Increasing Calorie Intake to Lose Weight??

SparkPoints: (12,983)
Fitness Minutes: (23,684)
Posts: 96
11/29/12 12:35 P

Your plateau is because your metabolism is in check with your caloric intake. You have to do something different now to rev it backup. Try sticking to the same calorie range but go low carb/high fat for a few weeks. If you don't want to give up the carbs, eat at the low end for a few days, then a day at the high end, then back to low. This is a similar technique bodybuilders do when their metabolism takes a dump and they stop burning fat.

current weight: 146.5

155 150 145 140

135

SparkPoints: (11,931)
Fitness Minutes: (120)
Posts: 1,954
11/29/12 12:00 P

When I started my journey, I ate at 1200 calories a day, or even less (I wasn't on SP so I didn't know this wasn't a good idea). I wasn't exercising at all. It worked for awhile, I lost about 25lbs in about 5 months that way, but eventually I hit a plateau of over a month long. At this point is when I joined SP, and saw that maybe I should eat more. Once I started eating 1300-1400, I started losing again, and then I slowly upped it to 1400-1500, and kept on losing. Now, I'm supposed to be maintaining, and have been eating 1700-1800, and am still losing so I need to increase again.

Edited by: YOJULEZ at: 11/29/2012 (12:00)

current weight: 138.0

188 175.5 163 150.5

138

Posts: 51,597
11/29/12 10:39 A

I agree with the previous poster that it doesn't sound like you're eating enough, especially with as much activity as you're doing. Does your calories burned goal reflect the amount of exercise you're doing? You might lose for a while, but eventually if you're not eating enough the weight loss is likely to stop- which might be what's happening for you now.

Coach Jen

Posts: 14,153
11/29/12 10:23 A

I can't believe SP gave you a range of 1200-1550, unless you maxed out on how fast you want to lose. I am 223 lbs, and the range they gave me is 2,470-2,820.

Have you entered you exercise calories burned per week? If not SP has you at burning 0 calories, which if you burn 100 a week, will increase your range. Another thing that might help is to set your goal for 52 lbs a year from today, which will up your range also. If it is 2 lbs a week, you have to eat 500 less, or burn 500 more than if it is 1 lb a week.

After that, stick to your range. Sometimes we plateau at a weight we stayed at for a while on the trip up the scale. I was stuck at 300, 260, and now 215 seems to be a barrier I am struggling with. Eventually you will break through, and drop weight quickly for a while. I think the body needs to adjust sometimes.

current weight: 239.2

361 311.75 262.5 213.25

164

SparkPoints: (4,022)
Fitness Minutes: (6,276)
Posts: 1
11/29/12 9:36 A

So I've been doing Spark People for a little over 6 months now. I started running and did couch to 5k, I finished that a few months ago and now run 3-4 days a week for at least 30 minutes. I took up kayaking this summer and had to stop in October because it got too cold. Around then I stopped losing weight and peaked at 62 pounds lost at the end of October. It's been a month now since I've seen any changes and I just want to see results again. I started doing Insanity and am finishing the 2nd week tomorrow and am continuing to run and working on increased my time and distance. I thought this might jump start my weight loss again, but so far it hasn't. I still have quite a substantial amount of weight to lose, I'm at 203 and am 5' 5", so I don't think I've hit a point when it should be getting this hard to lose weight. I'm eating 1200-1550 calories a day and I stay pretty clean with what I eat. I don't like to deprive myself though, so if I want to drink a glass of wine or eat a cookie, I do and count it. While I don't ever get hungry, I feel like I may be eating to few calories. I've check BMR calculators and they all say to eat about 1750. I'm mostly confused because I just followed the guide spark people gave me and I've seen great results, so why would that stop now? Has anybody experimented with increasing calories when hitting a plateau? Any tips for getting past this?