"It's too hard to eat exercise calories back"

brneydgrlie

Well, some people might be like me who ate too LITTLE before. I was constantly under eating and that's why I gained weight, because my body was holding onto everything that went into my mouth! So for people like me, it was hard adjusting to eating 1200 or more calories per day. I literally had to stretch my stomach out a bit.

And you actually lost weight by eating more than you did before? I find that so hard to understand... I mean, thermodynamics and that, if you don't get enough energy, your body HAS to use your fat stores. How can you get fat by undereating?

Candi - do an MFP search on "starvation mode" and you will see discussions about it. Basically, your body has a defense mechanism that if it is not getting enough nutrients, your metabolism actually slows down in your body's attempt to become more efficient and expend less energy to survive.

ladybg81

lol......I've wondered about this myself when I read it. One thing I can add though is that I cleaned out my cabinets and refrigerator and replaced EVERYTHING with healthier food so for me it is a little hard on big calorie burn gym days to eat 2200 calories since most of my food is low-calorie, but I get ur done... :laugh: :laugh: :flowerforyou:

That is my issue sometimes. I eat healthy and it takes A LOT of healthy food to equal the right amount of calories. But, I still push through and just drink whole milk instead of skim or something like that. I can say that it is getting easier to eat all of my calories and that kind of scares me!! :bigsmile:

candistyx

Well, some people might be like me who ate too LITTLE before. I was constantly under eating and that's why I gained weight, because my body was holding onto everything that went into my mouth! So for people like me, it was hard adjusting to eating 1200 or more calories per day. I literally had to stretch my stomach out a bit.

And you actually lost weight by eating more than you did before? I find that so hard to understand... I mean, thermodynamics and that, if you don't get enough energy, your body HAS to use your fat stores. How can you get fat by undereating?

Candi - do an MFP search on "starvation mode" and you will see discussions about it. Basically, your body has a defense mechanism that if it is not getting enough nutrients, your metabolism actually slows down in your body's attempt to become more efficient and expend less energy to survive.

Metabolism slowing is one thing. Metabolism slowing to the point of adding more fat while in a calorie deficit doesn't make sense to me. How slow does a metabolism have to go to be burning less than 1000 calories a day :S

xreinvention

I'm one of those people that irritate you complaining about it.
When I use to eat "more" as you put it... Yes, I did eat more calories. I was eating McDonalds, Arby's, Taco Bell, Fast foods! Each one of those meals is probably 1000 calories alone. Now one of my meals is 300 - 500 calories. Plus I'm burning 400 - 600 calories from a workout? That leaves me with 720 calories left to eat most nights! That's a lot to eat back after I've already had 3 full meals and 2 snacks. The quantity of food I'm eating hasn't increased or decreased (most days) but the amount of calories in them has.

ATT949

Beg to differ but it ain't that easy for me.

I've been on a low calorie diet since December and really gotten into the habit of not eating much. At one point, I put the 23 almonds back in the bag 'cause I didn't want the 100 or so calories.

Now that I'm getting toward my goal and training for a half marathon, I need to increase my calories and my carbs. That means I have to change my dietary habits that I've followed for almost 7 months. It's a significant change for me. Sure, I'll do it but "sit there, don't eat that" is now a habit and I've got to change that habit.

ilookthetype

i have no junk food in my house. I'm lactose and gluten intolerant so I don't have dairy or bread in my house. I'm sensitive to soy so that cuts out a lot of processed food. When I do a good day at the gym I have to eat back a lot of my exercise calories. When what is in the fridge/freezer is fish, chicken, fruit, veggies and eggs it can be hard. Especially if you work out at night. I tend to eat a 'big' lunch, it's a salad with lots of stuff on it (chicken, fruit,veggies, eggs...) but I usually can only eat half and then I've got to eat a couple hundred calories when I get back from a two hour run at 9? I can't do it. But i'm not going to eat high calorie foods just to do that. I don't want that food in my house and most of it makes me sick...what is a girl to do? Run/exercise less? I eat when I'm hungry. I never go to bed hungry and I always wake up hungry.

People are different.

Some of us "got fat" for reasons other than eating too much. I had Celiac's disease. Which prevented my body from digesting and absorbing nutrients properly, so it held on to everything I hate because it wasn't getting anything from my meals at the time of eating. My body was in starvation mode while I was eating a normal amount of food. Now that I've been diagnosed and my body can absorb and use nutrients properly I'm less hungry and I'm losing weight, but I'd suggest that people keep in mind people gain weight for all kinds of reasons.

Sidonas

ILookthetype stated my perspective on this pretty clearly. I am one of those who has a hard time eating 1200 calories per day and an even harder time eating calories I exercise away. Prior to having my son I didn't eat enough. I was on migraine medication that suppresses appetite and literally had reminders on my phone for eating. After my son, I swapped migraine headaches for fibromyalgia, which put me on a medication that can cause water retention and weight gain.

I was always too skinny before and now I am too fat. Being too skinny first did not help, since it meant my body was in "starvation mode" and would hang onto excess calories as much as possible. I have been working my way up to eating 1200 calories per day. I get to make time to eat, eat five or six meals a day, and I look more closely at the sugar and sodium content of my food than I do at the calorie number. I can (and will, dangit) succeed, but it takes just as much time to learn to eat more as it does to learn to eat less. Either way, both the habits and the size of the stomach have to adjust.

i have no junk food in my house. I'm lactose and gluten intolerant so I don't have dairy or bread in my house. I'm sensitive to soy so that cuts out a lot of processed food. When I do a good day at the gym I have to eat back a lot of my exercise calories. When what is in the fridge/freezer is fish, chicken, fruit, veggies and eggs it can be hard. Especially if you work out at night. I tend to eat a 'big' lunch, it's a salad with lots of stuff on it (chicken, fruit,veggies, eggs...) but I usually can only eat half and then I've got to eat a couple hundred calories when I get back from a two hour run at 9? I can't do it. But i'm not going to eat high calorie foods just to do that. I don't want that food in my house and most of it makes me sick...what is a girl to do? Run/exercise less? I eat when I'm hungry. I never go to bed hungry and I always wake up hungry.

People are different.

Some of us "got fat" for reasons other than eating too much. I had Celiac's disease. Which prevented my body from digesting and absorbing nutrients properly, so it held on to everything I hate because it wasn't getting anything from my meals at the time of eating. My body was in starvation mode while I was eating a normal amount of food. Now that I've been diagnosed and my body can absorb and use nutrients properly I'm less hungry and I'm losing weight, but I'd suggest that people keep in mind people gain weight for all kinds of reasons.

MomofTeens

My biggest problem with eating back exercise calories is that I may not get around to exercising until late evening. Then when I'm done, I'm never hungry. I try to plan ahead, but some days I just don't know if I'm going to have time to get in that exercise or not or for how long.
However, its still working out ok.

taletreader

YES!!! I KNOW! put some butter on your food that's about 100 calories easy or drink some juice!! I absolutely do not understand how people say they cannot eat X amount of food when a few months ago they were eating X + 1000!

In many cases it may just be psychological, and in some cases it may be a warning signal that someone's really overestimating exercise calories. I've read a lot of time complaints that it's hard to eat back an extra and unplanned-for 1500, 1800 or 2000 calories after an evening gym session. I'll WELL believe that it is if you aren't exceptionally hungry. Even more so as many forms of exercise can cut appetite. But I much doubt that they SHOULD be eating back that many. With moderate exercise for weight loss I've never eaten back more than 500 calories (from a base of 1450 or so, that is, I also never went down to extremes like 1000-1200).

I am having a slightly different issue right now related to that. I've decided to move to maintenance temporarily and a little prematurely (I feel good with my body but wanted to lose another 10 pounds or so -- BMI right now is 26, down from 38). The reason is that it looks like I need some surgery within the next 4-6 weeks, unexpectedly, and think I should just level off the weight loss before that. But it's hard to do it in a controlled way: even though it should be easy to add another 300 or so calories daily, I find the calorie counts of the last 6 months easier to manage. The extra calories likely come from holding myself back less when having lunch outside the house, and these are guesswork anyway. So... once you stop clamping down quite so hard, doing it right has some extra challenges. Small ones, granted, but real ones.

LorinaLynn

I can understand someone not wanting to eat their calories back. I don't personally agree with it, because I know what's worked for me, and eating less certainly didn't equate to losing more or faster, or feeling good about it. But I understand it can be a psychological barrier.

I can understand that there's sometimes days when you can't eat them all back. With dinner planned, I'll have about 700 left over for today, because I was out shopping right after breakfast and got home late for lunch and just had a Lean Pocket for something quick and easy. Dinner will be delicious and very nutritious, but I probably won't have it until about 8pm or so, whenever my husband gets home. Won't exactly feel like a nighttime snack after.

But I really can't understand how people can consistently be way under, and not eat their exercise calories, and burn a lot through exercise, without burning out. Bravo to you if it works for you, but I know it wouldn't work for me, and I get concerned that it won't work long term for others. This is the only time I've ever stuck with a weight loss plan, because it's the only time I've eaten enough to not get burned out.

astroub

I use to have a huge problem eating my calories back. I would always think "if I eat those back what was the point" and "I wil gain the weight back!!!" After reading many articles and posts about this, I now realize how important it is for your body to get those calories/nutrients.... I was starving my body but, now can happily say I eat those calories back!! Within 1 week I had lost 2lbs from doing so because my body no longer had to hold onto what little I gave it before! Glad you posted this, because for people who are like I use to be I hope it helps them get on the right track! Good luck MFP peeps!

rubixcyoob

I got pregnant and lived alone, with no freezer and limited fridge space all in the same year (I lived in student halls).

So having a child who, himself, weighed 10lbs 8oz meant that from my child, placenta and water I gained over a stone/14lbs plus the normal 2 stone most gain in pregnancy, around 28lbs extra on top. So that's already 42lbs up in the space of 9 months.
Then with no freeer and a small, less than locker sized, fridge compartment my staples became sandwiches, pasta, noodles and unfortunately take aways.
So while I was not eating BIG meals, or a lot, when I did eat it was the wrong stuff and I just ballooned. I'm around 21lbs away from pre-pregnancy just now and I DO find it hard to eat all my calories because apart from 9 months where I did eat more, for obvious reasons and also eating the wrong stuff, I have always found it hard to eat a lot.

I didn't get fat by eating too much continously.

elliecolorado

Not EVERYONE is here because they ate too much. Some people are trying to lose baby weight some people have health conditions or medications that made them gain weight and then there are other reasons too.

I have never been a big fan of eating. I spent years hardly eating anything, eating once or twice a week, mostly due to the fact that I was doing way too many drugs. After spending years hardly ever eating once I stopped doing drugs I went from eating once or twice a week to eating once a day and started to gain weight. Then I started drinking pretty heavily and the only time I really ate was when I got the 'drunken munchies' so when I did eat it wasn't healthy, but it still wasn't a lot. With years of drug and alcohol abuse mixed with under eating, I did some serious damage to my metabolism. Eating more regularly and exercising has helped get my metabolism closer to 'normal', but I used to have a really hard time getting to my calorie goal without eating my exercise calories. I still have a hard time getting 1200 calories a lot of the time and still have days where I just am tired of eating and thinking about food, so I just don't eat. Sure I could get enough calories if I decided to go drink a 12 pack and eat some cheese fries, but when I stick to trying to eat healthy, it's hard to eat 'enough'.

Maybe some of the people saying it's too hard to eat their calories really are trying and there are other things going on that you aren't aware of. Maybe they are struggling to eat 'enough' without turning back to bad behaviors.

bmpal

True dat.

I've had days where I'm just not hungry, but most of the time I have to hold myself back from eating my young. I don't think they are in the database anyways.

BAHAHAHA! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

amyamadea

I find it hard because I do roller derby 2/3 times a week, for two hours a time. For those that don't know, simple roller skating can burn up to 600 calories an hour and roller derby is a HIIT workout, meaning it is possible to burn up to 1500 calories per training session dependant of course upon what we are working on. But I usually burn around 1000 each time.

Before starting MFP I found it very difficult to eat more than 1000 calories due to having a really messed up eating habit, working shifts and simply forgetting to eat, and while I've got the hang of eating more or less the 1430 stated in my plan, I simply do not have the appetite to force that extra 1000 calories into myself without feeling completely overfull, even if I try to spread it out over the day. I simply cannot eat a gigantic breakfast or a 1000 calorie lunch.

angelaclev

Well, just because you fat doesnt mean you over eat! I am bigger than every friend I have yet I eat WAY less than they do. I get so aggravated when I see people who think that just because you are fat means you eat alot. THAT ISNT TURE. When people sasy that it is hard to eat the extra calories then maybe they burnt more than 200 cal. when they exercised. Ever think of that.

funkyspunky871

Let's just take a moment and calm down people. This is a thread on the internet. Stop acting like your fighting to the death. The OP has a right to her opinion and her generalizations, and you do too of course. That doesn't mean you need to be acting like children and TYPING IN ALL CAPS AS IF SOMETHING REALLY OFFENDED YOU. Please get over it. :smokin:

Suzyder

For those of us who adhere to macronutrient ratios, it's not just about drinking juice or buttering bread. It is a challenge some days to fill those ratios correctly with clean food. Additionally, nutritious, fibrous, lean foods tend to have a lot of volume or provide a lot of satiation for few calories. Lastly, exercise is an appetite suppressant. I'm not surprised that some people find it challenging to eat several hundred calories of CLEAN food.

this.

jennysmission

Well my amount of calories is 1500 and on some days I burn 1100 calories at the gym that is a ALOT of stinking calorie to eat!! JS!

ahinescapron

It is hard for me, only because I exercise a lot some days. Some days I will burn 1500 calories and I am trying to eat more protein. So, the combination of the two relaly does in my appetite. I also have two small children, so I don't really have a lot of down time and sometimes don't remember to eat. Then, on the days when I don't exercise, I have trouble not going over. That is why I started tracking on a different site that averages it over the week instead of doing it day to day.