when you're exhausted becuase your babies don't sleep and all you want is SUGAR

10k4me

Ok so, this is my first post here and I am a bit nervous! I have been eating more for about 6 weeks and am almost at the end of Stage 1 in NROL4W. I have been spying on these posts and discussions for some time, they are great and so helpful.

6 weeks in I have started to see some good results, my clothes feel looser, the scales have gone down a touch and my body is definitely starting to change shape. I am lifting 3 times a week but otherwise work a full time desk job (my husband is at home with the kids). I spend the weekends outside with the kids (1 yo and 3 yo) so I get a couple of hours outside walking round on those days if the weather is good.

At the moment, my struggle is that no matter what I eat it's not enough. I am HUNGRY all the time? Has anyone experienced this? Is it my metabolism firing up? I don't want to undo all my hard work but I am struggling on 1900 a day!

If my babies don't sleep well (and I also don't as a consequence). I am ravenous and truly struggle to stay within 1900 calories. Thoughts? Can I have my calories wrong? I calculated them on the Scooby Workshop calculator linked in this group. I also tried Heybales worksheet but that just TOTALLY confused me ( serious props though HeyBales for some mad formulas and cross referencing).

Any ideas/thoughts gratefully received - even thoughts on how to stay energised with very little sleep and staying out of the chocolate box!

heybales

So the rough 5 level TDEE tables are ONLY exercise on top of assumed sedentary lifestyle - which you don't have.
- You family life with kids is Lightly Active by itself.
- Your exercise by itself is whatever you selected, guessing Lightly Active.

But put together you need to go up a level if you didn't do that. Then take the deficit.
So Moderately Active.

And very true, if lack of sleep, that means you aren't recovering as fast and/or as much, which means you should have a smaller deficit on that next day, so you could eat more.

But it does indicate your body is trying to repair and build stronger - hence it's desire for you to eat more. Not metabolism, just normal repair elevated calorie burn.


On the spreadsheet, you want to stay on the Simple Setup and Progress tabs only. Delete all sample data is yellow cells if not curious about seeing what changes when you change it. Enter your own data.
Then you can use the TDEE shown there.
You don't given enough info for someone to give opinion on your calories.

10k4me

Thank you, you are right - there is definitely an elevated calorie burn after lifting!

So I have gone into the spreadsheet, deleted the yellow cell data and entered my own info. It gives me a TDEE on the simple set up page of 2,096.

On the TDEE Defecit tab, based on a multiplier moderately active I get 2,343 which, with a 15% defecit gives me a daily goal of 2,130.

Is it 2,130 I should be aiming for?

The info I entered is this:
Female
34 yo
weight 79.6kg
BF% 43%
0 hours activity during work week more than sitting
120mins low cardio
120 mins medium cardio
120 mins wieght lifting

As you say, I have kids (but am not running after them during work days, only on weekends). I lift 3 x 40 mins per week and try and get in 3 x 40 min cardio on other days (usually a brisk walk or moderate steady pace cycle).

I'd be grateful for any opionions/thoughts...

heybales

So staying on the Simple Setup tab - TDEE best estimate 2096.

Take your deficit, or do reset by working your way up to eating there for a while.

The Activity calc on that tab is more finely tuned than you guessing from 5 rough levels, which you did on the TDEE deficit tab. The 5 rough levels usually overshoots, especially if you count hours of walking being equal to other exercise, which is obviously not true (1 hr walking equal 1 hr running to 1 hr lifting?).
If people corrected every month based on actual results, that would be fine to over shoot, because you'd correct in a month.
I find the majority don't though. They wonder why no loss for months on end. Though exercise has great benefit when eating at maintenance - which is happening in those cases.

But if the goal is fat loss, gotta take a deficit, and at start of lifting, you can transform body while losing fat and weight.
If you attempt it later after lifting for a while, you can't do both as well.

Sounded like honest with activity entered.

Then spend a month with accurate food logging, use valid weigh-in days, and use the Progress tab TDEE calc with a month of data to fine tune the Activity calc based on actual results.