never thought I'd have THIS issue...

So, I'm baffled (and happy!) at the position I've found myself in the last little while. My cals have been reduced as I'm shrinking (yay!) and at first I thought 'I'm going to have to work out all day every day to survive this!' since at first, I NEEDED my exercise calories because without I would really feel starving. Now my cals are 1330 a day, net. I work out between 300 and 700 calories on the average day and I'm really finding it hard to get enough calories into me! I've still got about 1400 cals to eat today and that seems like so much. For those of you in this strange club where now eating ENOUGH is the issue, what are your tricks?? I don't want to use those calories for treats every day because it doesn't feel good in my body (I'm sorry, who the hell is posting this and what have you done with the Rhiannon I know?!?) and I would really like to fill up on good clean calories. Can I mutter again about how freaked out I am that I don't WANT to opt for a cookie or something?! lol

I was actually really surprised when I saw that when you exercised on this site, it added the amount of calories you could eat during the day. I always thought this was a really bad idea, since I've heard it called "compensating." I'm not sure if you know what this is, but basically it's when you're dieting and exercising. When you exercise, you take the amount of calories you burned and then eat with those. So you're compensating what calories you "lost" during exercising and just eating them back. I thought this was a bad thing so I was surprised when I saw it on the site.

This is a link to a study that was done about compensating: http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2007/10/10/exercise_be_wary_of_compensating_with_diet.php

Any ideas about this? It kind of confused me some. Thanks for your time in advance.

Disregard this article. The reference to compensation was, in my interpretation, people who exercise and therefore blindly consume a bit more food. There is strong research that shows that one of the obstacles to fat loss is that obese people experience some hormone and chemical discrepancy that causes hunger after exercise rather than a period of aversion to eating immediately following exercise than non-obese people experience. The article you linked (which itself admits the fundamental flaw of a small-scale research group) doesn't make reference in any way to the principles here which make excellent scientific sense. Because your net calories already equal the deficit that allows you to lose weight, if you expend even more calories and don't replace them your body will shut down your metabolism. It sounds to me like the people in the study were moreso eating a regular diet and, when exercising, ended up eating a little more. Whole different ball of wax. Does that make any more sense?

Thanks shore - so much more concise than mine :laugh:

Ok thanks a lot! I was really shocked when I saw that. Ty.

Absolutely! There is SO MUCH information out there to decipher when it comes to fitness and nutrition. I think this is an area where it's best not to poke around too much - anyone can post anything on the internet and there's a lot out there to confuse us!

LOVE your (well, the one you found from HG Wells) quote Shorerider!!!

I do want to join the chorus on two things: (1) eating calorie dense food (that is healthy) is an awesome way to load up on good calories; (2) eating your exercise calories is necessary for all the reasons you MFP pros have discussed.

I also want to congratulate you, PedalHound!!!! YOU GOOOOOO!!!! That is awesome that you are not craving junk and that you're making good, nutritious choices. We all get so caught up in the numbers on the scale and on the measuring tape but, in my humble opinion, the true measure of success is that mind twist that says that you are doing this b/c it feels good and it feels right to treat your body this way!!!!!

Whoooo hoooooo to you!!!!!

Yay! Thanks :happy: Pats on the back always feel great :flowerforyou: