IIFYM and Exercise Calories

Adirafox
Adirafox Posts: 107 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I am sure this has been asked before, and I did search the forums for this (and got totally caught up in a thread with a Wendy's T-Rex burger, which I have never seen before and was astounded!), but I couldn't easily find what I am looking for, so here goes:

First, a little background.

My husband is a meat and taters kind of guy and pretty sedentary. I'm much more culinarily adventurous, and quite active (normally). Both of us tend to drink rather heavily. Recently, mu husband has had a couple of incidents where he has drank a fair bit and gotten violently ill the next day. He's not hungover; remember that we tend to drink heavily, so we both have a pretty high tolerance. He started doing some research and became convinced that he has an overgrowth of Candida albicans, and thinks that I probably do, too, though not as severe as him.

He had a pretty bad sinus infection earlier this year and took antibiotics to cure it. I told him to take probiotics, but he didn't like the taste, so he didn't. Since then, he has had really bad gas and bloating. We took a cruise about a month ago, and since then, we have both been in a fog, and my energy levels just plummeted. We had been thinking that it is because we are both teachers and just needed to get back to work. However, once he started researching Candida, the symptoms and causes of overgrowth just really fit both of us.

I started to research the Candida diet (and I will tell you as a biology teacher that it is hard to trust so-called experts that don't realize that Candida albicans is the scientific name and that albicans should NOT be capitalized and that the whole name should be either underlined or italicized, but I digress....), and thought it looked ridiculous. It is SO restrictive.

However, he drinks a lot of Mountain Dew and eats a lot of processed food, and I have a huge sweet tooth.

I came to the conclusion that we should limit our sugar intake severely, reduce processed foods almost completely, and stop drinking completely, at least for a while. We have been doing this for just a few days, and even though there are some difficulties (what should I eat, lack of sugar/caffeine for him, etc), we both feel a heck of a lot better. Last night I went out with friends and knew I would drink, but I drank a large glass of water for every drink (which I have never done before, even though I knew I should), and had a hamburger (bun with carbs) and a small amount of french fries (pretty proud that I left most of them on the plate), and I feel great today....even though I had carbs and alcohol, I limited both.

Okay, there's the background.

I think that the IIFYM plan is the best for me to follow, because it emphasizes protein. I used the calculator, and it increased my daily caloric intake to 1900.

Here is my primary question: as I begin exercising, should I NOT eat back those calories? In other words, I would enter in my exercise calories as 1 and just continue as usual?

I am also curious about people's thoughts on the Candida, low sugar, etc.

Replies

  • Adirafox
    Adirafox Posts: 107 Member
    Bump! :flowerforyou:
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,252 Member
    I think you'll find that IIFYM is about discretionary calories and little to do with how you set up your macros and doesn't dictate how much you should eat either...........it's an eating philosophy.
  • grimendale
    grimendale Posts: 2,153 Member
    IIFYM is completely indpendent of whether you use a NEAT or TDEE calorie model. It is purely a philosophy on what you eat in order to hit the goals you have set.
  • Adirafox
    Adirafox Posts: 107 Member
    Okay, but what about exercise calories? MFP seems to be designed for exercise calories to be eaten back, but I'm not sure about IIFYM.
  • SideSteel
    SideSteel Posts: 11,068 Member
    Please read the following explanations. Hopefully this helps clear things up:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/817188-iifym
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/818082-exercise-calories-again-wtf
  • Adirafox
    Adirafox Posts: 107 Member
    Ahhh, gotcha! I was wondering why MFP gave me such lower numbers than other calculators. Thanks!
  • Lleldiranne
    Lleldiranne Posts: 5,516 Member
    Okay, but what about exercise calories? MFP seems to be designed for exercise calories to be eaten back, but I'm not sure about IIFYM.


    IIFYM usually follows TDEE calculators -- at least if you're going the the IIFYM websites. Those already factor your exercise calories in, so you DON'T eat them back. MFP gives you a lower calorie amount, but expects you to eat back exercise calories

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