Ate MORE calories last week and lost MORE weight? Mental block of eating back what I burn
runnermom419
Posts: 366 Member
Weighed in last week at 159. Overall had a good week but binged on Chinese food Wednesday night (probably well over 3,000 calories - I didn't count - It was a lot and my stomach was messed up for the next two days). Weighed in today and was down 2 pounds. I drink close to 100 oz. of water a day, so I know I'm not dehydrated.
I changed my goal last week from 1 pound a week to .5 pounds. I KNOW I need to be eating back what I burn. Even a fraction of it. But, I have a huge mental block from it. Let's say I run tonight and burn 500 calories. If I eat back half of that, I could have a candy bar for dessert (which, I actually might).
How did everyone get in the habit and routine of eating back what you burn? I am going to try and eat back half of what I burn this week while doing cardio (measured with chest strap heart rate monitor). I need to, but like I said, it's hard for me to be mentally okay with it. (diary is open if anyone wants to look).
I changed my goal last week from 1 pound a week to .5 pounds. I KNOW I need to be eating back what I burn. Even a fraction of it. But, I have a huge mental block from it. Let's say I run tonight and burn 500 calories. If I eat back half of that, I could have a candy bar for dessert (which, I actually might).
How did everyone get in the habit and routine of eating back what you burn? I am going to try and eat back half of what I burn this week while doing cardio (measured with chest strap heart rate monitor). I need to, but like I said, it's hard for me to be mentally okay with it. (diary is open if anyone wants to look).
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Replies
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I honestly still struggle with this some days I'm pretty good and do eat my calories back and other times not so great. I'm maintaining atm. I think it's getting your head around that they put the deficit there already so those calories plus exercise are what you need to( well ideally should) take in. Best of luck2
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wendyheath32 wrote: »I honestly still struggle with this some days I'm pretty good and do eat my calories back and other times not so great. I'm maintaining atm. I think it's getting your head around that they put the deficit there already so those calories plus exercise are what you need to( well ideally should) take in. Best of luck
Thank you, I told myself I need to make a better effort this week to eat at least half of them back.0 -
By realizing that calories are energy and energy fuels your body and facilitates an active, healthy lifestyle. By reading about the adverse effects of cutting calories too low or having too aggressive of a deficit (loss of lean body mass, fatigue, sallow skin, brittle nails, etc). By realizing that food tastes good and it’s possible to eat all the things you enjoy as part of an overall healthy, nutrient dense diet, and still lose weight.
Also - weight loss isn’t linear and the overindulgence on the Chinese food wouldn’t really account for more than some short term water retention.
How accurate is your logging? Are you using a food scale? Have you been losing at 1 lb:week or more? Do you look at the weekly numbers or just daily?7 -
WinoGelato wrote: »By realizing that calories are energy and energy fuels your body and facilitates an active, healthy lifestyle. By reading about the adverse effects of cutting calories too low or having too aggressive of a deficit (loss of lean body mass, fatigue, sallow skin, brittle nails, etc). By realizing that food tastes good and it’s possible to eat all the things you enjoy as part of an overall healthy, nutrient dense diet, and still lose weight.
Also - weight loss isn’t linear and the overindulgence on the Chinese food wouldn’t really account for more than some short term water retention.
How accurate is your logging? Are you using a food scale? Have you been losing at 1 lb:week or more? Do you look at the weekly numbers or just daily?
Yes, I use a food scale. As far as daily calories vs. weekly, I tend to focus on the daily.
I love how I get a "woo" for asking for help. This is something I'm honestly struggling with.
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I have always eaten back exercise cals from when i first started on MFP - so having different calorie goals each day has never bothered me, and as soon as i realised there was a weekly goal that made life so much easier.
Eating back running calories has never been an issue because i suffer from runger in the worst way! if running suppresses your appetite then definitely start looking at your weekly goal and eat extra before your long run to balance it out.
also, long runs feel soooooooo much easier when i am eating at maintenance. so at the very least i eat at maintenance the day before my long run, and then refuel properly afterwards.
running is easy to calculate the burn for as well, so you dont need to worry about overestimating your burn:
body weight in lbs x 0.63 x distance in miles4 -
Think about it this way: if you were getting gas for your car, and you were driving longer distances than normal, wouldn't you fill it up with more gas? You wouldn't use the same amount of gas for a 50 mile trip as a 20 mile trip. And if you kept only filling your car up with 20 miles worth of gas every time you took a 50 mile trip, your car would eventually run out of gas.
Your body operates the same way. The more you exercise, the more fuel your body needs to run, and you don't just fuel it with the same amount of fuel that you would eat on other days. It needs more on a day that it burns more.
MFP specifically does not account for exercise in your calorie goals. If it knew you were not going to eat your exercise calories back, it would give you a higher goal of calories to eat everyday. When you are exercising and not eating those calories back, you are undereating your goal. So if you have your goal set to .5, and you are not eating your exercise calories back, then your goal really isn't .5. It's more like 1 or 1.5 pounds a week. If you are only trying to lose .5 a week, then that is too much.
Also, in my personal opinion, being allowed to eat more food is one of the greatest benefits of exercise. My exercise level allows me to eat more things like cheeseburgers, tacos, and sushi which I quite enjoy but would not be able fit as easily in my calorie goals if it wasn't for eating back my exercise. I would embrace it as a benefit, not something to be scared of.
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Think about it this way: if you were getting gas for your car, and you were driving longer distances than normal, wouldn't you fill it up with more gas? You wouldn't use the same amount of gas for a 50 mile trip as a 20 mile trip. And if you kept only filling your car up with 20 miles worth of gas every time you took a 50 mile trip, your car would eventually run out of gas.
Your body operates the same way. The more you exercise, the more fuel your body needs to run, and you don't just fuel it with the same amount of fuel that you would eat on other days. It needs more on a day that it burns more.
MFP specifically does not account for exercise in your calorie goals. If it knew you were not going to eat your exercise calories back, it would give you a higher goal of calories to eat everyday. When you are exercising and not eating those calories back, you are undereating your goal. So if you have your goal set to .5, and you are not eating your exercise calories back, then your goal really isn't .5. It's more like 1 or 1.5 pounds a week. If you are only trying to lose .5 a week, then that is too much.
Also, in my personal opinion, being allowed to eat more food is one of the greatest benefits of exercise. My exercise level allows me to eat more things like cheeseburgers, tacos, and sushi which I quite enjoy but would not be able fit as easily in my calorie goals if it wasn't for eating back my exercise. I would embrace it as a benefit, not something to be scared of.
Part of why I'm back here is the fact that I tried to outrun my fork. I got into a horrible problem of "Oh, I ran a lot today, I can eat whatever the heck I want." Well, could never outrun the fork and gained a bunch of weight back.
But, I am going to make an effort to eat back at least half of them this week.1 -
For me it's fueling my body adequately for sustainable weight loss, maintaining workout performance and body composition (keeping as much muscle as I can). I find if I dip calories too low which I have in the past, I feel terrible, and I sloth around so my NEAT and my workouts suffer and I end up losing less weight on lower calories.
Once you start to feel and see the benefits it becomes easier to eat more.7 -
I’ve found that the best way for me to lose weight is to eat the most amount of food while still losing. If I undereat, I feel the need to overeat. If I overeat, than I want to cut really low to make up for it. It’s a bad cycle.
What’s worked is just maintaining a constant middle ground of eating as many calories as I can in a day without going over. So that includes the exercise calories, steps I walk (I get less than 10k a day), and weighing everything on a food scale.5 -
I would add that your body doesn't immediately react in exact proportion to what you did yesterday or this week. Your body is constantly reacting to all sorts of variables that affect your water weight, digestion time, and fat metabolism. If you wake up this morning 1 lb lighter, it could be because of what you did yesterday, or 3 days ago, or it might be a couple of lbs of water weight your body has been using since a week and a half ago. You can't look at one scale reading and use it to completely judge the effectiveness of what you did yesterday, or last week.
Having said that, the thing about fuel is that it gives you energy. If you don't fuel your workouts, your body will fatigue. This isn't necessarily an obvious change, it can be very subtle. So instead of burning 200 cals during your workouts, you're only burning 175. Plus, you'll be slightly more fatigued during the day, so you'll fidget less, you'll walk ever so slightly slower, your body will find other subconscious ways to conserve energy throughout the day, so you'll burn a few less calories throughout the day. And this can have a snowball affect over time.
Would you rather force your body to learn how to survive on less calories, or keep training it to burn more calories so you can feed it more food at a healthy weight? That's why a lot of us can actually eat more now than we did at a higher weight - we kept fueling activity which gave us energy for more activity which needs more fuel and our NEAT has slowly increased over time.
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runnermom419 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »By realizing that calories are energy and energy fuels your body and facilitates an active, healthy lifestyle. By reading about the adverse effects of cutting calories too low or having too aggressive of a deficit (loss of lean body mass, fatigue, sallow skin, brittle nails, etc). By realizing that food tastes good and it’s possible to eat all the things you enjoy as part of an overall healthy, nutrient dense diet, and still lose weight.
Also - weight loss isn’t linear and the overindulgence on the Chinese food wouldn’t really account for more than some short term water retention.
How accurate is your logging? Are you using a food scale? Have you been losing at 1 lb:week or more? Do you look at the weekly numbers or just daily?
Yes, I use a food scale. As far as daily calories vs. weekly, I tend to focus on the daily.
I love how I get a "woo" for asking for help. This is something I'm honestly struggling with.
what does getting a woo mean?0 -
lleeann2001 wrote: »runnermom419 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »By realizing that calories are energy and energy fuels your body and facilitates an active, healthy lifestyle. By reading about the adverse effects of cutting calories too low or having too aggressive of a deficit (loss of lean body mass, fatigue, sallow skin, brittle nails, etc). By realizing that food tastes good and it’s possible to eat all the things you enjoy as part of an overall healthy, nutrient dense diet, and still lose weight.
Also - weight loss isn’t linear and the overindulgence on the Chinese food wouldn’t really account for more than some short term water retention.
How accurate is your logging? Are you using a food scale? Have you been losing at 1 lb:week or more? Do you look at the weekly numbers or just daily?
Yes, I use a food scale. As far as daily calories vs. weekly, I tend to focus on the daily.
I love how I get a "woo" for asking for help. This is something I'm honestly struggling with.
what does getting a woo mean?
Unfortunately, woo means different things to different people. It's supposed to mean - pseudoscience, too good to be true, not accurate. Some people think it means "Woohoo". And some people just use it as an "I don't like you" button.
It's also easy for people to accidentally hit it when scrolling on their phone and not realize it.
And I don't see OP being wooed in this thread at all, so maybe someone hit it accidentally and she saw it before they had a chance to take it off.3 -
I would add that your body doesn't immediately react in exact proportion to what you did yesterday or this week. Your body is constantly reacting to all sorts of variables that affect your water weight, digestion time, and fat metabolism. If you wake up this morning 1 lb lighter, it could be because of what you did yesterday, or 3 days ago, or it might be a couple of lbs of water weight your body has been using since a week and a half ago. You can't look at one scale reading and use it to completely judge the effectiveness of what you did yesterday, or last week.
Having said that, the thing about fuel is that it gives you energy. If you don't fuel your workouts, your body will fatigue. This isn't necessarily an obvious change, it can be very subtle. So instead of burning 200 cals during your workouts, you're only burning 175. Plus, you'll be slightly more fatigued during the day, so you'll fidget less, you'll walk ever so slightly slower, your body will find other subconscious ways to conserve energy throughout the day, so you'll burn a few less calories throughout the day. And this can have a snowball affect over time.
Would you rather force your body to learn how to survive on less calories, or keep training it to burn more calories so you can feed it more food at a healthy weight? That's why a lot of us can actually eat more now than we did at a higher weight - we kept fueling activity which gave us energy for more activity which needs more fuel and our NEAT has slowly increased over time.
I really, really appreciate this. I'm going to eat back at least half of what I've burned this week - see how I feel and how the scale reacts. See if I can up it to 100% back over the next few weeks.0 -
runnermom419 wrote: »How did everyone get in the habit and routine of eating back what you burn? I am going to try and eat back half of what I burn this week while doing cardio (measured with chest strap heart rate monitor). I need to, but like I said, it's hard for me to be mentally okay with it. (diary is open if anyone wants to look).
Personal experience, YMMV; I tried this route for a solid six months and had issues successfully losing weight. My highly rated/reviewed Polar H7 HR monitor paired with UA Record gave me way too many calories (like 2-3x when compared with actual recorded TDEE). I switched to a <TDEE-deficit> model using a spreadsheet I found on reddit and have been much happier. I particularly like that it takes the transactional mindset away from exercise; i know my activity is counted passively so it's freeing to assess the quality of a workout without considering the calorie burn. I still use UA Record to track that I'm doing my workouts but I manually adjust the calories in the exercise tab to 1 and manually set my calorie goal to be TDEE +/- deficit or surplus (depending on goal). It eliminates the uncertainty of setting an activity level or measuring workout expenditure but does require daily weighing, diligent calorie logging, and a little more extensive tracking via a spreadsheet; however, I've found the quality TDEE data pretty valuable.
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runnermom419 wrote: »I would add that your body doesn't immediately react in exact proportion to what you did yesterday or this week. Your body is constantly reacting to all sorts of variables that affect your water weight, digestion time, and fat metabolism. If you wake up this morning 1 lb lighter, it could be because of what you did yesterday, or 3 days ago, or it might be a couple of lbs of water weight your body has been using since a week and a half ago. You can't look at one scale reading and use it to completely judge the effectiveness of what you did yesterday, or last week.
Having said that, the thing about fuel is that it gives you energy. If you don't fuel your workouts, your body will fatigue. This isn't necessarily an obvious change, it can be very subtle. So instead of burning 200 cals during your workouts, you're only burning 175. Plus, you'll be slightly more fatigued during the day, so you'll fidget less, you'll walk ever so slightly slower, your body will find other subconscious ways to conserve energy throughout the day, so you'll burn a few less calories throughout the day. And this can have a snowball affect over time.
Would you rather force your body to learn how to survive on less calories, or keep training it to burn more calories so you can feed it more food at a healthy weight? That's why a lot of us can actually eat more now than we did at a higher weight - we kept fueling activity which gave us energy for more activity which needs more fuel and our NEAT has slowly increased over time.
I really, really appreciate this. I'm going to eat back at least half of what I've burned this week - see how I feel and how the scale reacts. See if I can up it to 100% back over the next few weeks.
as long as you're aware that the scale may go up due to increased food/carbs?3 -
runnermom419 wrote: »Weighed in last week at 159. Overall had a good week but binged on Chinese food Wednesday night (probably well over 3,000 calories - I didn't count - It was a lot and my stomach was messed up for the next two days). Weighed in today and was down 2 pounds. I drink close to 100 oz. of water a day, so I know I'm not dehydrated.
I changed my goal last week from 1 pound a week to .5 pounds. I KNOW I need to be eating back what I burn. Even a fraction of it. But, I have a huge mental block from it. Let's say I run tonight and burn 500 calories. If I eat back half of that, I could have a candy bar for dessert (which, I actually might).
How did everyone get in the habit and routine of eating back what you burn? I am going to try and eat back half of what I burn this week while doing cardio (measured with chest strap heart rate monitor). I need to, but like I said, it's hard for me to be mentally okay with it. (diary is open if anyone wants to look).
I never not ate exercise calories back. I like food. Exercise affords me a way to eat more. Easy. 5 -
runnermom419 wrote: »Weighed in last week at 159. Overall had a good week but binged on Chinese food Wednesday night (probably well over 3,000 calories - I didn't count - It was a lot and my stomach was messed up for the next two days). Weighed in today and was down 2 pounds. I drink close to 100 oz. of water a day, so I know I'm not dehydrated.
I changed my goal last week from 1 pound a week to .5 pounds. I KNOW I need to be eating back what I burn. Even a fraction of it. But, I have a huge mental block from it. Let's say I run tonight and burn 500 calories. If I eat back half of that, I could have a candy bar for dessert (which, I actually might).
How did everyone get in the habit and routine of eating back what you burn? I am going to try and eat back half of what I burn this week while doing cardio (measured with chest strap heart rate monitor). I need to, but like I said, it's hard for me to be mentally okay with it. (diary is open if anyone wants to look).
I never not ate exercise calories back. I like food. Exercise affords me a way to eat more. Easy.
The more I think about this, the more excited I get. Told my husband I was going to burn 500 calories or so today running/working out and that I was totally going to have a candy bar for dessert. Mmmmmm.....3 -
runnermom419 wrote: »runnermom419 wrote: »Weighed in last week at 159. Overall had a good week but binged on Chinese food Wednesday night (probably well over 3,000 calories - I didn't count - It was a lot and my stomach was messed up for the next two days). Weighed in today and was down 2 pounds. I drink close to 100 oz. of water a day, so I know I'm not dehydrated.
I changed my goal last week from 1 pound a week to .5 pounds. I KNOW I need to be eating back what I burn. Even a fraction of it. But, I have a huge mental block from it. Let's say I run tonight and burn 500 calories. If I eat back half of that, I could have a candy bar for dessert (which, I actually might).
How did everyone get in the habit and routine of eating back what you burn? I am going to try and eat back half of what I burn this week while doing cardio (measured with chest strap heart rate monitor). I need to, but like I said, it's hard for me to be mentally okay with it. (diary is open if anyone wants to look).
I never not ate exercise calories back. I like food. Exercise affords me a way to eat more. Easy.
The more I think about this, the more excited I get. Told my husband I was going to burn 500 calories or so today running/working out and that I was totally going to have a candy bar for dessert. Mmmmmm.....
Right?
I get hangry if I don’t eat enough exercise calories back. My husband is pretty quick to bring it to my attention! I love food. I love the way exercise makes me feel. It works so well that these two things help me do more of the other.
And ignore the woos. Sometimes I can’t figure out what I’m being wooed for. My common sense? 🙄0
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