triathlete who works out 6 days a week 1-2 hours on the week

lostalykat

Am I eating enough calories at 1600? Of course I eat my exercise calories back, I am training for a triathlon. I have been struggling to lose weight. If anyone has any experience that would we awesome. I am pretty sure I am doomed to not losing any weight until after my race. I am just wondering if anyone knows.

UltraRunnerGale

I am an ultramarathoner who is training for a 50K in three weeks. I have been running crazy mileage and eating a lot. I have tried to keep my calories fairly healthy so I get to eat a lot. I have lost 13 pounds in 6 weeks. I'm not sure how. It seems like I shouldn't be losing with all I eat, but I am. I can't see your diary so I'm not sure how differently we are eating. I have a friend who is training for the same race but is eating a lot of processed food and isn't losing like I am. Not sure if this helps or not. :flowerforyou:

Jorra

If your net is 1600, you should be fine. If you are only eating 1600 including exercise calories, it may not be enough. You want to aim for 1600 plus the exercise calories. I hope I'm making sense with that explanation.

hajjcomb

I am also training 6 days a week, for a half ironman in August. My approach was to focus on weight loss from January thru April, then after that I switched the focus to training. Your body needs the proper fuel to repair itself from the rigors of tri training.

If you still want to run a calorie deficit while training, my suggestion would be to take what would normally be your weight-loss specific calorie deficit, and cut that in half. For example, Jan thru Apr I was trying to run a daily deficit of 500 calories. Now that I am in full training mode (well, minus Achilles tendinitis I have right now), I won't run more than a 250 deficit most days, if at all.

It's hard to build muscle and endurance necessary for tri and deprive your body of significant calories at the same time.

lostalykat

I made my profile public so everyone can have better idea. THanks!

lisapickering

Does the 1,600 calories include your exercise calories? If it does then you're not eating enough training for a tri 1 - 2 hours / day. Your net calories would be close to zero!

lostalykat

I meant to say that on the weekends I train for up to 4 hours depending. I eat all my calories back, and I am just struggling because my pants feel tighter but I feel like I tri so hard haha pun intended.

Jorra

I see that you aren't eating back all the exercise calories. When you enter exercise, it ups your daily goal. I don't see you getting close to that goal every day, and sometimes you are way under! Of course, I don't know the stories behind all those days, but I would suggest always eating as close to the adjusted goal as possible. (For you, that seems to end up being around 2000 when you exercise.)

sleepytexan

That sounds like my daily schedule in general, but I am not a runner (unless someone bad is chasing me--ha!). I eat about 1800-2000 cals a day, including my exercise calories, so my net is around 1310.

Here is a great explanation as to why you need to eat exercise calories (and that might be more than you think)!

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/196502-for-the-people-who-work-out-like-crazy-and-are-not-losing?hl=for+people+who+work+out+like+crazy

It is really possible to gain weight if you aren't eating enough even if you train every day. I had a mystery gain just over a year ago, and didn't realize it was due to INCREASED exercise without increasing my calories.

You need to know your VO2 max to get the most accurate read on how many calories you are actually burning (don't rely on the HRM--even a Polar--all they do is estimate based on the info you provide). If you haven't had your VO2 evaluated recently, it may have improved with all your recent training, so check it out and plug in your own numbers to the formula to see what you're really burning. Maybe you underestimate?

blessings.

lostalykat

I changed my goal from losing 1 pound a week to losing .5 a week because I was hungry all the time. So now I eat closer to 1600 calories a day as well as my exercise calories. I also tend to splurge a little more on the weekends but I have huge workouts on the weekends, up to 4 hours on one day like I said.