Eat more to eat less?

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newcs
newcs Posts: 717 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Yes, you read that right...I'm wondering if anyone has ever tried upping their calorie goal as part of the eat more to weigh less idea but actually ended up eating less. I recently started to feel weak during workouts and decided to up my calorie goal to make sure I have enough fuel to have a great workout. I now find myself desiring to eat less...maybe it's kind of the forbidden fruit concept? Now that eating more is approved, it's no longer desirable?

As for the weakness in workouts, I'm going to work on eating or drinking something beforehand (I work out just minutes after I get out of bed and feel sick if I eat much of anything and then work out). I'm thinking maybe half a cup of OJ or a bit of almond butter...maybe a little of each.

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  • julieh391
    julieh391 Posts: 683 Member
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    After an injury that prevented me from doing any real cardio I was starving trying to stay within my calories with no exercise calories to eat back. I changed my goal from 2lb loss to 1.5lb loss, so that I'd be able to eat more (it added 220 cals daily), and now I'm under on my calories pretty much every day. Go figure.
  • newcs
    newcs Posts: 717 Member
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    Glad I'm not the only one...seems like it has some unintended psychological effect.
  • botaijm
    botaijm Posts: 43 Member
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    I did the same thing and I always have calories left ....unless we eat out! I am having the same problem too I work out at 5am and I can't eat before or i'll puke. But I am starving during my workout too I don't know what to do either.
  • FelicityEliza36
    FelicityEliza36 Posts: 252 Member
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    OMG Perfect.

    I lost 9 lbs in my first few weeks and have plateaud. So people told me Im not eating enough. I increased my calories from 1300 to 1800 per MFP's advice.... plus drinking almost 8 glasses of water a day.

    I can barely make it to 1200 the last few days. All the food I have is like fresh fruit and veggies, I have nothing that has a lot of calories. I plan my food a day ahead and still cannot find enough calories to eat 1800. Wtf LOL
  • hannahamay
    hannahamay Posts: 77 Member
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    This is true for me as well. I had an eating disorder for a while and would restrict to the point where my body stored all the food I ate, so I decided to get healthy and raise my calorie limit from under 1,200 to anywhere between 1,200 to 1,500, depending on how many calories I burn from exercise. Truthfully I think this is the best decision I've made because I've not only lost inches, but my body looks more muscular and toned. It's sometimes hard to get a healthy amount of calories (after working out) because my stomach can only take so much food until I feel sick, but I find that eating high calorie (healthy) foods like bananas help give me more calories without feeling like I'm forcing myself to eat.
  • CyberEd312
    CyberEd312 Posts: 3,536 Member
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    Nope.... when I start at 560 lbs, I ate at 2400 calories a day but am in the camp of eat more to weigh less camp and after dropping 3 bills, I am currently eating 3200-3400 calories a day and have no problem consuming that... I eat more food now at 3400 calories than I actually ate at 560 when I was eating over 8000 calories a day.. but there is a huge difference between eating chips and ho ho and pizza everyday to eating chicken, salads, nuts, a mult-grains... :-)
  • Rangjew
    Rangjew Posts: 12 Member
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    This may sound weird- but try and drink a glass of water with some lemon or lime juice squeezed in before your morning session. It tends to fill the tummy up until you are ready to have breakky
  • newcs
    newcs Posts: 717 Member
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    Thanks for the insight everyone!

    I think I'm going to go with the half a cup of OJ before the morning workouts. I need more than water or flavored water because I don't feel hungry til about 8am (work out at 530am) but I do feel weak if I don't eat anything. I might use the flavored water suggestion for nighttime cravings though since that's usually when I make my poor food choices.

    I can't even comprehend eating 3000 calories but I'm also kind of tiny (5'2" on a good day with a small frame) so it's probably a good thing I can't :) I do know what you mean though about eating a lot more on fewer calories...I started logging before I started making changes to get a sort of baseline. I was averaging about 2200 calories/day. Now I'm averaging somewhere around 1300-1500 net calories and I eat almost constantly.
  • newcs
    newcs Posts: 717 Member
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    I did the same thing and I always have calories left ....unless we eat out! I am having the same problem too I work out at 5am and I can't eat before or i'll puke. But I am starving during my workout too I don't know what to do either.

    So I'll share a story...this one time, I lost my sanity and signed up for one of those 5x a week bootcamp fitness programs that started around 5am and was 60 minutes straight out. Day 1 I was about to pass out and got yelled at for not eating beforehand. Day 2 I ate an entire english muffin with almond butter and a glass of OJ. Then I ate a banana in the car. Then I spent a significant amount of time heaving behind the bushes while everyone else was working out. Lesson learned lol.

    Have you tried starting small? I was ok with a half a glass of OJ (probably like 8oz) when I did that bootcamp but I'll probably do a half a cup instead since the 30 Day Shred is only 20min and I have a scoop of protein powder with a glass of milk right after (currently coconut milk).

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