The most common mistake women make!

I asked this on another one of your threads, what makes you an expert; most of your threads are just repeats of what others have said and some of the information you “give” is just plain wrong. I see you have lost 13 pounds, and your profile gives no indication you have any expertise in the health or weight loss fields.

I do love the irony of a man telling women what they are doing wrong.

The most common mistake men make!

Ok people I decided to write this one for the men as they seem to make this mistake all to often as well as some women, but more so the men.
1) When they join regardless of how much they weigh or their stats they instantly go for that golden 1200 cal/day minimum.
2) They workout as much as possible and eat as little as possible.
3) They totally starve the body for fuel and nutrition this way and either have 0 weight loss or have a great start until the body adapts and then stops them dead in their tracks.

Now I know what you are thinking, less in + more out = greater fat loss and to some extent that is true until you factor in the bigger picture here. I also know that there are the naysayers who have lost lots of weight doing just that, well here is a news flash for those men I bet you may have lost fat but the bulk of what you lost is the muscle boys, slowing the metabolic rate down to a snails pace. Now I can sit here and preach all day long about diet and advice but I am not going to do so in this post, short and sweet I will give you the condensed version in an analogy that is deadly accurate and gives you a crystal clear overall picture.

Think of it like driving a car, you have a limited amount of gas before the car starts to break down. The calories or fuel that mfp gives you will get you to your destination driving at 80 mph. Now think of exercise as getting you there at 120 mph but not stopping for fuel means that the tires get worn down faster, the car will break down easier and in the end will explode. The body is the car, the calories are the fuel, the tires are your muscle without proper fuel they break down and in the end the body feeds off itself. The point of the exercise is to increase the metabolic rate (the speed at which you can safely drive) not to burn off the fuel (calories).

Cardio burns fuel off in the short term, weight training raises the overall metabolic rate and increases your fat loss but neither will do you any good if you are not fueling the body right. All that hard work, sweat, tears in the mirror when you are not seeing results are because you are your own worst enemy. Work with your body and not against it. You can choose to be a prius or a "insert fav exotic or muscle car here", does not matter which, but the "fav exotic or muscle car" is a lot more fun and that is the one who feeds their body right and rips down the road of fat loss blowing right by you like you are standing still

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I have rewritten the original OP swapping references to the feminine to the masculine.

Does anyone still find it offensive or sexist? You do? Well, you have waaaaaaay too much time on your hands.

Unlike me. Who had the time to rewrite the article. Errrrrrrrr....

On topic ... until I found MFP, I'd never heard of eating back exercise calories. I think it's liberating to adopt a new strategy and to leave starvation diets behind and go about losing fat sensibly. I still find myself resistant at times but what that boils down to is my IMPATIENCE for results, however short term they are. I'm working hard on changing this. The past 2 days, I've eaten back the majority of the exercise calories.
It feels good to eat and I hope this helps me avoid my almost weekly bingeing episodes which usually are triggered by a feeling of deprivation.

This seriously has to be one of the most well thought out, concise - yet all encompassing and real things I've ever read on here. I love it!