notice if I eat healthy in the evening (even when I don't eat so well during the day) I don't see a gain the next day. Or when I don't eat much throughout the day, then make up for it at night, I tend to weight more the next morning.
Everyone's body is different, and one quesadilla won't make you gain a ton of weight the next day. And you might just not have noticed you lost some weight or your pants were looser until the morning after you went and ate out.
If you are very active and muscular and are at a healthy weight...maybe 1200-1500 cals might be a bit low for you. Check out fitnessmagazine.com or some other fitness site for the calorie range you should be in...and lower it 500/day if you need to lose. You should eat more if you workout more (up to a point, and if need to lose weight)

Well, I probably don't need to lose a lot of weight... really I just want to lose about 5 pounds of fat. But is 1200-1500 cal is too low, shouldn't I be losing a lot of weight?

I find when my calories are too low I don't lose any weight. "You have to eat too lose,"

I just wanted to add that you calories in a day should be good calories, you shouldnt just eat 1500 calories worth of bugers and fries. You need lots of veggies, fruit, lean meat, grain.

Your body might be holding on to whatever you give it -- your 1200-1500 calories a day -- thinking it's in "starvation mode." Our bodies are resourceful little creatures, and if they're not being fed enough, they'll stop burning as many calories day-to-day (your metabolism goes down) so they can prolong your life in a famine. Maybe what you saw with the quesadilla (or at least the general idea -- don't know if bodies respond to just one quesadilla :lol: ) is that you upped your body's calorie intake, your body heaved a sigh of relief, and started revving its metabolism back to normal.

Point being, it's possible your calories are too low if you are that active... I'd suggest upping your calorie intake by a bit for a week or two and see what happens...

Really? I didn't realize that eating too little could cause you to gain... I definitly don't want that!:o Okay, thats for the idea, maybe i'll up to 1700 for a while and see... Thanks for all your posts!

Sometimes I take the calories I burned workout out and figure that into what I've been eating...make it an average of about 1500-1700- and if you are workout a lot and being very active then you can afford to eat a lot more...look around, I'm sure there are a bunch of threads on "starvation mode"

Depending on your height, your body may be at it's healthiest weight already, so it might using your metabolism to resist weight loss. You have to be extremely close to your ideal weight already, so losing five lbs is going to be extremely difficult.

Yes, I'm close to my ideal weight... i'm 5'7"