Now that I know eating cals that are burned is the right thi

Elli0tt
Elli0tt Posts: 49
edited September 23 in Health and Weight Loss
I was up the all night reading about eating your exercise calories and I think I understand the difference between starvation mode-slowing down metabolism, and how over eating- causes what can't be used to be stored as fat. I ran into a problem last night which is why I originally went looking for answers about eating the calories you've burned. Which I'll get to as soon as I explain a couple things that might help to understand the entire situation. =)

I'm a pretty healthy guy, I'm an amateur mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter. I joined to help me learn 1) to clean up my diet so I can genuinely understand and utilize good eating habits. 2. Learn to use the knowledge I'm hoping to gain, so I can drop as much unneeded body fat as I can so that when I have an MMA match coming up I won't have to lose or 'cut' as much weight before weighing in for the fight.

The day I officially weighed in for my 2nd fight ever, I stayed in a dry sauna with heavy clothing for 6 hours before weighing in. I had sweat off about 17 pounds of water weight in that one day, not to mention the next day I also suffered my first and only loss. As you can imagine I felt extremely fatigued and tired both physically and mentally before even stepping into the ring. Obviously, cutting that much weight that fast, was very unsafe.

This is my main reason for finding this site and seeking the right way to get rid of body fat so (like I said) I don't have to cut anywhere near that much weight before weighing in. Now that you know the details here is the problem I faced last night.

Last night (just like every night) I had an hour long kick boxing practice followed by a little over 35 minutes of strength training/circuit training. Almost every other night of the week kick boxing practice is followed by Brazilian jiu jitsu (grappling) which is just as taxing if not more taxing, than kick boxing. So after getting home and logging in my workout I had over 2200 (my daily cal target is 1660) calories to eat to make up for, and I have these 1 to 2 sometimes 3 hour workouts, 6 days a week. I was happy to make up for the calories I had burned and found myself eating breaded chicken breasts that were 240 calories for one single chicken breast as well as breaded fish fillets and 40 oz of soda(Not all of it was bad I also had 4oz of both pure lean not-breaded salmon and chicken. I thought to myself this can't be right. It definitely wasn't the 4oz of lean skinless chicken breast and half cup of green beans I'm eating now, but it also wasn't a large meat lovers pizza. What I ate had carbs, protein, calories and everything my body needed. The only thing I went over the limit with was protein, (which I don't necessarily think is bad at all) sodium, and sugar. (from the soda) Is this acceptable? besides the ridiculous amount of soda I mean. Being the very hard working athlete that I am, I will need to replace the calories EVERY night. If it is strictly not acceptable and I have to replace the calories with ONLY clean, lean cals, then I would think I'd be up all night eating because of the low calories in clean AND EXPENSIVE foods.

Now for my next question. I started reading articles and one of them (which I found on here) was about an over weight women that ate only 400-700 calories a day and didn't understand why she was over weight, all the while not knowing her body was in starvation mode and her metabolism had slowed to a crawl. Also, I already knew that you can also 'over train' your body in the gym in an attempt to gain muscle and/or strength. What I'm trying to say is I realize there is a medium to maintain a healthy metabolism, to keep the body burning fat and not muscle, and just working correctly in general. I must do what I do everyday, the sport demands it. Any advice or input is very appreciated.

Thank you for taking the time to read this,

-Elliott

Replies

  • SamWTFx3
    SamWTFx3 Posts: 76
    Phew, that was a long one. But well worth the read! That was interesting, and I appreciate you taking the time to post this. It's good that you're doing kickboxing stuff. (I'm still in the workout dvd stages)
    Good luck to you on the rest of your journey, and thank you for educating me even more! :D
  • lutzsher
    lutzsher Posts: 1,153 Member
    You WOULD be up all night trying to get that many calories out of "clean" food! That is a lot. It took me the first 6 months of intensively doing this to figure out my "magic" number of calories Vs. exercise. I have finally figured out what works best for me, which is only eating a few hundred of my exercise calories typically.
    Days I work out intensively I try to get in some nuts I keep stashed, thorw some avacado in my salad, or treat myself to a slice of whole wheat toast with some natural peanut butter (that is like heaven now as I don't eat any "junk") just to get in some extra calories as well.
    That is A LOT of working out! I couldn't imagine logging in so many hours, wow!
  • chuckanderson
    chuckanderson Posts: 97
    Your gym can probably give you a little more info but you're going to need a diet very similar to a college back sort of diet. Basically just think of everything you eat now and double it........ 2 chicken breasts, three pieces of toast, cornbread, potatoes, anything. I'd also suggest ~200-250g of protein. The leanness will come from a calorie deficit... don't worry about that at all. Worry about keeping your endurance/muscle built up :)
  • hotmooglelove
    hotmooglelove Posts: 84
    Jeeeezuz...40oz of soda? Thats like flat out eating 40 packs of sugar a day :laugh: You may want to try sparkling water, or invest in a soda stream machine.

    Your daily calorie goal is quite low for a young male so thats probably not an issue. With 0 time spent working out, I personally need approximately 2400 just to maintain my weight. (Im 27, 6'2", and 178lbs) I assume you are either short and light, or you have your weekly weight loss goal set very low.

    Keep in mind, if you aren't particularly overweight and you want to build muscle, you should place your weekly goal very low, -0.5lbs or so. If you are pushing a loss of 2lbs or more a week, most of that protein you eat will be burned up for energy and a significant portion of your weight loss will also be muscle. (obviously if you are trying to dop a weight-class for competition this might not be possible)

    Food wise, you have a little more leeway than most due to the intensity of your training, so don't worry too much. Just keep in mind your teeth and pancreas probably aren't too fond of the sugar, and 1 in 3 Americans will increase their rate of heart disease by 300% if they intake more than 10% of their caloric intake in fat. I would just say watch the soda, avoid artificial trans fats (look out for the words "partially hydrogenated"), and watch that fat intake. :smile:

    --edit--
    If you think your workouts seem unusually high in the calorie range, and they might very well be (non stop high impact aerobics barely burn 500 cals an hour) I would recommend investing in a heart monitor that can track cals!
  • mariasheehan
    mariasheehan Posts: 335
    Hi Elliott,

    What about replacing SOME of the soda with high calorie, nutrient rich foods, like Almonds, or Avocado to use up some of those extra calories?

    A side note, check out another of our other members, he's a professional weight/health fitness guy (for want of a better term :-)) He has some great information on his blogs relating to your situation and many others. His theories on exercise cals
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/95109-exercise-calories?page=1#posts-1314191

    His blog: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/stroutman81
  • chuckanderson
    chuckanderson Posts: 97
    Oh yeah, I have a weight gain shake we used to use. I'd do it after your class sipping on it throughout the night. Basically you just throw everything that seems good into a blender.... my favorite went something like this:

    3 scoops whey
    2-4 tbps peanut butter
    cocoa, vanilla, whatever flavor you want
    a scoop of ice cream
    couple ice cubes
    banana is good

    You can get an easy 1000 calories here and is WAY better for you than that damn soda.
  • hotmooglelove
    hotmooglelove Posts: 84
    Oh yeah, I have a weight gain shake we used to use. I'd do it after your class sipping on it throughout the night. Basically you just throw everything that seems good into a blender.... my favorite went something like this:

    3 scoops whey
    2-4 tbps peanut butter
    cocoa, vanilla, whatever flavor you want
    a scoop of ice cream
    couple ice cubes
    banana is good

    You can get an easy 1000 calories here and is WAY better for you than that damn soda.

    Great idea
  • Elli0tt
    Elli0tt Posts: 49
    Lol sorry, I probably could have said the same thing with half of what I wrote. I gotta habit of trying to be way to thorough. And your welcome, glad I helped, and as far as the workout dvd's, whatever works right? exercise is exercise

    Phew, that was a long one. But well worth the read! That was interesting, and I appreciate you taking the time to post this. It's good that you're doing kickboxing stuff. (I'm still in the workout dvd stages)
    Good luck to you on the rest of your journey, and thank you for educating me even more! :D
  • Elli0tt
    Elli0tt Posts: 49
    I'm starting to experience that as well! For some pizza or something lol or just a sip of soda, its crazy how of all things people can take for granted, peanut butter can become one of them lol. I like nuts too, cashews are my fav. Just last night when I was trying to make up the calories I had around 800 calories worth and still had to force myself to put them down
    You WOULD be up all night trying to get that many calories out of "clean" food! That is a lot. It took me the first 6 months of intensively doing this to figure out my "magic" number of calories Vs. exercise. I have finally figured out what works best for me, which is only eating a few hundred of my exercise calories typically.
    Days I work out intensively I try to get in some nuts I keep stashed, thorw some avacado in my salad, or treat myself to a slice of whole wheat toast with some natural peanut butter (that is like heaven now as I don't eat any "junk") just to get in some extra calories as well.
    That is A LOT of working out! I couldn't imagine logging in so many hours, wow!
  • Elli0tt
    Elli0tt Posts: 49
    All of that sounds so good right now lol, my coach heeps telling me to stay away from bread, starches and whatnot.

    Your gym can probably give you a little more info but you're going to need a diet very similar to a college back sort of diet. Basically just think of everything you eat now and double it........ 2 chicken breasts, three pieces of toast, cornbread, potatoes, anything. I'd also suggest ~200-250g of protein. The leanness will come from a calorie deficit... don't worry about that at all. Worry about keeping your endurance/muscle built up :)
  • Danelectro83
    Danelectro83 Posts: 21
    Hmm, this is very interesting. Ive spent about 6 months now working outside and do P90X and ridding a bike, i have not lost a single lb. im still at 230. all though even on my best day takeing in over 1500 cal is very very hard to do for me. i just cant eat that much food. I was told drinking alot of water helped so i did some reserch and found i should be drinking around 148oz of water a day. that only made me sick and almost ended up in the ER. According to MFP i should have a net cal intake of 1780, after bikeing for an hour ive burnt around 600 cal bring it to around 2300 cal. I just cant eat that much food. Is their any good high energy high nutriens foods besides avacodos since they run about 1$ each and im on a very tight budget. i eat alot of sea food but even salmon dosent give me enough. i can deep fry everything for the extra cal in the oil but i realy want to keep my sat, trans fats to as little as posible. Ive switched to stuff like sunflour and conola oils to help with that but that can add up fast.
    In short, well not that short, im looking for a high energy food, no soda or potato chips, cant stand the stuff anyway. but also low in cost as well. any idea would be great.
    Also, any personal thought on the powder cal shakes to help make up the kcal's lost from excersize as well.
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