Doubling exercise - eating more...?

Casi23

I know - it sounds like a dumb question -

But...this week I've started doing two-a-days. I work out in the mornings now from 0530-0730 doing martial arts...it usually involves about a half an hour of running, calesthenics (sp..?) drills, and core work; followed by boxing, sparring, etc.

THEN at the end of my night - I will hop on a machine in my gym (usually the elliptical or spin bike so I'm not running 2x a day) for about an hour followed by a short (20 minute) weight lifting session 3-4 times a week.

But my 'recommended' caloric intake has increased SIGNIFICANTLY. I went from eating 1200-1500 calories a day (when I was only working out 45-60 minutes on average).....now it's gone up to 2500-3000 a day. I'm about 5'8'' tall, weigh 150 lbs (at about 24 % bf) and would like to cut my bf down to about 20% in the next 60 days.

I know I have to eat a little more...but I'm shocked when I see my calorie intake reaching near 2000. It's all relatively healthy...high in protein and I always end up under my fat intake every day....it just seems so high for a female...

Maybe I'm getting worried about nothing. Would love to hear other people's thoughts. Does this sound shocking to anyone else?

sallyLunn

When you are exercising that much, you will really need to eat at least part of it. I would do that and see how it goes. You don't want to pass out.

rockinmomto3

You need to eat your workout calories, or most of them. Your calorie intake is set at a certain amount for weight loss. Any calories you burn will be added as more calories to eat.

erickirb

You do have to eat more to fuel your body but I would be wary of how much you of your exercise calories you eat when you workout for over 45 min/day especially if you are not using a HRM. Whether you are using a HRM or MFP's calculation for cals burned what the numbers fail to do is back out the calories you would have burned at rest anyway. By entering the full amount of cals burned you are double counting those cals.

What you should do is back out those double counted cals when entering exercise cals into MFP. Most people burn 1 to1.5 cals per minute at rest so lets go in the middle 1.25/min. Your diary shows you worked out for 160 min so when entering this you should back out 200 (160x1.25) or so, this way you wont have so many extra calories to eat. The longer you workout the more of a difference backing out calories makes. Hope this helps.

If you do plan on eating all of your exercise calories I would make sure you get a HRM, as it will be more accurate than MFP, and back out the double counted cals.

DanOhh

Eat more. You don't have to eat all but you need the fuel and you'll feel better in the next day. Trust me you'll still be losing the weight if you're that active. Good luck!

SuzanneRogers

Eat. I'm 5'1 weighing 123 and if I burn 600-1000 a day in exercise my calories intakes says to go over 2000, I try to stay relatively close to what is says usually about 200 below.