Looking for advice on maintaining & building

rjcelmer

Hello!

Over the past year or so, I have managed to get myself into a lot better shape by dropping over 100lbs. During this time, I have been concentrating on cardio and a healthy diet. Recently (about a month or so) I have gotten into trying to burn excess fat (as opposed to weight) and building muscle by lifting weights and cutting down on cardio.

I can see an improvement in that short time in my overall strength and I can see slight changes in my muscle definition but I feel I have been having a hard time changing my eating habits and properly estimating calorie burn. I continue to lose weight and I'm afraid I will start getting lower than I planned. I would like to stay between 175 and 180lbs and I know the weight will fluctuate with muscle gain and fat loss.

I guess what I'm looking for is the most accurate way to know what I burn during workouts and a better way to get the calories back since now my appetite is lower than when I was 113lbs heavier. I find that when I burn 700-800 calories, I just can't bring myself to eat it all back and I know that's why the weight loss is continuing.

In the past, I have used both a HRM when I do cardio and a Fitbit during my normal work day and I try to get as accurate a count as I can on my calories burned, but I know I'm not hitting the mark.

Also, I can use advice on ways to slowly work into eating more without feeling super stuffed or bloated. As much as I try to fill remaining calories at dinnertime, I eat a big (albeit healthy) dinner and I'm stuffed and can't even THINK about food at that point. Would calorie shakes or meal-replacement bars as supplements to meals be a short-term answer?

I work out 3-4 days a week and although I FEEL great, I know I'm still losing little by little and I would really love to maintain.

Thank you in advance for any advice.

Determinednoob

The way I do it is to just lift the same every week, eat the same cals every day, and adjust cals based on what happens. I never try to figure out how much I burn with exercise.