Diet vs. exercise

myrtille87

Hi,

I've been doing MFP for 10 days so far, and it's really helping me to focus on what (and how much) I eat.

I've always cooked pretty much everything from scratch, but eaten large portions. I now realise I must have been getting huge amounts of calories from olive oil because my first step when making a pasta sauce/curry/tagine/chilli/roast veg etc. was to add a massive glug of oil to the pan - I'm now measuring in tsp and tbsp depending on how much food I'm making. A typical pasta portion for me would be at least 100g - I'm now weighing it and having 80g.

In addition to having previously eaten good food in excessive portions, I also have a tendency to eat crap when stressed. In particular, I have a habit of calling at the supermarket or drive thru on my way home from work and easily eating 500+ calories whilst driving home because I feel like I deserve a treat after a hard day (I'm a teacher). It's currently the summer holidays so I haven't been doing that. So overall, I am definitely consuming far fewer calories that I did before.

However, my food calories are still not that low each day. Looking back over the last few days, my food totals have been 1812, 1759, 2070, 1772, 2241, 1997, 2074. So I've basically stopped overeating like I was before, but I'm just eating a fairly normal amount for a woman. But because I'm used to overeating, I feel like I've cut so much, I keep wanting snacks, I measure out a meal that is smaller and lower in fat than what I'm used to and am horrified when it's still 800 calories or something... I love food, enjoy cooking, and want to eat healthily but not deprive myself of food I enjoy.

So... while I have the time, I've been concentrating on exercising every day. I've done plenty of cycling, some swimming, some Wii Zumba and some elliptical trainer. As a result, my Net calories each day have been 1228, 692, 1181, 899, 1253, 1321, 1353, but I've heard MFP overestimates calories burnt so I'm assuming my Net is more like 1200-1600 which seems fine. But I've also seen people on here saying "diet is for weightloss, exercise is for fitness" and not to take exercise/net calories into consideration. So what is right?

For information, I'm 5'6", SW 165 lb, CW 161 lb, GW 145 lb - set MFP to lose 1.5lb per week for now but will swap to 1lb when I start back at work.

shadow2soul

While it's true that you should "diet" for weight loss and exercise through fitness, you still have to eat to fuel your workouts. Essentially exercising raises your total daily calorie burn and as such you can eat more to lose weight. Now if you stop working out once you get to your goal weight, but don't adjust your calories for the the decreased activity level, that is where your going to run into problems. Possibly even start gaining.

h7463

Hi there!

Great that you're getting a good start! I've been using MFP for 175 days straight now. Even though my goals are different from yours, it's a great tool to have at my finger tips.

In my opinion, there is no 'diet vs. exercise'. Nutrition and being active always work together. As you are losing weight with restricting your food, your metabolism will eventually adapt. Sadly for the purpose of weight loss, the human body is very efficient at that. Exercise in any form will help you to keep things 'burning', and even if it's just parking way on the other end of the school parking lot and walk to the door.

If it's too stressful to monitor your daily calorie intake, go for the weekly average. Feel free to carry 'leftover' calories as bonus into the next week. Don't feel bad about going over one day. Make up for it the following day.
As for fast food stops after work....I can relate... Lucky for me, I drive an older car, and the power window on the driver side has a short...and even though I train 6x per week, I'm too lazy to park the car and go inside to get a cheeseburger... My taste buds have since outgrown the need for cheeseburgers....

I love cooking, too, and I also make most from scratch. MFP has a section in settings where you can create your own recipes. Just enter the ingredients, divide the dish into the desired number of servings, and add it to your daily calorie intake as needed. I have modified many recipes over time. Simply replace ingredients with nutrition-wise more useful options, and you're good to go.

Examples: Don't use bread crumbs for breading, try rolled oats instead. Don't fry your food in an oil filled skillet, bake it in the oven and just drizzle a controlled amount of oil on it. Use non-stick skillets and cooking spray for everything else. Replace white flour in your baking goods with whole grain flour. It might add to the baking time, but otherwise, there is no difference. If you can't go without sugar, and I know some pastries need the caramelized taste, try just replacing half of it with granulated sweetener for baking.

I bought a little digital food scale, and it really surprised me, how 'off' I was with my measurements.... A tbsp isn't always a tbsp when you're counting calories....especially when it comes to peanut butter....lol

If you are not sure about the exercise calories, try to eat back at least as many calories as it takes to meet your BMR. As long as you feel comfortable in body and mind, don't stress yourself too much around the bathroom scale. IMO, your weight loss goal and speed are really reasonable, but you're not doing this for very long, and you are still learning to read your body. Consider yourself as your own little science project, and enjoy the process! You'll make a great role model for your students!

Keep going and good luck with your fitness journey! :flowerforyou:

myrtille87

Thank-you!

Yes, I definitely agree about being surprised by measurements. I already had digital scales (I bake, and we don't use measuring cups in England!) but didn't normally weigh things unless I was following a recipe. After a few days I'm starting to get used to how much certain things weigh. I'm weighing basically everything but sometimes estimating with things like lettuce/radishes etc. that have virtually no calories anyway so it doesn't matter if I'm a few g off.

I bought a second hand elliptical trainer (£10 on ebay!) but have had to order a spare part as I damaged a bolt when taking it apart to grease the squeaky bits, so I can't use it at the moment. The plan is that by having that, I can keep exercising (even if it's just 20 minutes per day or something) even when my workload is massive.

I suppose my concern is that I would find it very difficult to cut my calorie intake to 1,500 or less if I couldn't find time to exercise. Reducing from >2,500 to <2,000 is already hard work for me because I'm so used to eating whatever I want, whenever I want it! But then I think that whatever the numbers say, I'm definitely doing so much better than before - if I'm having less pastry, less cream, less cheese, less wine, less oil, less butter, less fried foods, etc., I'll hopefully keep going in the right direction.

h7463

You're getting a great start on this! Any exercise will be just fine. I got to a point where I don't even care, if my family is sitting on the couch, elbow-deep in a bag of potato chips....I will do my yoga, body weight exercises, or stationary bike right in front of the TV....try doing body weight squats with perfect form....while unloading the dishwasher....lol
I otherwise lift, and I'm currently doing high intensity interval training. That's about 1 hour and 500 hard earned calories per day for me.

I'm having similar trouble with my calorie intake. My body is so efficient now, I'm at around 1600-1700 just for maintenance. (51, female, 5'5", 132 lbs, 17%BF) Right now, I'm trying to get a bit leaner, but I really have to actually eat 1500 calories worth of food. After this, I can train without eating much back, and I'm perfectly ok. Going down to 1200 calories, however, will make me rip the fridge door off the hinges...I have tried it, it is ugly....lol
But at the end of the day, I'm always aiming to net at least my BMR, which is currently around 1300 calories. Needless to say, the fat is melting very slowly, but I can sustain this kind of plan easily for a very long time.

I grew up in Germany, and I'm familiar with European food. If there's a certain recipe that you are looking to modify to meet you nutrition limits, I'd be happy to help out!

StaciMarie1974

Losing weight is about calories in vs calories out. Working out is about fitness, but as others have said if you increase your daily burn then you can eat more and still have a reasonable deficit. The exercise for fitness, watch your intake for weight loss mantra is more about those who expect working out to melt off the weight while they give no thought to how much they eat.

Sounds like you're off to a great start. Curbing portions, not trying a drastic temporary 'diet' that has you eating restrictive foods. As to bulk of the meal - if you simply feel like you should be eating more look for things that add bulk without much calorie count. A recent favorite of mine has become spinach & blue cheese salad. Reduced fat crumbled blue cheese, about 1/2 ounce + spinach and 1-2 other veggies. Some light italian dressing. 70-90 calories depending on how much dressing and the kind used. (I don't need much - the blue cheese has a bold flavor.)

1princesswarrior

I'm happy you decided to get started and you are off to a great start!

To get a better understanding I'm going to suggest you read the following: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

It will answer a lot of your questions about exercise and diet.

In order to really get (in my opinion) the most accurate calories burned during steady-state cardio exercise you should get a heart rate monitor with a chest strap. I use a Polar FT4 but I plan on upgrading to a FT7 as soon as I can afford to. I found mine on Amazon for around $65 dollars. I use it daily to keep track of my calories burned because I am really active in my second job.

Also, as you are losing weight I would recommend a weight training program to preserve as much lean body mass as possible. The more muscle you have the more calories your body will burn at rest, thus the more you can eat = win, win! There are a lot of good programs out there that are 3 days a week and around 20-30 minutes. Cardio is good for the cardiovascular system as well. But strength training really helps burn fat.

Good luck.

ttcbelieve

Hi

My opinion is Diet is for Weightloss and exercise is for fitness, you can take exercise/net calories into consideration but you have to be very careful. For me there was a danger in doing this.

We have similar profiles/goals. I am 5'6" and started out at 170lbs 2 yrs back, with a GW of 150. I had to move it when I got to 150. My new GW is 140. I do not want to weight below 140. It’ll be too skinny for me. I am currently today at 145.2. I have been consistently below 155 for at least 1 year. I just turned 40.

I love food especially sweets, chocolate, ice cream, cake oh gosh cake.

Anyway

After 2 yrs, especially over the last 3 months I have had to recondition myself to Diet for weight loss and Exercise for fitness. Previously I would diet and exercise to lose weight. I would take my net calories into consideration in my daily calories and eat it back. This became counterproductive for me. It started out well, I would exercise and only eat back my exercise calories, but then I started exercising so I could eat, the more I exercise, the more I eat and 4 months back I noticed the pounds starting to pile on also because of course I stopped counting my calories properly. I had to take 1 week off exercising and recondition myself to use diet for weight loss and maintenance and exercise for fitness and overall wellbeing. I am at a daily maintenance of 1700. I exercise about 4/Week. 2 of those are Crossfit. I do not track the calories I am burning when exercising. I try to keep to 1700 daily calorie food intake but I go over someday up to 2200. On some cheat days I have clocked 3000. Of course I am aware that I have that flexibility because I am exercising and it is only a mental “play” not “officially” tracking my exercise calories. I also combine this with some other stuff

1. I use very loosely the Intermittent fasting diet plan, leangains http://www.leangains.com/2008/06/sure-fire-fat-loss.html but i can do this because I don’t normally eat breakfast so it’s not a struggle for me. By eating within a specific window (1pm to 9/10pm), I find I can reduce the daily calorie I would otherwise have had.

2. Over the last 4 months, I weigh myself daily. This normally puts me back in check if I have been hitting 2200-3000 daily calorie intake

I will say that, I am in maintenance mode and this is why I can do this. I do not know if someone trying to go from 161 to 145 can do this.

For some motivation. Last Saturday I was at 149 (just got back from 1 week vacation, added 6 pounds) I gave myself 1 week to bounce back, attempting to eat strictly within my 1700. (I failed on 2 days ;-)) and promised myself a treat today if I could get to 145 today. I’m 145.2 today…who cares about the .2lbs. I am having a huge Midnight Delight Cake (Rich Dark chocolate cake with cream cheese icing – 1000 Calories a piece, Ice Cream, Chocolate Croissant, hamburgers, corn…Let’s just say I know I’ll be close to 3000 today…I have earned it

Sorry for rambling and goodluck, your goals are reasonable and i'll be routing for you