Do I need to eat more?

 I've been going to the gym 2x per week .. I eat 800 calories per day and at the gym I've been burning about 300-400 calories.. I have not been increasing my calories above 800.. however my schedule is opening up a bit and I plan to go to the gym 4 or 5 times a week.. should I increase my calories? I'm 4 months out and and still in active weight loss mode and want to maximize my weightloss, I don't feel more hungry on work out days but I don't want to eat too few calories either.. advice???

thanks!

You could try upping your protein as much as possible without too much of an increase in calories. I do the gym 5 days a week and a karate class 3x a week at night, and I"m at 900-1100 calories most days, but I've had some 1400 calorie days. I could not sustain the workout routine on the 700-800 calories I was at about six weeks ago.

Be warned, my scale stopped and even went up a little when I increased my workouts and went to 40 minutes of weights and only 20 minutes cardio. Since then my weight loss has slowed but from my doc's analyzer scale I know I have gained muscle. In month four, I was discouraged because I'd only dropped 8 lbs, but my surgeon informed me I had lost 17 lbs of fat and gained 8.5 pounds of muscle, and that he felt like that was phenomenal and more important to long term success than fast weight loss. So, its a trade off, but you are building muscle and metabolism for your future.

 wow that's impressive, thanks for the advice.. I need to put some muscle on!

My program assumes that kind of exercise when they lay out their guidelines, which are to keep calories under 800. They do make adjustments for individual cir****tances.

As I got heavier into triathlons and was working out 6-8 hours a week, I had my protein recommendations upped from 70-90 to 100 g a day. This caused my calories to go up a bit (to around 900). So I was training for Sprint and Olympic distance tris on 700-900 calories a day. When I started training for the Half-ironman distance, my surgeon recommended 120 g of protein a day and that got my calories up to 1200 a day. But I was very near goal at this point.

My advice is two-fold. First, plan your eating around your workout. Instead of adding a bunch of carbs to your diet, do what carbs you are going to eat anyway right before the workout. If you have a small 100-200 calorie snack within 2 hours of working out and you have 100-200 calories afterwards, you should be fine. The snack afterwards should have at least a little protein in it. Again, these don't have to be *extra* calories, necessarily. Just have an afternoon snack right before the evening workout and then eat dinner right after. (Or split breakfast in two around a morning workout.)

Second, eat as many calories as you need to in order to support your daily actvities but no more. IOW, don't worry about replacing every calorie you burn while exercising (particularly as any numbers you get on that will just be estimates) but, if you find yourself dragging, maybe taking more naps, as your exercise increases, then add in some more protein even if it means more calories. If you add in an extra 100-200 calories, it's not going to totally derail your weight loss, but it can make a big difference in your energy level.

 perfect, that's exactly what I wanted to hear; I didn't think I needed to increase calories but wanted to be sure.. and I will take your adivce about carbs I eat very little carbs but what I do eat I will eat before working out.

thanks again

This exercise stuff is pretty new to me, since the surgery.  I had mine in November, and since January have been trying to walk every day.  I started at one mile in January - I'm at 5 miles a day now in July.  That translates to almost 2 hours a day - some of it uphill, as I live and work in hilly areas. 

I've been plateaued the last 6 weeks, though I've still got 80 pounds to my goal.  I've not increased my eating - I drink about 3 shakes a day, one 'meal', and 2-3 snacks throughout the day.  The shakes are 15g of protein each, and 160 cal each.  Snacks are usually nuts, fruit or cheese.  Meal is usually meat.  So I average about 70g of protein a day, and 900 calories a day.  I figured my exercise is about 1000 calories a day.  So why have I only lost 4 pounds in the last 6 weeks?

Yes, my measurements are getting smaller - I have lost an inch in my bust, 2 in my waist, and 2.5 in my hips.  But I'm still much too large, at 232 pounds.  I don't want to bulk up.  What's the solution?  Walking is the only exercise I've been able to find that I enjoy and am willing to do day in and day out.

Walking burns 50 net calories per mile. So, if you are walking 5 miles a day, you are burning 250 calories extra over sitting down.

The calories burned while walking and running has been studied extensively and it turns out these "per mile" figures are pretty accurate and don't really vary based on weight or age or  other factors.

What about for uphill and with handweights?  I walk about half of that 5 miles uphill at a pretty steep grade (it's hilly here!) and with 3 pound hand weights.  I walk at a pretty good clip - between 3 and 3.5 miles per hour, according to my measurements. 

Nope, uphill, downhill, doesn't matter. If you walked at a good clip, you got more miles in so more calories so it's accounted for that way. It's wild, I know, but as I said, they've studied this to death.

Oh and PLEASE don't walk with hand weights. The extra weight doesn't really change your calorie burn, but it dramatically increases your chance of being injured. Ankle weights too. This is one of those exercise myths like that darn "Fat burning zone" that people perpetuate as a way to make the workout harder but you'd be better off just walking faster (so you get more miles in for the same amount of time).

Btw, running burns about 100 calories extra per mile. In one study they did figure that if you walked at about a 4.5 pace or higher you could burn as much or more as very slow running, but most people will run when they get to that pace and will walk when they get as slow as the running pace they studied.

At this point, I think you are good on calories unless you are overly fatigued or hungry.  If you are not overly tired or hungry, and you are losing, keep doing what you are doing.  Make sure you get your protein, and some complex carbs. 

As you get farther out and build more muscle, you'll need more to sustain it.  I have quite a bit of muscle and work out 6x a week and I eat 1,500-1,800 calories per day with approx 120 grams of protein (and about the same in carbs...).  I've been maintaining for 15 months.  Technically, with the amount of muscle I have, and the amount of activity I do, I SHOULD be able to consume more and still maintain, but alas, the old metabolism is still broken to a certain degree, although working much better than it did pre-surgery!!

Kim