Frustrated - any ideas???

Does anyone have a view on whether its better (easier) to exercise less and keep calories eaten lower, or eat more calories and exercise more? Eg, if I'm aiming for say 1400 NET calories a day, am I better off eating 2000 and burning 600, or should I just eat 1400 and chill out a bit more? Perhaps go for a walk or something.

I currently exercise way more than most people I know, yet still struggle with my weight. Its counter-intuitive but I'm wondering if more rest would help my body in some way and make me less likely to get tired and binge.

Anyone have any experience or ideas about this?

Depends on your goals, do you want to be just skinny or do you want to have sculpted muscles (and by that I don't mean beefy body builder sculpted I mean shape magazine cover model sculpted)? If your only goal is to get skinny and drop the number on the scale then less exercise more diet. If you want abs and cut arms then you need to keep working out.

I do know that our bodies are extremely adaptable however they are stuck in the stone age. If you continue with basically the same exercise plan and not enough food your metabolism will slow, you my notice more soreness in your muscles because they're having a hard time repairing themselves without enough calories and any extra calories you eat (on those I'm so sick of dieting just eff it days) your body stores away the excess because it's pretty sure you're in a famine right now and so it wants to store away any extra in case it gets worse.

I'd suggest, to break up the pattern your body is setting, take a few days off at the gym and slowly bump up the calories over those few days. Likely you won't feel hungry for it all because you've gotten used to running on less so you'll have to make small changes, try cooking with a little more oil (olive or coconut are both very healthy in moderation and my weight loss sped up considerably when I started eating more!) add an extra snack in the day of something you love (I'm a fan of chocolate covered frozen bananas by diana's banana babies. Or mini snickers or milky way ice cream bars). After a few days of rest go back to working out but try to change up your routine if you can. Do hiit workouts or take a class ect...

Don't be shocked if the first week or so you gain a little, your body needs to adapt to the new way but at first it's going to just think this is one of those binge days and sock that away. It will stop though and the scale will drop again. Also take measurements to see for the weeks that the scale doesn't budge if it's because you're replacing bulky fat with lean muscle which will stall the scale but drop inches.

Good luck!

Does anyone have a view on whether its better (easier) to exercise less and keep calories eaten lower, or eat more calories and exercise more? Eg, if I'm aiming for say 1400 NET calories a day, am I better off eating 2000 and burning 600, or should I just eat 1400 and chill out a bit more? Perhaps go for a walk or something.

I currently exercise way more than most people I know, yet still struggle with my weight. Its counter-intuitive but I'm wondering if more rest would help my body in some way and make me less likely to get tired and binge.

Anyone have any experience or ideas about this?

I also over-exercise but since June have changed my ways both with the gym and eating habits. Exercise wise i now make sure i rest one day a week minimum. And on my gym days i now limit my cardio and include free weights & rsistance machines at the gym so it's 50/50 or quite often these days it is more biased towards the weights with less cardio. I really try to mix my routine up. If I do an hour of cardio it's only cos I've done a gym class which includes toning exercises and i may do a few toning exercises of my own. Basically I have limited what I do on the cardio front and not been over-zealous with my workouts.

Diet wise, I never used to snack between meals and would keep carbs to lunch time meals where i would over indulge and then have a salad and fruit at night. I was regularly netting 800 cals and after a few wks would binge over several days and gain the weight back and more. However, now I snack in the morning and in the afternoon. I have a nice lunch. Still carby but I limit it to sandwiches with a snack bar of some sort and yogurt or a ready meal/tin of soup (not good i know but it's days i'm on placement only). Then in the evening I have a "proper" meal as in it is sustainable for me. Something hot and sizeable but healthy and it is usually carb based - potatoes, pasta, rice etc. I find that I enjoy it more which makes me feel satisfied and I feel full for longer. I follow it up with a chocolate mousse or greek yogurt/honey which satisfies my sweet tooth or choc cravings so it's win win.

Since I have changed my diet and exercise habit i am happy to say that binges are extremely rare now and if so it couldn't even really be considered a binge. A few extra cereal bar or a bag of crisps etc. To my amazement I have consistenly lost 1 lb each week and most weeks I have not even felt like I was dieting.

I think you are better to lower the amount of exercise you do and see how u feel regarding food. Listen to your body. You know yourself better than anybody and since I have listened to mine rather than ignoring it things are going a lot more smoothly. I don't count my cals here I just record what I have eaten but I would guess I eat 1700+ calories every day.

This last week is a bad example of my diet & exercise routine, work has been pretty nutty and food has been provided several times this week so I've not done well, plus longer hours so I'm not making it to the gym as much next week will be more normal!
Typically my average net calories are about 1400-1500 a day. I am 5'3", started at 189 and am about 160 right now. I work at a bank but am surprisingly active during my work day so I have my activity level set at lightly active. I do somewhat of a calorie cycling program, basically I eat anywhere from 1300-2500 calories a day and just watch I be sure that my net intake averages under 1600 per day (so I may be over on wednesday and Saturday but I'll be under Monday and Thursday to make up for it) I work out about 5 days a week, doing about 30 minutes of weights 3 times a week and anywhere from 15-45 minutes of cardio at each workout (I do hiit workouts on weights days to keep my heart rate up and 5k training most straight cardio days). I'm in the "only track actual workouts" camp because my activity is set at lightly active so short dog walks, cleaning and such I don't track.

I've lost just shy of 30lbs in 6 months and dropped from a too tight size 16 down to 10-12's so this method has been working for me

Oh and I'm a big believer in rest days, every few weeks I make sure I take about 3 days of total rest otherwise I tend to train too hard and hurt myself!

I think that is a healthy weight for your height! Whybfret

Great advice from GauchoMark!

I am here to glean from your thread's suggestions. I am the same exact height and weight. Just wanna lose a few 'vanity pounds" and I am glad to see others' number looking like the ones I came up with today. (since I have no idea what I am really doing)

I guess I have not been eating enough. My main problem is I want to lower my carbs a bit, but am having trouble getting alternative foods and allergies are bad now, making me tired and miserable, LOL, ( so I don't have the energy or desire to be creative in my eating)

ABY WOO-HA. Best of luck to you! The suggestions look great! Feel free to add me and we can try all the suggestions together.