PLEASE someone help me understand..

how many calories do you eat at a time sorry i went back and reread what you wrote you dont have to eat your exercise calorie i would only eat those as a last resort if you are really hungry you are trying to work of your weight

Nut products are good for you and very dense in calories.

You HAVE to fuel your body in order for it to let go of that fat it's stored. If you're burning 1000 calories a day on exercise, I can see why it's hard to eat that much, but if you're burning 300 then it shouldn't be hard to eat that. You should be eating every 2-3 hours. So instead of eating low-fat/non-fat, eat full fat. It's better for you, of course higher calories, but doesn't have the added chemicals to make it low-fat. Avocados are pretty high in cals but are awesome for you, I add 1/2 avocado to a sandwich to get the nutrients from it.

If you only had 20 pounds to lose, then eating your exercise calories may not work, but at the weight you want to lose, it's better to start out eating them (again - fuel your body, twinkies don't count!) and then when you plateau for a month or so, then you can try eating half of them or not eating them at all.

I love bagels, so on days I exercise a lot and have extra cals, I'll treat myself to having a whole grain bagel with a little cream cheese. Again, high in cals but not bad for you if you get the healthy kind. Nuts, like someone said, too.

I know it sounds really crazy to eat what you burn exercising. It's hard for most of us to wrap our minds around the thought since most of us were taught the whole eat less exercise more. I had my doubts when I first started, but it does work. It did for me. I'm back on track now, but learning all the things while I was here before helped me maintain my weight loss all this time (just over 6mos.). I can't explain things any better than when I first started (Banks always took care of that lol). But you'll get the hang of it. It'll click especially if you keep coming to the forums and use the tools provided.

As for eating healthy and taking in all the calories you need, well it all depends on what you like to eat. You'll have to figure that out on your own. I know there's a thread around here somewhere of peoples favorite foods. I'll look for it...found it (listed below).

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/29508-new-foods-you-like

I always thought of it as a treasure hunt of sorts. Half the fun is trying new things and making your own combination of stuff that will satisfy you and help you achieve your goal.

for me i dont want eat anymore than i do allready my weight 228.4 pounds i weight more than a 6foot four football player dose i need to shrink my tummy my point is that at 228 pound im to fat to work out that much to have alot of exercise calories to spend unless you can run a mile a day and you dont even burn that many calories doing that

I would have to disagree with you....I'm 5'4 & started w/MFP @235lbs on 6/3/09. Although everyone is different in their stamina & endurance, I am able to burn between 600-700 cals per hr exercising (cardio). You just have to find an exercise that works for you & stick with it to build your endurance. Even walking for 1hr should burn a couple hundred calories.

I'm confused. Does this mean I need to eat my exercise calories or not? I'm not losing weight. I've been eating all of my exercise calories. I think I'll start my eating only half of them and see if I loose weight. Does this sound right?

Thanks!

:drinker: most diets put you on a calorie range close to your maintence level you need to exercie enough to burn3500 calories to drop a pound if your eating all your exercise calorie its going to take along time for you to lose weight and if your worried about to few calories thing a bout the doctors that put people on a 1200 calorie diet so they can be healthy enough so they can do a opration on tham you want to lose it at a slower pace so you can tighten up as you go so i say exercise exercise and dont eat those calories

Hi

I usually eat half of my exc cals...it's important to eat enough...it really is!
If u have trouble eating your cals pick string cheese (not the reduced fat), peanut butter, and nuts.....
You can also try and drink some cals...make a protein shake with whey powder etc
I would try and add 100 cals to each meal (piece of cheese or handful of nuts isn't much) and 50 cals to snacks

you cant let your self starve but thruth is what got are selfs into this mess was we ate to much wene were not hungry dont eat just to eat as you can see by my ticker i have been here a while i did have finely stop pampering myself a nd now it starting to drop of me

Eating your exercise calories is tricky. For one thing, it's very hard to know how many you've actually burned. The machines at the gym use a very crude formula and don't use your heart rate.

The online databases use averages which may or may not apply to you. Then, there are all these shades of gray. Like today I went swimming and running. I swam 1.2 miles in 47 min. Is that vigorous freestyle or moderate freestyle? (The two choices MFP gave me.) I didn't swim as fast a pace as when I do 100 yards, but I didn't stop and rest either. In fact, I swam that 1.2 the fastest I've ever swum it. (I picked vigorous after much back and forth.)

For my run, I had a slow pace but that's because I was running in the hills -- which burns a lot more calorie than running that same pace on a treadmill. Then again, I also did a lot more walking (I got lost and off the official path) and that burns less. I went back and forth on that one too and ended up going with the choice closest to my actual pace.

A good Heart Rate monitor with a chest strap is going to be more accurate than either of these two methods, but even it isn't 100% accurate.

The other thing is... if you do some immense exercise one day and burn 1000 calories or more, you very well might not be able to eat them all that day. One day I burned 4000 calories (7 hour bike ride) and could only eat 3000. So I ate some of them the next day. :laugh: It worked just fine.

Anyway, when I was losing, I never "ate my exercise calories". Instead, I upped my protein goals and my calorie allotment overall as my exercise load increased. That worked a lot better for me than micromanaging what I ate every day trying to end the day exactly in balance.

Oh a few other things. I have a chest band HRM and I deduct my normal daily living cals from that number when I am done. So if I burn 400 cals in an hour at the gym, I deduct the 90 cals I would have burned if I was just hanging around.