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RoadieKill104

Hello!

New to the site, and I have some burning questions about exercise and weight gain.

So I've been doing the Insanity workout for about 10 months now, and have seen some good results... At least at first. I started at about 160lbs (I'm a 5'9" male 26 btw), I dont think I was necessarily chubby or anything, but I just felt blah. In any case, 10 months later I'm actually down to around 124-125, and according to my wife and everyone around me I'm looking a bit too thin, almost unhealthy.

At first I dismissed this as nonsense, and almost took it as a compliment in a weird way. But lately things have been getting incredibly stressful and hard. What started as working out for fitness and fun turned into obsessively counting calories, restricting what I eat, working out wayyyyyyy more than in the beginning (insanity program is once a day 6 days, and I'm up to 2 insanity DVDs sometimes 7 days a week and jogging a couple of miles afterward sometimes).

This has had obvious negative consequences on my health and how I feel, my relationships, but weirdest and worst of all... My weight. It feels like it's harder for me to control my weight now than ever, and I'm feeling like being down so low doing so much cardio is making me more susceptible to weight fluctuations when I eat poorly? I guess it doesn't help that I binge every now and again because I feel like I can't control it when I'm around bad food...

So sorry for the long initial post... But I had to say all of that to get to this....

With a lot of support from my living beautiful wife I've decided to cut back on exercise and to eat more to allow myself to gain some weight back, if only to get back to where I can feel content and happy with life, and not be so worried and consumed by fitness. I'm thinking I'd be happy in the 140 range.

My question is though: how do I cut back on exercise without skyrocketing on the scale? I've decided a 3 day on 1 off 2 on 1 off (5 day routine) will work for my family and I, and be something I could commit to without overdoing it. But I'm already seeing the scale shoot up! Again I landed at 124-125, and 3 days into my workout lifestyle change I feel like it's all coming undone? Is it ok to make such an abrupt change? And will keeping myself in a deficit for so long make me store more fat now that I'm eating more as well?

If you read this, thank you so much, and any recommendations or support would be greatly appreciated!

Chuck M.

tgmichelleee

RoadieKill104 wrote: »

What started as working out for fitness and fun turned into obsessively counting calories, restricting what I eat, working out wayyyyyyy more than in the beginning (insanity program is once a day 6 days, and I'm up to 2 insanity DVDs sometimes 7 days a week and jogging a couple of miles afterward sometimes).

This has had obvious negative consequences on my health and how I feel, my relationships, but weirdest and worst of all... My weight. It feels like it's harder for me to control my weight now than ever, and I'm feeling like being down so low doing so much cardio is making me more susceptible to weight fluctuations when I eat poorly? I guess it doesn't help that I binge every now and again because I feel like I can't control it when I'm around bad food...

I'm not an expert, but I would agree with @MrM27. This does sort of sound like symptoms of an eating disorder or addiction. Although working out and eating healthy on its own is a good thing, obsessively counting calories, restricting what you eat, and working out way too much AND having negative consequences on your health, relationships, etc is not.
Your perception of weight is something you might want to address first (there are many support groups and forums and information you can access via the internet).

As to answer your question, again I'm not an expert, but my advice would be eat at maintenance and to rather track body fat percentage than track actual weight. If you're eating at maintenance you shouldn't be gaining weight (and I mean weight as in fat). The reason why you might want to track body fat % is because weight is prone to fluctuate due to water and sodium balances as well as stool in the system. However, body fat % are usually more stable. For example, I usually fluctuate between 3-7lbs in a day.

Another thing would be to start looking into lifting weights? It gives you another goal to aim for instead of a number on a scale, plus the more muscle you have the more calories you burn. Also with that, play around with your macros maybe. Everyone is different and thus everyone is going to react differently to different ratios of macros. I know for myself, I do better with higher fats and proteins than carbs, but my brother does great on carbs and proteins than fats.

Hope this helps and best of luck to you!

terbusha

If you've been doing low calories for a prolonged time, you'll want to do a reverse diet to get your calories up without gaining a lot of body fat. Check this video out and let me know if you have any questions about it.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3gTGLulLnI