What the bread pudding is going on here?!!?

I eat my excersize calories, but if you did not you should loose faster.

Hello and welcome!

I do Bikram Yoga, which is yoga in a heated room of 95 degrees, you sweat like never before, and shed the lbs like butter! I Follow MFP everyday with my eating, and stay under my 1200 calories. I do eat my calories back, I'm not sure what other people do, but I always end up with 200-300 calories left at the end of the night because of my workouts, so sometimes I eat them back, and sometimes I've eaten all my meals and still have like 500 left! I just make sure not to go past my calories. Always stay under! Good luck!

http://shouldieatmyexercisecalories.com/

Hi and Welcome! this link contains many many posts from the cool experts who hang out here to give us great advice. Go through each one and at least read the original post. They talk about eating calories back and why this works. Also, alot of info on figuring out appropriate calories for who you are (not just 1200). Talks about net calories, etc. Obese losing weight versus lean folks just wanting to get leaner, and also how muscle strengthening plays a big part of it all.

Each new person should go through them to get real answers instead of random opinion!!

So, best of luck and start researching today! You will get to your goals, do it smartly :bigsmile:

I eat back half of my exercise calories up to all of them. It rather depends on whether or not I burned extra calories to make up for eating more. :laugh:

Check out the Recipes message board section. You'll find lots of them there.

For exercising, start slow, if you don't already work out. I started with walking and have "graduated" to running and walking in intervals. I try to run 5K two times per week, but with the heat right now I have to get up really early to run, so I'm happy to manage one and a couple of days of running 1.5 to 2 miles.

You can eat pretty much anything you want. Again, I'd say make small changes, make them stick, and then change something else. Some ideas for snacks are low fat granola bars, Greek yogurt with sweetener and/or fruit, Veggie Straws, popcorn....

Good luck!

Greek yogurt has double the protein and helps prevent the hunger cravings. I was buying the individual flavored ones but have switched to the extra large plain, non-fat (FAGE) greek yogurt. I still have a few ziplock sandwich bags of blueberries & dark, pitted cherries in the little refrig. freezer. I toss 1/2 cup of those into my magic bullet blender with 1/2 c. non-fat plain greek yogurt then add a Truvia packet, 1/2 tsp. vanilla & ground cinnamon...then zap the blender. Beats the britches off of ice cream, lol. You can also stock up on those 90 calorie protein snack bars. There are a number of good ones on the market for those rare, on-the-run days for a quick snack (better than heading into a fast food joint for the wrong choices.

I eat them back.

For snacks, I do love blueberries and strawberries, but also caramel rice cakes, Quaker chewy granola bars, Fiber Plus bars, nuts and sometimes ice cream sandwiches. (And not diet ones either. I'm not knocking the diet ones, but the calorie difference wasn't that much different and they cost twice as much.)

For exercise, I'm a newbie at running, just started in December with the Couch to 5k plan, and I do EA Active Sports 2 on the Playstation (also on XBox and Wii), but pretty much any exercise DVD, like the 30 Day Shred, will do the same exercises. I like the "video game" because it's interactive, will correct me when I'm doing something wrong (which sometimes tees me off something fierce), isn't the same exact thing all the time, and comes with a heart rate monitor for calculating calories burned. I've used 5# dumbbells instead of the resistance band that comes with it, but they're getting too light for me.

I've recently been hitting the gym again, using the treadmill, bike, arc trainer, and I'm starting to use the weight machines.

The last month, I've only been trying to lose a half pound a week, and I only log my food Monday through Friday, and I've still lost about 5#.

Use the BMR tool - you can afford to go over your daily calorie limit upto your BMR without gaining weight. If you eat your BMR your weight should stay the same. If you go over your BMR you gain weight. If you stay under it you lose weight. Thats the principle here.

Not true. Your Basal Metabolic Rate is what your body burns if you're bedridden or in a coma. Even someone sedentary burns above their BMR just getting up to go to the refrigerator and bathroom once in a while.

If you eat above your Maintenance Calories, you'll gain. But maintenance does not equal BMR. MY BMR is 1,268. My maintenance is 1710. I've been eating 1500 a day plus exercise calories, averaging around 1800 a day, and still lost about 5 pounds this past month.