Exercise means I can eat more right?

libertydave

I sabotage my own hard work. I now go to the gym every morning even when I am away on business which believe me is s=tough some days especially if I have early meetings. When I finish in the gym and stop the inevitable sweating post shower I feel really good. So good in fact that I convince myself that I don't have to pay quite so much attention to what I eat at the office i.e. catered in lunches and maybe a beer or glass of wine with dinner. How do you break the mind set Its great that i go away for a week and don't put weight on but then I get depressed as I am doing the hard work but not losing weight. Any advice out there would be great.

quiksylver296

Do you actually log your food? Especially before it goes into your mouth? Seeing those numbers on "paper" can really help.

csplatt

Are you using this app to weigh / measure and log everything you eat? I can’t quite tell based on your post. Thanks!

88olds

Exercise is vastly overrated as a weight loss tool. Exercise does great stuff for our minds and bodies but weight loss isn’t really one of them. To lose weight we need to eat in, and live with, a calorie deficit. It’s the living with it part that trips most people up.

I would answer your question with a question- eat more than what? There is a big tendency to under estimate how much we eat while we over estimate how much we exercise. If you really want to lose weight, try calorie counting. Calorie counting is a whole set of things to do-calculate a modest deficit, plan a menu crunching the numbers, get and use a food scale and try to hit your number. The most important part is to track (log) your everything you eat and drink. And you track no matter what- over your number, even wildly over, track everything. When you encounter problems, and you will, you problem solve and fix your plan for next time. Weight loss is mostly about problem solving and persistence.

Right now your brain is probably screaming that you can’t possibly do all that food measuring and logging stuff. And if you just hit the gym harder and had more willpower you could lose weight without that stuff. But if you have a significant amount to lose, just remember this post for later. Maybe you’ll eventually come around. Its a lot easier to actually lose weight and maintain when you put hard numbers on your intake. Just how it is.

threewins

This will be a problem I have to deal with soon. I won't be able to log my food, because I'll be living with a partner and I don't want to be fastidious about what goes into the meal and weighing everything then weighing what proportion of the meal I eat, generally reducing the enjoyment of a meal together. Nor do I want to eat separate food, I've done that for 8 years, eating alone.

I think I will probably just stop exercising for a while, until I can figure out what I'm eating just using hunger signals. I'll be in a hot/humid climate, it takes 6 months for my body to adjust, another reason to stop exercise since it's so hot being near the equator.