My Plateau Nutrition Story, Learn from my mistakes.

Thanks for posting this. I've been trying to tell my husband to eat more but he's losing so he doesn't understand what I've been saying. Hopefully he isn't burning his lean muscle but I think he might. He eats maybe 1400 a day with a bmr of 1700. However I've only been eating 1300 with a bmr of 1370. We've both been exercising 5-6 day s a week doing p90x/insanity hybrid. It is scary to to add calories to your diet because they seem to be the enemy after all its the excess calories that caused me to gain all this weight. Idk it's hard to really understand, so basically it is a bad thing to eat and exercise your calories under your bmr ? Or maybe you should take bmr + calories burned through exercise and subtract 30%? Idk seems complicated. How many calories dies your body need to repair and build new muscle?

..... I think for you maybe re-examine the exercise you're doing? 900's silly to burn in one day really- you don't need to burn that much in one day.

Just a quick one - when I'm running I can burn anywhere between 700 -1200 calories (and yes, that is wearing an HRM - for me it's a Garmin Forerunner 305!) - so to say that you don't "need" to burn 900 cals in one day is a bit strange. A calorie burn is a burn! Last night was a shorter, faster run of 1hr and 5 minutes and I burned 721 calories. It may just depend on the exercise and fitness level

Want to read this later:-)Thnx 4 info.

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Bump for later reading

There is SO much information out there, it is hard to know what is right. I wish I could find someone to just TELL ME what to do/how much to eat/what kind of exercising to do, etc...but will fit into my lifestyle and help reach my goals. Stupid question...but is this what a personal trainer does? Are there people that do this for a living? I always thought a personal training just helped set up an exercise routine...but do they do more? Thanks!

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Yes, that is what a good personal trainer would do.

Pam

There is SO much information out there, it is hard to know what is right. I wish I could find someone to just TELL ME what to do/how much to eat/what kind of exercising to do, etc...but will fit into my lifestyle and help reach my goals. Stupid question...but is this what a personal trainer does? Are there people that do this for a living? I always thought a personal training just helped set up an exercise routine...but do they do more? Thanks!

Awesome post and thanks for sharing this

so like lets say i play an hour of racquetball and burn 900 calories (according to MFP)...i start with 1760...so i should really be eating 2670 calories on those days??? Why do i have this mental block that i'd gain weight back? How clean do you guys normally eat too?

For you, I'd recommend not eating what MFP tells you to and if possible not going by their calculations for exercise calories burned. First figure our your BMR and use the calculations posted in the very first page of this thread to figure out what you should be eating befpre exercise and then if possible go on ebay and find a deal on ANY heart rate monitor with a chest strap (I was able to bid on mine and got it for around $50) so that you know what you're acutally burning. Just my opinion though! And yes- eat those exercise calories back! Your body needs them.

So for me: 1400BMR times 1.6 for activity level = 2240 and 2240 minus 30% (2240 times .30) equals 672. So, 2240 minus 672 deficit equals an intake of 1568ish. I rounded down and am taking in 1530 BEFORE exercise (200 more than MFP had me at)and am only burning 250-350 an hour at a time 3-4 times a week and eating all or most of my exercise calories back. I think for you maybe re-examine the exercise you're doing? 900's silly to burn in one day really- you don't need to burn that much in one day.

As far as clean eating? Personally my eating's not "clean" because I go by the "everything in moderation" method. I DONT cut anything out completely, just limit them. I still eat sugary treats, bread etc... I just limit the amounts and plan my day in the mornings so that I'll stay under in my calories and macros but still get enough calories in. I end up adding things to my diet like greek yogurt, fruit, whole grains, healthy fats (easiest way to get like 150 more calories in your day).

....... just an opinion from someone who it's working for!!

I think This thread has been SO informative and helpful. I Wasn't sure if I should eat back my calories or not and I'm spending close to five hours a week at the gym doing a balance of cardio and strength training. I didn't loose anything my first week, but now I can FEEL a difference even if I can't really SEE it yet. I'm not eating all the calories MFP suggests, at least not until I have a Heart Monitor and I have a real accurate count. THank you everyone.

There is SO much information out there, it is hard to know what is right. I wish I could find someone to just TELL ME what to do/how much to eat/what kind of exercising to do, etc...but will fit into my lifestyle and help reach my goals. Stupid question...but is this what a personal trainer does? Are there people that do this for a living? I always thought a personal training just helped set up an exercise routine...but do they do more? Thanks!

personal trainer for the exercise, yes. But do you really need one? Do whatever you enjoy. For me it's dvds at home (hate gyms) that are in the taebo-kickboxing mixed with aerobics genre. I've got like eight of them that I swap out and buy more when I want to keep from getting bored and I burn like 300 cals an hour at a time 3-4 times a week. Food? Nutritionist would be the one to recommend your diet and tell you what to eat. It's their job ) For me- I went to this website: http://www.dietitian.com/calcbody.php and changed ALL of my MFP settings- calories, carbs, fat, protein, and sugar to what it's telling me I should be taking in. It works! That website got me almost the same calculation that this thread taught me (and validated the fabulousness of that website as long as you're really honest with the daily activity questions). It's a good one! I had already been going by it's recommendations before this thread came along.

Excellent discussion.

There is SO much information out there, it is hard to know what is right. I wish I could find someone to just TELL ME what to do/how much to eat/what kind of exercising to do, etc...but will fit into my lifestyle and help reach my goals. Stupid question...but is this what a personal trainer does? Are there people that do this for a living? I always thought a personal training just helped set up an exercise routine...but do they do more? Thanks!

personal trainer for the exercise, yes. But do you really need one? Do whatever you enjoy. For me it's dvds at home (hate gyms) that are in the taebo-kickboxing mixed with aerobics genre. I've got like eight of them that I swap out and buy more when I want to keep from getting bored and I burn like 300 cals an hour at a time 3-4 times a week. Food? Nutritionist would be the one to recommend your diet and tell you what to eat. It's their job ) For me- I went to this website: http://www.dietitian.com/calcbody.php and changed ALL of my MFP settings- calories, carbs, fat, protein, and sugar to what it's telling me I should be taking in. It works! That website got me almost the same calculation that this thread taught me (and validated the fabulousness of that website as long as you're really honest with the daily activity questions). It's a good one! I had already been going by it's recommendations before this thread came along.

Thanks for the information. I will look at the website. I have been doing any exercise stuff I can get my hands on. I go to the gym only about once or twice a week, so I am usually doing stuff at home. I am just not sure what exercises to do in order to work the certain areas I really want to change. So far I have lost 21 lbs in about 3.5 months....so I guess what I am doing is working.

Hey guys! Thought I'd share my results from this last week and see if anyone else wants to. I decided to weigh in but not record it until it's been a few weeks. This last week is the first week i've REALLY committed to getting as close as I can to netting 1530 a day which sometimes took some food diary trial and error- planning the day, entering things for dinner then changing them and some days getting like 4 calories left- REALLY HARD!! The first two weeks I was only netting in the 1400's even though my calories were supposed to be 1530, I think I should also mention i've greatly increased my protein intake to like 100g or more a day. Anyways, I woke up this morning and measured before weighing in (I should also mention I only exercised twice this week..) and amazingly I've lost 1 1/2 inches overall! 1/2 inch off my bust waist and hips. WOOHOO!! When I stepped on the scale even though I had gained 1 1/2 pounds because I measured FIRST and saw such amazing results it didn't bother me. To me this is a perfect example of getting a proper amount of food in to feed the muscles so that it can do it's job and burn the fat to help SHRINK the body. Muscle does NOT weigh more than fat, it weighs the same just takes up much less space. This is what anatomy and physiology taught me I've always thought it's funny when people are like "i gained weight... but muscle's more than fat"- untrue. So while I didn't lose weight I SHRUNK, burned some fat away. YAAAAYYY!!!!! Definitely going to keep on trying to get as close as I can to my calorie goal- like I said, TOUGH! Takes a lot of planning.

Bump to read later.