Has anyone ever raised thier calories for a short time to deal with increased hunger due to a more demanding workout? I have started running and have been doing it for about 2 weeks. Some days I could eat my arm I'm so hungry, seriously. It's tripping me up mentally because I'm having some difficulty staying within my calories. What happens is that I'll get to my calorie allotment during the day and realize I'm still hungry and get depressed and overeat. I think mentally, it will help me to raise my calories a bit while my hunger balances out. Not much...only about 200-300 a day. I have been eating back calories I exercise. If I do this, I will no longer do that (unless I have an outrageously high activity day)...so it's entirely possible that some weeks I will come in eating less calories this way.

Oh the mental games we play

If I am genuinely, rip an arm off hungry (and none of the diversionary tactics like drinking water, chewing gum, waiting 15 min, etc have an effect), and I know it's actual hunger because I want ANY food, not just something off-plan, I eat. Usually this does happen when there is some increase in activity, or on particular days of my cycle. But yes, if I am genuinely really hungry, I eat something healthy. If I don't, that ravenousness will translate into making very poor choices at my next meal.

I am having the same problem also with my calorie intake I was working out hard several times a day and my appetite was threw the roof. I seem to have more control on the days where I dont exercise even though it is still hard.

There was a study out about this recently - women who exercised tended to gain weight mostly because they got hungrier and they tended to overestimate the calories they burned and underestimate the calories in the 'reward' food they gave themselves because they were exercising.

IMO you need to ask yourself two questions :

1) Do I really like to exercise ?
2) What is my most important goal ?

If the anwer to 1 is: No - I just do it because I am supposed to and the answer to 2 is : I want to lose weight, then this may be heresy, but you should either stop exercising or switch to something like walking that isn't going to ramp your metabolism up so hard.

Personally I used to exercise a lot harder before I went on this lifestyle change. I ran sprints every third day and did pushups. Now I just walk. And I lost 17 pounds in the last 3 months. I exercise because it makes me feel good to be outside and it relieves stress. I don't do it to lose weight. Something to think about.

Its weird how I posted on this post about a week ago. Ive been exercising for about 3 weeks now and my appetite has finally gotten into check. I am no longer hungry or starving after my workout. Just keep exercising and soon your hunger will go away. Plus exercise makes your body look better even if you do gain a lbs.

I eat at 2000 cals at least once a week and hopefully no more than twice.
With my activity level and weight, 2000 should be just shy of not gaining - so if, for example, I've kicked my own butt until the point of sweating buckets and being drop dead exhausted, I will eat a bit more. I make sure it's healthful though - big hunk of salmon instead of teeny sliver, etc. ...
I've noticed that if I don't lose, and I eat one 2000 day, the pounds go away. Like my body realizes it's not starving. Which is a good thing.

I think this is an excellent point. We can get so worked up about this and that, and many things change all on their own with a little time.

True true, the hunger is already starting to even out thank goodness. To be honest, I do LOVE to exercise. I'm really getting excited about my 10K in march and I ran 4 miles this weekend and could have gone further. So although I want to lose weight, I'm enjoying the success I am having with exercise. My weight is not doing what I would like but I'm ready to buckle down again with my calories and exercise my "restraint" muscle, LOL

I personally would recalculate the calories to take your exercise into account. I would prolly also try to eat protein with the additional calories.


kazz =]

Thats awesome, I Love to exercise also it just gives me a all around good mood. Good Luck with the 10K in a couple of weeks hopefully I can get back into running long distance

Can you live with being ravenously hungry and starving for the rest of your life? I cant. Either plan a few hundred extra calories or preplan a few healthy filling "just in case" snack that you give yourself permission to eat if today you are ravenous and then some days you may need it and some days you may not.

When I was losing successfully, I always paid attention to what my body was telling me. When I stopped paying attention is when things went badly. (Right now my body and I are speaking different languages)