kaithekai's Journal, 18 Dec 18

how many cal a day are you eating and how long are you gyming for? 

Hi Mummywhale. I aim for 1700 kcal a day so I can stay below 2000 on average without having to worry about eating out once a week. I'm doing a full body workout routine 3 times a week, and 30 minutes of medium intensity cardio on the stationary bike on the other days. You should be able to see all my food in my calender by the way. I'm very meticulous about tracking. 

I'm gyming 2 hours a day 5 days a week and my average week cal is under 1500 and I'm staying the same weight 😫 

That's really tough! What exactly are you doing in the gym? Like I said, I do full body workouts to increase my strength and muscle mass, because this will raise my resting metabolic rate (as opposed to only doing cardio). With under 1500 kcal, you really need to be careful to not starve yourself and also to get enough protein. One should aim for at least 1g per kg of lean body weight, but if you're doing a lot of strength exercises you would see benefits from going as high as 1.8 g/kg.  

I don't count calories. I rely on the old school measurements of satiety..when I've fed myself enough of the correct foods and absorbed the resulting vits & mins my body will let me know it's full. Why don't I buy into the calorie counting methodology? Glad u ask😉☺..because our awesome bodies are jam packed with a multitude of receptors and receptor sites but there's not a single calorie receptor amongst those trillions of cells.  

No offence markyb, but your argument is pretty bad. We don't have lead or mercury receptors in our bodies, but it is still detrimental for us. Our bodies have not evolved to accurately report satiety when exposed to highly processed, calorie dense foods. Also, our bodies evolved to not starve during times of scarcity, not to not die of atheriosclerosis or diabetis at the age of 60. Your body won't tell you to eat less when you're fat, because it wants to keep the fat for the bad times. That's why we need to use our intellect to gain reign over our bodies. I'm glad your method works for you, but if it worked for a majority of people, we wouldn't live in a time where almost half of the population is overweight. 

Hearting for your last comment, kaithekai ❤ I'm an emotional eater in times of stress, anxiety and boredom. We moved away from friends and I gained 20kg in comfort eating in 2 years! Calorie counting means I can have my treats and track to eat more nutritiously. The occassional days I've taken a break from counting I knew I wouldn't binge because I'm more in tune with my eating, but I know myself well enough that I need to track most days or I'd be a mindless eater. When I'm binging for comfort I don't hear the satiety signals. For mummywhale - I love the Eat More to Lose Weight (EM2LW) website and have spent hours devouring testimonials and blog posts. They have a great Pinterest account too.  

Thank you for sharing your experiences, Thismichellejane. I think we can develop enough experience with tracking to, at some point, track in our heads instead of in an app, which would make it less tedious. I think this will be a matter of years, though.