Urgent Help Please I'm in a mess now!
dansemaillives
Posts: 42 Member
Just had a devastating weekly weigh in (to me) having lost 1lb after averaging weeks at 3lb. I know all about mustn't lose too much too soon but I've got myself in a mess and not eating enough....
This last week I've exercised harder than I've ever exercised and eaten below my daily calories every day yet lost 1lb and my body is hurting.....
Is there anyone who would be willing to look at my diary and advise? I'm scared to eat more and not lose but now only lost a little for eating little and exercising loads!
I want to understand my nutrients but I'm struggling with carbs and protein balance.
I'm 49 years old, male and started 14 weeks ago at 289lbs my weight loss was very small until I joined MFP, in total I've lost 26lbs but 18 of those has been in the last 47 days on MFP.
I've dropped my calories, upped my exercise, according to MFP I'm exercising more calories than I'm eating so in a calorie deficit but I understand it can turn around and bite you which I think it's doing.
Yesterday I got the warning I'm not eating enough when my daily logging was just over 1000 calories and my exercise was my usual 1600 calories (according to mfp)
I'm religious about my logging and would love someone who knows to look and advise??
Got to stop myself giving up as 1lb after all the work I've put in this last week is a real punch in the gut 😔
This last week I've exercised harder than I've ever exercised and eaten below my daily calories every day yet lost 1lb and my body is hurting.....
Is there anyone who would be willing to look at my diary and advise? I'm scared to eat more and not lose but now only lost a little for eating little and exercising loads!
I want to understand my nutrients but I'm struggling with carbs and protein balance.
I'm 49 years old, male and started 14 weeks ago at 289lbs my weight loss was very small until I joined MFP, in total I've lost 26lbs but 18 of those has been in the last 47 days on MFP.
I've dropped my calories, upped my exercise, according to MFP I'm exercising more calories than I'm eating so in a calorie deficit but I understand it can turn around and bite you which I think it's doing.
Yesterday I got the warning I'm not eating enough when my daily logging was just over 1000 calories and my exercise was my usual 1600 calories (according to mfp)
I'm religious about my logging and would love someone who knows to look and advise??
Got to stop myself giving up as 1lb after all the work I've put in this last week is a real punch in the gut 😔
6
Replies
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Ironically, your excessive approach this week may be the reason you've only lost one lb:
- exercise can lead to water retention, masking fat loss on the scale
- a large calorie deficit stresses the body, which can in turn lead to water retention, masking fat loss on the scale
You're running yourself into the ground, your approach is not sustainable. You don't get bonus points for suffering! Eat more, seriously. 1000 calories is ridiculously low for someone your size, even more so if you're exercising a lot. I lost weight eating at 1700+ calories as a 200lb woman.
PS your diary is private, so I can't comment on that.22 -
Okay, the good news is, this is perfectly normal and even expected. Weight loss isn’t linear. It’s very normal for people to have a honeymoon phase during which the scale drops steadily for the first four to six months, then switch over to a phase in which the scale drops by intervals, some weeks nothing, some weeks several pounds. It has to do with the way the body processes fat and water - fat loss is going on continually under the hood but may be masked by water retention. Then all of a sudden the water clears out and the scale drops.
It’s also very likely that if you have added a bunch of exercise and are feeling sore, your muscles are retaining water to rebuild themselves. Don’t freak out! Trust the process, trust your logging, and be patient.
Also, the rule of thumb is that a max rate of loss should be no more than 1% of weight weekly. At your current size that means 3 lbs has been fine, but is starting to be a little much now.
Don’t worry too much about your macros. Try to eat enough protein because it will help you retain muscle while eating at a deficit, but macros don’t cause weight loss, calories do. Different people find that different combinations of macros help them feel full, but apart from that, unless you have diabetes or pcos, it just isn’t that important.
Congrats on your loss so far, well done, carry on!
10 -
Ironically, your excessive approach this week may be the reason you've only lost one lb:
- exercise can lead to water retention, masking fat loss on the scale
- a large calorie deficit stresses the body, which can in turn lead to water retention, masking fat loss on the scale
You're running yourself into the ground, your approach is not sustainable. You don't get bonus points for suffering! Eat more, seriously. 1000 calories is ridiculously low for someone your size, even more so if you're exercising a lot. I lost weight eating at 1700+ calories as a 200lb woman.
PS your diary is private, so I can't comment on that.
Thank you for your reply I've made my diary public now I didn't realise it could be private or public 🤦♂️so I basically need to up my calories which scares me half to death!1 -
rheddmobile wrote: »Okay, the good news is, this is perfectly normal and even expected. Weight loss isn’t linear. It’s very normal for people to have a honeymoon phase during which the scale drops steadily for the first four to six months, then switch over to a phase in which the scale drops by intervals, some weeks nothing, some weeks several pounds. It has to do with the way the body processes fat and water - fat loss is going on continually under the hood but may be masked by water retention. Then all of a sudden the water clears out and the scale drops.
It’s also very likely that if you have added a bunch of exercise and are feeling sore, your muscles are retaining water to rebuild themselves. Don’t freak out! Trust the process, trust your logging, and be patient.
Also, the rule of thumb is that a max rate of loss should be no more than 1% of weight weekly. At your current size that means 3 lbs has been fine, but is starting to be a little much now.
Don’t worry too much about your macros. Try to eat enough protein because it will help you retain muscle while eating at a deficit, but macros don’t cause weight loss, calories do. Different people find that different combinations of macros help them feel full, but apart from that, unless you have diabetes or pcos, it just isn’t that important.
Congrats on your loss so far, well done, carry on!
Thank you for your reply, I'm so sore and it's the first time after weeks of exercise, I thought it was because I'd doubled what I'm doing but think I need to rest up over the weekend and start afresh next week with more calories to support the muscles?2 -
dansemaillives wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »Okay, the good news is, this is perfectly normal and even expected. Weight loss isn’t linear. It’s very normal for people to have a honeymoon phase during which the scale drops steadily for the first four to six months, then switch over to a phase in which the scale drops by intervals, some weeks nothing, some weeks several pounds. It has to do with the way the body processes fat and water - fat loss is going on continually under the hood but may be masked by water retention. Then all of a sudden the water clears out and the scale drops.
It’s also very likely that if you have added a bunch of exercise and are feeling sore, your muscles are retaining water to rebuild themselves. Don’t freak out! Trust the process, trust your logging, and be patient.
Also, the rule of thumb is that a max rate of loss should be no more than 1% of weight weekly. At your current size that means 3 lbs has been fine, but is starting to be a little much now.
Don’t worry too much about your macros. Try to eat enough protein because it will help you retain muscle while eating at a deficit, but macros don’t cause weight loss, calories do. Different people find that different combinations of macros help them feel full, but apart from that, unless you have diabetes or pcos, it just isn’t that important.
Congrats on your loss so far, well done, carry on!
Thank you for your reply, I'm so sore and it's the first time after weeks of exercise, I thought it was because I'd doubled what I'm doing but think I need to rest up over the weekend and start afresh next week with more calories to support the muscles?
That sounds like an excellent plan. It sounds like you have a little DOMS, which is delayed onset muscle soreness, and happens when your muscles aren’t yet used to the load. Doubling what you’ve been doing is a textbook way to get DOMS. It won’t kill you to work through it, but it’s probably a good plan to take an extra rest day. Your muscles grow when they are at rest, not while they work! You can keep kneading the dough but if you want the bread to rise you have to leave it alone for a while!7 -
Having looked at your diary, I'm glad to see you're averaging around 1500 calories a day (better than that one day of 1000 calories).
Are you weighing your foods? Some foods are in grams, some in volume measurements, some in units (eggs for example)
Aside from baked beans, I struggle to find any vegetables in your diet. For weight loss, it's calories that matter, but for health more veggies would be better.
I'm also wondering what exercise you're doing (type and duration) to arrive at 1600 exercise calories per day. And how are you logging that: entering it manually on MFP, using a fitness tracker,...? If those numbers are correct, you are severely undereating. But if they're inflated, it might not be as bad as I think.7 -
That sounds like an excellent plan. It sounds like you have a little DOMS, which is delayed onset muscle soreness, and happens when your muscles aren’t yet used to the load. Doubling what you’ve been doing is a textbook way to get DOMS. It won’t kill you to work through it, but it’s probably a good plan to take an extra rest day. Your muscles grow when they are at rest, not while they work! You can keep kneading the dough but if you want the bread to rise you have to leave it alone for a while!
That makes a lot of sense thank you0 -
Having looked at your diary, I'm glad to see you're averaging around 1500 calories a day (better than that one day of 1000 calories).
Are you weighing your foods? Some foods are in grams, some in volume measurements, some in units (eggs for example)
Aside from baked beans, I struggle to find any vegetables in your diet. For weight loss, it's calories that matter, but for health more veggies would be better.
I'm also wondering what exercise you're doing (type and duration) to arrive at 1600 exercise calories per day. And how are you logging that: entering it manually on MFP, using a fitness tracker,...? If those numbers are correct, you are severely undereating. But if they're inflated, it might not be as bad as I think.
Yes I'm weighing religiously or using measuring jugs etc. If uts something like an egg I'm using the scan and unit of 1 or 2 etc. My BIG problem is I hate veggies! I can manage peas, carrots and sweetcorn so will try to get more in... when I make my own meal like sweet and sour chicken, I weigh each individual ingredient and set as a recipe then each time adjust it depending on whether I have more of one ingredient than another. I don't use jars so when I have curry, or s&s, or chili etc etc I make it and everything is weighed and counted.
So I started Step Aerobics on YouTube. I logged it under MFP own settings for a 6-8 inch step. It's 126 steps a minute and I do a pair of routines twice a day that add up to a total of 90 minutes (45 minutes a session) the calories are what MFP put. They have dropped as I have dropped weight. I am also doing a small stretch for middle aged men from Samsung health at the moment which adds 84 calories, again its own settings.
I think I'm undertaking but scared to eat more tbh2 -
I agree that your expectations are the problem. This is going to be a long haul (you need to prepare to eat well for the rest of your life, or you'll regain), and you are in training. Relax. Losing weight is trail and error, tweaking here and there. You'll need to find what works. Weight loss goes up and down and sometimes stays the same. Get yourself some good habits and don't try to out-exercise your diet. Regular exercise, sometimes try something new and change it up. If you don't like vegetables, that's OK, but you're missing out on many nutrients. You might want to get on internet and find a few recipes to try. Sooner or later, those veggies will taste great. I throw mine in a huge bowl, put on some olive oil, add the spices that I like, mix it all up, and then put the veggies on a parchment paper lined baking pan at high heat until crispy. If doing vegetables that are hard, I boil them 5 min first, drain, and then throw in the bowl, mix it up and bake.
I wish you great success.7 -
Well, fear is not the best guide
Especially when it's not based on reality. Based on your diary from a week ago, you were losing 3lbs a week while eating 1470 calories per day on average. So that's a calorie deficit of 1500 calories per day. That means you could eat 1500 more calories per day to maintain your weight.
What are you afraid of? Regaining the weight? If so, I can tell you that what you're doing right now is a path that will most likely lead to gaining the weight back again. For sustainable weight loss, you need to
- make the weight loss process as easy and painless as possible (the harder you make it, the more likely you'll give up)
- think about what you'll do when you reach your goal weight: are you making lasting changes to your diet? What will you do when you reach your goal weight: go back to eating the way you did 'before' and perhaps not exercising anymore? Because that will send you right back to where you started.
- think about your health as well - the faster you lose, the more muscle mass you'll lose and you increase the risk of health problems (fatigue, hair loss, gall bladder issues, even heart problems,...). As has been said above, aiming to lose 1% of your body weight per week is the maximum.8 -
snowflake954 wrote: »I agree that your expectations are the problem. This is going to be a long haul (you need to prepare to eat well for the rest of your life, or you'll regain), and you are in training. Relax. Losing weight is trail and error, tweaking here and there. You'll need to find what works. Weight loss goes up and down and sometimes stays the same. Get yourself some good habits and don't try to out-exercise your diet. Regular exercise, sometimes try something new and change it up. If you don't like vegetables, that's OK, but you're missing out on many nutrients. You might want to get on internet and find a few recipes to try. Sooner or later, those veggies will taste great. I throw mine in a huge bowl, put on some olive oil, add the spices that I like, mix it all up, and then put the veggies on a parchment paper lined baking pan at high heat until crispy. If doing vegetables that are hard, I boil them 5 min first, drain, and then throw in the bowl, mix it up and bake.
I wish you great success.
Thank you for your reply. I am giving myself 2 years to get down to 161lbs so expect long haul I have a history of diets with no exercise and also crash diets. I did lighterlife once and in 6 months went from 336 lbs (my heaviest ever) to 161 lbs my lightest adult weight since I was 19! But it did nothing and I've gone up and down since. This time I really do want to get it right for the long-term as I hit 50 this year and would like to see retirement..
Will try on the veggies I do like disguising them within meals I make so will start there again.1 -
Well, fear is not the best guide Especially when it's not based on reality. Based on your diary from a week ago, you were losing 3lbs a week while eating 1470 calories per day on average. So that's a calorie deficit of 1500 calories per day. That means you could eat 1500 more calories per day to maintain your weight.
What are you afraid of? Regaining the weight? If so, I can tell you that what you're doing right now is a path that will most likely lead to gaining the weight back again. For sustainable weight loss, you need to
- make the weight loss process as easy and painless as possible (the harder you make it, the more likely you'll give up)
- think about what you'll do when you reach your goal weight: are you making lasting changes to your diet? What will you do when you reach your goal weight: go back to eating the way you did 'before' and perhaps not exercising anymore? Because that will send you right back to where you started.
- think about your health as well - the faster you lose, the more muscle mass you'll lose and you increase the risk of health problems (fatigue, hair loss, gall bladder issues, even heart problems,...). As has been said above, aiming to lose 1% of your body weight per week is the maximum.
I know your right and and knownthe health problems all too well, I had my gall bladder removed not long after my 6 month loss of 12.5 stones! My aim is to get as much off as I can and lift my calories slowly as I reach the end to a maintain weight scenario but, as you say, I'm trying to hard to lose to quick.
So one last question if I may, if I aim at the 1600 MFP has set me and exercise slightly less at say MFP's 1000 calories is that OK or will I still risk myself struggling? My plan would be too lift all 3 carbs, protein and fat nearer the levels set by MFP?
Thank you for your time it is really appreciated0 -
The big thing to remember is that if you stay at a low calorie level for fast lost you will lose muscle as well as fat and that will limit how much you are able to raise your calories as, at rest, muscle takes more calorie to burn than maintain.
You need to simmer down.
Fromt he figures above 3000 calories is your maintenance. That means you need to eat 2000 calories a day AND at least part of the calories you earn exercising back. Aim for a thousand calorie deficit and RELAX. This is forever. If the plan is 'and then raise calories' the plan may as well be 'and then gain it back'.5 -
So I too just had a bad weigh in. What caused it? To much exercise and under eating... I am struggling with water retention. I'm 5'5" 154.4 lbs with a goal of 130lbs because of a medical condition. I shouldn't eat under 1500calories minimum dispute logging(not on mfp) at least 5-6 miles of power walking per day. My husband has taught me some things about weighing you should consider. Most men can lose 5lbs in a good dump and whiz. I weigh in AFTER I've used the bathroom in the morning in my birthday suit. Same scale location and I test my scale with a 30lb weight before weighing myself because electric scales tend to get stuck on a weight and most of their manufacturing instructions say to weigh a smaller items to essentially warm up your scale right before use and make sure it's working. I don't see any need to log exercise as MFP over calculated my burns back in 2015 putting me in maintenance vs a deficit. I use a notebook and google fit to track exercise. You're doing a fantastic job with the weight you've lost. What might help is seeing your 26lbs lost. Most people are visual learners so you need to see your accomplishment take a soup can like green beans or chicken noodle and after eating the contents take the can to the bathroom stopper the sink and dump 26 cans of water into the sink stopping if it starts to over flow. That is roughly the size of 26lbs which is an extraordinary accomplishment. I did that with the cans filled with shaving cream when I lost 10lbs and it was a seriously eye opening learning experience. Also I weigh daily sometimes the day after a bad day I will lose a lb track the overall trend not 1 day. Good luck my friend.2
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wunderkindking wrote: »The big thing to remember is that if you stay at a low calorie level for fast lost you will lose muscle as well as fat and that will limit how much you are able to raise your calories as, at rest, muscle takes more calorie to burn than maintain.
You need to simmer down.
Fromt he figures above 3000 calories is your maintenance. That means you need to eat 2000 calories a day AND at least part of the calories you earn exercising back. Aim for a thousand calorie deficit and RELAX. This is forever. If the plan is 'and then raise calories' the plan may as well be 'and then gain it back'.
Thank you for your reply really helpful1 -
Beverly2Hansen wrote: »So I too just had a bad weigh in. What caused it? To much exercise and under eating... I am struggling with water retention. I'm 5'5" 154.4 lbs with a goal of 130lbs because of a medical condition. I shouldn't eat under 1500calories minimum dispute logging(not on mfp) at least 5-6 miles of power walking per day. My husband has taught me some things about weighing you should consider. Most men can lose 5lbs in a good dump and whiz. I weigh in AFTER I've used the bathroom in the morning in my birthday suit. Same scale location and I test my scale with a 30lb weight before weighing myself because electric scales tend to get stuck on a weight and most of their manufacturing instructions say to weigh a smaller items to essentially warm up your scale right before use and make sure it's working. I don't see any need to log exercise as MFP over calculated my burns back in 2015 putting me in maintenance vs a deficit. I use a notebook and google fit to track exercise. You're doing a fantastic job with the weight you've lost. What might help is seeing your 26lbs lost. Most people are visual learners so you need to see your accomplishment take a soup can like green beans or chicken noodle and after eating the contents take the can to the bathroom stopper the sink and dump 26 cans of water into the sink stopping if it starts to over flow. That is roughly the size of 26lbs which is an extraordinary accomplishment. I did that with the cans filled with shaving cream when I lost 10lbs and it was a seriously eye opening learning experience. Also I weigh daily sometimes the day after a bad day I will lose a lb track the overall trend not 1 day. Good luck my friend.
Thank you for your reply and some really good points. I'm having a weekend of relaxing (had a takeaway!) 2 days of sensible eating and then start Monday anew making sure I eat more in relation to my exercise.1 -
You should have a boo at the larger loser group. Has some good content for you to read through.
Your doubling the exercise and feeling sore = you are retaining water for muscle repair / due to muscle inflammation. There is nothing wrong with that. It is perfectly normal.
Your weight is not just fat. It is fat and everything else. You see the changes to your fat reserves through repeat observations. The "other stuff" obscures, at times, what is happening with the fat reserves. That's why you look at trends, not individual weigh ins.
A textbook case of diagnosing someone who is over-doing things, is pushing too hard, and will eventually burn out if they try to continue on that trajectory, is someone who is feeling resentment about how much work they put in and how little reward they got.
Your reward, if you're ever going to make this a sustainable life moving forward, will, eventually, have to be the doing itself. i.e. keeping to your eating and exercise plans has to become at the very least neutral if not in actual fact enjoyable on their own right and not dependent on the "big reward that makes it all worthwhile".
Sure... early goings and all that... but keep in mind that you're in for a long haul, not a quick fix. So think long term and use the time to explore options; not just push for faster and faster results in an unrealistic manner.
You're doing good. You DID good.
No need to NOT exercise because you're sore... it will resolve over time.
And yes, there is danger when you hang your whole psyche on a single measurement!
TL;dr: you probably lost just as much or more fat this week when you saw a 1lb scale movement as you did during the previous weeks when you saw 3lb movements. your weight changes consist of changes to things that are both fat and many other things. the other things obscure your fat level changes. you're pushing too hard. fix it before it turns into a tailspin. no need to panic. breath and do reasonable things and experiment with food you find filling, and movement and exercise that makes you happy, and find your way forward!6 -
You should have a boo at the larger loser group. Has some good content for you to read through.
Your doubling the exercise and feeling sore = you are retaining water for muscle repair / due to muscle inflammation. There is nothing wrong with that. It is perfectly normal.
Your weight is not just fat. It is fat and everything else. You see the changes to your fat reserves through repeat observations. The "other stuff" obscures, at times, what is happening with the fat reserves. That's why you look at trends, not individual weigh ins.
A textbook case of diagnosing someone who is over-doing things, is pushing too hard, and will eventually burn out if they try to continue on that trajectory, is someone who is feeling resentment about how much work they put in and how little reward they got.
Your reward, if you're ever going to make this a sustainable life moving forward, will, eventually, have to be the doing itself. i.e. keeping to your eating and exercise plans has to become at the very least neutral if not in actual fact enjoyable on their own right and not dependent on the "big reward that makes it all worthwhile".
Sure... early goings and all that... but keep in mind that you're in for a long haul, not a quick fix. So think long term and use the time to explore options; not just push for faster and faster results in an unrealistic manner.
You're doing good. You DID good.
No need to NOT exercise because you're sore... it will resolve over time.
And yes, there is danger when you hang your whole psyche on a single measurement!
TL;dr: you probably lost just as much or more fat this week when you saw a 1lb scale movement as you did during the previous weeks when you saw 3lb movements. your weight changes consist of changes to things that are both fat and many other things. the other things obscure your fat level changes. you're pushing too hard. fix it before it turns into a tailspin. no need to panic. breath and do reasonable things and experiment with food you find filling, and movement and exercise that makes you happy, and find your way forward!
Thank you that was really helpful and inspiring2 -
Really helped getting all these replies thank you so much. It's one blip (and not really a blip as I still lost a lb!) Will refocus and stop getting hung up on amount of weight plus speed of loss and focus on my nutrition and exercise to lose weight and sustain it for the long term into maintenence....9
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My son hates veggies, too, but he loves blueberry smoothies with banana, plant milk, and greens--He likes kale, but spinach or arugula are other good choices for smoothies. The veggies are hidden. For years I cooked carrots and pureed them into his pizza sauce, so there are ways to hide veggies enough to get them down!5
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Sounds like you have a good plan, I have stalled so just increased my calories by adding more protein and exercising using weights more. Good luck.1
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I recommend to start looking at food as fuel, and not just as something you limit.
For example: If you know you're going to do a hard workout - make sure to fuel your body with some carbs and some sugar pre-workout (banana right before, maybe some low sugar (under 10g a serving) cereal in the morning.
And remember that after your workout, you need to eat back SOME of the calories your burn. Let's say your recommended amount of calories a day is 1500 for weight loss. You have a 500 Cal burn during your workout.
You should eat a total of 1650-1900 calories total for the day. If you don't "eat back" your calories, you may see faster results, but you also feel more tired, lethargic, and have less energy working out. Plus it isn't sustainable, and you tend to hit more plateaus.
Once you have a good feel for how your workouts go (calories burned), you can start stacking more calories before your workout.
For example, I know for my gym classes I burn 700-800 calories while I'm there ( I go to Orange Theory, where we use trackers)
So lets say my calorie target is 1500 calories for the day on MFP. Typically because I know I'll have a 700-800 calorie burn for my after work workout, I'll eat 1500 calories before I even go to the gym.
After the gym I've "earned back" 700-800 calories, and typically have a 500 calorie dinner. (I practice slight deficit because I know no calculation is perfect - But listen to your body! if your stomach is growling, eat something!! (healthy))
Before when I didn't eat my calories I never hit new PR's at the gym, I was more tired during the day, and I just felt sluggish.
After I started eating back my calories, I felt like I could push myself so much harder working out, I had more energy (even after working out) and was happier overall. and guess what - MY WEIGHT LOSS CONTINUED AND BECAME MORE CONSISTANT.
I hope this helps. Feel free to friend me.4 -
The hardest part of losing weight is the slow weeks. Sometimes those weeks are your body adjusting to your lose and you will lose inches instead of pounds. I measure everything from my neck to my calves. This helps me keep pushing through the slow weight loss weeks or plateaus. Remember stay positive and non-scale victories are just as important as the scale moving!!2
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My son hates veggies, too, but he loves blueberry smoothies with banana, plant milk, and greens--He likes kale, but spinach or arugula are other good choices for smoothies. The veggies are hidden. For years I cooked carrots and pureed them into his pizza sauce, so there are ways to hide veggies enough to get them down!
Yes! I make a blueberry smoothie that my son loves as well and it has spinach in it. He HATES spinach. These are excellent suggestions at getting more veggies into your diet.1 -
I recommend to start looking at food as fuel, and not just as something you limit.
For example: If you know you're going to do a hard workout - make sure to fuel your body with some carbs and some sugar pre-workout (banana right before, maybe some low sugar (under 10g a serving) cereal in the morning.
And remember that after your workout, you need to eat back SOME of the calories your burn. Let's say your recommended amount of calories a day is 1500 for weight loss. You have a 500 Cal burn during your workout.
You should eat a total of 1650-1900 calories total for the day. If you don't "eat back" your calories, you may see faster results, but you also feel more tired, lethargic, and have less energy working out. Plus it isn't sustainable, and you tend to hit more plateaus.
Once you have a good feel for how your workouts go (calories burned), you can start stacking more calories before your workout.
For example, I know for my gym classes I burn 700-800 calories while I'm there ( I go to Orange Theory, where we use trackers)
So lets say my calorie target is 1500 calories for the day on MFP. Typically because I know I'll have a 700-800 calorie burn for my after work workout, I'll eat 1500 calories before I even go to the gym.
After the gym I've "earned back" 700-800 calories, and typically have a 500 calorie dinner. (I practice slight deficit because I know no calculation is perfect - But listen to your body! if your stomach is growling, eat something!! (healthy))
Before when I didn't eat my calories I never hit new PR's at the gym, I was more tired during the day, and I just felt sluggish.
After I started eating back my calories, I felt like I could push myself so much harder working out, I had more energy (even after working out) and was happier overall. and guess what - MY WEIGHT LOSS CONTINUED AND BECAME MORE CONSISTANT.
I hope this helps. Feel free to friend me.
Yes it helps a lot thanks. And I've friended you!2 -
dansemaillives wrote: »
So I started Step Aerobics on YouTube. I logged it under MFP own settings for a 6-8 inch step. It's 126 steps a minute and I do a pair of routines twice a day that add up to a total of 90 minutes (45 minutes a session) the calories are what MFP put. They have dropped as I have dropped weight. I am also doing a small stretch for middle aged men from Samsung health at the moment which adds 84 calories, again its own settings.
Are you saying that 90 minutes of step aerobics and some stretching burns 1600 calories? That seems really high.3 -
@crb426
I was thinking the same thing. I went and calculated and it is based off your current weight. 90 minutes for my CW of 144.4 pounds is 865, so maybe 1600 is accurate. If it is, I may need to start up step aerobics
1 -
Well I'm just inputting on here and it tells me based on my current weight. I was doing a 7 inch step and 2 sessions of 45. This week I'm doing 45 minutes and 15 minutes bike. It's still saying over 900 cal burn for that.
Interestingly another calorie counter app gives less by about 300 calories. Each week I have lost weight the burn has gone down.
2 -
Forgot to add I'm 263 lbs at last weigh in0
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@dansemaillives
Once I plugged in my numbers I guessed your weight probably had something to do with the amount burned. It is weird how different apps give different numbers though. Hard to know what to believe. Congratulations on your weight loss.2
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