Anyone not losing weight eating ALL their calories?

erickirb

I usually never eat my exercise calories, I eat around 1200 a day sometimes not even that (I am just not hungry enough to eat a lot)
if I am having a cheat day then I will eat my exercise calories but thats it

If you are not hungry and not eating 1200 you probably already have metabolism issues, and it is difficult to get the required nutrition, Macros and micros, on so few calories. Also hunger is not the best indication of nutrition requirements, as after a prolonged period of not eating enough, you brain will not send the hunger cues properly.

so if this would be the case, how would you fix it? If you are eating healthy and excercising already, how else do you fix a slow metabolism?

To my knowledge you would have to eat maintenance calories for 3-4 weeks or until you stop gaining weight, then go back on a small caloric deficit. you may put on a few pounds in that 3-4 weeks, but it is for the greater good of your health and well being.

Dragonwolf

I usually never eat my exercise calories, I eat around 1200 a day sometimes not even that (I am just not hungry enough to eat a lot)
if I am having a cheat day then I will eat my exercise calories but thats it

If you are not hungry and not eating 1200 you probably already have metabolism issues, and it is difficult to get the required nutrition, Macros and micros, on so few calories. Also hunger is not the best indication of nutrition requirements, as after a prolonged period of not eating enough, you brain will not send the hunger cues properly.

so if this would be the case, how would you fix it? If you are eating healthy and excercising already, how else do you fix a slow metabolism?

As counterintuitive as it sounds, you eat more. Check out the stickies in the various sections here. There's one that talks about a person who only ate something like 800 calories a day and couldn't figure out why she wasn't losing weight. Once she started eating more, she started seeing the changes she was expecting.

Dragonwolf

I haven't yet decided what to do about these "exercise calories." I never heard of eating them back before. I teach Zumba twice a week, and it is two 1-hr classes back-to-back. So on Tuesdays and Thursdays I easily burn an extra 1,200 calories. There is just no way I am eating an additional 1,200 calories on those days! That's huge.

The reason MFP advocates eating the exercise calories is because it already calculates in a deficit on your goal calories. So, for example, if you're 200 pounds, want to lose 2lbs a week, and have a lightly active lifestyle, it might tell you to eat 1600 calories. If you eat only 1600 calories, you should lose weight, because it calculates your daily caloric needs to maintain at something like 1900 calories or so and subtracts the caloric deficit needed to lose weight. If you don't eat back calories you burn, you potentially run the risk of eating too little, which can be counterproductive to your weight loss.

erickirb

I haven't yet decided what to do about these "exercise calories." I never heard of eating them back before. I teach Zumba twice a week, and it is two 1-hr classes back-to-back. So on Tuesdays and Thursdays I easily burn an extra 1,200 calories. There is just no way I am eating an additional 1,200 calories on those days! That's huge.

The more often you do the same exercises the more efficient your body gets at doing it, so for most they may burn 1200 but where you do it so ofter you may only be burning 700-800 over the same time frame.

teamnevergoingback

I exercised and ate all my calories for a solid 3months without losing

Same here! But I can feel a little bit of toning. I'm putting more emphasis on cardio than weight training now and seeing how this works out for me.

YukonJoy

I always feel like MFP is over calculating what I am burning. :huh:

So I usually only eat back around 30% of what they say I burned.

janbottorf

The more often you do the same exercises the more efficient your body gets at doing it, so for most they may burn 1200 but where you do it so ofter you may only be burning 700-800 over the same time frame.

I have a pretty good feel for what I actually burn because I wore a BodyBugg for almost 3 years. When I very first started doing Zumba I was burning about 800 calories per class. After a few months, my burn was in the high 500's or low 600's, and that's where it still was when I took my bugg off not too long ago. Plus I figure with all the other miscellaneous running around involved in my Zumba nights....I leave the house at 5:00, get to the place and get set up, teach 5:30 to 6:30, meet n' greet the people coming and going, teach again 7-8 and then load up all my stuff...I have a good 3 1/2 hours of general activity including 2 full hours of Zumba. So I'm pretty sure about the 1,200 total extra burn that day.

I think I will just listen to my body and "eat back" just enough calories for me to feel satisfied and just well in general. haha