Sabotage

missshadowlovely

Now, as far as diet and exercise go; I'm pretty decent. I try to work out at least 30 minutes a day at least 5 days a week.
I drink my water. I stick to my vegetarianism. I stay active while I'm at work. I change up my diet and exercise routine.
I try to eat a well rounded diet (Balance out all my Carbs, Proteins, Fats, Fruits, Veggies, etc). I let myself have little splurges on fatty foods that I love every now and then.
But, I seem to have a weakness.
Night-time eating.
When I come home from work, and I see that I have 980 calories remaining (whether it be from not consuming enough during the day, or earning some back through exercise) I'll proceed to go on an eating frenzy until all 980 are gone in less than 20 minutes.
Now, I'm not entirely sure, and here's my question:
If I work out and burn 800-900 extra calories above my daily 1500 goal, should I try to eat until I've replaced those 800-900? Or should I still stop at 1500, leaving a large deficit in calories consumed and calories burned?
I feel like if I burn an extra 500, I'm sabotaging my weight loss by eating 2000 calories instead of 1500 for that day.
I'm not sure whether my body NEEDS those extra calories since I worked out so much, or whether I would be seeing better results NOT eating the extra calories I burned.

I've been working so hard since Jan and only lost 3 lbs. I'm wondering if this is the issue.

VanellopeeVonSchweetz

I would NOT force myself to ALWAYS eat back my workout calories. I honestly NEVER do. If you plateau however, I hear that eating your exercise calories back can help jumpstart your weight loss again.

I believe people stress out too much about making sure they eat back every single calorie. Do you feel terribly hungry by the end of the day? If so then yes eat your allotted calories. But if you feel fine, invigorated even WITH your workouts then I wouldn't worry about eating all the calories back.

Perhaps i'm biased since I never eat my exercise calories.

VanellopeeVonSchweetz

Reading your post again, I think for your situation, you may want to eat more yes. Seems like your weight loss is stalling and you need to give it a bit more.

missshadowlovely

I do work out a LOT, so I try to make sure I at least meet the minimum to fuel my daily intake needs.
I just don't know if I'm doing more harm than good by eating the extra calories I earn a day. I also don't know if it's gonna throw my body into starvation mode if I burn an extra 1000 calories a day and still only eat 1500.

VanellopeeVonSchweetz

Eventually you will probably plateau due to giving your body so little to work with compared to how much you work out. I KNOW that that is really possible but I tend to not eat my calories back anyways. Sorta hard to convince myself to eat MORE is all.

Once you plateau though, all that really needs to be done is perhaps change your workout routine, but also bump up your calories even if it feels like that counter productive.

sarahg148

I do the same thing lately. I'm trying to stick to 1600-2000 cal/day...regardless of exercise calories earned. I do play sports, go to gym, and have a job where I'm on my feet...so I do get in my activity. I just find myself also trying to not eat back all of my calories...but then I end up binging at night lately. So I'm trying to stick to my calories window and just try to be consistent. Consistency is my big problem. :ohwell:

MassiveDelta

http://youtu.be/nlOTRxt-dIw

missshadowlovely

Consistency is a problem for me too.

I consistantly overeat at night.

Graelwyn75

Too much exercise can actually be counterproductive to fat loss sometimes, especially in females.
I suggest researching this via google. How too much exercise can cause stress to the body and elevate cortisol levels which can mess up everything else, basically. It is better to keep a moderate burn each day, and eat within 100 calories of your goal, ensuring you are using a hrm to calculate your burns because machines and mfp are notoriously unreliable and can result in you overestimating what you are burning off.