PLEASE READ, I need some advice!

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  • Littlegurl
    Littlegurl Posts: 172 Member
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    as long as you continue seeing results and do not feel deprived, it is fine, you should never eat when you are not hungry

    I agree. If u feel deprived for too long it will mess with ur metabolism and possibly cause u to binge.
  • fitQueenbeast
    fitQueenbeast Posts: 298
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    Mzedavis- I burn approximately 500 calories when I workout doing the Body Attack workout class about 4 times a week and I walk on the treadmill for an hour at the pace of about 3.0-3.5 1 to 2 times a week. When I calculate my food in my diary and my workouts I don't look at the "earned" calories, I look at my actually goal calories and eat that... Mind you, I'm just starting this today...

    -Brandie

    That's the problem and where people get confused A LOT. Your GOAL calories is what you net AFTER exercise. If you go to your Goals page, you will see in fine print (there's an asterisk next to Net Calories Consumed per Day to read at the bottom) that it says Net Calories Consumed = Total Calories Consumed LESS Exercise Calories. If you aren't exercising, then you need to be eating a little bit more. The Net Calories Goal is what you should net after eating and exercising for the day. MFP already worked your deficit into your names based off your TDEE, which is the Normal Daily Activities number.
  • PetulantOne
    PetulantOne Posts: 2,131 Member
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    as long as you continue seeing results and do not feel deprived, it is fine, you should never eat when you are not hungry

    This is just not true. I'm not trying to start a fight here, but if I didn't eat when I wasn't hungry, I'd only eat like once a day. Hunger pains can easily be covered up by lots of things. If I drink a lot of water I don't feel hungry. If I work out really hard I don't feel hungry, but that is when my body needs the fuel the most.
  • pixiestick
    pixiestick Posts: 839 Member
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    as long as you continue seeing results and do not feel deprived, it is fine, you should never eat when you are not hungry

    This is just not true. I'm not trying to start a fight here, but if I didn't eat when I wasn't hungry, I'd only eat like once a day. Hunger pains can easily be covered up by lots of things. If I drink a lot of water I don't feel hungry. If I work out really hard I don't feel hungry, but that is when my body needs the fuel the most.

    Jackienb3 makes a good point.

    Last time around this mountain (-50lbs prior to an accident and relapse into the arms of food), I was religious about getting 450-600cals of exercise every day (get an HRM as the calculations on MFP are averaged and generally too high). I ate approx. half back (starting from 1200); so I would often have between 1400-1500 cals per day.

    This time around, I want to make sustainable life choice, not just wait loss choices, so I am taking it a lot slower... eating back about 75% and starting at 1350 (I've been getting around 1700 daily). Just food for thought from someone who has seen both success and failure. Moderation is always best.
  • Destanie_Robyn
    Destanie_Robyn Posts: 304 Member
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    I think it depends... let me explain - As mentioned in post from other MFPers you need to continue to consume enough calories to keep your body going healthy as you want to lose body fat and not muscle. With that said, the human body uses its resources wisely and when there is a lack of food the body preferentially uses the fat stores as its primary source of energy. There was one interesting case study where a severely obese man undertook a [medically supervised] 382 day fast to lose over 200 lbs and kept the weight off for at least 5 yrs after the fast ended. ****THIS WAS MEDICALLY SUPERVISED and I would NOT advise anyone to under go any long term fast without the constant supervision of a medical physician!**** HOWEVER, your body also requires specific vitamins, minerals and essential amino acids (AA's); so even if you body has plenty of fat to use for energy it will start to break down the muscles if it is not getting those important essential amino acids. In the case study I mention the man was given a daily multivitamin, electrolytes and yeast (The yeast here serves as the source of essential AAs). So to make a long story short - when you are burning a lot of extra calories from exercise -> you need to make sure your body is getting all of the essential AA's, vitamins and minerals it needs. Most people get these from a balanced diet, the problem is when many people restrict their calorie intake they also by default restrict important nutrients. SO if you dont want to eat back your calories I think that is fine as long as the calories you do eat are balanced correctly - Proteins are the main source of AA's and some important vitamin and minerals, veggies and fruit also contain important vit./minerals. Hope this helps! I've included info below to the case study mentioned:

    PS- I also want to emphasize that the paper below is only a case study looking at one man, not an actual scientific study, there are no controls, treatment groups and therefore no statistics so for those reading please do not attempt to starve yourself. I only mention it to illustrate what the human body is capable of :)

    Features of a successful therapeutic fast of 382 days' duration
    W. K. Stewart, Laura W. Fleming
    Postgrad Med J 1973;49:203-209 doi:10.1136/pgmj.49.569.203
  • Julicat6
    Julicat6 Posts: 231 Member
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    It probably won't hurt to do it occasionally, but I find that I loe the most eating back about 1/2 of the exercise calories. MFP has me set at 1230, most days I earn around 800-900. I eat somewhere between 1450 and 1600 most days. This has me losing 2-3 lbs a week, so maybe a bit fast, but I just switched to MFP in September and really cranked up the activity. I still have about 50lbs to lose, so I fully expect it to slow down to about 1lb a week soon.
  • mulderpf
    mulderpf Posts: 209 Member
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    The nutritionist that I have been working with tells me NOT to eat back calories burned. So I would imagine it's fine.

    I bet you that your nutritionist would never put you on a 1200 calorie diet though!!!

    It's NOT fine!!! Your body can't live off so little calories when she is using it up to exercise. There's nothing left to keep her metabolism going...
  • mulderpf
    mulderpf Posts: 209 Member
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    Jackie- I am burning about 500-600 calories from my exercises (says MFP). I do the workout class called "Body Attack". It's a high impact cardio workout for an hour about 4 times a week and I also walk on the treadmill at around 3.0-3.5 mph for an hour about 1 to 2 times during the week and that burns abour 200+ calories. Add me and you can see my diary. I'm not sure what you mean by "what am I actually netting"?

    -Brandie
    Only read this now - this is CRAZY!!! You need to fuel your body!! Your body needs energy to fuel your metabolism - without it, you could simply end up doing lasting damage because your body will simply adjust to this little net calories.
  • WinnerVictorious
    WinnerVictorious Posts: 4,735 Member
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    Jackie- I am burning about 500-600 calories from my exercises (says MFP). I do the workout class called "Body Attack". It's a high impact cardio workout for an hour about 4 times a week and I also walk on the treadmill at around 3.0-3.5 mph for an hour about 1 to 2 times during the week and that burns abour 200+ calories. Add me and you can see my diary. I'm not sure what you mean by "what am I actually netting"?

    -Brandie
    Only read this now - this is CRAZY!!! You need to fuel your body!! Your body needs energy to fuel your metabolism - without it, you could simply end up doing lasting damage because your body will simply adjust to this little net calories.

    this is not true.

    when you fill up your gas tank, do you drive 10 miles and then think to yourself, "oh no, i have to go get more gas because my car is about to stall!". of course you don't. you have plenty of other fuel stored in the gas tank for your engine to use. that's the same with the human body. the human body stores fat (fuel) for use in the future when daily caloric intake doesn't meet daily needs. until you get very low on fat reserves, your body has plenty of "stored energy" to draw on when needed. your body doesn't magically learn how to defy the laws of physics by figuring out a way to do the same things while burning fewer calories. it may get more efficient at doing some things, but your metabolism will continue along at pretty much the same rate until the body can no longer provide the necessary energy for it. then your body will stop doing some things to conserve energy. that happens at 5%-6% body fat for men. that's very lean.
  • MinimalistShoeAddict
    MinimalistShoeAddict Posts: 1,946 Member
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    I think it depends... let me explain - As mentioned in post from other MFPers you need to continue to consume enough calories to keep your body going healthy as you want to lose body fat and not muscle. With that said, the human body uses its resources wisely and when there is a lack of food the body preferentially uses the fat stores as its primary source of energy. There was one interesting case study where a severely obese man undertook a [medically supervised] 382 day fast to lose over 200 lbs and kept the weight off for at least 5 yrs after the fast ended. ****THIS WAS MEDICALLY SUPERVISED and I would NOT advise anyone to under go any long term fast without the constant supervision of a medical physician!**** HOWEVER, your body also requires specific vitamins, minerals and essential amino acids (AA's); so even if you body has plenty of fat to use for energy it will start to break down the muscles if it is not getting those important essential amino acids. In the case study I mention the man was given a daily multivitamin, electrolytes and yeast (The yeast here serves as the source of essential AAs). So to make a long story short - when you are burning a lot of extra calories from exercise -> you need to make sure your body is getting all of the essential AA's, vitamins and minerals it needs. Most people get these from a balanced diet, the problem is when many people restrict their calorie intake they also by default restrict important nutrients. SO if you dont want to eat back your calories I think that is fine as long as the calories you do eat are balanced correctly - Proteins are the main source of AA's and some important vitamin and minerals, veggies and fruit also contain important vit./minerals. Hope this helps! I've included info below to the case study mentioned:

    PS- I also want to emphasize that the paper below is only a case study looking at one man, not an actual scientific study, there are no controls, treatment groups and therefore no statistics so for those reading please do not attempt to starve yourself. I only mention it to illustrate what the human body is capable of :)

    Features of a successful therapeutic fast of 382 days' duration
    W. K. Stewart, Laura W. Fleming
    Postgrad Med J 1973;49:203-209 doi:10.1136/pgmj.49.569.203

    I was so amazed by this 382 day fast I looked up the study out of curiosity. It deserves repeating that this was a HEAVILY CONTROLLED MEDICAL STUDY. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME! I found a link to the study online but I wont post it here because I don't want to trigger anyone who might become upset with such a controversial study.

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