Balancing calories and exercise

Dianemarie65

Hello Everyone. I have a question regarding balancing calories with exercise. It seems the more I exercise the more my appetite peaks especially between the hours of 2 pm to 4 pm daily. Does anyone have the same issues? It's a challenge keeping my intake where I want it to be and not overeat.

punkrockgoth

I find it does start to even out after your body gets used to the increase in activity. However, making sure you're fueling properly before and after your workout will help too. If you're eating enough throughout the day to support your level of activity, you won't be ravenous because of your workouts.

TeaBea

Are you doing steady state or high intense cardio?

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/going-steady-5-reasons-to-do-steady-state-cardio.html

The type of workout you are doing could have an effect.

heybales

Outside the fact you should be eating more because you are indeed burning more (the way MFP works if used correctly), the above comment about when you eat around your workouts can have a bearing.

And for you, what you eat may have a bearing too. May eat nothing but carbs, get insulin spike, and then low blood sugar, making you feel hungry when really not needing anymore food.
May do best with eating some protein and fat with every meal/snack, and first.

Then again, maybe your workouts are better and burn more than the database is giving you credit for, so you should be eating even more.

Dianemarie65

My workouts are a mixture of running, cycling, yoga and pilates. It's different everyday. I do try and balance my protein and carbs to prevent frequent hunger. I often wonder why my appetite spikes in the afternoon? My workouts are most generally in the morning or early afternoon.

nxd10

They've done some studies that say that in general people get hungrier when they exercise and eat more than they use. Obviously not true all the time, but it's not uncommon if you don't watch your weight. I have to make sure I am not hungry before I start exercising and have a light snack afterwards so my sugar doesn't crash.

heybales

Dianemarie65 wrote: »

My workouts are a mixture of running, cycling, yoga and pilates. It's different everyday. I do try and balance my protein and carbs to prevent frequent hunger. I often wonder why my appetite spikes in the afternoon? My workouts are most generally in the morning or early afternoon.

So mostly stuff that could increase your daily burn by a decent amount.

And if you log it at wrong intensity, even worse effect.

Is running on treadmill so you know exactly the pace you averaged the whole time - so you can log it using the correct database entry?
Like getting up to 7 mph eventually doesn't get logged as 7mph if you only did 5 miles in 1 hour.

If cycling is spin bike, be aware the ones with computers are totally making up your distance and average speed, and you should NOT use those entries in the database as it's totally wrong. But that would be inflated direction.
But confirm the time is right if spin class. Really 60 min long, or really 45 min with warm-up/cool-down and stretching?

Then just a matter of logging honestly and as accurate as possible, much like food logging.

Which you could be underestimating by too much to "be on the safe side" and undereating for for trying to maintain weight.

RaspberryTickleChicken

If I am properly hydrated throughout an activity I find that I don't experience the massive hunger afterwards.

Dianemarie65

Heybales - I agree with you on the calorie accuracy with each exercise. I think MFP tends to give more calories burned than the actual amount. I change my calories burned based on what my Garmin says.
Rasberry- Good suggestion on hydration. I probably fail in this area and need to drink more water.
Thank you everyone for your thoughts on this. It's a daily challenge to try and eat healthy and not overdo when my appetite spikes. Consistency and hard work is the key. I just need to be more disciplined.

LivingtheLeanDream

RaspberryTickleChicken wrote: »

If I am properly hydrated throughout an activity I find that I don't experience the massive hunger afterwards.

^^this is true for me too...but yeah when I have done high cardio days then I can't get filled and end up eating over TDEE - I've stopped those sorts of days now for that reason.

sijomial

Dianemarie65 wrote: »

Heybales - I agree with you on the calorie accuracy with each exercise. I think MFP tends to give more calories burned than the actual amount. I change my calories burned based on what my Garmin says.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that a low estimate must be more accurate - it's a logical fallacy I'm afraid.
My Garmin for cycling actually gives a ludicrously low estimate, as far as I can tell about half of the true amount.

heybales

sijomial wrote: »

Dianemarie65 wrote: »

Heybales - I agree with you on the calorie accuracy with each exercise. I think MFP tends to give more calories burned than the actual amount. I change my calories burned based on what my Garmin says.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that a low estimate must be more accurate - it's a logical fallacy I'm afraid.
My Garmin for cycling actually gives a ludicrously low estimate, as far as I can tell about half of the true amount.

Ditto, and that's compared to several online bike calc's that I don't even include the wind factor in when I compare.

Shoot, even the simple ones looking at average rolling resistance and wind resistance with bike+rider weight are much higher than Garmin.

@Dianemarie65 - for everyone that claims the database over-estimates (many times based on nothing more than another estimate is different and lower, another lack of logic), there is going to be someone else it's about right on, and someone else it underestimates on.

MFP took a database that could have had much better accuracy based on a user's resting calorie burn, and converted it to being based on weight.
So those at either extreme are missing out on accuracy, in opposite directions.
For me the database is almost always low a tad, except swimming is almost always right on.
Walking and running, if I nail the speed, or the speed between levels actually, is almost right on.

What Garmin are you using?

Dianemarie65

I am using the Forerunner 310 XT.

heybales

Me too. If you are curious what VO2max figure it must be using based on it's calculations, check out the first spreadsheet on my profile page. You'll need to copy to your personal Google space, or download as Excel if you have it. Android and iPhone have apps for Google Sheets.
Over to the Garmin tab.
This used to be the table they had you select your activity level from - now it does it based on it actually being used and workouts logged. So if you do workouts it's not aware of, you could be getting a lower activity level and lower VO2max than it should be using.

Then after seeing what it comes up with, check out the HRM tab and see what Polar is using, have to fill in a few more stats there, but again activity level, and it'll show the VO2max it's probably using. This study was more recent and found to be better.
Polar uses that public research study results, I'm just not sure if the tweak it. Only had 3 people check their device, plus me, and what is shown on device matched, so I think they do.

If curious on accuracy anyway.

atypicalsmith

Exercise between 2:00 and 4:00. Problem solved.