More exercise means more calories

shawnnshinta

I started out just watching my my calories...not so hard, the weight comes off fast.
But now the more I exercise, the more calories I need to feed the need.
So now I find myself slowly upping the calories to feed the exercises, and therefore the weight is not coming off as fast.

Has anyone had this problem? if so, did you go back to just watching calories only?

soze

Exercising goes hand in hand with losing weight. From what I was told sometimes the body retains water to heal the muscles that you exercised. Eventually you will lose the weight. Muscles are the calorie burners of the body. So if you don't exercise you are not only losing fat you are losing muscles and in the long run you have less of a calorie burning machine.

izobel

A timely post as I am way over my calories today!! I ran 18km (11 miles) yesterday (time delay hunger??), cycled 40km this morning in TOP gear, hit the deck avoiding a car careening through an intersection on the way home so did a very slow 30 minute 15% incline crawl (4.2k/h!) on the treadmill to try and stretch out the badly bruised butt muscles. I need a lot of fuel for this level of activity. I manually set 1600 calories and then eat all my exercise calories and unfortunately more a little too often - over 3100 today. I think you have to make a choice - fueling exercise for a strong, healthy body which is not going to be reed thin (ever seen the bodies on adventure racers/ mountain climbers?), or eating less, suffering from fatigue and weakness but being "skinny". I know my choice!
Anyway very good luck and I hope you reach your goal.

A little off topic but I find it interesting. I run and rock climb - not particularly good at either I must say. My serious running friends are a very skinny bunch who eat truckloads and drink a lot of beer - they can't get enough calories. My climbing friends on the other hand are on permanent diets, chug down protein shakes and tend to smoke quite a few cigarettes. Rock climbing is not very aerobic and any extra weight is a burden. My point - running is a great way to burn calories and let's you eat lots :-)

alantin

I started out just watching my my calories...not so hard, the weight comes off fast.
But now the more I exercise, the more calories I need to feed the need.
So now I find myself slowly upping the calories to feed the exercises, and therefore the weight is not coming off as fast.

Has anyone had this problem? if so, did you go back to just watching calories only?

What is your goal pace?
Everybody loses fast in the beginning because water weight starts moving but that doesn't normally last more than a week or two.
If your goal pace is reasonable for your weight range and if you're eating the correct amount of exercise calories (easy to overestimate), MFP is built so that you'll end up losing at that pace.

BoresEasily

izobel, 1600 isn't enough for the amount of activity you do by any means. There's a reason you're eating 3100 calories, your body needs it. I agree with a lot of your points especially about being fitter and eating enough to fuel yourself. I'm totally with you, I care more about how healthy and how fit I am over the number on the scale and so forth. That doesn't mean I'm going to chug crap or shove it down my gullet though, just means I won't starve myself if my body tells me it needs fuel. It totally depends on one's goal though, to lose weight you don't need to focus on exercise, focusing solely on nutrition will get you there. But if you want to be healthy when you get there then you need exercise and you need to push your body, not just lollygag on a treadmill for 90 minutes.

shawnnshinta, what is your goal? Not your goal weight, what do you want to achieve? what do you want to look like? How do you want to feel?

DJackson230

Good reading... I enjoyed it...
So true, the more u exercise, the more fuel you need.
It is up to us to find the happy medium...
I love to exercise and I love to eat... I find that I just need to watch what I eat... so my exercise and eating will balance each other out... but then again, I am in maintenance, until I over eat (Like over Thanksgiving)... Then I adjust my intake, but my exercise usually stays the same... My 2 cents

shawnnshinta

good advice!
Looks like it's coming from some folks who know what their talking about.
Good point about the'goal pace'. I lost 6 lbs in 2 weeks, so it looks like I have few more weeks to catch up with my 'goal pace'

My 'goal' IS to get fit and healthy, and NOT just to loose weight.
A happy medium sounds good.
Wish I could run or rock climb, but I get my exercise with a Trike ( a 3 wheel scooter).

Exercise goes hand and hand with loosing weight,. well said soze, my new motto!

BoresEasily

Strength train 2-3 days a week if you're not already and lift heavy. There are many good routines out there to follow. Also do HIIT or interval training 2-3 days a week on the strength training days so that your body has time to recover. If you can't manage HIIT at the moment, work your way up by doing intervals. For instance maybe a 30 minute workout, 5 minute warm-up/cool-down with intervals of 1 minute at a higher intensity and then 2 minutes at a pace you can keep up for awhile. Using either walking/jogging, treadmill, stationary bike or elliptical and if you're not at a jogging phase yet then walk/speed walk.

izobel

Thanks Bores Easily - love the name! I think weight training is really important especially as we get older (protects the joints if you run, hike etc and makes carrying the groceries and lugging suitcases much easier) but I BORE EASILY. I am definitely the 12 reps per machine, not a single one more, and then out of there. I know free weights are probably more productive but if I don't enjoy it I won't do it.

For my 180cm frame 1600 is too low I agree, but I think MFP gives very generous calories for running and treadmill (I was given 1050 for a 13km run today when I think a 10 calorie a minute 860 would be more realistic.) They are a bit miserly on the cycling cals though at less than 5 cals/min. Anyway I'm eating way under today and I'm sure I'll be ravenous and make up for it tomorrow. Sorry Shawnnshinta getting off topic a bit and I am not trying to lose weight I just want to be strong so I can hike, cycle, run and climb for long periods of time.

Oh, and yes I eat lots, but I don't eat much processed food. I mainly just eat pork, beef, chicken and vegetables, with potatoes, pumpkin and sweet potato as my staple.

Good health to all!