Lightly active or active?

kkorzeniowska

Hi everyone.
I use fitness pal from months. Lost 10kg and now Im trying to maintain my weight. I train 4 days a week, so about 4 hours all together. I always push myslef hard and do strength trainings. I eat 2000 calories a day. It's less than fitness pall shows to maintain my weight if I'm active,but more of I'm lightly active. I sit at work so for 8 hours I'm not active at all, after work I'm busy as a bee. Cooking,cleaning,I never sit down, plus trainings.... I don't know how much calories I should eat. I stick to the diet perfectly in the week but binging food a lot in the weekends. Wish to avoid it... Scale shows all the time the same though 58.5 kg. I'm.thinking about eating more calories In the week. Maybe that will stop me from overeating in the weekends? What do you think? Please help.

SezxyStef

Per this article
1) <5000 steps.d (sedentary);
2) 5000-7499 steps.d (low active);
3) 7500-9999 steps.d (somewhat active);
4) > or =10,000-12,499 steps.d (active); and
5) > or =12,500 steps.d (highly active)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14715035

This is how lots measure their activity level.

If you aren't gaining or losing then leave it alone you are fine...if you up your calories during the week knowing you will over eat on the weekends you will probably gain weight.

I have a desk job as well but I am still lightly active without exercise...I know most aren't.

AsISmile

You could work with a weekly calorie goal instead.
If you are not gaining at your current intake, use 2 weeks-month of data to figure out your average daily calories.
Multiply x 7 to get a weekly goal. Then just eat normally on weekdays and "overeat" in the weekends and don't surpass your weekly goal if that is what works for you.

kkorzeniowska

The thing is I feel so guilty once I eat more in the weekend....is anyone feels the same? Guilt drives me mad....I keep beating myself up for being week and rush to the scale to keep checking haven't I put anything back on.... So I work extra hard with extra kilograms on at the gym,all is ok and then again weekend comes and I'm hungry all the time. I just thought if I'll get right amount of calories during the week,I won't be craving food so much in the weekend and let my sugar level to spike up like crazy. It seems like...My body screaming to eat back all what I burned in the week.

kkorzeniowska

Thank you for the replies.I do believe there is many people more experienced than me here and I really want to improve myself all the time.

AddieOverhaul

Can you try filling up on lower calorie food?

faithyang

kkorzeniowska wrote: »

The thing is I feel so guilty once I eat more in the weekend....is anyone feels the same? Guilt drives me mad....I keep beating myself up for being week and rush to the scale to keep checking haven't I put anything back on.... So I work extra hard with extra kilograms on at the gym,all is ok and then again weekend comes and I'm hungry all the time. I just thought if I'll get right amount of calories during the week,I won't be craving food so much in the weekend and let my sugar level to spike up like crazy. It seems like...My body screaming to eat back all what I burned in the week.

Yep, I'm like this too, even if I've made concessions during the week to enable myself to eat more during the weekends, as I work bloody hard during the week personal + professional and I'll be darned if I can't sit back and enjoy this one life that I have.

But come weekend I get really guilty when it finally comes to me 'collecting' on that surplus that I've built up.

Its a habit. Once you've built up a habit of avoiding certain types of food - ie. sugar, etc, it's not a switch you can flip up and down so easily, and I guess with the amount of mental and emotional investment we have made into these habits it's a lot more ingrained in us the whole subconscious 'if i eat this, will i be offsetting the hard work I've put in?' which inadvertently comes floating at the very least to the back of our head!

faithyang

But yeah I do the exact same thing - I'll eat a little more because I planned for it. I won't rush straight away to the scale but mentally I have already thought "OMG I have eaten more than the cal I deserve/allotted" and on my weigh in - I rush to weigh myself thinking I would have gained 1kg extra, and this is after I would have consciously eaten less to 'offset' that day I've already made calorie concessions for. Its a cycle and it kinda sucks, but its a mental hump we'll get over by giving ourselves some time, and talking ourselves through it everytime it comes up - like 'relax, worst case scenario, 0.5-1kg - easy peasy. One kilo = 7000 cal. Did you eat 7000 cal? No. You made up for it during the week and you are just collecting on it with this one dish. Just enjoy yourself. You deserve it and it doesn't take long anyway to lose 0.5kg worst case scenario. You've already reached your goal weight so you'll just end up losing weight.'

Jacqui_Runs

kkorzeniowska wrote: »

The thing is I feel so guilty once I eat more in the weekend....is anyone feels the same? Guilt drives me mad....I keep beating myself up for being week and rush to the scale to keep checking haven't I put anything back on.... So I work extra hard with extra kilograms on at the gym,all is ok and then again weekend comes and I'm hungry all the time. I just thought if I'll get right amount of calories during the week,I won't be craving food so much in the weekend and let my sugar level to spike up like crazy. It seems like...My body screaming to eat back all what I burned in the week.

Okay. So really to me it doesn't seem like too much of a problem if you are not gaining anything and you are staying active. But here is my question: is every meal a high calorie meal? Are you just snacking on high calorie things throughout the day? Are you not working out weekends and maybe that's where the guilt is coming from?

I give myself one cheat meal a week (I'm still working on losing though). Maybe you can give yourself one cheat meal Saturday, and one Sunday, just so that you are still controlling it somehow and it lessens the guilt?

kkorzeniowska

I eat 3 bigger meals. Breakfast dinner and supper and between I eat 2 snacks. I love cooking, I cook every day, I don't eat food from packages I don't like junk food (I craved for McDonald's so badly twice though.... I was drived up there with my husband at 10pm even though before that I was already in bed!) I make sure my food is always different,rich and delicious, I never touch any chocolate or cakes during the week and that was always my biggest problem. Carbs and sugar, I was affected to it I suppose

kkorzeniowska

Addicted, sorry for mistake

kkorzeniowska

The thing is I'm panicking because I don't want to lose what I already achieved.I'm happy from my body, for the first time ever, I thought that maybe spreading those extra calories which I eat in the weekend to the week will help me to stop cravings. I don't want to eat ice cream and then grab a cake, I imagine it will only turn into fat if I'll spike my sugar level so much at once

nxd10

SezxyStef wrote: »

Per this article
1) <5000 steps.d (sedentary);
2) 5000-7499 steps.d (low active);
3) 7500-9999 steps.d (somewhat active);
4) > or =10,000-12,499 steps.d (active); and
5) > or =12,500 steps.d (highly active)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14715035

This is how lots measure their activity level.

If you aren't gaining or losing then leave it alone you are fine...if you up your calories during the week knowing you will over eat on the weekends you will probably gain weight.

I have a desk job as well but I am still lightly active without exercise...I know most aren't.

I agree with this. And as a pedometer user, I can tell you that that's how many extra calories you get from those steps.

BTW, you may have to adjust your activity level to fit your metabolism. Watch your weight and see what happens.