Caloric Shock?

How much food you eat really depends on how much weight you want to lose. If you watch biggest loser, they work out 5-7 hours a day and only eat about 1500 calories. And they lose about 2-3% of their body weight each week. Using a 300lb man as an example, if he works out 6 hours a days assuming 600 calories per hour, that equals 3600 calories burned through exercise. The same man burns about 3000 calories a day with a moderately active lifestyle. That means he is burning about 6600 calories a day. If he were to eat 2500 calories a day, he would still lose about 1lb of weight a day. However, these people are medically supervised and have the best doctors to watch over them.

The typical person should plan to lose no more that 2-3 lbs a week. Anything higher is really not healthy unless you are morbidly obese. So lets says you want to lose 2lbs a week. MFP will figure this amount in and tell you how much you need to eat to achieve this goal (about a 1000 calories deficit per day). Many people suggest that you eat your excercise calories so that your body can recover better from all the working out you do. If you agree with this, then you should eat the addtional calories each day that you burn from excercise. So if you burn 1500 calories a day through excercise, then plan that many addtional calroies in your diet. If you do not work out on a particular day, then you should not eat the additional calories. Stay within the normal 1000 calorie deficit each day (2lbs lost per week).

Your body adjusts very well to caloric intake. If your main reason for working out so much is to lose alot of weight quickly (like the biggest loser), then don't eat the extra calories. However, if you give your body this much of a calorie deficit, you will probably be really tired and be sluggish. Your body can only burn so much body fat a day.

Another question is how have you been doign with the plan? Are you very hungry? Do you feel tired or sluggish? Did you work out this hard before you started dieting?

I suspect you are overestimating your exercise calories by a significant amount.

+1


how are u burning so many cals?!

She did say she spends 3-5 hours (omg!) in the gym a day! I can burn about 600 in an hour...that could be right.

Ah, never mind.

i'm no expert but i would say stay a bit under your goal on your workout days and go over your goal on your non-workout days.

You don't HAVE to limit yourself to losing 2 lbs / week especially if you're exercising that much. (And I have no idea why people are doubting that you can burn that many calories in 3-5 hours of working out. Seems very reasonable.) If you work out and you feel good eating what you are eating then you are probably fine. 3-5 hours of working out is a LOT. Wish I had that much time.

Maybe I was focusing more on the 2500 number. In any case, it's a moot point. If you are doing the exercises you are doing, at the intensities at which you say you are doing them, then one day off is not going to make any appreciable difference.

At some point, everything we track--BMR, casual activity, exercise calories, calories taken in --is an estimate anyway and, at best, we are probably on average no more accurate than within 20% of the actual numbers. So, again, if you are consistently working out at those levels, and eating a sufficient amount (not the same thing as eating back your exercise calories) to fuel those workouts, it's nothing to be concerned about.

If you are trying to lose weight and you continue to lose weight, then your program is working for you. If you stop losing weight (and still want to lose weight), then it doesn't and you will have to adjust.

What are you doing to burn that many calories in a day???

If only I had so much time.

Want to babysit for oh say a couple months?

LOL

I suspect you are overestimating your exercise calories by a significant amount.

I disagree. Anybody that is working out at the gym between 3 and 5 hours per DAY will indeed be burning those calories. I remember running on the treadmill for 70 mins several months ago, I burnt 1000 in just that time. All depends on what the exercise at the gym entails though - if somebody is walking 2mph on the treadmill, for an hour, they won't lose much at all!.

To the original poster, if you decided not to exercise for one day, you would need to go down to 1300 calories, else you will have excess. Hence why, if people who do a lot of exercise get injured, for instance - they will pile on the weight because they still eat the same calories and are now, not burning them off.

I have yet to find a diet that does not entail going hungry at times - however, I often visualise the pounds falling off when I get hunger pangs and after all, it really is only until the next meal and I am damn sure my will is stronger than a few measly pangs

So correct me if I'm wrong, but your using MFP to make sure your eating the right amount rather than wanting to loose weight?

If this is the case you need to do some calculations.
Staying at the same weight means calories burnt and calories consumered are equal.
If you burning 2500 calories at the gym, even if it is an estiamte, you need to consume this amoutn.
But you also need to consume the calories to live, an average 9st, 170cm woman should be consuming around 1800 calories a day, but as you are going to the gym 6 days a week, and burning a considerable amount of calories a day I would say you have a large amount of mussle, and mussle burns more calories in a day then fat does, and these figures (1800 cal and MFP figures, 1200) are based on a normal person (which I believe is about 20-25% body fat) and are by no means what you need.

I believe we can assume your not over weight and quite a fit person so if you calculate you BMI is it still with in the normal range? 18-25?
If it's above 23 then I would assume you are carrying a lot of mussle weight and that you most definately need more than 1200 calories a day when you not exercising otherwise you are starving your body.

I would say the best thing is to speak to a doctor or dietitian as they can more or less give you exactly what you should be consuming a day as the minimum number of clalories needed is differnt for every person.
And as mentioned the MFP calories target could be out by 20%!!!

For someone who's body is still recovering from surgry and in a lot of pain it is very important for you to not under eat!!

Are you still loosing weight or are you maintaining?

i agree with scotty_81if you are not eating all the calories earned from your workout days, then you can "use" them on the rest days...it all washes out at the end of the week if you stay in balance....if you have 3500 calories burned in a week over what you put in your face you will have a 1lb loss, if you have 7000 calories left over you will have a 2 lb loss....as long as you are not "binging" before your weighin...

good for you that you have time for all those workouts..i'm definitely jealous and say take advantage of this opportunity now, cause unless you are a "kept" woman and dont need to work or take care of kids this "luxury" will end eventually