Am I eating too little?

rbrookbanks

I suspect the answer is yes... I've followed the MFP guidelines to lose circa 1.5lb a week, progress has been pretty good but I've stalled recently.

Having read the forum a little it seems I should be eating back my exercise calories?

Does this mean I should arrive at the end of the week circa 0 net?

I cycle a lot, between 100 and 200 miles per week, typically covering 17.8 miles in just under the hour when I commute (hard work!)

Some weeks I've been -4000 calories net on a daily intake of 1500.

I'm guessing this is bad?

I *think* my diary is public if that helps.

Thanks for any advice

CyberEd312

Yeah not good to be running that large of a negative deficit.... Do you wear a HRM to track your calorie burns? I use Polar FT60 to track my calorie burns and eat back 85% of my calories burned as a general rule leaving 15% for error in logging and whatnot... You must fuel your body if you are going to demand that much energy output.... Your diary doesn't look bad (I am not in the "have to eat clean camp", I hit my macro goals for the day and any calories left over are fair game for some Ice cream, chips, pop tarts, whatever) so my advice is yes definitely start bumping up your caloric intake, your body will definitely respond... May I ask how much you weigh and what your goal (weight loss or maintenance or ??) is? You may have your weight loss goal set to aggressive, the less you have to lose the slower you need to take it off.... When I had over 300 lbs. to lose, my goal was 2 lbs. a week but now with less than 15 to 20 lbs. to lose my goals have changed so now when trying to lose my goal is 1/2 lb. a week tops... Best of Luck...

twinketta

Why not use a website like scooby to calculate your tdee, bearing in mind your cycling.

This way you can get more of an example of how many calories you should be eating.

This could work better for you instead of trying to work in your exercise cals on MFP?

But to answer your original question, then yes, IMO you are not taking in enough calories to fuel the exercise.

nxd10

You're supposed to eat back all the exercise calories. So one day a few days ago you had a deficit of 1000 calories more than you needed to lose what you set yourself to lose.

You should eat more because you're exercising a lot and need the energy so you can keep the muscle and burn the fat.

I'm going to guess you're plateuing because you have little lose and most of what you have left is muscle - which you don't want to lose. You are EXACTLY the kind of person that BMI doesn't work for. You have high muscle density for your height, therefore your BMI is artificially inflated.

Why do you think you need to lose more?

rbrookbanks

Yeah not good to be running that large of a negative deficit.... Do you wear a HRM to track your calorie burns? I use Polar FT60 to track my calorie burns and eat back 85% of my calories burned as a general rule leaving 15% for error in logging and whatnot... You must fuel your body if you are going to demand that much energy output.... Your diary doesn't look bad (I am not in the "have to eat clean camp", I hit my macro goals for the day and any calories left over are fair game for some Ice cream, chips, pop tarts, whatever) so my advice is yes definitely start bumping up your caloric intake, your body will definitely respond... May I ask how much you weigh and what your goal (weight loss or maintenance or ??) is? You may have your weight loss goal set to aggressive, the less you have to lose the slower you need to take it off.... When I had over 300 lbs. to lose, my goal was 2 lbs. a week but now with less than 15 to 20 lbs. to lose my goals have changed so now when trying to lose my goal is 1/2 lb. a week tops... Best of Luck...

I started off about 206lb, I want to lose about 25lb so I'm half way there already. Chances are it's still dropping but I only weigh myself once a week on a Friday AM so I don't know right now.

I fancy some guilty pleasures after all this work :-)

Hang on, 300 to lose? Blimey, that's a whole me and more, well done!

rbrookbanks

You're supposed to eat back all the exercise calories. So one day a few days ago you had a deficit of 1000 calories more than you needed to lose what you set yourself to lose.

You should eat more because you're exercising a lot and need the energy so you can keep the muscle and burn the fat.

I'm going to guess you're plateuing because you have little lose and most of what you have left is muscle - which you don't want to lose. You are EXACTLY the kind of person that BMI doesn't work for. You have high muscle density for your height, therefore your BMI is artificially inflated.

Why do you think you need to lose more?

I've still got a little flab round my middle. I'm not that bothered by what I weigh, I just want it all to be productive to protect my knees (old motorbike injury).

And yes, BMI doesn't really work for me, I once had a six pack and the doctor said I was officially 'obese'!

nxd10

If you have a bit of flab, I'd eat at maintenance and do ab specific exercises. You're burning the calories. Sounds like if you tighten up everything else will look like you want.

There are a 100 people on this site who will tell you that heavy lifting is the way to lean mass - which is what you want. They're probably right.