advice needed

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1julietax
1julietax Posts: 117 Member
in Motivation and Support
I started on Monday so am really new to all of this. I have been eating my calories, but not eating the calories burned by exercise. Should I be eating those added calories. I do at least 60 minutes of cardio 5x a week. Kind of frustrated as the scale shows me gaining 3 pounds since Monday. Sigh!! Advice and support needed...

Replies

  • animatorswearbras
    animatorswearbras Posts: 1,001 Member
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    Could you open your diary, there'll be a few people able to give you pointers, but I don't think you need to worry too much about the gain as I'll explain below.

    I'm just gonna copy and paste someone else's great answer to your question

    "When you start doing more exercise, your body begins storing more fuel in your muscle cells, where it can be used easily and quickly to fuel your workouts. The process of converting glucose (carbohydrates) into fuel that your muscles actually store and use (glycogen) requires three molecules of water for every molecule of glucose. As your muscles are building up glycogen stores, your body has to retain extra water for this purpose. That's what causes most of the initial weight gain or lack of weight loss. This is a good thing—not something to worry about.

    However, despite what the scale says, you are actually losing fat during this time. The extra water retention will stop once your body has adjusted to its new activity level. At that point, the scale should start moving down. You'll end up with less fat, and muscles that can handle a larger amount of work."

    Much more concise than I could say, as for eating back exercise calories I don't during the week but usually "save" them for my weekend shenanigans :P But if you are doing 5+ hours of cardio a week I personally would prob eat some of them back to give my body enough fuel for the exertion.
  • awilmeri
    awilmeri Posts: 218 Member
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    It all depends on how you set up your mfp goals. Did you set them up to lose weight? If so then your deficit is already built in and you should eat your exercise calories back. If you use mfps calorie estimator it tends to over estimate so maybe just don't eat all of the exercise calories back. good luck!
  • kristen6022
    kristen6022 Posts: 1,926 Member
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    On non-workout days eat what MFP tells you to eat. On workout days eat 1/2 of your calories back (I say this because unless you wear a HRM, the calories on MFP tend to be a bit more than you are actually burning, but you need to eat more the days you workout because your body needs the extra calories). Do this for 3 weeks. DON'T GET ON THE SCALE! If the scale shows any loss (weight only once per week, unless you can honestly be ok with weight fluctuations and not get down about up and down poundage) do this until the scale stops moving south for 3 weeks. The reevaluate, you may either need to up your calories, change what you are eating (processed foods to more clean foods), decrease your calories or workout a bit more.

    It didn't take you a week to put on the weight so it won't take you week to take it off. MFP's mission is to promote a healthy way of losing weight and keeping it off. Teaching you (with advice from long-timers on the forums) how to eat for the rest of your life. Do you need to give up any of the foods you love, NO. Because that isn't sustainable. For example, I'm in maintenance and lost 45 pounds in a year (yes, stupid slow, but seriously what's the rush). Yesterday my man and went to a great burger joint and I ate whatever and how much ever I wanted. Do I feel bad about it, no. Does that mean I'm gonna continue eating horribly? No. It means that the one meal I ate that wasn't even close to staying with in my calories is ONE MEAL.

    Do something sustainable and you'll never have to worry about your weight again. It took me years to figure this out, but I know now that I'm on the right path...
  • jahilmer
    jahilmer Posts: 47
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    Yeah...drove me nuts when I plateaued after working out just like you! But then someone suggested I go try on some clothes that I hadn't been wearing because they were too tight. I did this and, WOW! I could get into this pair of shorts that I had put at the bottom of the stack because they crawled up my crack (sorry---but that's what they do when your stomach is so fat!) and thay were loose. I must have tried on 12 different outfits and just soooooooooo happy cuz things fit better....not perfect, but better!
  • 1julietax
    1julietax Posts: 117 Member
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    Could you open your diary, there'll be a few people able to give you pointers, but I don't think you need to worry too much about the gain as I'll explain below.

    I'm just gonna copy and paste someone else's great answer to your question

    "When you start doing more exercise, your body begins storing more fuel in your muscle cells, where it can be used easily and quickly to fuel your workouts. The process of converting glucose (carbohydrates) into fuel that your muscles actually store and use (glycogen) requires three molecules of water for every molecule of glucose. As your muscles are building up glycogen stores, your body has to retain extra water for this purpose. That's what causes most of the initial weight gain or lack of weight loss. This is a good thing—not something to worry about.

    However, despite what the scale says, you are actually losing fat during this time. The extra water retention will stop once your body has adjusted to its new activity level. At that point, the scale should start moving down. You'll end up with less fat, and muscles that can handle a larger amount of work."

    Much more concise than I could say, as for eating back exercise calories I don't during the week but usually "save" them for my weekend shenanigans :P But if you are doing 5+ hours of cardio a week I personally would prob eat some of them back to give my body enough fuel for the exertion.

    Thank you so much for your help. I've just made my diary public, so much to learn on this site. So glad to hear my body isn't doing a mutiny on me. : )
  • Rangarth
    Rangarth Posts: 121
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    Keep in mind that you are also going to get to the point that you are building muscle and not losing as much fat. Muscle weighs more, so I would advise if you are getting to that point to start taking measurements and that is where you will see differences.
  • 1julietax
    1julietax Posts: 117 Member
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    Thank you everyone!! I appreciate the support and advice. Another question, does it make sense to weigh everyday or just once a week. I've read support for both. Just wondering what you all have found to work best.
  • FaizValensi
    FaizValensi Posts: 5
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    Good Luck!
  • jahilmer
    jahilmer Posts: 47
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    I am in a hospital program....we weigh once/week. Go try on old clothes....throw the scale out the window and then go find it once a week at the most! Jane
  • budru21
    budru21 Posts: 127
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    You will not be building muscle doing an hour of cardio 5X a week. Don't be fooled into thinking that. You BUILD muscle by lifting weights and forcing your muscles to adapt to the extra exertion you are putting them through. Cardio will burn muscle before it will build it.
  • 1julietax
    1julietax Posts: 117 Member
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    You will not be building muscle doing an hour of cardio 5X a week. Don't be fooled into thinking that. You BUILD muscle by lifting weights and forcing your muscles to adapt to the extra exertion you are putting them through. Cardio will burn muscle before it will build it.
    I am also doing weights 3x a week, on top of the cardio. : )

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