Plateau.. Help!

SafariLara

I recently upped my exercise to about double the amount (for my own fitness and wellness reasons)
BUT it caused me to hit a weightloss plateau. So i'm wondering,

Normally I don't eat back exercise calories because I've had alot of success with it that way, until I upped my exercise so I guess the question is, Should I be upping my calorie intake because of the extra exercise?

Has anyone done this and had good success getting over the plateau?
I just dont know what to do, or if I am just building muscle faster and should wait it out and keep doing what I am doing? I think it would be hard to up my calories by much.... but I'm sure I could manage upping it by a couple hundred if I had to...HELP

xoxo

ebkins7

Yes, eat more... plus you could try changing your exercises. If you always hit the elipitcal... do the bike or stairmaster... also consider more weight training. The more lean muscle you have the more fat you burn!

hope that helps!

AdamATGATT

You need to refuel your body if you're increasing your workouts.

Lance Armstrong didn't continue on his normal diet while doing the Tour de France. He would consume upwards of 6000 calories a day to keep his body properly nourished.

aippolito1

Honey, you are kidding yourself if you think you can double your exercise and NOT eat more. That's idiocy. YES, eat more. I promise, once you start eating your exercise calories (or even half of them), you'll see a difference in yourself! Measurements will change, your energy will be up, and you'll look amazing.

CarterGrt

Lance Armstrong didn't continue on his normal diet while doing the Tour de France. He would consume upwards of 6000 calories a day to keep his body properly nourished.

I read that Michael Phelps ate something like 12,000 calories a day when he was training for the Olympics. He said it was really hard to force himself to eat that many calories because it meant that he was constantly having to consumer massive amounts of food. It is interesting to see how much the body needs when working really hard.

--Carter

CakeFit21

I was at a plateau a couple of months ago. I upped my cals, (started eating back at least 75% exercise cals) and I added weight training, (P90X). It made all the difference in the world. A couple of hundred calories would be all you would need to do. Remember, you've EARNED those cals and MFP has already figured the deficit for you. Start with 200 cals for 2 or 3 weeks and see what happens. My guess is your metabolism needs a boost to catch up with all of the exercise you're doing. The weight training would make it so you're constantly burning fat plus, your body will look tighter. Who doesn't want that? Good luck!

_Bro

Good points..

Put another way, your body strives for homeostasis and eventually you stop getting results from the diet / exercises that were working for you. I have had good results by purposefully cycling carbs and calories intake to keep my metabolism guessing and not plateauing. Doing the same thing (Work out change up) is a good idea as well.