Hi im new to the forum… im just after some advice because i feel stuck! i am not overweight but the past few months ive put on around 3kg… i think i have damaged my metabolism because my calorie intake used to be very low and ive slowly upped it to approximately 1400 calories a day which is probably still low but it feels like enough for me.
i do minimal cardio and lift weights 3 - 4 times a week. im not sure if the weight is muscle or fat because from what ive learned you have to eat a lot more calories than maintenance to build muscle. i would like to maintain the muscle i have and lose a bit of fat to get leaner but i am scared to decrease my calories any lower because that might do more damage but on what im eating now im not losing any weight either and im weighing pretty much all my food now and tracking calories!
would it just be my metabolism has gone slow and how can i fix this to reach my goal? by the way i am 167cm and 123lbs
Go see a registered Dietitian
Obviously a bit more info would be helpful, but off the cuff, I’d opt for SLOWLY allowing your body to re-acclimate to a higher amount of overall macros on a daily basis.
S
sorry about that, i dont count the exact ammount of fat although it would be quite low. i just count total calories and protein is about 90 grams a day and i get most my carbs from breakfast but im not sure the exact ammount of carbs. i do include some good fats like nuts, natural peanut butter and almond butter, avocado and salmon but not eating a huge ammount…
90g/protein is a bit low for 123 lbs. Not bad, but still a bit low.
Try to shoot for around 120g/day
what’s your breakfast look like?
If I take your numbers and plug them into a BMI calculator I get 19.9. Now, I know BMI is unreliable, but that’s on the light side of “normal”.
Which begs the question, what’s your goal, and what have you previously been doing to get there?
It’s not that BMI is unreliable, it just isn’t that useful among active populations.
For example, she could be 123 lbs at 30% body fat, hence why she isn’t happy with her physique or she could be 123 lbs at 18% body fat.
well i just want to lose a bit of body fat, not heaps and maintain my muscle mass… ive only put on 3kg but im worried about my metabolism being slow so i dont want to gain anymore weight if this makes sense
The best way to stimulate your metabolism is by engaging in heavy, whole-body weight training at least 3 to 4 times per week.
EVERY single time I have probed a story like this, I have found out that the 1400 calories does not include the big bag of M&Ms or other cheats done “occasionally,” or is not done using an accurate scale but rather with estimates that turn out to be way off. A few estimates that are off, or a few cheats here and there, and the person is actually consuming 1800 or 1900 per day on average – which is slightly above her maintainance, and a pretty typical one for a small female after some dieting.
I used to believe it was possible to gain fat on very low calories after “depressing” one’s metabolism with severe dieting, but every time I encountered a possible case, I had to first make sure that the consumed calories were REALLY that low. And every time, it turned out they were not.
im curious what are peoples thoughts on this… if a persons maintenance cals is around 1500 and they drop calories to around 1000 a day and they stop losing weight and the body adapts to eating 1000 cal and then they increase to 1300 which is still under their real maintenance … would they gain any weight ? if the body was maintaining at 1000…