Has anyone experienced faster weight loss after upping their calories a bit?

Every diet and exercise article/book suggests that a woman not consume less than 1200 calories a day or else it will slow down your metabolism, we are all told to eat much less.   If we are also exercising a lot , I wonder if we shouldn't get a few more even?  I am concerned I have brought my metoabolism to a screaming halt.  Has anyone tried to eat more, especially those who work out at least 6 hours a week, and found that they started losing weight more quickly?

When you go on a diet, even if you are eating way more than 1200 calories, your metabolism slows down. But it's some incredibly small percentage. Some studies show it as being anywhere from 11 to 22 % depending on much of a deficit you are creating and how long you are creating it.

So let's do some math!

If your BMR is 1200 and it decreases 22 %, that makes it 1056.

So over the course of a week, that's 1008 calories you aren't burning that you would have if your BMR hadn't gone down. That sounds like a lot, right?

If eating 1400 calories only makes it go down by 11 %, it's up to 1068. That's 12 extra calories a day!

Except you're eating 200 more so you've decreased your calorie deficit by 188 calories a day all in the name of 'upping' your metbolism.

Bottom line: eating more calories slows down weight loss, if energy expenditure remains the same.

WARNING: RANT AHEAD!

My personal theory as to why you hear "don't eat less than X calories or you won't lose weight" everywhere is that "experts" say this to scare women into not going below whatever X is in vogue at the moment.

I say this because diet programs used to routinely put women on 1000 calories diets and most of them did just fine. I was on Nutri/system in the late 80s and I was on 1000 calories. Naturally, they told me I absolutely had to eat them all or "I wouldn't lose weight!" (Sound familiar?)

I followed the program faithfully and lost 70 lb.

But during that time, some people had troubles with their gallbladder (including me) and, after the diet programs got sued a few times, they all upped their recommendations to 1200 and now suddenly if we ate less than that "we'd kill our metabolisms and wouldn't lose weight."

Even though just a few years before I was on 1000 with their blessing and it didn't kill my metabolism and I did lose weight.

Why can't they just tell the truth?! That this recommendation is a one-size-fits-all recommendation designed to keep the majority healthy? Or they can say "you increase your risk of malnutrition if you go under 1200" if they want to say it in a threatening, scary way.

It's like they believe women are irrational creatures who will not respond to a sensible argument (that it's not healthy) but will only respond to an argument based on vanity (you won't lose weight).

OKAY, RANT OVER

Anyway, like most of us, as my calories have gone up, my weight loss has slowed down. To give actual numbers:

In month 1, I was averaging around 450 calories and my weight loss averaged around 3.75 lb. a week.

Then, my calories gradually went up to 800. At 800, I was averaging around 2-3 lb. a week weight loss. (The variation correlated directly to my exercise efforts which were quite variable over the holidays)

In month 5, I increased my protein again and got up to about 900 calories a day. My weight loss slowed down to 2 lb a week.

Then in month 6, my protein went up again and my calories shot up to 1200-ish. My weight loss is now down to 1 lb. a week. Though the month isn't over yet so the numbers may change.

Now, the situation is complicated by the fact that my energy expenditure wasn't the same over that time period. But, in general, as my calories went up, my weight loss slowed down and only adding in more exercise made it go back up again.

Yeah I guess I'm gonna have to give up my wine on the weekends, which SUCKS.  What I just don't understand is that the fact that I am exercising like crazy and supposedly burning 400-900 calories (based on my HRM) 6x a week but it doesn't seem to matter.  Months 1-3 I lost a fair amount with no exercise, now I know those are the months you lose the most but I thought well if I up the exercise and my net calories per day are way lower than they were in months 1-3, I should be able to continue to lose at a good pace but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

I also never really lost the hunger feeling.  I am switching acid reducers to see if another works better.  I do fill up quickly but I get hungry 2-3 hours later, still I only allow myself a small low calorie snack to keep my daily calories under 1000 (my PCP wants me to eat 1000/day cause she fears a gallbladder attach but I usually eat 8-900 except on Fri/Sat when I drank the wine).  I wish Dr. Jossart had operated on my brain too, I still feel like I have the gherlin.

I am a little over 1 year post-op, have lost 200 pounds and take in 3750 - 5000 calories a day. I have been eating this many calories for the past 4-5 months and have not lost more than about 25-30 pounds, but I have lost 6" off my waist and gone from an XL shirt to a loose L or even M in some clothing. Calories are fuel... PERIOD! The more fuel you take in, the more you better work so the fuel gets burned and not stored. Best of luck....

3750-5000 calories!!!!!!!!! I hate you - just kidding.  I DO work my butt off, 5-6x a week, 1-2.5 hours a day  because I wanted to make sure if I did take in some extra calories I would have them burned off.  My NET calories are way low, sometimes almost net ZERO but it doesn't seem to matter, It's soooooooooooo frustrating.

I hate him too. Only not really because I would explode if I ate that much. Even at my heaviest, I was only eating about 2200 calories a day. I guess those are the perils of being short and a woman.

I had my RMR tested in Dec. I was 30 lb. heavier but had less muscle. It came out around 1275-ish. Certainly not 1800 like that other poster. Sometimes this makes me jealous. It would be nice to have a cushion like that.

My WL has slowed down quite a bit recently as my protein and hence calories have gone up. But at this point, I'm okay with a slower loss because I'm ready to dip my toe into the maintenance pool. Plus, once my race is over (1.5 weeks!), I'll be working out harder again to get faster for the next one and maybe my loss will pick up again.

Btw, when I had my NUT consult, I was told that normal hunger is every 3-4 hours. So 2-3 is pretty close. You are also going to feel hungrier if your net calories are low. Your body will try to get you to fuel it. That's normal. I definitely feel less hungry now that I'm getting in 110-120 g of protein a day and 1000-1200 calories.

For your body to work at it's optimal you MUST feed it.  Anything below 1000 long term is just too little food.  Even at my largest size and sedentary live my body needed would use 1800 cals a day just to survive....in other words if I stayed in bed all day I could eat up to about 1800 a day and NOT gain weight.  The problem was I ate much more than that.....be honest some meals we consumed at restaurants are easily 1500 in one meal!

When I got serious and started dieting AND exercising I cut my calories to 1500 a day and would lose on avg 3 lbs a week (some weeks a little more)..  When I got within about 20-30 lbs of my goal I dropped my daily cals to 1200 (the smaller we get the less fuel we need).  I still work out 6 days a week for 60-90 mins a day depending if it's my cardio or free weights day (I do 40 mins cardio every day and then  add either another 40 cardio or a 50 min free weights routine).  Once I'm on maintanence I go back to somewhere between 1500 and 1800 cals a day....not got that sorted out yet.

The bottom line, you have to burn more calories than you consume to lose weight.
Also trying plenty of water for me is key to my success. 

There are great charts on line that show you how many calories you need to consume in order to lose weight based on the amount of daily exercise you do.  If you send me a message I'll send you some of my favorite links.

Good luck with your journey......
Ruth

Thanks Ruth but for some reason I can't figure out, creating a deficit of calories isn't working for me.  My average calories are 900/day Sun-Thurs. and I burn at least 400-800 a day, then on the weekends I would drink some wine & go out to dinner which bumped up my caloric intake on Fri & Sat to @ 1400 - 1600 but again burning at least 800 calories on both Fri and Sat so my net calories are very low, yet I am not losing what I should.  I understand that alcohol can interfere with weight loss for various reasons but it is hard to understand with the calorie deficit I have that it would slow my loss down to a crawl.  Anyway gonna give up the wine/eating out and see how big a difference it makes. I am also getting my thyroid function and insulin resistance tested as well.  It just really ****** me off because in the past I ate/drank more, exercised less and lost just as fast as I am now.