Going to cut back on exercising to eat less...

silverstringbp
silverstringbp Posts: 19
in Health and Weight Loss
I had lost weight by eating 1200c a day. Then I started going to the gym (12 weights 3 days/week, elliptical for 1 hour three days/week) and gained it back.

My thought is the exercising just makes me insatiably hungry. I burn 900c on the elliptical but need to eat it all back. On a weights day I don't have that hunger.

I think I'll cut back to .5HR of cardio and 5 weight lifting exercises everyday. Cumulatively it isn't much less but I think it not cause massive cravings. Just smooths it out over the course of the week.

Thoughts? Thanks!

Replies

  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,151 Member
    As a 34 year old male the 1200 is probably not enough calories. The plan to lift weights sounds great.
  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,562 Member
    How are you determining your burns? Most people on MFP recommend only eating 50% of calories back due to overestimation of burns. Combined with looking at your diary, I'm assuming you're eating more than you think.
  • Mediocrates55
    Mediocrates55 Posts: 326 Member
    Machine counts significantly overestimate burns. If it says you burned 900 cal and you eat back 900 cal, you're probably overeating by up to 400 cal. As a rule, I think most people only eat back about 50-75% of estimated burn.
  • ValerieMartini2Olives
    ValerieMartini2Olives Posts: 3,024 Member
    Unless you're on the elliptical for 2 hours, you're not burning 900. It's more like 250 for a half hour, if you're lucky.
  • arditarose
    arditarose Posts: 15,573 Member
    Thoughts are you are not burning 900 calories, therefore eating too many back. Hopefully you're already weighing everything. Figure out your real burns and eat that or 50-75% back.
  • acogg
    acogg Posts: 1,870 Member
    You can't add a big calorie burn without adding more calories to fuel that burnt energy. Your body will be hungry and it is not sustainable. In my opinion, you should only be about 200-300 calories under your daily burn each day. Plus, add more protein to your diet. I know this seems simplistic, but my guess is that you are well under the recommended 1 gram per lean body mass of protein. Try to meet the protein goal for two weeks and see what happens.
  • ILiftHeavyAcrylics
    ILiftHeavyAcrylics Posts: 27,732 Member
    Thoughts (somewhat unrelated to your question):

    Stop using quick add calories and read this link:

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1
  • silverstringbp
    silverstringbp Posts: 19
    Thanks for the replies. I appreciate all this help.

    Here's some additional thoughts:

    Before working out, I stuck to a strict 1200 to 1400 calorie range and lost weight VERY slowly. So to me, that seems to indicate it's a good amount to eat. I would find it hard to eat 1800 calories in a day (healthy food of course), despite calculators saying to "maintain" my current weight I could eat like 2600... seems incredibly high to me. Anyhow....

    If my gym equipment is not giving me the right calories/hour burnt that scares me. Who can I trust if the equipment is lying? I don't have heart rate monitors! It says I do 800 to 900 calories per hour. Keep in mind that's high resistance (14 on a Life Fitness machine) and I do 5 miles in one hour... so 5MPH. Does that still sound infeasible?

    Thanks again.
  • annette_15
    annette_15 Posts: 1,657 Member
    Honestly sounds like ur not accurately logging what you eat. Do u measure and weigh everything?
  • nuvimi
    nuvimi Posts: 103 Member
    At 1,200 calories a day, you should have been losing weight at close to 3 lbs a week. Is that what was happening?
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
    silverstringbp wrote: »
    Before working out, I stuck to a strict 1200 to 1400 calorie range and lost weight VERY slowly. So to me, that seems to indicate it's a good amount to eat. I would find it hard to eat 1800 calories in a day (healthy food of course), despite calculators saying to "maintain" my current weight I could eat like 2600... seems incredibly high to me.

    An observation, when I started to try to lose weight I was under-eating at about 1600 cals per day. The result of that was that my background activity level was significantly lower than it had been, because I had no energy and little motivation.

    Notwithstanding that I'd be very surprised if you were really at 1200-1400. You need to be very rigorous about accuracy on intake at that level.
    It says I do 800 to 900 calories per hour. Keep in mind that's high resistance (14 on a Life Fitness machine) and I do 5 miles in one hour... so 5MPH.

    Not a chance. I'll burn 600-700 in an hour of running at 6-7 miles per hour.

    You've been hugely overestimating your expenditure, so you've not been in deficit.

    As your objective is fairly generic then I wouldn't disagree with your revised approach, but the problem hasn't been exercise, it's been failure to maintain a deficit.

  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    1) half the calories machines or MFP give you or use a HRM
    2) weigh all your food and log it properly
    3) up your calories - 1200 is ridiculous for anyone who is not exceedingly small (as in way under 5 foot)
  • Snow3y
    Snow3y Posts: 1,412 Member
    You're a man... You shouldn't even be eating less than 1800calories a day, ever.
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    silverstringbp wrote: »
    If my gym equipment is not giving me the right calories/hour burnt that scares me. Who can I trust if the equipment is lying? I don't have heart rate monitors! It says I do 800 to 900 calories per hour. Keep in mind that's high resistance (14 on a Life Fitness machine) and I do 5 miles in one hour... so 5MPH. Does that still sound infeasible?

    Thanks again.

    I'm a 5'8 woman and my HRM shows I burn around 180-200 calories in 20 minutes on an elliptical set at resistance of 16/17 (out of 25 resistance points) at a similar speed average

    You could buy yourself an HRM or you could just cut the machines estimate to 50 - 75%
  • silverstringbp
    silverstringbp Posts: 19
    OK thanks for all the feedback I appreciate it.

    I find it odd that my elliptical which uses weight, age, and a HRM to calculate calories burnt is that far off.. but a stand alone HRM is somehow better. Discouraging!

    OK so I will assume (based on comments here) that I burn 500 calories in one hour on the elliptical with decent resistance doing 5MPH.

    Stick to 1510 calories a day (per MFP) + whatever I burn, so could be 2000 calories a day.

    And I'll weigh all my individual ingredients.

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