Gained a stone in a month!

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oftm
oftm Posts: 5 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I don't know what happened. :o I've been doing a lot of running and felt like I was getting more and more hungry even though I was eating the recommended calories? I was starting to crave sugar more and more and it got to the point where I just lost it completely. The amount of sugary foods I ate during February is frightening. It was one bar of chocolate after another at one point. I wasn't just hungry.. this was like I was starving. The thing is I don't restrict myself from those types of foods so it's not like I'd been doing that. Is it possible that I was burning more calories than mfp was suggesting? I only set it to lose .5 pounds a week yet I felt like I was losing more than that even if the scales didn't show it. I'm back on track now and feel 'normal' again but it's a bit disappointing that that happened as I do a lot of racing (mainly Parkruns) and it's affected that as well. It's easy to say just adjust calories and eat more but it's no so easy to do that when you are running a lot though I might have to as I don't want a repeat of February!

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  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    edited March 2016
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    Were you eating back at least 50% of your running calories burned? If not, that is probably what led to the issue last month.

    Keep in mind MFP expects you to NET your goal. So food intake - exercise burn should be equal to the goal MFP gave you.
  • endlessfall16
    endlessfall16 Posts: 932 Member
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    Oh man, I see the flowchart in the future of this thread.

    Our senses can be very subjective and wrong. You need to use devices and apps. Even other person interacting with you can be more accurate. Has any running partners of yours commented that you've been running more? Or eating less, losing lbs, looking better?
  • Springfield1970
    Springfield1970 Posts: 1,945 Member
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    Exercise sure makes you hungrier. Problem is, if you're starving after exercise its easy to hoover up 1000s of calories and over do it.

    The last parkrun I did, it was 22 minutes, and I burned a grand total of.....220 calories. Sad. Two bananas.

    I'm 5'7" 130lb.
  • oftm
    oftm Posts: 5 Member
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    shadow2soul wrote: »
    Were you eating back at least 50% of your running calories burned? If not, that is probably what led to the issue last month.

    Keep in mind MFP expects you to NET your goal. So food intake - exercise burn should be equal to the goal MFP gave you.

    Yeah, I always eat 95-100% of calories burned. I even add on an hour or two of walking calories if I feel I've done more in my job than the sedentary setting. I'll just have to watch out for the increased hunger signs this time and eat more if I start feeling that way again.
  • oftm
    oftm Posts: 5 Member
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    endlessfall16 wrote: »
    Oh man, I see the flowchart in the future of this thread.

    Our senses can be very subjective and wrong. You need to use devices and apps. Even other person interacting with you can be more accurate. Has any running partners of yours commented that you've been running more? Or eating less, losing lbs, looking better?

    A running buddy did mention that I was getting too thin but I want to get to 10 stone.
    Springfield1970 wrote: »
    Exercise sure makes you hungrier. Problem is, if you're starving after exercise its easy to hoover up 1000s of calories and over do it.

    The last parkrun I did, it was 22 minutes, and I burned a grand total of.....220 calories. Sad. Two bananas.

    I'm 5'7" 130lb.

    The faster running is the worst for making you feel hungry. Like you say you put all that effort into a 3 mile run and it's a small amount of calories. If you jog that distance really slowly it feels a lot easier.

  • Springfield1970
    Springfield1970 Posts: 1,945 Member
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    I'm a bit confused.... Do you want to lose weight or gain weight? Did you lose quickly then binge it all back again?

    I bought a heart rate monitor to figure out my burns, I train for triathlon, and also love yoga and walking. I've got the balance right now but it took ages. I dropped down to 123lbs at one point. I ran so darn fast!

    Not really into jogging! Running faster than any time in my life is taking the sting out of my midlife crisis.
  • oftm
    oftm Posts: 5 Member
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    I want to lose weight. I did lose then ended up binging and putting on some of it. Overall ive still lost. I guess the point of the thread is just that following mfp's calorie estimate hasn't worked properly for me so in future I'll have to make my own adjustments. It was only set at .5 pounds a week so not exactly a crash diet. I could easily lose weight without logging everything everyday but then I would end up crashing and binging which is what happened anyway. It's just disappointing that happened following mfp's recommended calories. It would be easy for someone to say I shouldnt have overeaten last month but there's being hungry and then there's how I felt. That was like I had been starving myself yet I didn't. I feel fine now and I'm losing again. Maybe I burn a lot more calories running than the calculators estimate? Everything's set properly so like I said in future I'll just have to eat more than what mfp suggests if i start to feel like that again. I just ignored how hungry I was getting because I was following the net calories down to the last one on most occasions.
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    edited March 2016
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    So you gained 0.5 lbs per day in February. That's some serious excess calorie intake.

    Your conclusion is that the target intake was too low so you repeatedly lost control due to hunger ?

    Is the running calorie estimate correct ? You appeared to be eating all the exercise calories :-
    Running (jogging), 6.7 mph (9 min mile) 38 mins 499 calories

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