Eating Back Exercise Calories

SHB, 'splain 2 lb LOSS after I upped my calories? I'd been at 1200 since I started MFP in October, and went up to 1400 on Sunday. I'm very happy with my loss

2 lbs in one day is probably daily fluctuation my dear. I'm sorry to say that but it's most likely the case. Hopefully some of it is fat, but unless you work out long enough to literally burn 7000 calories, you don't actually lose 2 lbs of fat in one day.

SHB, 'splain 2 lb LOSS after I upped my calories? I'd been at 1200 since I started MFP in October, and went up to 1400 on Sunday. I'm very happy with my loss

Sometimes your metablism needs to be fooled. It's been so used to your 1200 calories that you gave it a little whirl by upping the calories. Like I said before.....our bodies become VERY efficient and burning calories and needs constant progression to keep from plateauing.

I won't delete this because it's good data, but disregard the disagrement, cuz I read her ticker wrong. Hey... It happens!

um.... go Scott Brown?

While I totally agree with the statement Ice, I doubt it's the case here, 2 or 3 days is just too fast for a 2 lb weight loss for someone who only has about 25 lbs to lose total. I just don't see it. Now for someone who is say 150 lbs overweight (think biggest loser) then yes, I could see 1 to 2 lbs a day in real weight loss (I.E. not daily fluctuation), but otherwise, I really doubt it. Maybe some of it was real weight loss (I sure hope so) but only time will tell.

I guess what I'm trying to stress here guys, is that this stuff takes time, expecting to see weight loss is a little like watching your hair grow. You KNOW it does (well, most of us at least , maybe that was a bad analogy), but you can't actually see it. What you have to do is double and triple check your numbers, then trust that you're doing it right. Don't freak out if you don't lose one week, or even two weeks, and don't freak out if you gain a lb.

this stuff is long term, I"ve had plenty of weeks where I didn't lose (and one particularly frustrating month as well), so has almost everyone else here that's had large successes. The only people that see dramatic weight loss are people who have dramatic amounts of weight to lose.

In other words, take your time, eat right, eat a moderate deficit, exercise, keep the deficit stable even with exercise, and over the next year or so, you WILL become healthy, you WILL drop the weight, and you'll do it in a healthy way, that allows you the time it takes to develop good eating habits so you never have to ever EVER do this again.

That's pretty much the gist of it.

I guess what I'm trying to stress here guys, is that this stuff takes time, expecting to see weight loss is a little like watching your hair grow. You KNOW it does (well, most of us at least , maybe that was a bad analogy), but you can't actually see it. What you have to do is double and triple check your numbers, then trust that you're doing it right. Don't freak out if you don't lose one week, or even two weeks, and don't freak out if you gain a lb.

this stuff is long term, I"ve had plenty of weeks where I didn't lose (and one particularly frustrating month as well), so has almost everyone else here that's had large successes. The only people that see dramatic weight loss are people who have dramatic amounts of weight to lose.

In other words, take your time, eat right, eat a moderate deficit, exercise, keep the deficit stable even with exercise, and over the next year or so, you WILL become healthy, you WILL drop the weight, and you'll do it in a healthy way, that allows you the time it takes to develop good eating habits so you never have to ever EVER do this again.

That's pretty much the gist of it.

Wait.......your telling me that I'm not gonna be 15 pounds lighter by the end of January?????? :laugh:

I guess what I'm trying to stress here guys, is that this stuff takes time, expecting to see weight loss is a little like watching your hair grow. You KNOW it does (well, most of us at least , maybe that was a bad analogy), but you can't actually see it. What you have to do is double and triple check your numbers, then trust that you're doing it right. Don't freak out if you don't lose one week, or even two weeks, and don't freak out if you gain a lb.

this stuff is long term, I"ve had plenty of weeks where I didn't lose (and one particularly frustrating month as well), so has almost everyone else here that's had large successes. The only people that see dramatic weight loss are people who have dramatic amounts of weight to lose.

In other words, take your time, eat right, eat a moderate deficit, exercise, keep the deficit stable even with exercise, and over the next year or so, you WILL become healthy, you WILL drop the weight, and you'll do it in a healthy way, that allows you the time it takes to develop good eating habits so you never have to ever EVER do this again.

That's pretty much the gist of it.

Wait.......your telling me that I'm not gonna be 15 pounds lighter by the end of January?????? :laugh:

LOL!

We really do need some kind of archival and search system here. This web based key word search just isn't good enough. What we need is a good system so that people feel empowered to search the forums. Right now the search is pretty lightweight, I'm talking keyword search, conditions (and,or, not), and the ability to choose what areas we search by (like date ranges, title, body, poster(s), thread owner...etc)

This search was fine 3 years ago when we had 500 users, but now, with the tens of thousands on here, it's just too much stuff.

So Sheboss,

I am at 1200 calories a day. I want to lose about 60 more pounds. I exercise 5 days a week. I do just fine with my calories on my exercise days. However on my off days I find it hard to stay at my 1200 calories. I am starving by the time I get to dinner, and I only have about 300-400 calories left for dinner. Since MFP already calculates a 500 calorie deficit, could I get away with eating around 1400 calories on my off days, and still lose weight?

Also, I am pretty busy during the week. I was exerising for an hour 5 times a week. I have now cut back to 30 minutes on about 2 or 3 days out of my exercise week. I still stay within my calorie goal(with eating my exerise calories). Do you think that only getting in 30 minutes on some of my exercise days will hurt my weight loss?

Thanks for all of your great posts

I learn so much from you!

could you get away with 1400? Sure you could, assuming 1200 is actually 500 lower than your maintenance and not just the cut off because it's as low as MFP will go. You'd still have a 300 calorie deficit. But that's not the issue, the issue is whether your body can handle it. And because of all the myriad of things going on in the human body, I can't even begin to guess whether that goal is right for you. I can make a very vague educated guess based on the fact that you say that you need to lose 60 lbs and say yes you can probably afford to stay at 1200, but that's really just what I said, a guess. Why? Because I don't know anything about you, I don't even know your weight. I can't make even a reasonable assumption without facts.

"How do I KNOW?" You may ask. Well, here's the rub. You need to start doing it, be dilligent, record your progress, and be methodical. Give your body the time it needs to see if it's working, if it isn't (say after 6 weeks or so) then you know you need to tweak the system.

Things to think about:

-what is my Body Fat % (this is rather important, so the excuse of "I don't have the money or time to go get a body fat test done" is illogical. You have the time, and it only costs 30-40 bucks and is something you do once or twice a year, it takes an hour to do.)

-How did I come to my goal? Is 60 lbs REALLY the goal you should be shooting for? Is weight even a good goal? In my experience on here, I estimate that about 1/2 the people here have set unrealistic or just plain inaccurate goals for themselves.

- Am I giving my body enough time to adjust. Think about it this way, if you gash yourself and have to stitch it up, does it take 3 days to heal? Then why expect large changes when losing weight? A relatively deep wound takes weeks, and sometimes months to heal (assuming no organ damage), fat loss is the same, you need to give it time.

-How did I come to my calorie deficit, is it the right one for me. This is a little self explainitory, make sure you're not trying to do too much.

Obviously these are questions you need to ask yourself, maybe you already have these answered, but then again, maybe not. If not, you should.

It's late evening now, and in total I've only consumed 1, 114. And this is a bad day where I snacked on some naughty crisps. I have to find 912 calories from somewhere to meet my target. It's evening here now, and I'm not hungry!

I can't be doing this every day!

Keep in mind - there are some easy ways to get these cals in! 6 Tablespoons of peanut butter (that's like 4-5 bites if you spoon it out of the jar) and a glass of milk is 650 cals. That's not a lot of food.

thanks for all the posts on this topic. its really helpful for me.... i think i will be in the pool tommorrow counting out the glasses of wine i can add in as i go

Not to be a Debbie downer, but your calories need to be *quality* calories the majority of the time. Just because you exercise for an hour doesn't mean it's okay to eat a hot fudge sundae or drink 4 glasses of wine every night. There's a little more to it than only calories in/calories out -- you need to actually refuel your body after it does the extra work.

I'm not going to lie and say I never use my exercise calories to allow myself a treat -- I do, and I think most other people do, too. That being said, it's important to acknowledge that blowing your exercise calories on junk is not going to do anything to help you reach your health and/or weight loss goals, especially if you do it often. :flowerforyou:

-what is my Body Fat % (this is rather important, so the excuse of "I don't have the money or time to go get a body fat test done" is illogical. You have the time, and it only costs 30-40 bucks and is something you do once or twice a year, it takes an hour to do.)

Or buy a good scale. Ours has metal foot pads that send a low charge through your body & tells you what you body fat percentage is. We only paid $50 for it, and that was several years ago. When I started MFP, my body fat percentage was an embarassing 48%, now that I am 25 lbs healthier, it's down to 43%. I'd like to lose at least another 15% of that.

yeah, bio electrical impedance is notoriously unreliable for fat loss, one day it may give you a perfect reading, and the next it may give you one 10% off. I would go have a professional test done.

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