FEAR!

eat your exercise calories! You couldn't drive across the country without refilling your tank, your body cannot do all that exercise without any fuel. You can leave some of them on the table, but try to eat most of those calories so that your body will "trust" that it's alright to let go of the fat stores. otherwise it thinks- OMG I had to do all that work and I got no fuel... better lock down all available calories into reserves. then you're defeating yourself.

I agree with LuckyLeprechaun. You will find that if you don't eat your exercise calories, your weight loss will slow and could stop. I've seen it happen myself. Most people think that you have to workout constantly and eat as little as possible to survive. But that's just it, you are BARELY surviving that way! The trick is to find the right balance, which the calorie counter does for you! Envision yourself at your goal weight on or before your goal date. What are you going to do then? Do you think you can maintain the diet you set out? Probably not. Choose a diet that you can sustain, then you will not only lose the weight but keep it off.


Created by MyFitnessPal.com - Free Calorie Counter

you MUST eat enough to keep your metabolism going. if you dont your body will go into starvation mode and you will not loose weight. eating a good balance, stating within your allotted caolories, and drinking TONS of water will be the best way.
i can understand what you are thinking. late last year i tried eating yogurt for breakfast, soup and salad for lunch, cheese and almonds for a snack, and cereal with a banana for dinner. i worked out 4 times a week, 30 minutes a day, and only lost 3.5 pounds in 6 weeks.
with the (amazing) MFP site, i have been eating tons of veggies among other healthy choices, have energy, have to pee every hour, and log every bit of food i take in. guess what? in less than a week i have already lost 4 pounds - although i am not going to track it until i weigh in next month, just in case.
bottom line - eat! especially with all that working out. if you dont, you are just wasting your time. good luck!

One question about your food intake....a turkey sub from Subway is 400 calories?? I think it is 280 what are you putting on it? I eat them a couple tims a week and want to be sure I am counting it right.

At 1200 calories a day you should already be losing weight. In fact depending on your current weight and how active you are in your everyday life 1200 may mean you are starving yourself even without doing any exercise.

If I don't want to lose weight or exercise I should eat approx 1800 calories per day (I am 187lbs). Since I want to lose 1 lb/wk MFP has me set at approx 1400 cals/day. When I exercise I burn about 500 calories which I add back in so on days when I work out I eat 1900 calories.

Not eating your exercise calories can result in your body going into starvation mode and hitting a plateau. In worst cases, it can result in weight gain once you start eating the true number of calories your body needs.

My advice, eat and enjoy those exercise calories!

Okay! I appreciate the responses. I have lost 7lbs since I have been doing the routine I stated above...is that just a fluke? Am I going to hit a wall soon if I dont get on my 1200 cal/day routine? And when I exercise I guess this means if I burn like lets say 400 calories then that means I need to consume 1600 calories/day?

It just seems like a lot of calories to consume when you want to lose weight!

Welcome! :flowerforyou: And great question. We all go HUH?? when we realize what we have been doing wrong all these years. Take it from all of us who have been successful (look af Fitness_Chick in the previous post - she lost 198 lbs already!) And the story is the same for all successful weight losers here.

Yes! Eat those extra 400 calories.
If you just began your weight-loss journey it is very common to lose 7-10 pounds on your first couple weeks. But THEN your body realizes you are not going to feed it (fuel it) and it will begin to hold on to calories to survive. You are starving yourself. Plus you are going to start to feel bad - dizzy - fatigued - irritable. You don't go into "Starvation Mode" immediately (like in one week) but you are jeapardizing your health doing what you have been doing.

Please go to those links above and read them all. They are grouped together in one spot on this thread:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/23912-links-in-mfp-you-want-to-read-again-and-again

It is at the top when you click the "General Diet and Weight Loss Help" tab.

~Cheryl

One comment I HAVEN'T seen is....how much do you weigh at this time, and how tall are you? From what my physican told me, the larger you are at the time you start losing weight the more you'll lose initially---case in point...The Biggest Loser. Notice how the bigger people lose more weight in the first few weeks, and then start to cut back in say week 4 or 5?

Same thing for you! If you're slender already, and you're trying to lose 35 pounds by June, then you need to multiply 3500 x 35, which equals 122,500 calories you need to burn off! Since you have to eat to live, you need to figure how much exercise you're doing daily and how much is actually burned off, and then take into account what calories you eat daily. 122,500 - the burned off calories + the calories you've taken in = the total weight you'll lose. You have roughly 33 weeks to lose the weight, so per week you need to have burned off 3700+ calories per week, or roughly 1.08 lbs to lose per week to meet your goal.

You can do it, girl!!!

***AND IF IT'S ANY CONSOLATION, I HAVE 245,000 CALORIES TO BURN BY JUNE, OR LOSE 2.13 LBS PER WEEK!!!****