My (hopefully interesting) experience with Exercise Calories

Summary for those who don’t read long posts:

a. When I was 85 pounds overweight, I never ate back exercise calories (worked great)
b. When I was 25 pounds overweight, I got weaker and lost some muscle (still lost weight)
c. Now at 10 pounds overweight, I eat them all back, feel great, and am still losing (although slower)

So, everyone’s right. Don’t them back! Eat them back! Eat some back! It’s all good advice…for me; the effectiveness of each approach was determined by where I was in the process.

Long Version

I see a lot of posts, replies, and comments regarding exercise calories here; and I (think) I feel like many of you who roll their eyes and say, “here we go again with the exercise calorie debate…”

Well, I thought I would share MY experience for those who like to read posts to find nuggets of insight to their weight loss and fitness experience (as I have) from what others have actually been through, on the hope that it may be something they can learn from.

This is the part of my post where I say I am not a medical doctor (I’m actually a federal government employee who works in the cyber security field), and that your mileage may vary.

I was 265ish around Halloween last year (2010), and decided it was time for me get busy living instead of trying to fork and knife myself to death at 42. I am about 5’ 5’, so my BMI was around 40ish…not too good. I quit having 3500 calorie lunches with 3 cokes and wound up around 225 by January 1st. In January, February, and March I started to really watch my intake and got on my elliptical a few times…I dropped about 10 pounds per month.

In April, I started logging calories and exercise religiously, and working out every day. I never ate my calories back because overeating was the reason I got so heavy to begin with. I just couldn’t see the logic in eating calories I’d burned up…I was still trying to lose weight, and it was working just fine. I figured I’d eat them back once I was on maintain mode (and secretly I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to work out so damned much once I reached my goal, so less to eat back).

Well, a funny thing happened on the way to maintenance…plateaus, woozy days, some workout fatigue, and even a short summer cold. My honest opinion is that I was not eating enough. This seems so weird for me to say…I’m not sure anyone I know would ever associate me with not eating enough. However, what worked for me for 6 or 7 months was no longer working for me. I felt like I was breaking down. On top of all that…my scale stopped moving for the first significant time in 7 months.

I am guessing I am not the only one here who tried to bust a plateau by eating less…it totally backfired. I felt like crap, my post-workout fatigue made me question a lot of things (Am I too old for this? Do I have some injury or illness I can’t readily identify? ) and I still had 20 pounds before I hit a healthy BMI. I actually thought that if this is how I’m going to feel at a healthy BMI, I’m not sure I want to get there.

So…I started eating back some calories…some fat, some protein, even (YIKES!) some carbs. I started losing again, and even better…I feel completely better. The whole reason I’m writing this is to try to express how much better I feel than I did a month ago. Now I work hard to fill in the gaps I had previously created for myself (500 calories+ per day in some cases) with healthy and beneficial foods. It’s changed the recent course of my fitness experience and renewed my hope that I can reach a healthy BMI and still feel healthy.

In summary:

Don’t eat them if you still have a bunch of fat to lose…the muscle loss won’t be that significant. The closer you get to a healthy BMI, the more important it will be to replenish your body if you are doing a lot of exercise.

Thanks for reading.

Section for those who want the numbers/methods/etc:

85ish pounds lost. 245 to 160 in 9 months.
First 3 months; cut the junk food and seconds, try to move around.
Second three months; cut portions and exercise more.
Last three months; count every calorie, follow MFB guidelines for fat/protein/carbs, eat cleaner, exercise a lot.

I do 500 calories of cardio six times a week (elliptical or running), and situps/pushups three times a week. My MFP is set to 2 lbs/week, and seemed to be going at about that rate until recently…now around 1/week.

My diet steers mostly clear of processed sugar and processed carbs…not a lot of chips/white bread/candy/cookies. I eat a lot of tuna/salmon/yogurt/almonds/salads for breakfast and lunch…with a normal dinner every night with my wife and kids. I drink a ton of water.