Starvation Mode

This is def. what happened to me. I always thought I had a good understanding of calorie deficits and nutrition. I was always under the impression that you lose weight if you exercise and eat less, but if you body is not getting enough calories and nutrition it will hold on to the food you are eating rather than burning those calories, causing you to gain weight. I gained 5 lbs when I wasn't eating enough for the amount I was exercising. Even though you may not be "starving" yourself and think you are eating enough, your body will go into starvation mode if it is not getting enough.
For example, if your body requires 1600 calories to maintain your weight and you are working out, burning an average of 500 calories and you are only eating around 1000 calories a day, you have a deficit of 1100 and after a long enough time (a few days, probably a week) your body will hold on to everything it gets causing you to gain weight. I know this all just from personal experience, but I'm sure you can find a more scientific explanation of it.

K....so to prevent this....eat to your calorie amount for the day...and eat back your exercise calories????? (should we still try to stay under our calorie intake? is it ok to go slightly over??? UGH) lol

I would just follow whatever your profile says, but make sure to eat your exercise calories. I know it sounds like a crazy idea to eat what you are burning, but the site already factors this in. If you exercise more, you can eat more, because you need energy/fuel (calories) to be able to function and actually have energy to work out. I wouldn't go more than 100 calories under or over what your net calories say.

I'm having big problems getting my head around this! It feels like a huge achievement to come in under your calorie goal for the day and it feels like such a knock-back to me to be eating the calories I've just burned off when exercising! It all feels so wrong! But ultimately I don't want to do anything that may jeopardize my weight loss so I'm trying to (roughly) hit the calorie target each day WITHOUT eating naughty things because I've got so many calories stored up!

Aim for your calorie goal, but I reckon it's best not to eat anything at all than stock up on treats because you feel like you earned it by having loads of calories left. Nuts (I do pistachios) and oatcakes with low fat cream cheese are my ways of filling up the calories.

Well to help, think of it like this: Your goal is no less than 1200 otherwise you will go into starvation mode. Assuming you eat 1200 and excercise 300, really your body is only getting 900 cals for that day. not good. So either eat more on the days you work out or don't work out and eat regular. Hope it helps.