HIT YOUR CALORIES!

Cory, if your calorie goal is 2000 calories, that is what you can eat if you don't exercise that day. If you exercise 700 calories, then you eat another 700 calories that day. But, wow, what do you do to burn 700 calories? That would be a long, hard workout! So on the day of the long hard workout, you would eat 2700 calories. And if you don't workout that much the next day, you go down to 2000 calories plus the calories you work off. It's always 2000 calories plus workout calories.

i have no clue how you EAT and then get to the point where you're not hungry. i know that when i wasn't eating, or was grossly undereating, i wasn't hungry. ever. i had no appetite, no hunger pains, no headaches, nothing like that.

someone would say, " are you hungry?" and i would usually respond with, " i can eat." because i could eat, i just wasn't hungry.

now that i'm eating ( and some if not most days i don't hit my NET goal) i'm hungry, ALL OF THE TIME!!!! what i have found is that i have to find things to focus on that are NOT related to food, LOL!!! as long as i stay active it's tolerable :-) but, once i get some down time i immediately think about what to eat. i can't say i enjoy it. it really does make me want to stop eating again!!!!!

i actually like eating higher protein with fewer but bigger meals. for me, i think that helps....... at least i'm not focusing on food as much. and i eat til i'm full pretty much.

I'm the same ... I find it really hard to eat everything I need to some days and hit my calorie intake. It's time to get creative!

Brandon - If you track what you eat and you're not counting calories, what exactly is it that you're tracking?

Yea, What?

I have time to exercise at NIGHT. I am not going to eat 200+ cals after 9pm. Wouldn't that be worse?

I need some clarification as well. so does that mean if for example my calorie goal is 2000 cal a day, i eat 2000 cal a day.. so if i exercise 700 cal.. that brings me down to 1300.. so am i supposed to eat another 700 calories to get back up to 2000? please help.. i have always been confused on this

Cory

I don't. I eat 1300 a day- flat. I burn 500-600 a day in workouts. I don't eat any exercise calories back. It's working for me. I've been consistently losing 1-3 lbs per week since I started. I have plenty of energy, I'm not hungry and I feel great. If I go over my 1300 a little, I don't stress it because I know I burned and the diet creates a deficit. But, I enjoy that my calorie burning creates loss, too.

So you're netting 700-800 calories on days when you workout? That's pretty scary.

I understand where you're coming from this, but you aren't going to gain weight by eating less than what your body burns in a day. That sort of defies the law of thermodynamics.

Have some almonds, avocado, a glass of milk, these are calorie dense foods that are good for you. But eat your calories and your exercise calories. Your body needs fuel, if it doesn't get it enough it will stockpile fat. Its not that difficult.

If your body is going in starving mode, it will let you know by making you feel hungry.

If you are not hungry. Then don't eat!

Exactly! Listen to your body!

Actually, in this context your body usually lies. The hormones Leptin and Ghrelin basically tells your brain whether you are hungry or not and these signals do not necessarily have to do with whether you actually should be eating or not.

Your body doesn't go into "starvation mode" in one day. If you're under a little one day it isn't going to do anything. Yea if you are consistently under 500+ calories maybe, but a 100-200 a day isn't going to make much of a difference. For most people that is the difference of maybe not weighing/measuring their food or not calculating exercise calories right. I'd be willing to bet that most of us underestimate how much we eat, even though we count our calories.

Personally, I may be over one day and under the next. As long as I'm right around the number for the week is all I care about. It has been working for me.

^^^ yeah what she said ^^^ :drinker:

So, when you work out you need to eat all the calories back? It seems like everyone has their own opinion on what you should be doing, it's just a little confusing, sorry.

Right now I weigh 291 lbs.. First thing I do when I get to the gym is hit the elliptical machine hard for a 30 min.. I burn 640-700 calories just doing that... then I usually burn anywhere from 250-250 doing 20-40 min. of weightlifting. I am sure those numbers will start going down as I keep losing weight,

I use a tool that was taught me by Naturally Slim. This program teaches you to eat for 10 minutes, stopping for 5 and then eating again for another 10. Take at least 25 minutes to eat. I still use this and it does help, I do feel full sooner. That is why sometimes I have trouble reaching my calorie goal I feel full sooner and want to stop eating. I usually have a piece of 12 grain bread and I can take the first 10 minutes just eating that. It usually takes me about 45 minutes to eat a meal.