So I'm considering eating my exercise cals..

I added back 300 calories a day when I was at a stall, and the weight started coming off again. I also FELT better, physically. If 300 a day seems too high, try 250 a day and see how it goes.

Are you doing strength training?

When I crossed into the 32 BMI zone, I stopped losing weight. I realized that I'd built enough muscle and was active enough that my fitness profile was now too low. It was sedentry. I am a stay at home mom, but I no longer am so weak and tired that I sit all day. I also have a lot more muscle to feed. Bumping up my fitness profile I gained 200 calories that way. I have been eating them as well as half or more of my excercise calories and I haven't gained anything. Haven't lost any pounds either yet, but I have lost inches. I'd say bump it up gradually. You'll know when you find your spot. I aim to eat between 1400-1600 calories a day to start with and eat more if I'm a lot more active.

Ironically enough when I first started I couldn't possibly eat all my calories on my allotment (1400) but now that I've really bumped up the strength training and that, my appetite has come roaring back without me gaining any weight and I've put on quite a bit of lean muscle too.

I would say its time to start eating back a portion of them. Don't necessarily eat them all back. But eat back half or so of your exercise calories. I also am headed down this same path I figure. I am eating 1200 a day and exercising about 50 minutes a day average. I think I will have to start eating back some of my exercise calories soon as well.

I just posted my experiece in a similar situation. The sensible (IMO) option is to try to eat them back and see what happens. No one ever gained all their weight back eating exercise calories...try it for two weeks. If nothing else, you'll most likely bust through a plateau and change up your eating enough to keep from getting bored.

This quote says it all:

'I'm training for a half-marathon and realizing I can't do things like run 7 miles and do 30DS while only on 1200.'

Seems like you already know what to do.

Either start eating back your workout calories, or start zig zagging your calories (1200 then 1600 then 1200 then 1600 etc) daily. Your body has gotten FAR too comfortable where you are eating. Plus, if you are working out that frequently, you need 1400+ calories a day just so you aren't always netting negative calories. Believe it or not, but more calories are better than less calories when your body gets to a certain point. If you have a significant amount of weight to lose, you can get away with the really small net calories for awhile, but once your body starts getting to the stage of lean, toned muscles, building more muscles, and more body shaping versus JUST weight loss, you need to eat.

Have you ever looked at how many calories athletes eat, for example when they are working out and training?

I agree with several of the posters. You know its not enough. You can't expect your body to do exceptional things on relatively little fuel. Why would you eat the same amount of calories for a day when you don't do anything physical and another when you run for over an hour? You risk injury and exhaustion by keeping your calories too low. I don't really believe in starvation mode and totally agree you need to do what's right for your body but ask yourself why it is that you think its optimal to never eat back any of your calories. There's a lot of middle ground between a strict 1200 a day and 1200+1000 exercise calories.

Also...how long have you been stuck?

To avoid the starvation alarm to our brains that occurs when our metabolism slows down the burning of calories if we burn more calories than we eat:

The amount of calories we burn needs to stay within 300-500 calories of what we eat. According to the article I read. it doesn't even matter on what side of the column the difference falls as long as it's within 300-500 calories of each other. But I think that's just to stay healthy and avoid gaining weight.

I personally believe if I'm trying to LOSE weight, I need to burn 300-500 more calories than I eat, but I consistently eat at least 1200 calories. So.....I need to add 300-500 exercise calories to my day for a total of 1500-1800, then eat 1200 - 1300 calories. Hopefully this makes sense - I think it's a simpler concept than my explanation! Good luck!

IMO if you want to loose more weight don't eat your cals back.. because its simple cals in vs cals out.. and if you are eating enough cals + excersice cals you will just pleatu and be stuck at your weight...

She is already stuck at her current weight, so she does have to make changes...Read her post...

sorry theres just so many of these threads i kinda skipped it lol but yes pleatus suck and what you can do is increase your cal intake (you gain a few lbs hopefully muscle) while excersising hard and then start dropping again by 200cals at a time and you will start to loose again... you wont break through a pleatu unless you increase the cals for about 2-4weeks.. increase just by 300-500 and see how your body reacts.

I didn't realise that you were training for a half marathon.

I will tell you about eating back the exercise calories from my perspective, not to tell you what to do, just what worked for me.

Your story sounds a bit similar to mine. When my weight wasn't budging before, I couldn't understand why as I was always in the gym - sometimes 3 times a day and running for miles, and burning up calories until I was often -1,000 or -700 calories very regularly. People kept saying I ate a lot and I was overweight because I ate junk - but that wasn't the case. I couldn't understand why the weight wasn't shifting when I would exercise away pretty much everything I ate. I would come home after running 15 miles and eat beans on toast.

The turning point came when I made a post here on MFP a while back. I posted my struggle and asked people to comment on my food diary. A lot of the posters came back and said that I had an eating disorder and I was not eating enough in relation to my exercise. This came as a huge shock to me. It was literally like I'd been told suddenly that the earth was flat. I had to think about it for a bit, and then I realised that they were right. Nobody else I knew was the same size as me and going to the gym 3 times a day. There had to be something wrong. I started doing what MFP told me to do. I got a heart rate monitor so I could see exactly what I was burning off in the gym and not using the MFP settings for exercise. Since then I've lost half a stone after struggling for about five or six years or starving myself and torturing myself in the gym with little to eat.

I definitely think my metabolism had packed up. It wasn't until I started eating those cals back that I began to see a regular loss. I honestly feel fitter and stronger now. My running has also improved and last week I ran a 5km race and I was a minute and 23 seconds faster than the same race last year.

I honestly feel your frustration. It is so disheartening to feel you're really doing everything you can to lose wieght and it's just not happening.

xx

Alright, y'all have me convinced - I thinik what I'm going to try is eating around 1400 on days I do 'heavy' exercise and keeping it at 1200 on skip days (I don't normally have these but for example, I have a race Saturday so Friday will be rest) or days where all I do is strength training and a 2 mile run. I can up it from there, but since my metabolism is probably shot, I don't want to suddenly start eating too much and gain a ton.

Thanks so much for the constructive feedback (feedback on this plan is welcome too)! I really hope this works :-/

If you eat the right foods and have an HRM, even if you eat every single exercise calorie back, you aren't going to pack on pounds.

Here's some other things to think about....

1.) You may have a TEMPORARY gain. Do not freak out. Give it time.

2.) Your weight loss at this point may be excruciatingly slow. You only have 19 pounds to lose. I KNOW it's frustrating. Trust me - I know! Try not to get discouraged. Give it more time. Even if you are maintaining, that's better than gaining.