Eating more/weighing more! /Insanity Workouts.

Sandi2524

OK eat more to weigh less peeps! I have been doing Insanity, which can burn up 1000+ cals per workout sometimes. So How much more should I be eating?? I have been trying the eating more thing, weight has barely shifted a few pounds more one way or the other. Now that Im burning more cals I am gaining a little more weight. DOnt tell me its all muscle, either! No way yo can put on 4 pounds of muscle in 5 weeks! I did weight watchers for a long time & plateaued at this same weight for over a year, didnt know then I should be eating more. SO NOW that I am I'm gaining weight. Im eating the right food too not crap! Has anyone out there been at this same spot?EatinE

heybales

OK eat more to weigh less peeps! I have been doing Insanity, which can burn up 1000+ cals per workout sometimes. So How much more should I be eating?? I have been trying the eating more thing, weight has barely shifted a few pounds more one way or the other. Now that Im burning more cals I am gaining a little more weight. DOnt tell me its all muscle, either! No way yo can put on 4 pounds of muscle in 5 weeks! I did weight watchers for a long time & plateaued at this same weight for over a year, didnt know then I should be eating more. SO NOW that I am I'm gaining weight. Im eating the right food too not crap! Has anyone out there been at this same spot?EatinE

No, it's not hardly muscle. In fact, if you aren't eating enough, that's the perfect program to burn muscle.

High intensity almost or indeed anaerobic total carb burning cardio workout with strength benefit.

Because it's almost totally carb burning, guess what your body's response is to it to improve for that load?

Store more carbs to make it longer. Carbs store with water. As more of your muscle is used it'l all being used to store more carbs.
To the tune of 500 calories is 1 lb.

If you understand the concept, then if you are really burning 1000 cal's per workout, you should see what needs to happen to your eating level.

First I'd doubt that burn though. It is only 16.7 cal/min which is possible (I hit that in the aerobic zone myself) for an hour of activity, but are you really maintaining that for 60 min?

How many hrs a week is the effort. That's what the TDEE levels use, hrs a week.

Greenrun99

I have done Insanity with these concepts in place, its not really much different then what the Insanity nutrition guide, or scooby's calculator is going to tell you to eat for moderate exercise (if you have a desk job, anything more and you need to eat more). So if you use the nutrition guide it tells you what to eat, everyday.. Or go to scooby's calculator (link on here, almost in most posts) and eat that number everyday.
Your probably not burning 1000 calories per workout, most I was hitting was around 520 in the 45 minutes (I didn't count warm up/cool down).. without knowing your stats though you may be higher..
Just a general idea, insanity people eat 1800 at the lowest, and up.. so 1200 WW gives you is just gonna stall you and burn away muscle.

ifaber

I agree with the above posts. I only burn at MOST around 600 kcals and that's with the Month 2 Max workouts. After reading about the EM2WL and TDEE and all that jazz, I just decided to up my calories to eat around 1800+ a day. My scale at home gives me an estimate of how many calories I should be eating to maintain my weight so I subtracted 500 from that to get 1800. I have gained 2 lbs these last few days but one reason was because my caloric intake was too low before AND I was doing a lower carb diet. That means I hardly had any carbs stored in my muscles. However, from what I was reading this isn't a weightloss solution, its a fatloss solution so while your weight may not change, your body composition will. If you are noticing that you are getting smaller/losing inches, I wouldn't worry too much about the weight gain for right now.

Sandi2524

Thanks everyone for answering. Now I arrive at this number of cals that insanity burns by using a HRM, What I guess I need to know is if I am eating 1800 cals, and burning 900 cals a day, the math would put my NET cals way below my BMR. So my question to everyone is should I eat back my cals to be above my BMR? As I said in previous post I had been eating way below my level for at least 2 years. I hear two opposite answers, so I am confused! ANd here all my life I thought I knew how to diet!!

Sandi2524

So maybe I should do a few more carbs? I dont think i have had 1800 cals a day in 20 years!!! I have been short & fat for so long, now, the Idea of eating more is hard for me to grasp!

heybales

So maybe I should do a few more carbs? I dont think i have had 1800 cals a day in 20 years!!! I have been short & fat for so long, now, the Idea of eating more is hard for me to grasp!

How much did you used to eat when you gained weight? Did you log food then so you know?

Did you ever exercise this hard in 20 yrs?

Take BMR x 1.625 to get your TDEE.

Take your 20% deficit. Eat that every day.

What does the Insanity literature say, because they provide pretty high guidelines too?

Sandi2524

I have been exercising for the last 10 years, Not as hard as when I started doing INSANITY. Prior to that I did run 3-5 miles, 3x a week, but was a member of Weigh watchers for 3 years and stuck at my current weight for aprox 2 years. The more I ran, though, I didnt eat more, I did what most do, ate less, as I thought that would help. So after 6 weeks of insanity, hopefully at 1800 cals I will start seeing a drop, soon.

kooltray87

I didn't read the previous posts but two things...

1. Its common that people don't see a lot of scale movement with insanity especially in the first month and if you're already somewhat fit. The second month really amps it up and you should see some change then.

2. Stop paying attention to the scale and look more at inches lost.

Also I would try "netting" 1400-1600...your body needs fuel! hope that helps.

calypso11

I gained four pounds doing Insanity, and no they did not come off during the second phase and no it was not muscle. Here is the thread I made where I detailed my problems.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/776979-why-am-i-still-gaining

Thankfully I'm back on the right track now. Biggest lesson learned? Be really serious with yourself about whether you are eating too little or too much. I pretty much shot myself in the foot by not fueling my body enough for Insanity and then occasionally eating a significant amount over my daily calories.