2 quetions...eating back calories or not? waist wraps?

If your calorie goal comes from MFP, it's designed for you to eat back your exercise calories. If you don't have great confidence in your estimates (like if you're using the MFP database or gym equipment to determine your burn), you may want to just eat back a portion until you see how it is working for you.

What is the purpose of the waist wrap? If it's for weight loss, it's a waste of money.

MakeMeSkinty wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

What is the purpose of the waist wrap? If it's for weight loss, it's a waste of money.

I'm not exactly sure how they're supposed to work? To sweat more in that area??? I don't know?! lol

Why would that be beneficial? Sweat is completely unrelated to actual fat loss. You might temporarily lose some water weight, but this is irrelevant to any actual health, fitness, or lasting weight loss goals.

MakeMeSkinty wrote: »

I'm not exactly sure how they're supposed to work? To sweat more in that area??? I don't know?! lol

Why would you consider them if you don't know what they're for or how to use them?

Ditto what everyone else said for eating back workout calories.

As for waist trainers, they are the modern day version of the corset. Yeah, that's not really a great heritage. While they may not be as abysmally horrible for you as real corsets were, they still work by restricting your stomach and rib cage. Wearing them while working out is not a good idea because they restrict your breathing, and you need to be able to breathe all the time, but even more so while working out.

They appear to work because they make you look (and feel) thinner while wearing them. After taking them off your body takes a bit to get back to normal, so if you look at yourself right away then you look thinner. Is this permanent? Absolutely not. It lasts maybe an hour, tops. As for the idea that it causes you to sweat more, maybe it does. However, that just means you lose water, not fat. Your body needs water to survive, so you are going to have to drink more water eventually anyway.

An idea that I really had to reconcile myself to with weight loss is this: I am not trying to lose weight, I actually want to lose fat. If I just wanted to lose weight then I could stop drinking water period (after all, most of my body is water, so that would definitely help me lose weight!), or, since I have very long hair, I could chop off all my hair and lose at least a pound, or if I have extra gumption, I could chop off an arm or a leg and lose a lot.

Those are all stupendously silly ideas, however, because I don't want to just lose weight--I want to lose fat. The only way to do that is to monitor how many calories you eat/drink and how many you burn and then take in less than you burn. That's all there is to it. Sweating more will just make you more thirsty. Wearing an archaic and painful device will just make your ribs ache, but feel skinny while doing so.

I'm sorry if I am too blunt here. I know the idea of wearing a piece of clothing for a certain period of time every day and losing weight sounds easy and tempting. However, it is too good to be true, as the only way to lose fat is through hard work.

As far as eating back calories goes, you'll have to figure that for yourself out as you go. Many people start by eating back about half of the calories they estimate they burned because it's almost impossible to get a pinpoint accurate count. If you notice you're losing slowly or not at all, try eating back less. If you're losing more quickly than you anticipated and are always hungry, try eating back some more.

I found that as long as I was 100% honest about the speed and length of exercise, I was able to eat back all my exercise calories and still lose as planned. But you can always try it and cut back if your lose slows.