Scary Decision

cat_pro70

After several weeks of watching what I eat, staying within my calories and exercising regularly, I have found that I am not losing weight. I have lost a few inches, but not nearly as much as I would think I should with the amount of exercise I do, and I even gained a few pounds back! Today, I went in and changed my activity setting from sedentary (which I was for several years) to active which is what I have been for almost three months now, vigorously working out no less than 30 minutes per day, and recently up to 1 hr per day. The result?

I was given almost 700 additional calories per day!

This almost seems to make sense to me as I got frustrated a couple of weeks ago and ate anything I wanted for two days and registered a 2 lb loss on the scale the next week. That was to only change in routine I can point to as I have been very consistent otherwise. I even kept my workout routine during those days.

So, do I give it a try full on? Or should I just keep to my regular routine and do worry about overages? Or should I just split the difference and find a place in the middle? I would appreciate any input. Thanks!

omma_to_3

Personally, I have found being at a 'sedentary' level and eating back workout calories to end up pretty much the same as setting myself to a higher level and not eating back exercise calories. It's just a matter of whether you want to spread out your extra calories to every day, or only on your workout days. I also don't consider 30 minutes a day to be "active". I would consider it lightly active, unless your non workout time is much more active. I work out around 5 hours a week and still consider that to be lightly active.