2014 Official Chaz Fitness Challenge

Beanie

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Does anyone have any info on caloric intake? I see different things everywhere I look. 1200 a day, 1500 a day, 2000 a day, eat back what you exercise, don't eat back what you exercise, this and that and this and that.

It is really, REALLY hard for me to eat 1200 a day, and even harder to eat back what I exercise. I feel full on about 1000 a day, and eating back what I exercise just makes me feel unhealthy.

Help?
It depends. A lot. There is just plain no one, right answer.

Here's a VERY good calculator to help figure out your numbers:
http://www.health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced

With me, if I start thinking "I might be a little hungry" I go get something to eat. Even if I'm not ACTUALLY hungry. That is the only way I've been able to get my calorie level up to where it needs to be. If I don't make a point of eating, I don't eat enough. And that is all kinds of bad when it comes to strength gains, successful runs, quality sleep, et cetera.
It's really hard for me because there are mental and emotional blocks that make eating when I'm not hungry difficult, to put it mildly. I try to just shut it out and forge ahead. It's not always easy. There are days I hardly eat at all. But I do what I can.
 

Picklepaige

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I am writing down all calories I eat and using measuring cups to make sure I eat the correct serving size. I also jog/walk 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon afternoon, and go to the gym for 30 minutes at night and do cardio/weights. So I'm exercising 3 times a day 30 minutes each, and trying to eat 1200 calories. I haven't been replenishing the calories I've burned off. I feel great so far, but I'm scared I'm going to go into the "starvation mode" that everyone always talks about and start gaining weight.
 

Beanie

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I feel great so far, but I'm scared I'm going to go into the "starvation mode" that everyone always talks about and start gaining weight.
Stop worrying about that. The "starvation mode" that "everyone" talks about is total BS, to start with. What you MIGHT be worried about - and what I'm dealing with - is when you've denied your body of the appropriate level of calories for so long (and I'm talking months upon months into years, not days or even weeks) that you actually do damage to your metabolism. It's called Metabolic Damage but it takes a long time to occur, and a long time to fix as well.
Neither "starvation mode" even as people typically talk about nor metabolic damage will make you gain weight; more specifically it does not make you gain fat, because gaining fat is what we're talking about here. You can gain weight by increasing your muscle mass, you can gain weight by retaining water, but those are not the same as gaining fat.
What makes you gain fat is eating an excess amount of calories... that's it. There's really nothing more to it. You cannot gain fat by not eating enough. If that were the case, Holocaust prisoners would have been fat. But they weren't. They were emaciated. Because they were ACTUALLY in starvation mode. Children whose families cannot afford food to feed them - their bellies might be rounded with bloat, MIGHT - but they are not fat. That is starvation. You are not and God willing will never experience that.


What it might do is limit your ability to lose fat and gain muscle and strength. You actually need a caloric surplus to gain muscle - which is why some people eat their calories back or eat a higher amount on days they work out. Because they feed their body on the days they are taxing their muscles to boost muscle recovery and muscle growth. If you're not eating enough to appropriately feed your body's athletic performance, you won't see improvement. If you continue to not give your body what it needs, that's when you start to run into trouble, and prolonged abuse of your body results in, as I said, actual metabolic damage. Which really does more than just "wah, I can't lose fat."


Short answer: Use the calculator. Eat more food.
 

Zoom

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I watched some of the women's CrossFit games on Sunday and now I'm all "ooh, I want to be that ripped!" >_<

Workout last night consisted of:
rowing machine for 10 minutes maintaining a 36 rps at setting 5
10 cable rows

and then this workout. Ignore the idiot pseudo-celeb girl doing it, she sucks: M-100's

I want to vomit halfway through. It doesn't look like you're doing that much, but if you finish it and keep a good pace, you'll want to die.

Followed all that up with some swimming (6 laps alternating front crawl and backstroke).
 
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Stop worrying about that. The "starvation mode" that "everyone" talks about is total BS, to start with. What you MIGHT be worried about - and what I'm dealing with - is when you've denied your body of the appropriate level of calories for so long (and I'm talking months upon months into years, not days or even weeks) that you actually do damage to your metabolism. It's called Metabolic Damage but it takes a long time to occur, and a long time to fix as well.
Neither "starvation mode" even as people typically talk about nor metabolic damage will make you gain weight; more specifically it does not make you gain fat, because gaining fat is what we're talking about here. You can gain weight by increasing your muscle mass, you can gain weight by retaining water, but those are not the same as gaining fat.
What makes you gain fat is eating an excess amount of calories... that's it. There's really nothing more to it. You cannot gain fat by not eating enough. If that were the case, Holocaust prisoners would have been fat. But they weren't. They were emaciated. Because they were ACTUALLY in starvation mode. Children whose families cannot afford food to feed them - their bellies might be rounded with bloat, MIGHT - but they are not fat. That is starvation. You are not and God willing will never experience that.


What it might do is limit your ability to lose fat and gain muscle and strength. You actually need a caloric surplus to gain muscle - which is why some people eat their calories back or eat a higher amount on days they work out. Because they feed their body on the days they are taxing their muscles to boost muscle recovery and muscle growth. If you're not eating enough to appropriately feed your body's athletic performance, you won't see improvement. If you continue to not give your body what it needs, that's when you start to run into trouble, and prolonged abuse of your body results in, as I said, actual metabolic damage. Which really does more than just "wah, I can't lose fat."


Short answer: Use the calculator. Eat more food.
I agree and disagree. I talk about starvation mode but maybe not how some people do. True you won't gain weight, but you will burn up muscle and your body will preserve it's fat stores the best it can. You create an environment where you'll burn healthy lean body mass, and increase your ratio of fat to lean body mass. This leaves someone losing weight, and you can lose a lot, but the whole while their body fat percentage is going up.

To a degree, it obviously can't go up forever. Sooner or later your body hits a threshold where it can't really burn much more in terms of proteins and it will then deplete its fat stores and you get those who are emaciated. But there is a definite time before that where your body fat % will go up by very a measurable amount.

I've seen it happen over and over again. People eat some ridiculous diet they heard was good, all based in grain and rice in very limited quantities and no fat and very little protein. Then they work out and 2 months later they have always lost weight. 20-30lbs worth and their body fat goes up 5-7% every time.

If they'd have eaten better and not done stuff to burn up all their proteins, weight can come off pretty consistently without any uptick in body fat percentage. If doing it correctly, you may burn some lean body mass, it's hard to lose weight by exercising without losing some if you're working out hard, but the body fat "should" be decreasing faster and will if things are done right. If not, it won't.

So while weight will be lost, not gained, the body composition moves to a more unfavorable ratio leaving the person "more fat" than before
 

Beanie

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I agree and disagree. I talk about starvation mode but maybe not how some people do.
Definitely not how most people talk about it - Jill Q. Public says things like "YOU HAVE TO EAT BREAKFAST OR YOUR BODY WILL GO INTO STARVATION MODE!!" or "if you go into starvation mode you'll gain weight!!" and she means the number on the scale will go up.

What you're talking about is the legit biochemical definition of a starvation response - and I agree completely, especially that an increased BFP is A Bad.
 

Jules

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Beanie, I just wanted to say that you're awesome. I've been wanting to say this for awhile, and here it is. You are full of information and you are able to explain it all so well. You would make an amazing trainer!

You're posts are inspirational and motivating without being over the top. You don't get too hard on "us" if we mess up here... You've taught me that's it okay to slip, but to not let that become an excuse to make more bad choices throughout the day. You have made me excited to work out and not to get thin, but to get strong. And for that I want to thank you with all my heart.
 
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300 miles riding so far this year. 370 including run/inline/xc ski.

Towards summer I'll probably be up to 300-400 mile months instead of 150.
 

Whisper

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I know it's not much, but since I take meds that increase my appetite and mess with my metabolism, I am sooo happy about the 2 pounds I lost in the last week! Yay! :D
 

Whisper

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Beanie, I just wanted to say that you're awesome. I've been wanting to say this for awhile, and here it is. You are full of information and you are able to explain it all so well. You would make an amazing trainer!

You're posts are inspirational and motivating without being over the top. You don't get too hard on "us" if we mess up here... You've taught me that's it okay to slip, but to not let that become an excuse to make more bad choices throughout the day. You have made me excited to work out and not to get thin, but to get strong. And for that I want to thank you with all my heart.
QFT. You're awesome, Beanie!
I have a question, if you don't mind! :eek:
The "starvation mode" thing. I went through a long period where I ate very little (maybe 100-300 calories a day) and then nothing at all for a time. I did lose weight, but when I started eating again, I gained a TON of weight. Like, double all the weight I had lost. I thought it was the whole starvation thing, but if not, why is that? My memory is fuzzy about that year, but do you think it could be not because I ate, but because I maybe ate *too much* after being deprived?
 
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QFT. You're awesome, Beanie!
I have a question, if you don't mind! :eek:
The "starvation mode" thing. I went through a long period where I ate very little (maybe 100-300 calories a day) and then nothing at all for a time. I did lose weight, but when I started eating again, I gained a TON of weight. Like, double all the weight I had lost. I thought it was the whole starvation thing, but if not, why is that? My memory is fuzzy about that year, but do you think it could be not because I ate, but because I maybe ate *too much* after being deprived?
For a year? That could be a real starvation mode:

With that few calories you will decrease your metabolism and you will also start breaking down muscle which will also decrease your metabolism. Plus most people do overeat after not getting enough for a while.
 

Beanie

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You guys are so sweet. I'm all over-emotional right now anyway but that made me tear up. Thanks, Jules.

I have a question, if you don't mind! :eek:
The "starvation mode" thing. I went through a long period where I ate very little (maybe 100-300 calories a day) and then nothing at all for a time. I did lose weight, but when I started eating again, I gained a TON of weight. Like, double all the weight I had lost. I thought it was the whole starvation thing, but if not, why is that? My memory is fuzzy about that year, but do you think it could be not because I ate, but because I maybe ate *too much* after being deprived?
Without more information I can't tell you for sure. How long did you not eat? How much weight did you lose? Then when you started eating again, how many calories were you eating? What's a "ton" of weight?

But yes, most likely you binged after your body was restricted for so long. It's slightly disturbing but you might be interested in reading about The Ancel Keys Minnesota Starvation Experiment. It was an experiment conducted with volunteers as WW2 was ending because they knew there were people who were severely emaciated, and it was a study to both determine the effects of that kind of starvation as well as to look into the best way to basically refeed afterward. The whole study is a lotta lotta LOTTA pages and only of interest to total geeks, I'm sure, but there's plenty of websites out there that recap the study and talk about the findings.

This is oversimplifying it, but for the purposes of this conversation, it went like so:
Phase 1 - Feed a set amount of calories to establish the "ideal" weight. This was about 3200 calories per day. The men also had to walk 22 miles per week. IIRC almost all (if not all) of the participants actually started the study slightly under what was deemed their "ideal" weight.
Phase 2 - Feed a restricted calorie diet, about 1600 calories, approximately half of what they were eating before.
Phase 3 - Controlled recovery. They divided the men up into four groups and fed different amounts of additional calories on top of the cut 1600 to measure how quickly men would recover. Some within each group were also given vitamins and other supplements.
Phase 4 - Unrestricted recovery. In this phase the men could eat however much they wanted.

What they found in phase 3 was the only factor in how quickly the men gained weight back was how many calories they consumed. The additional vitamins and protein supplements and things didn't make a difference. The body just wanted - needed - calories.
In phase 4, the men basically all started binging. As to how much they binged, it ranged wildly, but binge they all did. There was both a biological and psychological response that said eat, eat, eat. Even the men who were eating twice as much as they ate during Phase 1 (where they initially maintained an "ideal weight") reported still feeling hungry.
At the end of the study, almost every man ended up weighing more than he had before. (Though upon followups within a year or so they all, IIRC, had returned to their original weights.)


TLDR it's likely you binged even without realizing it. Your body wanted food, food, and more food which was a completely natural response.


What's really depressing about the study is the psychological effects of their starvation period and how long it took afterward for the participants to recover. There were other biological responses too, besides the obviousness of being physically emaciated. Starvation mode IS a very real thing, it does not need to be this extreme. Prolonged depriving your body of the necessary calories it needs to survive (and meet your athletic expectations in my case) does things to your body on just about every possible level. It's bad stuff kids.

Short story: Use the calculator. Eat more. (also maybe lift heavy things.)
 

Whisper

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Beanie, thanks for that. Really, really interesting! :)
That calculator is awesome.

Without more information I can't tell you for sure. How long did you not eat? How much weight did you lose? Then when you started eating again, how many calories were you eating? What's a "ton" of weight?
I drastically lowered my calorie intake (the 100-300 mentioned before), and that lasted about 3 months. I would go without eating as long as possible, for a couple weeks, but would eat for a day in between. When I started eating again, it had been around 3 weeks I had not consumed anything at all.
I lost 50 pounds, and gained 100 back. So, literally double what I had lost.

TLDR it's likely you binged even without realizing it. Your body wanted food, food, and more food which was a completely natural response.
My mom told me one more than one occasion she fed me apple sauce and I was too weak to lift my head. Since I was often in a similar condition and fainting, naturally my memories are a bit fuzzy during that time. Writing that out. . .well, 100 pounds is a little excessive. o.0 :eek: I must have eaten a lot.
And yes, it actually took me this long to realize that much weight gain must have been from binging. I haz a smrt.
 

Kootenay

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Oh man, yesterday I did that m-100 thing that Zoom posted (thanks for that!), and then did some chin ups and pull ups, and leg raises while hanging (I have no idea if that's called something for real). Having not worked out my upper body in a while, OMG sore sore sore today. Lifting the kettle to make my tea almost did me in, lol.

Will have to not wait so long before next time!
 

AllieMackie

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I've gained 20 pounds this winter. Frustrating, since I've been eating healthy about 80% of the time and doing workouts 3-4 times a week.

I think the big thing is that I'm SERIOUSLY lacking cardio. No treadmill, icy/snowy roads that are treacherous for running, no biking. I can feel the lack and I loathe it. I miss the high of a good cardio workout.

I know I can do indoor aerobic workouts and stuff, but I hate them. Hate them hate them. I want to be outside with sun, sky and trees, and at least pretending I'm aiming for a destination. :p
 

Julee

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Just took a 1.86 mile walk with Bloo! Poor Em hasn't been feeling well, so I made Bloo deal with the rain hahaha
 

Zoom

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Oh man, yesterday I did that m-100 thing that Zoom posted (thanks for that!), and then did some chin ups and pull ups, and leg raises while hanging (I have no idea if that's called something for real). Having not worked out my upper body in a while, OMG sore sore sore today. Lifting the kettle to make my tea almost did me in, lol.

Will have to not wait so long before next time!
That guy has some really good workouts; this is another one I really like: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Boe4TrKXi6I
 

Julee

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Did another mile today even though I was sick, glad I did! I usually walk at a more brisk pace, but Bloo and I were working on her reactivity and LLW. She was great!
 
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Late to the party!

It seems hard for me to visibly lose weight. I don't weigh myself really, but I know what I want to look like, and if I had to imagine a number, it would be probably 15 pounds lighter. I despise going to the gym based on just atmosphere alone, and I can't afford Crossfit or something of that type. So I need help with a workout at home or running schedule or combo of both to help me now that spring is right around the corner. I am rarely in the house, so a workout thats an entire hour long is probably out of the question. Killing two birds with one stone and running with a dog or two would help and give me more time as well.

I have been eating generally very clean and reduced my calorie intake quite a bit over the last two weeks or so, but will be really cracking down on my diet again starting this week.

So any ideas?
 

Beanie

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So I need help with a workout at home or running schedule or combo of both to help me now that spring is right around the corner. I am rarely in the house, so a workout thats an entire hour long is probably out of the question. Killing two birds with one stone and running with a dog or two would help and give me more time as well.
What do you want to do? I can give you lots of ideas but unless it's something you actually want to do, you probably won't enjoy it and likely won't keep doing it. Do you want to run, or workout at home? Are you looking for just cardio or strength training or are you willing to both? You say you're rarely in the house, so do you want a workout you can do outside on the lawn, or do you just mean you don't want to devote an hour to a workout at all?
 

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