Energy Drop in Deficit

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yasminara
yasminara Posts: 247 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I eat heathly foods, but the deficit and exercise leave me really drained? Should I power thru until I “adjust”? Has anyone else experienced this?

Replies

  • tiptoethruthetulips
    tiptoethruthetulips Posts: 3,361 Member
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    How much of a daily deficit and are you eating any of your exercise calories back?
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,013 Member
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    How big a deficit are you in?
    How many calories are you eating?
    What exercise are you doing?
    Are you eating any of your exercise cals?
    How long have you been on your plan?
  • lgfrie
    lgfrie Posts: 1,449 Member
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    Bottom line, if you are eating a deficit and working out a lot and feeling drained, in the absence of more exact info about your calories, exercise, height/weight, etc., you're probably overdoing it on either (or both) the diet and exercise fronts.

    I've never heard of anyone adjusting to feeling drained. Your body is sending you a signal - best to listen to it. Eat some more food, definitely be sure to eat back half or more of your exercise calories, and see how you feel.
  • XLNC1981
    XLNC1981 Posts: 114 Member
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    Look everbody is different. Personally the calorie deficit thing hit me quite hard as I was probably eating around 3500 to 4000 cals a day and then to suddenly go to day 1 of my new MFP kick at just under 2k cals did hit me for 6.

    I also felt ratty, drained... hungry as my body is being denied the thing it wants —>> food.

    However, I persisted and after I would say the 2-3 week mark my energy levels normalised somewhat.

    The body just kind of accepts that ok, this is just how it is now.

    Even now, 40 plus days in... as I am on reduced carbs (approx 150grams daily) I can stuff feel sluggish in the gym but I have a routine of eating and training that works for me.

    Try and stay close to your allowed calories - it will get easier. It’s a test of your metal but if shedding the fat was that easy... we wouldn’t be here needing to do this.

    Good luck.... happy 4 u 2 add if you need that extra push! 👋
  • yasminara
    yasminara Posts: 247 Member
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    Oh I'm sorry I didn't respond! It never sent me a notification so I never saw anyone say anything.

    I eat 1300-1600 calories on the average (5'2", 160lbs)
    I workout at Orangetheory 4-5x's a week. I don't eat back calories.

    I'll pay attention and adjust, but I'm sure all other short folks can agree that I'm like 200c shy from being back in maintenance.

    It could be the quality of food, so I'll tweak that too. Thanks!
  • amy19355
    amy19355 Posts: 805 Member
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    puffbrat wrote: »
    yasminara wrote: »
    Oh I'm sorry I didn't respond! It never sent me a notification so I never saw anyone say anything.

    I eat 1300-1600 calories on the average (5'2", 160lbs)

    are you using MFP to set your calorie goals?
    I think you'll get better results if you can stick to one number rather than a range.

    why? i'll use myself to explain. When I started out at 199 pounds, with a goal weight of 140, MFP set me at 14XX calories a day for a 2# a week loss rate. When I got down to 170, I recalculated my goals and now I'm at 15xx a day for a safe 1/2# a week loss rate. I'd only need to eat an extra 200 calories a day to cancel out any chance of that 1/2# loss taking place.

    Also - use a food scale to be sure you're really eating the amount of calories you log.

    good luck!
  • yasminara
    yasminara Posts: 247 Member
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    Thanks everyone! I'll try these.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,178 Member
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    yasminara wrote: »
    Oh I'm sorry I didn't respond! It never sent me a notification so I never saw anyone say anything.

    I eat 1300-1600 calories on the average (5'2", 160lbs)
    I workout at Orangetheory 4-5x's a week. I don't eat back calories.

    I'll pay attention and adjust, but I'm sure all other short folks can agree that I'm like 200c shy from being back in maintenance.

    It could be the quality of food, so I'll tweak that too. Thanks!

    Are you relatively new to exercise and/or Orangetheory? I'd suggest at least one full day between OT workouts, rest day or something mild like gentle yoga or very-LISS cardio, unless quite seasoned.

    At 160lbs, not eating back that much exercise, I don't think an accurately-measured 1300-1600 is alarming close to maintenance.
  • GaleHawkins
    GaleHawkins Posts: 8,160 Member
    edited December 2019
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    yasminara wrote: »
    I eat heathly foods, but the deficit and exercise leave me really drained? Should I power thru until I “adjust”? Has anyone else experienced this?

    This is normal for a human or a car when the fuel supply is less than required to fully function.

    After 40 years of yo yoing weight with 100%+ regain after each round of deficit eating I made the decision to total stop trying to lose weight at the age of 63 with fast failing health because it never worked in my case. So I removed the goal to lose weight and just focus on eating to improve my health and health markers by changing my calorie sources but not by cutting my calories since I had no weight lose goal.

    That was back in Oct 2014. After 2 hellish weeks from ditching my high carb/high fat Way Of Eating my body pain started to lessen and then the mental fog started to lessen. A big plus was I stopped falling all of the time but had not lost a pound of weight because I had started to weigh daily.

    I was shocked at day 45 on my new WOE I did lose the first pound of weigh. As major health problems started to self resolve so did my obesity without trying. By the end of the first year I was down by 50 pounds with better health and health markers than in decades. I am still down by 50 pound going on 5 years now.

    That was over 5 years when I decided to change my WOE on a hunch when trying to avoid starting Enbrel injections for my life long arthritis (Ankylosing Spondylitis) pain. Thankfully to changing my WOE my pain is less than I can remember and am Rx free.

    Only you can discover the best way for you to eat. Sure we could type this or that but it would be like a shot into the dark. Take the time to try one WOE for a while than another. Quality for calories is huge in my personal case.

    By the way my hunch that would not go away was to stop eating food containing added sugar and or any form of any grain so my WOE over time became low carb/high fat. Since it has personally worked well for over 5 years now I plan to keep eating this way and my family knows to feed me this way if I can not remember to eat this way some day.

    Best of success. Trust what your body tells you about how to eat. Advice from myself or others as to WHAT to eat may be helpful or harmful.

  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,902 Member
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    yasminara wrote: »
    Oh I'm sorry I didn't respond! It never sent me a notification so I never saw anyone say anything.

    I eat 1300-1600 calories on the average (5'2", 160lbs)
    I workout at Orangetheory 4-5x's a week. I don't eat back calories.

    I'll pay attention and adjust, but I'm sure all other short folks can agree that I'm like 200c shy from being back in maintenance.

    It could be the quality of food, so I'll tweak that too. Thanks!

    Unlike other sites which use TDEE calculators, MFP uses the NEAT method (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis), and as such this system is designed for exercise calories to be eaten back. However, many consider the burns given by MFP to be inflated for them and only eat a percentage, such as 50%, back. Others, however, are able to lose weight while eating 100% of their exercise calories.

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/818082/exercise-calories-again-wtf/p1
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,178 Member
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    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    yasminara wrote: »
    Oh I'm sorry I didn't respond! It never sent me a notification so I never saw anyone say anything.

    I eat 1300-1600 calories on the average (5'2", 160lbs)
    I workout at Orangetheory 4-5x's a week. I don't eat back calories.

    I'll pay attention and adjust, but I'm sure all other short folks can agree that I'm like 200c shy from being back in maintenance.

    It could be the quality of food, so I'll tweak that too. Thanks!

    Are you relatively new to exercise and/or Orangetheory? I'd suggest at least one full day between OT workouts, rest day or something mild like gentle yoga or very-LISS cardio, unless quite seasoned.

    At 160lbs, not eating back that much exercise, I don't think an accurately-measured 1300-1600 is alarming close to maintenance.

    It occurred to me later that I should've said why I think this about recovery days.

    As I understand it, OTF focuses on getting a certain amount of time each session at Z4/5 heart rates. It may also include high-rep/low-resistance (or other) strength work. Either of those things can be fatiguing for relatively less conditioned people, if there isn't sufficient recovery time between.

    Some of the response seemingly can be individual, so if someone who's doing OTF (or really anything with similar or greater intensity, or repetitive stress of same muscle groups) on successive days, is feeling fatigued, I'd suggest experimenting with longer recovery between workouts to see if it makes a difference, at any fitness level. Sometimes other stressors in our lives (work, family issue, holiday bustle, calorie deficit, nutritional issue, sleep problems, etc.) can make workouts that used to be fine, be a little bit much, via cumulative stress of varied types.

    For someone with a calorie deficit, that's a likely place to consider as a fatigue source. But fatigue can also be related to insufficient recovery from exercise. Training in a smart way, with enough recovery, is usually best for progressing in fitness, or weight loss, IMO. Fatigue can tend to bleed calorie expenditure out of daily life activity, wiping out some of the exercise benefit.
  • xxzenabxx
    xxzenabxx Posts: 935 Member
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    yasminara wrote: »
    Oh I'm sorry I didn't respond! It never sent me a notification so I never saw anyone say anything.

    I eat 1300-1600 calories on the average (5'2", 160lbs)
    I workout at Orangetheory 4-5x's a week. I don't eat back calories.

    I'll pay attention and adjust, but I'm sure all other short folks can agree that I'm like 200c shy from being back in maintenance.

    It could be the quality of food, so I'll tweak that too. Thanks!

    I’m only 2 inches taller than you but around the same weight 156/157lbs. You’re definitely under eating/overtraining. This is exactly what happened to me. I was eating 1750 calories and averaging 7000 steps a day plus exercising 5 days a week. I was so fatigued and I couldn’t understand why. Turns out I was undereating! I guess it’s so easy to fear food. And I wanted to lose weight so badly. Now I’m eating 1950 calories (On average) and I feel so much better! My TDEE is around 2250/2300 calories. Also, just wanted to put this out there that women’s bodies are more sensitive to hunger signals and undereating than men. That’s why I find the Minnesota starvation experiment biased but that’s another story. So yeah, don’t be like me before and rush into this. It’s a journey and it’s going to take time. Aim to lose 0.5-1lb a week which is an average of 0.75lbs a week.

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