Over training/over eating?

JJ2944 · May 2023

Hi,
Sorry if this has been posted before, I’m new to MFP (well new to communities) so haven’t had Janice to search. I’m wondering if anyone can help with my dilemma. I work out 6 times a week, this used to be 5 x 45 min hiit classes (working for around 25-30 minutes of this) and one weights session. I have recently changed this to 3 classes and 3 weight sessions. I understand muscle can add to the scales however my clothes are tight & I am definitely putting fat on rather than muscle weight. My shape hasn’t really improved through extra weight training. I’m also extremely active in my job, I clean houses most week days and can burn anything from 500 to 1500 calories doing this (according to my myzone) yet in a matter of around 8 or so weeks I have gained half a stone & feel uncomfortable in my jeans. I don’t track my calories or macros which I am going to try & start doing as I think I need to, and I like my food so I know I put enough in but I also burn a lot. My Fitbit steps are always over 20k except weekends, they are my rest days. I’m wondering if I’m working out too much and overflowing my body with cortisol with the cleaning on top, however this wasn’t an issue when I did more cardio. I love both weights and cardio but wanted to do more weight training as 1 session a week wasn’t enough and was mainly upper body so I wanted to work my legs aswell. I’m just perplexed as to the weight gain and measurements going up & want to know if this has happened to anyone else? I don’t want to cut out any more cardio as I’ve gone from 5 to 3 and feel a 25-30 min intense workout 3 times a week isn’t a lot, it’s under the 150 minutes recommendation of getting your heart rate up as high as it goes in a class, yet I enjoy weights and thought upping them would add some shape/definition. I’m within a healthy weight/bmi, not sure about fat percentage, low 20’s at a guess, but my stomach/waist especially just seems to be getting bigger. I can’t do any more training but I don’t want to do any less. Any help appreciated.

tomcustombuilder · May 2023

JJ2944 wrote: »

Hi,
Sorry if this has been posted before, I’m new to MFP (well new to communities) so haven’t had Janice to search. I’m wondering if anyone can help with my dilemma. I work out 6 times a week, this used to be 5 x 45 min hiit classes (working for around 25-30 minutes of this) and one weights session.

I have recently changed this to 3 classes and 3 weight sessions. I understand muscle can add to the scales however my clothes are tight & I am definitely putting fat on rather than muscle weight. My shape hasn’t really improved through extra weight training. I’m also extremely active in my job, I clean houses most week days and can burn anything from 500 to 1500 calories doing this (according to my myzone) yet in a matter of around 8 or so weeks I have gained half a stone & feel uncomfortable in my jeans.

I don’t track my calories or macros which I am going to try & start doing as I think I need to, and I like my food so I know I put enough in but I also burn a lot. My Fitbit steps are always over 20k except weekends, they are my rest days. I’m wondering if I’m working out too much and overflowing my body with cortisol with the cleaning on top, however this wasn’t an issue when I did more cardio.

I love both weights and cardio but wanted to do more weight training as 1 session a week wasn’t enough and was mainly upper body so I wanted to work my legs aswell. I’m just perplexed as to the weight gain and measurements going up & want to know if this has happened to anyone else?

I don’t want to cut out any more cardio as I’ve gone from 5 to 3 and feel a 25-30 min intense workout 3 times a week isn’t a lot, it’s under the 150 minutes recommendation of getting your heart rate up as high as it goes in a class, yet I enjoy weights and thought upping them would add some shape/definition.

I’m within a healthy weight/bmi, not sure about fat percentage, low 20’s at a guess, but my stomach/waist especially just seems to be getting bigger. I can’t do any more training but I don’t want to do any less. Any help appreciated.

I broke your post into paragraphs for you so more people will read it 😎

pridesabtch · May 2023

Status quo shows you are taking in more than you are burning if you are gaining weight. Your exercise is fine, even on top of cleaning houses. Are you double counting your daily activity by setting your activity level at "active" and also logging calories from cleaning?

Until you look at what you are taking in (log your food) and know some things about you, there isn't a lot more I can say.

If your BF% is <20, how much are you looking to lose? Are you male or female? How tall are you? What is your current weight? etc...

Good Luck!

JJ2944 · May 2023

Thanks for your reply.

I’m not sure how you mean about setting my activity level as active? I wear a myzone belt to log my exercise & again cleaning. It’s a heart rate monitor worn round my upper abdomen. In a class I burn around 450 calories, weights can be anything from 400-700 depending how much I do/how long I’m there. Cleaning again depends on the house & how long I’m there but I’d never below 500, sometimes over 1000. I walk to school & back twice a day & don’t sit down until 9pm most days. My Fitbit watch steps (which I know includes arm movements) is always above 20k, sometimes 30. I can’t be any more active yet when I had a desk job I found weight easier to maintain!
I’m female, 40 years old (I feel like since turning 40 this has also made a difference), 5ft & usually weight 7 stone 8/9. I’ve only gone upto 8 stone 2 but for my height it shows & I’ve never gone up to 8 stone unless pregnant. I’m not overweight by any means but my clothes are tight & my middle is spilling over the top.
I love exercise, mentally it’s the best therapy & it keeps me going, I don’t want to cut down but don’t know if I’m causing stress with it + the active job.
I’ll try & attach what I read yesterday to explain the cortisol thing.
I know I really do need to start food tracking, I’ve just never had to before which I guess is lucky, but given I’m more active than I’ve ever been it makes no sense.

JJ2944 · May 2023

Excuse the typo’s in the above message.

As the 2nd screenshot says, high cortisol levels can cause belly fat in usually lean people. I feel like this is me.

Retroguy2000 · May 2023

That doesn't sound like over-training or cortisol to me. It sounds like the obvious, i.e. you're taking in too many calories. You say you aren't logging yet, so start there. Log everything you ingest, food and drink, as accurately as possible, without changing your diet at all. That calorie amount is apparently leading to slow weight gain. despite all your activity.

To lose weight, you'll probably need to take in several hundred fewer calories each day. Maybe that's some cookies, or a bar of chocolate, or cake, or beer, etc. Maybe it's fast food, which can be incredibly high in calories. Even at your activity level pushing up your daily calories burned, a single fast food meal could be 50% of your maintenance calories, i.e. the amount where your weight would remain constant.

JJ2944 · May 2023

Thank you. I’ll start with the logging which fills me with dread but it’s got to be done. Hopefully that’ll shed some light & I’ll be able to see where I’m going wrong & get back on track. I hate to think what I’d be gaining if I was less active.

JBanx256 · May 2023

JJ2944 wrote: »

weights can be anything from 400-700 depending how much I do/how long I’m there.

I’m female, 40 years old (I feel like since turning 40 this has also made a difference),

I know I really do need to start food tracking

3 points, in order above:

Sorry, but you burning that many calories in a lifting session is EXTREMELY unlikely. This may be useful in getting a more accurate estimate:
https://www.strongerbyscience.com/research-spotlight-expenditure-resistance/

Again, sorry, but hitting 40 doesn't change your metabolism. I know it's one of those things we've heard our entire lives, "oh when you hit 30, your metabolism hits a brick wall" and "oh I used to be able to eat anything I wanted and was skinny as a rail but once I turned 40, I gain weight just thinking about chocolate!" etc etc etc, but unfortunately, that's absolutely not true. From the ages of approx 20 to approx 60 (yes, 60), human metabolism is remarkably stable.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8370708/

Yes, tracking/logging your food will absolutely make a world of difference. Buy a digital scale (they're pretty cheap; I think I paid like $9 for mine?) and start weighing and measuring everything. There's a learning curve and you will almost certainly encounter some frustrations, but this community is super helpful and will be here for troubleshooting and tips along the way!

Retroguy2000 · May 2023

JJ2944 wrote: »

weights can be anything from 400-700 depending how much I do/how long I’m there.

What are you doing for weights and how long is that for?

I'm double your weight and I enter just under 300 calories for an hour of weights in my MFP diary. MFP estimates 297 additional calories for an hour (for my weight).

JJ2944 · May 2023

Depending on the day I can be in the gym 1.5 - 2 hours. I do get a lot done in that time & sweat, my weight sessions I tend to cram a lot in. I’ll send some examples of the last week or so - written ‘C’ for clean, class or ‘w’ for weights.

I’m not saying turning 40 has had a huge affect but I have read multiple pages on how your metabolism does start to slow as you get to perimenopause age. I’ve just read a book on hormones & you are definitely not the same at 20 as 60, or 50! They have a huge affect (for a woman) so respectfully, I disagree with that point.

I think it’s food where I’m going wrong, which has never been a problem before but for sone reason it is starting to be now. I will start the logging & get some scales, thanks for the tip.

JJ2944 · May 2023

Sorry I didn’t understand the bit about myzone adding additional calories?

Weights can be allsorts from back squats & dealifts to all the machines to free weights, it’s a complete mix but I squeeze a lot in, which was another reason I was wondering if I overdo it.

nossmf · May 2023

How do you feel? Are you always tired or achy? Or only for a little while after an exercise session or lengthy cleaning session?

If being sore and tired never leaves, that's a better clue for overtraining.
If you're usually fine, a little tired after working (out) hard, then back to normal after some chill time, then you're probably not overtraining.

I'm inclined to think this isn't an issue, since you didn't suddenly leap from zero exercise to a ton, you reported you were doing fine with a bunch of cardio before and have merely swapped TYPE of exercise, not AMOUNT.

The part about myzone and calories is likely in reference to how MFP can connect with some heart rate monitors and automatically add calories burned into the MFP total for the day. A person unaware of this automatic adjustment may choose to report their exercise to MFP manually, receiving a higher calorie balance, but this is actually double-posting: once from the monitor, once done manually. People can thus be fooled into thinking they are allowed more food than they should be consuming.

This does not apply to you, however, since you have not been recording food before now. Just be aware when you do start tracking food whether your monitor reports the exercise or if you need to do it manually.

My bet is as other posters have stated, you're just eating more than you realize. Super easy to do. When you start recording, be honest. Did you eat one serving of something, or 1.5? Did you go back for seconds, or eat "just a couple bites" of something at snack time? Did you know the number one reason so many professional chefs gain weight is through tasting their cooking? A sip here, a nibble there, can lead to over a hundred calories per day, which over a year is 10 pounds gained simply through tiny taste testing.

If it goes in your mouth, record it. Nobody here is going to judge you, give you a pass/fail grade, kick you out of the club for eating this or this much of something else. This is between you and yourself, maybe your doctor or loved ones. The log is for accountability to yourself, but also is a teaching tool. It can be very eye-opening to see how quickly the calorie burn from an intense workout can be eaten. Personally, an hour of intense cardio can be negated by a single cheeseburger; an hour of lifting disappears in 10 seconds drinking soda. Nothing wrong with these food choices; I indulge regularly. But I am AWARE and CHOOSE to partake, rather than make assumptions of "I worked hard, I SHOULD be good to eat this."

JJ2944 · May 2023

I love that reply, thank you, it all makes sense!

No I’m not burnt out. Sometimes after a heavy day (one day a week I do weights, cleaning & a class later as I choose that instead of a weekend due to being busy with the kids & not wanting the gym to eat into my time with them), I can be knackered, but I never really ache. I have however had a few dizzy spells recently during exercise & the dr said it’s just my blood pressure dipping, which is low anyway, but aside from that I don’t feel exhausted from it. If anything I’m more tired from not training as it wakes me up & sets me up for the day.

I’m definitely going to start with the food logging, it’s got to be that. I’ve always been able to eat pretty much what I want which is a mix of healthy & not so, depending on the day. I think a few weeks of this will certainly give me some answers. Thank you 🙏

totem12 · May 2023

One thing I've noticed is that when I do more weights vs cardio, I'm A LOT more hungry. I had to stop doing pure lifting programs because I would literally wake up in the night starving. When I do more cardio, I burn more calories overall but I also don't feel as hungry, so if I'm not logging it's way easier to overeat when doing a lot of weight training.

Now, when I do weights, I have to log and have to ignore hunger cues a bit more, and also accept a much smaller deficit (I might do 4-500 cals deficit when doing more cardio, but can only do 200-250 when weight training else I'll be too miserably hungry to sustain it). I also have times where I quit logging, do weight training, eat all the food I want and accept I'll gain some weight, but those are the times I put on good muscle.

COGypsy · May 2023

For me, weight lifting increases my appetite SIGNIFICANTLY more than cardio. If you’ve switched that up and aren’t monitoring your intake independently of those feelings it’s easy to see scale creep.

cwolfman13 · May 2023

JJ2944 wrote: »

Excuse the typo’s in the above message.

As the 2nd screenshot says, high cortisol levels can cause belly fat in usually lean people. I feel like this is me.

Because high cortisol levels cause an increase in appetite so high cortisol levels often cause one to over consume (in addition to more water retention). A lot of exercise in general (not necessarily overtraining) is going to increase hunger and appetite. As a former endurance athlete, it's one of the reasons I typically discourage people from engaging in that kind of training or those kind of events if they're traying to lose weight (if they ask)...heavy training loads make you hungry AF. I've always found weight loss to be much easier with more moderate amounts of exercise.

As to overtraining...physical symptoms of that are usually pretty evident. Things like chronic fatigue, poor sleep quality, elevated RHR, overuse injuries, chronic DOMs, etc. If you're not experiencing these things, overtraining is likely not the issue...overeating is. A few weeks of logging will help dial that in. It's super easy to overeat when you're working hard, particularly when you factor in that we don't burn the amount of calories that we tend to think we burn, even when we're working hard...and working hard training wise can also lead to a drop in NEAT and offset your training from a calorie expenditure standpoint.

JJ2944 · May 2023

Thank you everyone, these all make sense. I do have overuse injuries, I’ve developed tennis elbow on both sides however one is ok atm & one really not, I can no longer do frontal raises or farmers walks with heavy weights. My resting heart rate has always been around 48/49 for years. I have noticed recently (the last 6 months or so) it has gone up slightly and is now low 50’s. I’m not sure if that’s of any concern or not really? I do get tired come night time and I hate getting up in a morning but that’s been all my life, I’m not an early riser & naturally could sleep until dinnertime however rarely get the chance with two kids and life. Dom’s I only get from anything new and in general I get nicknamed daft things like Duracell bunny as I just don’t stop, I’m literally always on the move. Saying that if I had a desk job or if I ever sat down for ten minutes in an afternoon & relaxed I’d want to sleep.

I tend to have a breakfast of around 500 Cals (same thing every day), mid morning snack of almonds & protein yoghurt, a dinner which I’ve recently started prepping chicken & egg salads, then tea later & a bit of chocolate, but not loads. Sometimes ill have a protein bar between dinner & tea.

Last few weeks I’d been eating sandwiches on the go for dinner & more bread than usual. I’m cutting that out now & spending some time each week prepping. Along with the logging I’m hoping that will help. Just waiting on a PT from my gym to let me know my calories/macros.

Thanks for the replies.

JJ2944 · May 2023

Ps, what is NEAT?

& with moderate exercise and losing weight being easier, what would you suggest as in how many of each type of sessions in a week/for how long?

Thanks.

chris_in_cal · May 2023

tomcustombuilder wrote: »

I broke your post into paragraphs for you so more people will read it 😎

Thank you. That's good looking out.

Retroguy2000 · May 2023

JJ2944 wrote: »

I do have overuse injuries, I’ve developed tennis elbow on both sides however one is ok atm & one really not

Along with the logging I’m hoping that will help. Just waiting on a PT from my gym to let me know my calories/macros.

You don't want to mess around with potential tendonitis stuff like that. Rest, definitely don't do exercises which aggravate it, and do some rehab work like (do your own research here) dead hangs and wrist curls with light weight if you can handle it.

If you're logging your current input accurately, you know that's the calorie amount which results in a slow gain. So, subtract a few hundred from that. This calculator is also a good starting point to look at, but the most accurate version is your logging combined with your weight change.

Get at least 0.7g per pound from protein, and make sure you have sufficient carbs for energy, and sufficient fats, don't try to exclude all fat from your diet basically, while meeting your calorie goal.

https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/

chris_in_cal · May 2023

JJ2944 wrote: »

I’ll start with the logging which fills me with dread but it’s got to be done. Hopefully that’ll shed some light & I’ll be able to see where I’m going wrong & get back on track.

Yes logging sheds light, and yes it fills us all with dread. But it's a brilliant first step.

For Americans we get to learn about our food in "grams," for people from the UK they get to learn about identifying their weight in "pounds."

It isn't a law, but most people here talk about their weight in "lbs." Stone, throws off and confuses 90% of the people here.

Retroguy2000 · May 2023

chris_in_cal wrote: »

It isn't a law, but most people here talk about their weight in "lbs." Stone, throws off and confuses 90% of the people here.

I hate it. I grew up with it, so I'm in the small subset of people who know about it (UK, Ireland and Australia?) And I hate it.

e.g. Which is easier to understand, if someone is telling you their weight?

Person A: "I'm 200 pounds."
Person B: "I'm 14 stone 4, innit."
Person C: "I'm 180 pounds."
Person

"I'm 12 stone 12, innit."

It's needlessly confusing. You probably need a calculator just to do anything with it.

EDIT: Ha, the site thought that was an emoji.

JJ2944 · May 2023

I have been to Dr’s with my elbow & been given exercises & there are just certain things I can’t do now, but bizarrely some things I can no problem.

I’ll have a look at the calculator, thank you.

Sorry, so in lbs I have always been around 107lbs and am now at 112. I’m small so it shows much more than it would in a taller person. My limbs are solid however my middle section to me atm is just 🤢

AnnPT77 · May 2023

JJ2944 wrote: »

Ps, what is NEAT?

& with moderate exercise and losing weight being easier, what would you suggest as in how many of each type of sessions in a week/for how long?

Thanks.

NEAT = Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis = the calories we burn above our basal/resting metabolic rate (BMR/RMR) by doing daily life stuff like our job, home chores, non-exercise hobbies, etc. . . . not including intentional exercise.

Also: If your device is estimating weight training calories based on your heart rate . . . that's a really, really bad way to estimate weight training calories. How bad is individual, but the fundamental problem is that strength training drives up heart rate for reasons that have nothing to do with calorie burn, loosely strain and pressure inside the body from the nature of those movements.

The article Banx linked is a better way, probably as good as it gets. (There's no great way.) As a simple alternative, logging it manually in the MFP cardiovascular exercise area as "Strength training (weight lifting, weight training)" is less terrible than getting an estimate from a device that uses heart rate to estimate those calories. Obviously, don't double count it by manually logging it and letting your device log it, too.

cwolfman13 · May 2023

JJ2944 wrote: »

Ps, what is NEAT?

& with moderate exercise and losing weight being easier, what would you suggest as in how many of each type of sessions in a week/for how long?

Thanks.

NEAT is Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. It is the calories you burn just going about your day to day doing stuff...also, fidgeting and other involuntary movements. Very often, more strenuous exercise can cause a reduction in NEAT that may offset or partially offset energy expenditure from exercise because you are fatigued.

As an example, I used to be quite heavily into endurance cycling and the training that went along with doing those kinds of races and events. On long ride training days or other more strenuous training days like hill repeats or climbing days or after riding and event, I'd be pretty well spent. Typically these things were done in the mornings and I would basically spend the rest of the day and evening doing almost nothing besides getting up off the couch to go to the bathroom because I was spent. I'm a pretty fidgety and twitchy person as well and I would notice that those kinds of involuntary movements would be pretty non-existent after those kinds of efforts. After my first century ride I ate some food at the post event tent and my wife drove me home and I passed out in the car...arrived at the house and went straight to bed around 4:30 PM and slept for 14 hours.

Contrast that with, say a Saturday morning ride for 45-60 minutes...getting home and doing some pool maintenance, mowing the lawn, and then taking the kids out for the afternoon to the zoo...coming home and maybe doing some cleaning, cooking dinner, etc and not really sitting down until later in the evening. From a purely calorie/energy expenditure perspective, it's likely that I burned just as many, if not more calories in this scenario than a hard effort training day or a 1/2 century ride (probably no comparison to the century). People tend to substantially underappreciate how many calories you burn going about a busy day and tend to over-appreciate a really strenuous workout and ignore the fatigue that follows.

In regards to more moderate exercise...for me, I didn't get into endurance stuff and that kind of heavy training load until I was in maintenance. In general, that kind of training made me insatiably hungry...I literally ate all of the food, all of the time and was still hungry. It would have been very difficult for me to maintain a consistent calorie deficit with that training load...not to mention, my performance would not have been where I wanted it. When I was actively losing weight I hit the weight room 3x per week, walked most days and went for a jog or ride maybe 2-3x per week for 30 minutes or so. My weight training sessions were really the only physically strenuous thing I put my body through and I lost weight pretty easily because it was pretty easy to maintain an efficient calorie deficit and be consistent with it.

JJ2944 · May 2023

Thanks for your replies, all definitely makes sense. No more relying on my myzone for weight training sessions & ye I can see how you’d burn more in an average day than the first scenario. That’s pretty much my average week, 2-3 eight sessions & 2-3 cardio/hiit sessions so I’m not overtraining, I think I’m just over eating! And thinking because I’m so active I can get away with it but the weight, albeit slowly, is creeping up, as are the inches. Glad I posted in here and gained some perspective.

Over training/over eating?

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