Getting Back on Track
 

Last weekend I went on a day long hike up a very snowy mountain. The next day I cross country skied for 2 hours. I had to eat for fuel, not weight loss, and I ate more bread and pasta than I normally do. Since then my carb cravings have been back and my eating all out of whack.

I haven't gained, but I can see myself heading down the road to weight gain so I'm turning it around here. I bought some whole chickens and am going to make a chicken soup and roast one of them. I need to have more lean, and ready to eat, protein in the fridge.

I also need to figure out how to get my eating back on track after hiking days, since I'm planning more and more of them.

The day of the hike my appetite isn't huge, but the next couple of days I'm ravenous. I think having soup in the fridge will help, and maybe eating more protein in the couple of days before?

It's so much easier to lose weight with moderate exercise and eating within my daily and weekly points, it gets more challenging when I'm burning 4000-5000 calories in day and needing to eat some of my APs. And then with the water retention from sore muscles.

Anyone else have days where they do endurance stuff and then feel all off with their eating?

It's been a while, but I did power training once, and experienced similar feelings! My trainer insisted lots of protein and good fats in small meals would make a big difference. He was a power trainer, and said that when he was in training mode he ate about 3,000 calories a day and still lost weight because it was whole foods and clean eating. Now that's "his" results. At the time I was vegetarian and just couldn't figure out how to make it work for me, and in the end I quit power training because I was really unhappy with how I felt the other 23 hours a day that I wasn't in the gym!

I'm not sure that the AP's are set up for as strenuous a workout as you are getting. You should probably be eating a lot more AP's. If you're burning 4,000 calories, as scary as it sounds, you probably do need to replace 3,000 of them to keep your body functioning. Just make sure they count with lean proteins, good fats, and whole complex carbs like brown rice, oatmeal, barley, etc.

Yes, I'm going through the same thing, been training for a half marathon, and learning to skate ski.

Because I believe in "eat to live, not live to eat", if I'm hungry on or after those big training days, I'm eating. I've earned the AP and still staying within plan. Not eating junk, but just listening to my body and giving it what it wants/needs to recover so I can go back outside and play again.

I will say that my losses have leveled off and I've realized that I look and feel good at this weight, so perhaps my goal was not realistic for my height and energy output. I'm adjusted my goal and now plan to maintain. If I continue to lose, that's great but I'm not hanging my happiness on a number anymore.

So yesterday my appetite normalized. I had a green smoothie (banana, pear, spinach, 1/2 cup coconut milk) around 4pm before dinner which felt good.

This morning I woke up to a new low: 177.8. I was back up to 180.6 when I got back from my trip last Monday, so that's a nice change. I guess that hunger was my body burning fat.

But it's heartening to see that I can slide off the rails for a few days after hike, get back on track and still lose.

Thanks for all your input!

Yayyy, congrats on the new low!! :cheer: