Don't Starve! The Eat More to Weigh Less Group

[ShirleyKnot]

Hello!

OK, stemming from this thread I promised to start a thread to explain a little bit more about eating well and still losing weight.

I'll start by telling you about me because I love to talk about me

About 5 years ago (when I was 34) I went back to work full time, this time locally, in a sedentiary desk job. I drive to work everyday and was often far too busy lazy to do any exercise at all. My weight remained fairly static (At about 11 stones, I'm 5ft 7.5 and fairly chunky) for a good couple of years and then it started creeping up.

For the past two years I have skipped on and off WW, SW and I have tried low calorie diets, the lot. My weight has gone up to 12 stone 11 lbs at it's highest and I'm carrying it pretty much all over. My gut though TERRIBLE - It hangs over my knickers and in January my size 16 clothes were starting to strain.

Miserable ain't the word. It has affected my confidence (yes, honestly) and I know that at my age (39) it is only going to get harder to lose.

So, in January I started back on WW. I watched everything I ate, I thought about food compulsively, I went for walks in my lunch hour, and every weekend I fell off the wagon and stuffed my face. WHY? It makes no sense! I gobbled bread and cakes and biscuits and sweets like mad.

In April, after having lost and gained the same 7lbs over and over again I joined BIWI's Low Carb Bootcamp, and started upping my exercise at the gym (Doing classes mainly and swimming and I also started the Couch 2 5K) this is where it got weird...I stuck to the diet, it was pretty easy! I loved the food and didn't feel hungry at all - my endurance during exercise was affected but I thought I'd break through that barrier sooner or later. I watched as people on the thread lost masses of weight and I was completely stalled out. What? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? I believe that during this time I was eating a good couple of thousand calories per day, plus exercising almost every day.

I left the group as I felt so fed up with not losing and limped back to my fitness pal, but decided to stick with the no crap (no white bread/pasta/rice, easy on the white potatoes, easy on the fruit) WOE. MFP gave me a calorie limit of 1,200 cals per day and I did this for a a few days before starting to feel rotten. I started looking around the MFP community pages and found the Eat More To Weigh Less Group and read every link, and lots of the discussion boards.

It was a lightbulb moment - WHY was I expecting my body to cope on less calories than it needs just to exist? WHYYYYY?

I started EMTWL on 16th May and have lost 1 lb. That doesn't really mean very much though, as the scales are FILTHY liars - but I have eaten very well and am losing inches consistently. Since I started eating more calories (I include BIWI's brilliant Bootcamp in this calculation) I have lost 4.5 inches from my waist and a good couple of inches from my hips, arse and bust. I have dropped a dress size.

OK. I'm going to post this essay and then I'm going to talk a bit about metabolic rate calculations and the sciency bits.

I enter my exercise and then just ignore it IYKWIM? I just look at my food consumed figure, make sure that's up to 2000 or close to it, then check that my net cals are over my BMR.

Mary - haha! Ooooh lovely chocolate!

Hi everyone, please can I join you? Thanks for all the info Shirley you are wonderful.

I've read the links and all seems to make good sense. I am very fat, but my main goal is to be more healthy, and if 7 stones just drop off along the way so much the better.

I am on MFP please add me as I need many kicks up the backside! My username is PhishFoodAddiction.

My daily cals (TDEE-15%) is 2350. I am starting tomorrow as I just finished a large bag of choccie buttons.

I'm worried Im making a mistake somewhere. I'm finding myself eating extra to keep to nt calorie allowance. Breakfast, cornflakes 35g and semi skimmed milk. Snack at 11am, 3 mini biscuits and a snack o jack. Lunch, tuna and sweetcorn salad, grapes. Dinner salmon steak with asparagus and sweetcorn salad, then a yogurt then a biscuit then a low fat ice lolly and still I'm not meeting 1400 calories and luckily I haven t done any exercises rods or I would still have loads left. I feel like I'm eating tonnes. I'm recording everything on mfp. Anyone else feel they're eating loads?

You are not eating enough fat Betty, that's for a start off! Where are your healthy fats?

You're eating like you're on a low calorie diet and you mustn't! If you're struggling to get your calories up then ditch the sweet crap and replace it with some full fat yogurts, some nice raw nuts, some bolted eggs. You need more protein and good healthy fats to get your calories up.

Believe me, next week you'll be saying "I can't believe I was having trouble eating all my calories! I WANT MORE!"

I'll friend everyone on MFP - I send a message saying that I'm Shirley - if you don't receive a friend request, please remind me as I might have just missed you out!

sorry I looked at total calories on snack list instead of just for the sprite. It still has loads though. 140 calories in one glass of sprite.
Can others see my food list on mfp?

lidl is fab for stocking up on good chocolate, yogurts, oaty things, nuts. All cheaper than other supermarkets near me.

I bought full fat yogurt - that's a first for me . I love nuts, I'll get some tomorrow. I don't eat meat and use soya and quorn mostly which are naturally low in fat. Ooohhhh, I've just remembered I've got loads of salted peanuts in the cupboard (I bought them for my son) I'll treat myself to some tomorrow.

Just wanted to ask, is it better to try and have several small meals throughout the day? Thinking about it, I seem to go mad at mealtimes, like I'm scared I'll never see food again maybe it's because I leave it too long between meals.

I got into bad habits after having 2 DDs in 12 months, time to eat was rare so when I had time I'd shovel something down, anything I could just shove right into my mouth with no hassle, crisps, cake biccies etc. I'm still doing it 4 years later but am feeling positive about making some changes.

Just come across this thread and reading with interest, as it's exactly what I do, mainly because I am too greedy to eat at anything below about TDEE - 500 or so calories. I've read a bit on eat more weigh less type stuff on MFP before, and it made sense, nice to see so many converts!

I've been doing it on MFP for a few months now and (apart from a MAJOR blowout last week on holiday) have had huge success. Warning - I didn't lose a single pound for almost two months, but then I suddenly lost 3lbs in the space of about two weeks, which isn't bad considering I am within 5-10lbs of my goal weight. I also lost inches during the two months when I wasn't losing any weight according to the scales (I exercise quite hard though, so plenty of toning going on I think. I have graduated to this from Shred).

SE (you again!) I tend to put in my exercise and then ignore it, iykwim, and just look at actual calories in rather than net. I only put it on so that I can check that my net calories aren't below my BMR. They never have been yet

The biggest thing that has helped me stick to this system is lots of planning my food in advance. I try to always have a couple of days ahead already filled in in my diary, then I just make minor adjustments on the day if I eat differently. I need to make adjustments most days, but it does mean that I don't end up at dinner time with either no calories or 1,000 calories to eat. It also means I balance my macros a bit more successfully, as I can fiddle around with what I have planned in order to get my protein up to the right level (I largely ignore fat and carbs, and concentrate on protein, as I eat so clean that around 75% of my fat intake is 'good' fat - the remaining 25% generally comes from homemade cake - and I'm not remotely fussed about high/low carbs).

If anyone wants to add me on MFP and have a nosy through my diary to see what I eat, feel free! Username is Islaybower.

Muddled I generally stick to breakfast/snack/lunch/snack/dinner/snack, but in an ideal world I would cut out the second two snacks, as I understand that it's good for your hunger/satiety hormone levels if you actually have long enough to get hungry between meals. I hate being hungry though!

Hopefully I hate being hungry too, that's why I can't get on with low calorie diets. I think I'll try adding in a couple of snacks and reducing the shite less healthy stuff.

I filled MFP in for today expecting it to be really bad but I wasn't much over my daily allowance.

You really can eat so much more when you stick to healthy stuff. Saying that, I never do stick exclusively to it, but even I could see that my massive bowl of cottage cheese, honey and fruit salad from this afternoon was going to fill me up more than the teeny weeny cupcake I had this morning.

Hello hopefully!

Hooray to someone showing up who is further along!

I am scared of eating so much it feels wrong and im so scared ill put on weight.

I had 2 small wm toast and an egg for bfast.
Praw cocktail and salad and some granary bread for lunch and a cereal bar and a banana.

The have had 2 glasses of wine (annoyed with dh) and some peanut butter on a hunk of grananry bread and some guaccamole.

Is that not enough? Im not really hungry. I feel like the only way to get my cals up is to eat crap

Right I am totally on board with this now but just have a quick question to check that I have understood it correctly.

My BMR is 1600 and my TDEE is 2100 so I get that I have to eat 2100 calories each day (which is no hardship ) but my question is, today I have done a bodycombat class which burns about 600 calories...so that would take my net calories to 1500 so I need to eat an extra 100 calories today (so 2200 in total) because of this...is this correct?

Also, the eating lots and eating full-fat stuff is actually difficult to get your head around isn't it? We are so ingrained with 'diet' stuff that it really is a leap of faith to do this...but I am determined!

Well I'm done for the day and came in at 515 under, including 281 of exercise calories. I am stuffed. Made the mistake today of not having breakfast (not intentional, the morning just ran away from me) and have been trying to catch up all day, which is wrong.

Hopefully - can you get that Insanity workout in the UK? I love the look of it!

Night all...

Right, have just ploughed my way through this thread

It all seems tomake sense and actually sounds like a diet I can stick to. Ihave but one question, Shirl': will it work for me if my body hasn't been in starve-mode? I have been over-doing it somewhat for a fair few months now

Shirley I really believe in this way of eating, so i can help you persuade other people to join the cult

Cbeebee are you just trying to maintain? Assume so, because eating your TDEE is a maintenance thing, not a weight loss thing (are you one the many who are giving their body a chance to reset by eating at TDEE for a while?) If so, you can probably take or leave the extra 100 calories (I would take them, because I'm greedy) as you please. 100 calories isn't actually that much as a one off in the grand scheme of things. Being under by a couple of hundred every day for a few weeks isn't ideal, but being 100 under or over here or there won't affect things.

foosty you can buy insanity from www.beachbody.co.uk for some ridiculous sum, or it quite often comes up on ebay for a bit less. Not actually much less though. I am planning on ebaying mine once I finish, as they generally seem to get quite a good price.