Exercise dilemma

yvonne_beavis

I have lost about 50 lbs through diet and gentle exercise, mainly swimming and walking. I decided to increase my exercise and have been using the treadmill, and exercise bike, and also go to a keep fit class once a week. Over the past 10 days, for example, I have averaged around 500 calories per day. I am not going by the MFP calculator, as this seems rather high, but by the read out on the machine in the gym.

I feel very energised, and I feel as though I have lost weight, but the scales say I have lost a mere half pound since Xmas day. I wonder if this is because the exercise is making me so hungry that I eat at least three quarters of the calories earned, usually taking me to over 1500 per day, whereas my base number is 1200.

If anyone has any advice, I would appreciate it.

Thanks

LivingtheLeanDream

When we up our exercise our bodies hold on to extra water for repairing muscles - you can expect that to last for a few weeks before you get a whoosh . You are wise to eat some of those exercise calories back. 1500 is still not a lot of calories to eat. Keep doing what you're doing and the scales will reward you.

AllanMisner

This can be a few things:
1) Water retention for muscle repair (as RunRutheeRun state).
2) You may be undereating and your body is compensating for the energy deficit in other ways.
3) Your new normal weight loss might be less now. After you've lost the first bit, the rate of loss slows. Consider looking at weight loss as a percentage of current weight rather than in total. But even then, the loss rate can slow over time.

Just persist, make sure you're fueling yourself properly, and good things will happen.

Allan Misner
NASM Certified Personal Trainer
Host of the 40+ Fitness Podcast

capaul42

Have you recalculated your goals since you lost the 50lbs. You should be doing this after such losses since your tdee will change as your weight does. It's very possible your deficit isn't as much as you think anymore if it's based on your old weight.

cbohling1987

I don't know if this is the cause (water retention and the need to recalculate your TDEE do matter), however, the machines usually also overestimate calorie burn just like the MFP app. If you're using those numbers and then eating back some of your exercise calories, you may be eating back more of your deficit than you intend.

https://www.shape.com/fitness/cardio/how-inaccurate-are-calorie-counters-gym

Use the following formulas instead for walking and running:

Walking: 0.3 * (your body weight in pounds) * miles walked

Running: 0.63 * (your body weight in pounds) * miles run

Source: https://www.runnersworld.com/weight-loss/how-many-calories-are-you-really-burning

I don't know about cycling but there may be a similar formula.

yvonne_beavis

Thank you everyone for your feedback.

NorthCascades

cbohling1987 wrote: »

I don't know if this is the cause (water retention and the need to recalculate your TDEE do matter), however, the machines usually also overestimate calorie burn just like the MFP app. If you're using those numbers and then eating back some of your exercise calories, you may be eating back more of your deficit than you intend.

https://www.shape.com/fitness/cardio/how-inaccurate-are-calorie-counters-gym

Use the following formulas instead for walking and running:

Walking: 0.3 * (your body weight in pounds) * miles walked

Running: 0.63 * (your body weight in pounds) * miles run

Source: https://www.runnersworld.com/weight-loss/how-many-calories-are-you-really-burning

I don't know about cycling but there may be a similar formula.

Calories = kilo-Jules
or
Calories = seconds * avg power

Unfortunately either one needs specialized, expensive, heavy (by cycling standards) equipment to measure.

You can't really rule-of-thumb cycling like you can with running and walking for a few reasons:

Cyclists can coast, which means moving forward and not supplying energy, such that distance looses its meaning.

Also, people ride bikes anywhere from about 3 mph (up a hill) to 50 mph (coming back down) and anywhere between. By comparison everyone basically walks at the same speed. Why does it matter? Because air resistance goes up with the cube of your speed. It takes 8x as much energy to go 2x as fast. Again you can ignore that for walking because the range of walking speeds isn't huge.

sijomial

If your exercise bike displays power (watts) then the calorie estimates should be pretty reasonable.
If not then it's a bit of a lottery.