[snickers]

an article in womens health, about yoyo dieting, states that once you up your calories (for maintenance) from 1200 calories to 1300 calories (an example they give) you will begin to gain weight back. is this true!? i'm eating 1200 calories a day, and although it's low it's working well for me, and i'm afraid that once I try to maintain at maybe 1400 or 1500 a day i will gain it all back! this article scares me! is this 100% true?

[Meg]

Don't worry, it's 100% false.

Check out this thread where we had a similar discussion: Calories To Maintain Just about everyone who posted is able to eat more calories to maintain than they did to lose.

And check out this thread for more about maintenance calories: Is There A Formula For Maintenance?

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised about how many calories you'll be able to eat and still maintain your weight.

[snickers]

Thank you so much for this

[fruitlady]

I can eat about 150 calories more a day than what I was when dieting. If I go over that for a couple days I'll start gaining. Everyone is different, as long as you are eating healthy and exercising through out maintenance you should be fine.

[kaplods]

I do think that repeated yoyo dieting, especially repeated vlcd's (very low calorie diets) can significanlty lower metabolism, but how few calories, how many diets, who it affects, and to what degree.... those answers aren't available and may never be.

The good news though, is that while there's research evidence that suggests that metabolic rate can be reduced with repeated vlcd's, there's also evidence that metabolic rate can be increased with exercise (and possibly with diet).