Balancing Calories and Exercise

brialie

Hi All,

I have beens struggling over the past few weeks to balance my exercise with my calorie intake. I exercise 4 - 5 times a week a burn 550 - 700 calories a session. How much food should I be eating on the days that I exercise in oder to not force my body into starvation mode. Currently I have not been losing any weight, this could be because I am gaining muscle but I just don't know! If I burn 600 Calories and eat 1200 Calories this only gives me a net of 600 which is not enough for my body to handle, but I struggle to eat more than 1200 calories a day.

My other issue is that I also work night shifts 4 nights per week fortnightly. I never lose weight after doing night shifts and they also slow down my metabolism and weight loss for the following few days. Any suggestions??

Heatherbelle_87

On the nights you work night shift focus on fiber, veggies, and fruits. As unprocessed as possible. WHen I worked overnights at a hospital the ONLY place open for 3 am cravings was dunkin donuts (and yes I convinced my police boyfriend at the time to go et me donuts and smoothies... If he objected his sup didnt! lol) So my coworker and I had to make a point to bring food and we would do it pot-luck style. We also had a STOCK of healthy snacks, especially oatmeal.

If you have a good set routine, with specific days you go to the gym and specific calorie burns, then you should try adding even just 50 more calories to your meals throughout the day, your MFP tracker may say your over cals till you get your workout but this would save you from feeling like you need to pig out right before bed to hit your calorie goal.

Also, if you arent using an HRM, I usually eat about half my excercise cals, but 1200 NET is pretty important. I dont always hit it but prefer to

pkarim

Every person's body is different and when i used mfp and simply counted calories and ate a a majority of carbs like it told me to i never lost a single pound. Instead, for me it's the quality of the calories. I eat mainly proteins fruits, dairy and vegetables and within that I always get a lot of carbs in with no added carbs in my diet. Also if I burn 700 calories i never eat up to 1900 I always stay about 1200-1300. I've lost 40 pounds over the past year and a half so I know for a fact that I wasn't putting my body in starvation mode because the weight would have come back. To help you at night you might try to get some type of a protein shake, that usually keeps me full for at least 3 hours.

Mamapengu

Do you burn the same amount each week consistently? I tend to burn about 3000 cal a week, 0cal on 2 days (rest day) and up to 1200 (long run day) on other days. So I divided that by 7 and added the additional 428 to my daily calorie goal (using the custom goal). Now I'm not changing my daily intake but it has the same effect on average. It only took a few days to get used to the increased calories and seems to be working for the last few months.