Burn sessions of 1500-2500 calories.. how many to eat?

GiddyNZ

Hi There,

I am interested to hear from people who regularly burn say 1500 - 2500 in a single session of exercise.

I love to mountain bike, and usually have at least one 2 - 4 hour session a week where I am burning circa 2000 calories.. and I was wondering how other people deal with eating back calories.. obviously I am not going to eat all these back.. lol I have plateaued for the last couple of weeks which is somewhat frustrating as I was doing so well, so I wondered if these big burn days were taking a toll, and would appreciate any constructive advice.

A bit more about me as I am sure people will ask.. I am 5'8, 85kg.. work an office job, but also work out at the gym 3 - 4 nights a week circa 500 cals per session as well as my weekend ride of circa 2000 cals, I very recently changed my calorie deficit to .5lb's per week which gave me a daily calorie allowance of 1680ish plus exercise as I was plateauing and hoped that might help, but I am not sure that was the right thing to do... (also if you are looking at food, yes I do weigh food, and the last week at work was very stressful so a few things in there that shouldn't have been )

Thanks in advance

lizziegs

I would say eat more. Eat at maintenance for a few weeks. Your body may be going in starvation mode because you are burning so much. Just a thought!

RobynLB83

On a regular day, my workout burns somewhere around 600-1,000. Once a week, I might do a longer workout or two workouts in a day. Like on the weekend if I do 6 hours of backpacking or I do a long run and a boxing class. On days where I'm burning 3,000 calories, I honestly don't worry about how much I am eating back or what my goals are. I eat a sufficient amount to feel fueled throughout the activity (which is somewhere around an extra 600-800 calories), and if I feel a lot hungrier than normal the next day, I might eat a few extra hundred calories that day too. You don't need to eat back every calorie, but you don't do yourself any favors by overtraining and under eating.

healthytanya1

Bump, I have the same problem. I'm pretty active at work plus I do other workouts. And once a week I go hiking for about 5 hours so I'm burning tons of calories. For the first 2 months I did really well and lost 10 lbs each month. Well for june my weight loss has kinda stalled. I even gained a 1 lb the last few days. I stay around 1200 calories so I'm thinking its time to raise it and see what happens. I'm scared cuz I did ao well at 1200 calories and I don't want to slip into my old ways again by eating more.

GiddyNZ

Thanks for your comments

SwimBikeRunMama

I would say to eat more and see how it goes. You don't want to have more than a 7000 calorie deficit over the course of the week. I rarely eat less than 2000 calories per day, and I'm actively losing weight. I'm marathon training ATM, so some days I eat way more than that. Between my swimming, biking, running, trail running, and strength training, I do have days where my workouts will burn upwards of 3000+ calories. I don't eat them all back in one day, but I do eat them through the week. I'll eat more than I "should" in the day or two prior to my longest workout, and again in the day or two after (so really, most days). I look more at the total for the week, rather than each day, because your body works more than way than on a 24 hour clock.