eating exercise calories AGAIN AGAIN, I KNOW, I KNOW !!!

traceytoo

I've never eaten my exercise calories and in fact try and keep under the 1200 I am allowed, but I'm on a plateua .. can it really, really help me to eat more and eat the exercise calories, I just cannot see me losing weight eating 2,000 calories a day or more - that's how I put it on eating that much .. I have heard all the arguments, tell me one more time please, so I do it !! or at least try it ...:flowerforyou:

amcswain01

I think a lot of it is the quality of food your eating. Eating an extra 600-800 calories in cupcakes vs. fruits and whole grains is obviously not the best idea. Why not start by adding and extra 300 calories and go from there.

FearAnLoathing

If you dont eat your exercise calories the world will implode

traceytoo

The world, or just me lol x

FearAnLoathing

the whole world it will bring down the apocalypse!

benitocereno

If you dont eat your exercise calories the world will implode

Very helpful comment, as you've said time and time again in these 'calories' threads.

OP, you're probably either maintaining weight because you're working out now (glycogen/water in muscles), or your weight loss is slowing because you're 20 lbs lighter than when you started. The most important thing is to not give up. As for your calories, you should have a net of 1200 or above if that's your plan. If you're trying to eat less and/or exercising and dropping below that there's a good chance you're in "starvation mode."

No, you're not going to implode the world, but you're losing unnecessary muscle (see: skinny-fat), and your metabolism is likely punishing you for cutting too low, slowing your weight-loss even further. In general, it's just not healthy, regardless of what the 'nutritional experts' in the peanut gallery say. Reevaluate your calories and I'm sure you'll push through it. Just remember those last pounds are the hardest! Good luck.

laurenk182004

I would eat like 1800 calories for 3-4 days and then drop back down to where you feel comfortable and see if it's shocks your system into losing weight again Good luck!

FearAnLoathing

some people really need to learn how to take a joke or get over themselves.now if I thought I would have been the only one responding to this I would have answered seriously,but im sure you wouldnt have liked that either.So I will stick with my humor and if you dont like then by all means feel free not to read it.
Have a nice day!:flowerforyou:

thankyou4thevenom

I can say that I have NEVER plateaued while eating my exercise calories, only ever lost.
There's something to think about.

benitocereno

some people really need to learn how to take a joke or get over themselves.now if I thought I would have been the only one responding to this I would have answered seriously,but im sure you wouldnt have liked that either.So I will stick with my humor and if you dont like then by all means feel free not to read it.
Have a nice day!flowerforyou

I don't dislike your humor, I just view it as yet-another attempt to passive-aggressively disagree with the serious advice people have offered in all these "do I eat my calories" threads. You've made it pretty clear you don't agree with the mainstream advice in a few threads we have back-and-forth'd in, so it's hard to take it as "just an innocent joke." I apologize if my reaction offended you

All that said, I have no problem with you, just want to make sure the OP understands and gets the advice she's asking for :flowerforyou:.

traceytoo

:laugh: I def better eat em then .. heading to the kitchen now :bigsmile:

traceytoo

thanks all, never tried it that way but am gonna give it a try , get my old heart monitor out and make sure Im only eating what im earning - not what mpf says as Im not sure they are so correct.

Will keep you posted .. wish me luck :_))

FearAnLoathing

you didnt offend me,im very hard to offend.I have no issue with what the mainstream idea is.I get that its that way for most people.I am not a big eater have never been except during my last pregnancy which is where I gained all my weight.I have never once told anyone on this site to do what I do.I have just answered what I do.What would make me mad is when I would get messages about how I couldnt possibly be healthy.I am very healthy.So I stoped answering since people seemed to get so riled up about the way I am.Or that I couldnt possibly know my own body after having it for almost 34 years.I am not trying to be passive aggresive just trying to be funny since my input wouldnt help her in what she needed to know

Ive got no problem with you or anyone.

ronchap

I usually only eat back half but i still have some room if I want something extra

carolinegeorgia

you didnt offend me,im very hard to offend.I have no issue with what the mainstream idea is.I get that its that way for most people.I am not a big eater have never been except during my last pregnancy which is where I gained all my weight.I have never once told anyone on this site to do what I do.I have just answered what I do.What would make me mad is when I would get messages about how I couldnt possibly be healthy.I am very healthy.So I stoped answering since people seemed to get so riled up about the way I am.Or that I couldnt possibly know my own body after having it for almost 34 years.I am not trying to be passive aggresive just trying to be funny since my input wouldnt help her in what she needed to know

Ive got no problem with you or anyone.

carolinegeorgia

you didnt offend me,im very hard to offend.I have no issue with what the mainstream idea is.I get that its that way for most people.I am not a big eater have never been except during my last pregnancy which is where I gained all my weight.I have never once told anyone on this site to do what I do.I have just answered what I do.What would make me mad is when I would get messages about how I couldnt possibly be healthy.I am very healthy.So I stoped answering since people seemed to get so riled up about the way I am.Or that I couldnt possibly know my own body after having it for almost 34 years.I am not trying to be passive aggresive just trying to be funny since my input wouldnt help her in what she needed to know

Ive got no problem with you or anyone.

oops, sorry, did the last one wrong, I totally agree with this, I don't eat my exercise calories, I don't need to eat more then 3 times a day and would be the size of a house if I ate the exercise calories, it doesn't work for me. and that seems to be a problem for some people on this site, I have found some quite rude and telling me you have to, people with NO training and a complete stranger. I think as we all have different needs we should do what works for your bodies :happy:

ladyhawk00

you didnt offend me,im very hard to offend.I have no issue with what the mainstream idea is.I get that its that way for most people.I am not a big eater have never been except during my last pregnancy which is where I gained all my weight.I have never once told anyone on this site to do what I do.I have just answered what I do.What would make me mad is when I would get messages about how I couldnt possibly be healthy.I am very healthy.So I stoped answering since people seemed to get so riled up about the way I am.Or that I couldnt possibly know my own body after having it for almost 34 years.I am not trying to be passive aggresive just trying to be funny since my input wouldnt help her in what she needed to know

Ive got no problem with you or anyone.

oops, sorry, did the last one wrong, I totally agree with this, I don't eat my exercise calories, I don't need to eat more then 3 times a day and would be the size of a house if I ate the exercise calories, it doesn't work for me. and that seems to be a problem for some people on this site, I have found some quite rude and telling me you have to, people with NO training and a complete stranger. I think as we all have different needs we should do what works for your bodies :happy:

I think there are two things at play here. First, there are definitely people who go too far the other way in the debate, demanding that everyone should eat their exercise cals and throwing around the term "starvation mode" far too liberally and recklessly, without a true understanding of it. Basically, it boils down to - if you don't have a lot to lose (30 lbs or less), and are accurate with intake/burns, you should probably eat them. But there are a lot of variables here and if one is off, it may not work for you.

The other part is, I think for the most part people aren't trying to be rude. I think there is genuine concern and people want to see everyone be successful. But, unfortunately, there are some people who don't know how to explain it, or exactly how it all works - they just believe in it and sometimes apply it with a rather large brush, on both sides.

The trouble with not providing enough fuel is that you don't all of a sudden pop up with a big sign on your forehead announcing "Starvation Mode" or "Underfeeding". It is a very gradual process, that can take months or years to set in, and may take even longer to show any visible signs, especially if you are JUST under the amount your body needs. Not eating enough will not make you collapse on "the 3rd day", or even after a year. There's no set time limit - again, there are a lot of variables. Some people may be able to last for years that way - I did.

To give you a synopsis of my story (and why this is important to me.) I struggled with eating disorders for many years. I never had enough discipline to get to the point that I was really ill - but I did do plenty of damage. Eventually, I got out of the worst of it, but I settled into a routine that was still a long ways from healthy. I started gaining weight about 2 years after my son was born. I never ate breakfast, rarely ate lunch, ate a good dinner and snacked all evening. I did no purposeful exercise. I never drank water. I drank a lot of soda. The food I ate was overall pretty healthy; good protein, good carbs, not too bad on fat, very little fast food, and my snacks were generally pretty good (though of course I did do too much carbs). But at the end of the day, my intake was probably around 800-1200 most days and probably half of that was from soda. Then I would have occasional binges where I probably took in 2500-3000 in a day. But this definitely did NOT bring me up to a good daily intake, even when averaged out. So I sat at a daily average intake of around 1000-1200 for about 5 years. My BMR is about 1500, and maintenance cals at sedentary are about 2000. So I should have been losing weight, right?

I spent a several years frustrated and discouraged - even with quite a bit of education in nutrition, I couldn't understand how I could eat so little and gain 40 lbs over 5 years. I wasn't hungry. I ate good food. What I didn't understand was that I had been underfeeding and carb-loading. While the food I ate wasn't bad - there wasn't enough of it, and eating it all in a short period of time told my body "There isn't much of this, so hold on to it". I trained my body to increase fat stores gradually, through a very slow process of underfeeding.

For short periods when I did have a lot of physical activity (usually summer) I would lose a little weight - 5-15 lbs. Often, I was well within a healthy BMI range. But because I wasn't eating enough, the weight I lost was muscle. There was nothing drastic about it, but over 5 years I lost probably half of my muscle mass and doubled or tripled my fat. So even when I was "thinner", I was the dreaded "skinny fat". I had no muscle tone, whatsoever. I did not provide my body with enough fuel to maintain the muscle - so it ate it and stored fat to compensate.

Until I educated myself on the matter, I didn't understand. I figured I was just getting the "middle age spread." But I had lowered my metabolism and convinced my body to increase fat storage and burn muscle, because I told it that we were in for a long fight and there wasn't going to be much fuel coming in.

I'm losing weight now, but it will be a rather long and difficult process of turning this around. I struggle to eat as much as I should. After spending years suppressing my appetite, it is HARD to eat sometimes. I'm still often not hungry. I'm still in the process of retraining my body to send normal hunger cues, and still retraining my mind how to recognize them. It won't happen overnight. Bad eating habits, whether it's overeating or undereating, take just as long to fix as they did to get set.

So while eating under goal and "eating when hungry" may be working for you now, don't assume that it always will - or that you will know right away when it's not working. It can be a very sinister and silent process. I hope you're successful, no matter what strategy you use. And I took the time to type this out because I care. Yes, you're just a stranger at a computer hundreds of miles away, and I've never met you, and am not likely to. But I'd hate to see you or anyone else go through the frustration and depression that I went through because of underfeeding. :flowerforyou:

P.S. Sorry this is so long. :ohwell:

Edited for some typos.

FearAnLoathing

Im sorry you had to go through that!That really sucks.The point im trying to make is I have always eaten very little except right after I quit drugs and became pregnant I went crazy with fast food soda ect.I now eat the way ive always eaten.Ive been losing weight for a year I have been to a dr just to make sure this is not happening to me and its not.im ok and i know for a fact i am ok.
I understand people get concerned that sweet but when I get messages from people not being concerned but being rude saying i must be lying or I should be banned then yeah I get a little mad.

Thank you for being concerned for me!

Dobsaya

Eat the exercise calories. I bought a bodymedia fit armband on Feb. 1st and had been on a plateau for a couple of weeks. According to the armband I am burning about 3000-3500 calories a day which included my hour of exercise calories. At first I kept my calories to 1300-1500 even though the bodymedia was claiming I was burning a lot more than I thought. (I am leary of trusting new technology.) However, after another week of busting my bottom, I still hit a plateau. So I increased my calories to 1800-2100 a day last Tuesday and have since actually lost 2 pounds. Hate to say it but eat all the exercise calories. You may be burning more in your eveyday life than you think. I am 35 with a slowing metabolism and am still burning a nice amount.

clohessy

If I eat exercise calories I GAIN.

islandgirljane

I don't always eat all of my calories just in case there is some error and also because I work out pretty late in the evening. Let your body be the judge. If you feel super hungry after a workout, for example if I'm a minute away from my stomach growling then I will have a handful of almonds (less than a 1/4 cup though for protein) a few strawberries (fiber that doesn't taste like fiber ) and 16 oz of water. Satisfying but not to heavy. Good Luck. Oh remember that the recommended calorie intake on mfp is programed with a 500 calorie deficit already.

carolinegeorgia

you didnt offend me,im very hard to offend.I have no issue with what the mainstream idea is.I get that its that way for most people.I am not a big eater have never been except during my last pregnancy which is where I gained all my weight.I have never once told anyone on this site to do what I do.I have just answered what I do.What would make me mad is when I would get messages about how I couldnt possibly be healthy.I am very healthy.So I stoped answering since people seemed to get so riled up about the way I am.Or that I couldnt possibly know my own body after having it for almost 34 years.I am not trying to be passive aggresive just trying to be funny since my input wouldnt help her in what she needed to know

Ive got no problem with you or anyone.

oops, sorry, did the last one wrong, I totally agree with this, I don't eat my exercise calories, I don't need to eat more then 3 times a day and would be the size of a house if I ate the exercise calories, it doesn't work for me. and that seems to be a problem for some people on this site, I have found some quite rude and telling me you have to, people with NO training and a complete stranger. I think as we all have different needs we should do what works for your bodies :happy:

I think there are two things at play here. First, there are definitely people who go too far the other way in the debate, demanding that everyone should eat their exercise cals and throwing around the term "starvation mode" far too liberally and recklessly, without a true understanding of it. Basically, it boils down to - if you don't have a lot to lose (30 lbs or less), and are accurate with intake/burns, you should probably eat them. But there are a lot of variables here and if one is off, it may not work for you.

The other part is, I think for the most part people aren't trying to be rude. I think there is genuine concern and people want to see everyone be successful. But, unfortunately, there are some people who don't know how to explain it, or exactly how it all works - they just believe in it and sometimes apply it with a rather large brush, on both sides.

The trouble with not providing enough fuel is that you don't all of a sudden pop up with a big sign on your forehead announcing "Starvation Mode" or "Underfeeding". It is a very gradual process, that can take months or years to set in, and may take even longer to show any visible signs, especially if you are JUST under the amount your body needs. Not eating enough will not make you collapse on "the 3rd day", or even after a year. There's no set time limit - again, there are a lot of variables. Some people may be able to last for years that way - I did.

To give you a synopsis of my story (and why this is important to me.) I struggled with eating disorders for many years. I never had enough discipline to get to the point that I was really ill - but I did do plenty of damage. Eventually, I got out of the worst of it, but I settled into a routine that was still a long ways from healthy. I started gaining weight about 2 years after my son was born. I never ate breakfast, rarely ate lunch, ate a good dinner and snacked all evening. I did no purposeful exercise. I never drank water. I drank a lot of soda. The food I ate was overall pretty healthy; good protein, good carbs, not too bad on fat, very little fast food, and my snacks were generally pretty good (though of course I did do too much carbs). But at the end of the day, my intake was probably around 800-1200 most days and probably half of that was from soda. Then I would have occasional binges where I probably took in 2500-3000 in a day. But this definitely did NOT bring me up to a good daily intake, even when averaged out. So I sat at a daily average intake of around 1000-1200 for about 5 years. My BMR is about 1500, and maintenance cals at sedentary are about 2000. So I should have been losing weight, right?

I spent a several years frustrated and discouraged - even with quite a bit of education in nutrition, I couldn't understand how I could eat so little and gain 40 lbs over 5 years. I wasn't hungry. I ate good food. What I didn't understand was that I had been underfeeding and carb-loading. While the food I ate wasn't bad - there wasn't enough of it, and eating it all in a short period of time told my body "There isn't much of this, so hold on to it". I trained my body to increase fat stores gradually, through a very slow process of underfeeding.

For short periods when I did have a lot of physical activity (usually summer) I would lose a little weight - 5-15 lbs. Often, I was well within a healthy BMI range. But because I wasn't eating enough, the weight I lost was muscle. There was nothing drastic about it, but over 5 years I lost probably half of my muscle mass and doubled or tripled my fat. So even when I was "thinner", I was the dreaded "skinny fat". I had no muscle tone, whatsoever. I did not provide my body with enough fuel to maintain the muscle - so it ate it and stored fat to compensate.

Until I educated myself on the matter, I didn't understand. I figured I was just getting the "middle age spread." But I had lowered my metabolism and convinced my body to increase fat storage and burn muscle, because I told it that we were in for a long fight and there wasn't going to be much fuel coming in.

I'm losing weight now, but it will be a rather long and difficult process of turning this around. I struggle to eat as much as I should. After spending years suppressing my appetite, it is HARD to eat sometimes. I'm still often not hungry. I'm still in the process of retraining my body to send normal hunger cues, and still retraining my mind how to recognize them. It won't happen overnight. Bad eating habits, whether it's overeating or undereating, take just as long to fix as they did to get set.

So while eating under goal and "eating when hungry" may be working for you now, don't assume that it always will - or that you will know right away when it's not working. It can be a very sinister and silent process. I hope you're successful, no matter what strategy you use. And I took the time to type this out because I care. Yes, you're just a stranger at a computer hundreds of miles away, and I've never met you, and am not likely to. But I'd hate to see you or anyone else go through the frustration and depression that I went through because of underfeeding. :flowerforyou:

P.S. Sorry this is so long. :ohwell:

Edited for some typos.

great reply, sorry u had to go through that. and I didn't mean people mean to be rude but some are, still never mind, I don't let them bother me, I find most people on here very encouraging. :flowerforyou:

juliana1977

Hi there! I have a question: how long have you been in a plateou? Several weeks, a month? Or you did not lose weight for a week or two?

I am not sure what to consider a plateou though, I think it is normal, especially for us women, not to lose weight for a week or two, especially if we are going thru one of those time of the month. But if you still busting you behind for several weeks and still not losing a single oz I would also make some changes because something needs to happen!

This is what I would do it: Increase a little, not much, instead of 1200 I would eat 1400/1500 and I would also do more weight trainning than cardio. I would do it it for 2 or 3 weeks and observe the difference.

I have hard time believing the numbers my HRM says I burned so I always go with a lower number. For example my HRM said I burned 1021 calories Monday, MFP said 700 I went with the 700 and ate only 200 out of those calories. But I did not workout yesterday and ate1300. All I can say is it is working for me. I try to eat 1200-1300 when not exercising and 1300-1400 when exercising but b/c my exercise Monday is so heavy I am not exercising everyday like I was before starting this program on Mondays.

Just my 2 cents!!

islandgirljane

you didnt offend me,im very hard to offend.I have no issue with what the mainstream idea is.I get that its that way for most people.I am not a big eater have never been except during my last pregnancy which is where I gained all my weight.I have never once told anyone on this site to do what I do.I have just answered what I do.What would make me mad is when I would get messages about how I couldnt possibly be healthy.I am very healthy.So I stoped answering since people seemed to get so riled up about the way I am.Or that I couldnt possibly know my own body after having it for almost 34 years.I am not trying to be passive aggresive just trying to be funny since my input wouldnt help her in what she needed to know

Ive got no problem with you or anyone.

oops, sorry, did the last one wrong, I totally agree with this, I don't eat my exercise calories, I don't need to eat more then 3 times a day and would be the size of a house if I ate the exercise calories, it doesn't work for me. and that seems to be a problem for some people on this site, I have found some quite rude and telling me you have to, people with NO training and a complete stranger. I think as we all have different needs we should do what works for your bodies :happy:

I think there are two things at play here. First, there are definitely people who go too far the other way in the debate, demanding that everyone should eat their exercise cals and throwing around the term "starvation mode" far too liberally and recklessly, without a true understanding of it. Basically, it boils down to - if you don't have a lot to lose (30 lbs or less), and are accurate with intake/burns, you should probably eat them. But there are a lot of variables here and if one is off, it may not work for you.

The other part is, I think for the most part people aren't trying to be rude. I think there is genuine concern and people want to see everyone be successful. But, unfortunately, there are some people who don't know how to explain it, or exactly how it all works - they just believe in it and sometimes apply it with a rather large brush, on both sides.

The trouble with not providing enough fuel is that you don't all of a sudden pop up with a big sign on your forehead announcing "Starvation Mode" or "Underfeeding". It is a very gradual process, that can take months or years to set in, and may take even longer to show any visible signs, especially if you are JUST under the amount your body needs. Not eating enough will not make you collapse on "the 3rd day", or even after a year. There's no set time limit - again, there are a lot of variables. Some people may be able to last for years that way - I did.

To give you a synopsis of my story (and why this is important to me.) I struggled with eating disorders for many years. I never had enough discipline to get to the point that I was really ill - but I did do plenty of damage. Eventually, I got out of the worst of it, but I settled into a routine that was still a long ways from healthy. I started gaining weight about 2 years after my son was born. I never ate breakfast, rarely ate lunch, ate a good dinner and snacked all evening. I did no purposeful exercise. I never drank water. I drank a lot of soda. The food I ate was overall pretty healthy; good protein, good carbs, not too bad on fat, very little fast food, and my snacks were generally pretty good (though of course I did do too much carbs). But at the end of the day, my intake was probably around 800-1200 most days and probably half of that was from soda. Then I would have occasional binges where I probably took in 2500-3000 in a day. But this definitely did NOT bring me up to a good daily intake, even when averaged out. So I sat at a daily average intake of around 1000-1200 for about 5 years. My BMR is about 1500, and maintenance cals at sedentary are about 2000. So I should have been losing weight, right?

I spent a several years frustrated and discouraged - even with quite a bit of education in nutrition, I couldn't understand how I could eat so little and gain 40 lbs over 5 years. I wasn't hungry. I ate good food. What I didn't understand was that I had been underfeeding and carb-loading. While the food I ate wasn't bad - there wasn't enough of it, and eating it all in a short period of time told my body "There isn't much of this, so hold on to it". I trained my body to increase fat stores gradually, through a very slow process of underfeeding.

For short periods when I did have a lot of physical activity (usually summer) I would lose a little weight - 5-15 lbs. Often, I was well within a healthy BMI range. But because I wasn't eating enough, the weight I lost was muscle. There was nothing drastic about it, but over 5 years I lost probably half of my muscle mass and doubled or tripled my fat. So even when I was "thinner", I was the dreaded "skinny fat". I had no muscle tone, whatsoever. I did not provide my body with enough fuel to maintain the muscle - so it ate it and stored fat to compensate.

Until I educated myself on the matter, I didn't understand. I figured I was just getting the "middle age spread." But I had lowered my metabolism and convinced my body to increase fat storage and burn muscle, because I told it that we were in for a long fight and there wasn't going to be much fuel coming in.

I'm losing weight now, but it will be a rather long and difficult process of turning this around. I struggle to eat as much as I should. After spending years suppressing my appetite, it is HARD to eat sometimes. I'm still often not hungry. I'm still in the process of retraining my body to send normal hunger cues, and still retraining my mind how to recognize them. It won't happen overnight. Bad eating habits, whether it's overeating or undereating, take just as long to fix as they did to get set.

So while eating under goal and "eating when hungry" may be working for you now, don't assume that it always will - or that you will know right away when it's not working. It can be a very sinister and silent process. I hope you're successful, no matter what strategy you use. And I took the time to type this out because I care. Yes, you're just a stranger at a computer hundreds of miles away, and I've never met you, and am not likely to. But I'd hate to see you or anyone else go through the frustration and depression that I went through because of underfeeding. :flowerforyou:

P.S. Sorry this is so long. :ohwell:

Edited for some typos.



Very well said and informative. I get it now and I will definitely make a better effort to log precisely and eat my calories as hard as it may be. Thank you very much and stay strong!!

OVERHOLTZER

Hey girls!! New on here and just wanted to jump in and get help and tips to stay motivated.
Have a ton to loose and I feel like I'm always doing the rollar coaster diet. Love this sight
tho.. it really seems to help stay on track.

so for those that have a sit down job, what do you recommend for work outs? I usually
do the biggest loser dvd's and walk about an hour afterwards (or instead). If it's
really nice out I'll just power walk for an hour or 2.. but I live in MN so the weather is
a lot like my diet (a rollar coaster).

<img border="0" src="http://img.weddingcountdown.com/ticker/ppg53b.png&quot; alt="wedding website" />


Thanx,

shelly