Need Advice on Stabilizing Weight

June 1, 2007

I would appreciate any advice on the best way to gain a few pounds

when you feel you have gone too far with your weight loss and want to

get back to a slightly higher BMI. I know. The obvious answer is eat

more, right? But how much more? I am a moderately active (lift weights

three days a week and walk the other days) 6'1 " 44 year-old male

whose BMI dropped to 18.1 when I was eating 1900-2000 calories a day.

I realized that I had gone too low for me and decided I wanted to get

back to a BMI around 19 (about 144 lbs.)and stay there.

I started eating 2200 calories a day and after a month of doing this I

actually look like I have gained some weight. Specifically, I look

like I have added some muscle. However, the scale at my

gym seems to fluxuate a lot and has had me anywhere from 142 lbs. to

back down to 137 just within the past few days. I know that weight

naturally fluxuate throughout the day but still seeing some weights

that I find too low is making me feel like I don't really have a

handle on things yet. So now I am wondering if I may need to add more

calories, and if so how many? I went up to 2,300 today (12.7% CR

according to Tony's calculator) and may need to keep my daily calorie

there for a while. Or do I need to just give up CR for now and focus

on getting to what I believe is my optimal CR weight and maintaining

that at whatever calorie level it takes? My other option, of course,

is to cut back to a lighter level of exercise. However, I really don't

want to do that if I can avoid it. At the same time, I recognize that

the exercise is increasing my daily calorie needs and balancing all

this seems pretty darn tricky.

I have had great success with the health benefits of CR to date but I

sometimes worry that I won't be able to keep to a low enough calorie

level long-term to continue getting the CR benefits without having to

always worry about being too thin. Then again, I will probably find

out soon enough that my metabolism will slow down with age! Any and

all advice is appreciated. Thanks!

Jeff

Recommended Posts