Should I be eating more calories????

Looked at your food diary and it looks like you're eating more than 1200 calories. I have one question though, how are you calculating the number of calories burned? I seen one number for the stationary bicycle and that number seems to be off.

First, you should never go to the gym every day. You do need a rest day. When you exercise, you break down the muscle and when you rest you repair the muscle. You get your gains when you repair the muscle. I would also suggest switching your routine.. 3 days of weight training and 3 of cardio. Doing both every day will just lead to over training.


To answer the original question, yes you should eat back exercise calories or my preferred method is to include them in your lifestyle and set your account to moderate. This way you do NOT need to eat them back.

I got to the gym 6 days a week, 2 workouts on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I am just fine Most of my friends work out every day too. Exercising almost every day has been a HUGE part of my weight loss and muscle building. To each their own

Going to the gym 6 days a week is not going every day. A person can workout six days a week as long as they aren't working the same muscles. I work out six days a week but never work the same muscle groups back to back. And there is NO benefit of workout out twice a day unless you just like it or want to eat more, which I am all for.

And by build muscle, I assume you mean build strength, not actually building new lean body mass?

Yeah, I am interested in building muscle just as much as losing weight. I am really seeing some definition after 2 years of doing it. I do alternate legs and upper every other day. I do abs and back every day but I do different things every other day too. I just thought you made a general statement and wanted to clear it up a little. hehe :flowerforyou:
As far as double workout days, My husband goes with me on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. To be frank, he cant keep up with me. I stay at the gym 2-3 hours a day and he does maybe 1-1.5 hours. So I decided I would take the extra work out instead of holding myself back. Most times the 2nd workout is me doing random things, following him and his friend around the gym and showing them the machines. I get a good burn in but I'm not as focused as normal. It is mostly about me supporting him and I am not there just for myself.

You know you need a calorie surplus to build muscle right?

Seeing definition only shows you are losing the fat on top of the muscle... you are not actually building it.

Trust me, I have abs and a line running down the middle of my belly, back muscles, my legs are about 95% muscle and my chest and arms are getting pretty cut. Im doing what works for me.

*Find out what your BMR is. I think my TDEE is way too high so I go with the BMR for myself

*Use that as your daily calorie goal

*Create a deficit from that through exercise or eating less

So your advice is to determine how many calories she'd need just to maintain her bodily functions if she were in a coma and than create a deficit from that?

With proper nutrition, lots of veggies and protein. Yes. She should have plenty of energy. Not to mention MFP seems to give people this "1200 calorie diet" calorie when someone wants to lose 2lbs a week. They know that going under that number is unhealthy. My plan is MUCH better. If she is only eating 1000-1200 calories a day and burning 500 a day, she is only eating 500-700 calories.

If you really want to compare plans, then lets be honest about it. The MFP plan, when used as intended, would have her NETTING a minimum of 1200 calories a day, not 1000 and certainly not 500-700. Calorie intake would not fall below 1200/day and will drop that low only on days when no exercise is logged. Anyone who follows your misinterpretation of the plan (and Lord knows there are scads of people around here who do) is off on their own tangent, much as you are. They aren't following MFP's plan.

If she goes by her BMR, lets say for instance, 1800 calories a day, shes still eating 1200 net calories a day. What is your problem with that? Thats sooo much better than MFP estimates and she is certainly not starving.

My problem is that your plan knocks the safety floor out from under the calorie intake side of the equation. Your BMR may be high enough for a substantial deficit without dropping below 1200 for now, but do you expect it to remain so as you approach your goal weight? It won't, you know. It will drop, and faster than the calculators would indicate if you're careless about muscle retention.

MFP calculates my BMR as only 1,166, which I think is a little low, but for the sake of discussion... I still have a little bit of post-menopausal fat around my midsection that I'd like to shift. How far below 1166 would you suggest I go? Even at my heaviest my BMR was in the low 1400s, and I most certainly did not need to net 500 calories/day below that number to lose a pound a week. I lost 58 pounds at about a pound/week, on average, without a hitch, without ever hitting a plateau, and I almost never ate less than 100 or so calories ABOVE my BMR. Usually more.

By the way, the calculators weren't entirely accurate for me either. I had to adjust MFP's reported calorie burn from exercise down by about a third to stay on track. Since going on maintenance I've discovered a less generous and more accurate (for me) calculator on this site: http://www.shapesense.com/ . Could be that the calculators aren't accurate for the OP either, but I'd suggest that she try tweaking the numbers or finding a better source for them before she completely discards their underlying premise. It shouldn't be a case of OH, TDEE BAD. BAD BAD BAD TDEE! Must use BMR instead!

ok so if i am a 5'5" women that weights 120 lbs at 26 years my BMR is 1352.5 ... if i wanna be in a deficit and loose i need to remove 500 cals from that everyday .. giving me 852.5 cals a day ? sounds low

No, you deduct calories from your TDEE, not your BMR.

I have been eating 1,200 calories for the past 4 months or so, but I was also inactive for the most part. I recently joined a gym and have been doing an hour of cardio, and an hour of strength training every morning. I was trying to continue eating 1,200 calories on this regimen, but I have lost very little weight. I was talking to a gentleman at the gym about my problem, and he informed me that I should be eating more calories, and protein. What do you all think?

Eating more calories will definitely help with overall health, and probably things like energy levels, mood, adherence, etc. But I fail to see how eating more will cause more weight loss.

If you are logging consistently and not seeing the results you expect, my bet is that your estimations are off... you're eating more than you think, burning less than you think, or your TDEE/BMR is different than what you calculated. Or some combination there of.

It isn't uncommon to not see results when you are eating too little as hormones start to interfere with weight loss. Not only that, if it's done over extended periods of time, your metabolism will adapt and become more efficient at burning less calories. So while normally a person could burn 1500 calories through their BMR, they RMR will adapt and burn 900. It actually is not that uncommon. In fact, I saw greater weight loss at 2500-2700 calories than I ever did at 1800 calories. Below is a good article on why huge calorie deficits are not good.



http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html

I have been eating 1,200 calories for the past 4 months or so, but I was also inactive for the most part. I recently joined a gym and have been doing an hour of cardio, and an hour of strength training every morning. I was trying to continue eating 1,200 calories on this regimen, but I have lost very little weight. I was talking to a gentleman at the gym about my problem, and he informed me that I should be eating more calories, and protein. What do you all think?

Eating more calories will definitely help with overall health, and probably things like energy levels, mood, adherence, etc. But I fail to see how eating more will cause more weight loss.

If you are logging consistently and not seeing the results you expect, my bet is that your estimations are off... you're eating more than you think, burning less than you think, or your TDEE/BMR is different than what you calculated. Or some combination there of.

It isn't uncommon to not see results when you are eating too little as hormones start to interfere with weight loss. Not only that, if it's done over extended periods of time, your metabolism will adapt and become more efficient at burning less calories. So while normally a person could burn 1500 calories through their BMR, they RMR will adapt and burn 900. It actually is not that uncommon. In fact, I saw greater weight loss at 2500-2700 calories than I ever did at 1800 calories. Below is a good article on why huge calorie deficits are not good.



http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html

I know hormones can wreak havoc in some cases, but I have a hard time believing an obese person at 1200 cals for 4 months has wrecked their metabolism or hosed their hormones.

If your BMR/RMR adjusts, then increasing cals causes a surplus, thus weight gain. It may not be healthy, but purely for weight loss, a cut in cals is still the answer.

I've read the article, but thanks. While I don't like his articles much (style of writing), hard to argue with the information.

I can definitely agree with that.. and at which point I would suggest a blood test to see if there are any other medical issue.