Trying to Master the Art of Diet and Exercise

Kfont42

I've been trying to work out consistently for about a month now. I've been good about going to the gym and am now in the habit of going to the gym 4+ days a week. I take 3 high intensity cardio/strength courses a week (combat, dance, and weight lifting), and one yoga class. I've also been counting my calories and watching how much junk I eat, though I tend to crave salty foods, so that's something I need to work on.

I've seen some weight loss, but I'm also avoiding the scale because weight fluctuates so much, the number on the scale is often discouraging. I've started measuring myself, and in just two weeks, I've lost up to 2.5 inches in places.

I know with weight they say that it's healthy to lose 1 to 2 pounds a week. What is a realistic/healthy goal for losing inches? I'm not expecting a 6-pack overnight, I'm just trying to determine if I'm on the right track.

Also, how do you balance calories? If you're exercising, do you still aim for the original calorie goal, or do you eat more calories to balance out the exercise?

Blitzia

I'm not sure about rates for losing inches, and I haven't been tracking my inches through losing weight so I can't even say from personal experience.

For your second question, you are supposed to eat however many calories you burned with exercise. The caveat to that statement is that sometimes the estimates for how many calories you burned can be flat out wrong. If your fitbit/HRM/MFP database/whatever tells you that you burned 700 calories when in reality you only burned 200, you will wipe out your deficit by eating those 700 calories back.

So it depends on how much confidence you have in your calorie burn estimates. (HRMs are probably more accurate than fitbits, which are in turn more accurate than the MFP database, etc.) If you aren't confident in the estimates, try only eating back a portion of the exercise calories and monitor your weight. If you're losing more than the goal you set on MFP, eat back more of the calories. If you're losing less weight than the goal you set on MFP, eat back fewer of the exercise calories.

But congratulations on the inches lost, it sounds like you're off to a great start!

Kfont42

I don't have an HRM or FitBit, so I'm loosely relying on the MFP database. I generally assume I'm burning less than what they tell me. In general, I feel like I see conflicting information on healthy calorie intake, and it's hard to reconcile all of the information. I want to make sure I'm finding a balance that is healthy and sustainable.