Resting Metabolic Rate...How Is This Possible? (Read 528 times)

I am an overweight but moderately active 26 year old female. To put it in perspective and be totally honest, I weight 240 pounds and I'm 5'7" or so. Every time I use one of those calculator things (from all over the place, because I never believe the results on any one site) it tells me I require something over 3000 calories a day to maintain my weight. I don't eat 3000 calories a day. Ever. I eat around 2000 calories a day. So how/why is it that I don't lose weight? I mean even not counting any kind of exercise (at the moment I'm "benched" from running, but I walk my dog, yard work, etc), purely counting calories (which I do...and I don't lie about portion sizes or anything like that), this suggests that every day I have a 1000 calorie deficit, so theoretically I should be losing 2 pounds a week. Yet that doesn't happen, and even more frustrating is that when I do ramp up my exercise to the point when I'm burning 250-500 calories a day with exercise, I still don't lose weight. WTF? Is it possible that I'm not eating enough and my body is doing the starvation mode thing? I mean it seems ridiculous to think that is the case, cause I'm fat, I'm certainly not starving, yet the numbers just don't make sense.

So does that mean it's not related to your weight at all? In other words, whether I way 240 or 140, if I eat more than 1400 calories a day I'll gain weight? That's kind of depressing, but at the same time would explain why I haven't lost weight.

You may know this, but I would encourage you to look at your protein/carbs/fat ratios in addition to looking at the calories. Spark people is a good website to track food intake and it graphs your ratios as well. I also think the book, Clean Eating, is a great resource for healthy recipes. good luck and try not to get discouraged. There are a lot of good resources out there.

Come join us on the weight loss forum http://www.runningahead.com/groups/jiggly_joggers/Forum