People with regular huge calorie burns

PINKinquisition1908

I've just started doing really intense workouts...about 800-1200 calorie burn 4x's a week. I do the workout at night, come home eat a snack (sometimes) and go straight to bed. This way I don't eat all the calories back. The weight is coming off well, but I've only been at it 4 weeks. I'm not sure what the long term result will be. Does anyone else do this??

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erikmsp72

On days I can't work out, or on days when I work out less-intense-ly, I eat according to my allotted calories. It's just a discipline.

composite

I watch what I eat really closely. If I take an easy day on the bike, I don't eat as much that day. If I have a really hard day, I eat more that day.

When I stop training for whatever reason, I have to cut back on my eating immediately. When it's for any length of time (more than a week or so), I have to be really careful because all of my habits are geared around eating a lot more.

I'm pretty much in the same boat, as I'm training for endurance mountain biking. If I'm not doing 4-10 hour rides, I'm doing high intensity intervals so either way there are some serious calorie burns.

I always "eat back" or more accurately "eat forwards", so I'm fuelled and ready to go. On very long rides (longer than 4 hours) I'm eating while I ride. I estimate (from experience) what I'm going to burn and try to eat forwards about 60%-70%. Depends though on the time of day I'm training the length of ride and how much I'm aiming to eat during the ride.

Ultimately though yes I eat more on training days and less on rest days, however I also carb load on days before huge rides.

jdm_taco

when i'm less active, I eat less. Real simple. Its easier for me to lose weight than gain now.

crista_b

The OP asks a fantastic question. That is precisely the reason one should base their weight loss goals around a sound eating plan, NOT around prolific amounts of vigorous exercise. Losing weight is about what you eat, not what you do.

The exercise you do should be about making a physical change in your body. Strengthening muscles and joints, enhancing cardiovascular fitness, increasing endurance capacity, building bigger or better looking muscles. These activities will burn calories, but the "burn" is not the reason to do them.

Note: the general confusion about this concept is what fuels my constant, futile hrm rants. Exercise is for fitness, eating sensibly is for losing weight. Connected, but different.

This makes good sense to me. If exercise is seen primarily as a means to grow your calorie allotment, I think there is danger ahead when trying to maintain weight - especially if your exercise has been a drudgery. Thank you for posting this.

Yes! I think a lot of people are so focused on the numbers (scale, calories) that they try to get their burns as high as possible just so they can shove more food down. While that may lower the number on the scale, I don't feel like it's a very healthy or sustainable way to look at things. Calories should be taken in to keep your body running and healthy, and exercise should be a way to keep you fit (and I think it should be fun, not forced). I think that's one of the reasons that TDEE appeals to some people. They don't have to think about forcing themselves to burn an extra 300 calories to have a slightly bigger dinner or an extra snack because they won't be eating back exercise calories anyway. TDEE method will have them naturally at a higher calorie intake when they're working out a lot, then if something happens and they aren't working out, they can recalculate, and their calorie intake will be lower anyway.

chrisdavey

If I have a low volume week, my appetite decreases and if I have a high volume it increases. So it all seems to work itself out.

tburkett1915

The first time I started workouting out to lose weight, I didn't track my caloires, just what I ate. Since it was a drastic change of lifestyle, I lost about 40lbs. I gained most of it back because I wasn't sure what how to change my diet and didn't want to count calories. When I started back my workouts, I went super hard. I weight lift, insanity, turbo jam, zumba. However, nothing changed. I ate back my calories so my weight never changed. Now since I'm committed to losing weight, I'm taking a more balanced approached. I still workout, but not with the same intensity all the time. Since weight lose is more about diet change, I try to focus more on my caloric intake. My workouts are moderate for the most part. I make sure I exercise 4-5 days a week, no less than 30mins at a time. It's only been 2 weeks and things are going well so far. I want to make sure my lifestyle change is sustainable.