I don't get 'dieting'

[Frankoman]

I don't get how this whole 'diet' thing works. When you work out, you burn calories. So if I were to work out first thing in the morning, not eat anything etc, am I wasting my workout calories burnt? I feel like although I worked out hard in the morning all my eating throughout the day is staying. It is too! Or even if I just eat after working out in general, it all makes me feel like it isn't doing much.

I feel like unless I work out after I eat, I don't gain (or well I'm trying to lose) anything from it. I'm not eating a lot, at the most 3,000 calories a day, most likely 2,500, and the calcuator says I need 3.600 to maintain, but it just doesn't feel like I'm losing anything when I eat 2,500. I lose about 3 - 5 pounds a day at practice, but just gain it right back. I know thats all water weight, but based on this site since I'm working out 6 days a week high intensity with a low calorie diet I should be losing fat and muscle like mad and since its been about 2 months I should be 8 - 14 pounds lighter then when i started. I started at 168 and am now floating around 164. I can go down to 151 pounds (had a hydration test at the beginning of the season) but haven't.

So how does this whole cutting deal work? I figure I have a high enough metabolism since I used to only eat straight junk food day in day out and never gained significant amounts of weight. I'd say I'm a mesomorph, but would that really make it so difficult to lose a lot of weight?

[CptKnuckles]

Originally Posted by Frankoman

I don't get how this whole 'diet' thing works. When you work out, you burn calories. So if I were to work out first thing in the morning, not eat anything etc, am I wasting my workout calories burnt? I feel like although I worked out hard in the morning all my eating throughout the day is staying. It is too! Or even if I just eat after working out in general, it all makes me feel like it isn't doing much.

I feel like unless I work out after I eat, I don't gain (or well I'm trying to lose) anything from it. I'm not eating a lot, at the most 3,000 calories a day, most likely 2,500, and the calcuator says I need 3.600 to maintain, but it just doesn't feel like I'm losing anything when I eat 2,500. I lose about 3 - 5 pounds a day at practice, but just gain it right back. I know thats all water weight, but based on this site since I'm working out 6 days a week high intensity with a low calorie diet I should be losing fat and muscle like mad and since its been about 2 months I should be 8 - 14 pounds lighter then when i started. I started at 168 and am now floating around 164. I can go down to 151 pounds (had a hydration test at the beginning of the season) but haven't.

So how does this whole cutting deal work? I figure I have a high enough metabolism since I used to only eat straight junk food day in day out and never gained significant amounts of weight. I'd say I'm a mesomorph, but would that really make it so difficult to lose a lot of weight?

Well what I would think is that you're eating too little. 2500 calories and your BMR says 3600 that's twice as low as it should be. A good rule of thumb is to eat more and burn it off, not eat less and lose weight due to starvation.

I always workout 1-2 hours after a good meal, because when I don't eat before I workout I feel really weak and can't do the workout properly. Also get lightheaded and dizzy so I would think that you should eat before you workout.

But a different thing is doing LIT cardio first thing in the morning ,without eating for fat loss, since cardio is more for fat loss because it's more an aerobic activity as opposed to weight lifting which is more anaerobic. Pretty much means, I think, that doing cardio you burn fat and working out not so much but you build muscle.

If you're sure you're a mesomorph and not an ectomorph then it shouldn't be that hard for you to be losing pounds. Of course I don't know what your body fat percentage is and it's a lot harder to lose the body fat when you get to the low numbers.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by Frankoman

I don't get how this whole 'diet' thing works. When you work out, you burn calories. So if I were to work out first thing in the morning, not eat anything etc, am I wasting my workout calories burnt? I feel like although I worked out hard in the morning all my eating throughout the day is staying. It is too! Or even if I just eat after working out in general, it all makes me feel like it isn't doing much.

I feel like unless I work out after I eat, I don't gain (or well I'm trying to lose) anything from it. I'm not eating a lot, at the most 3,000 calories a day, most likely 2,500, and the calcuator says I need 3.600 to maintain, but it just doesn't feel like I'm losing anything when I eat 2,500. I lose about 3 - 5 pounds a day at practice, but just gain it right back. I know thats all water weight, but based on this site since I'm working out 6 days a week high intensity with a low calorie diet I should be losing fat and muscle like mad and since its been about 2 months I should be 8 - 14 pounds lighter then when i started. I started at 168 and am now floating around 164. I can go down to 151 pounds (had a hydration test at the beginning of the season) but haven't.

So how does this whole cutting deal work? I figure I have a high enough metabolism since I used to only eat straight junk food day in day out and never gained significant amounts of weight. I'd say I'm a mesomorph, but would that really make it so difficult to lose a lot of weight?

What training are you doing six days per week, remember that if you are burning off loads and loads of calories from BMR and training, but only putting in a few calories then the body will lower the thyroid function and slow the metabolism, will release a hormone that makes you "hold" onto body fat, lower your immune function, lose muscle tissue, lower testosterone levels

You need to work out exactly how many calories you are eating, and how many calories you are expending ...Per Week.

[Frankoman]

Hmm, so if I was to eat more I would lose weight? I know it is 1,000 calories under the required but 2,500 definitely isn't starving.

Thanks for the advice. While I'm at it, since i am working so hard it is basically 3 hours of cardio. If I were to lift prior, would I be at risk for overtraining? I don't see why I would, I would just struggle really hard in practice.

Funny thing though, today someone asked me what I do when I work out and I told them a routine and they said "You should just do curls man."

What am I going to do to overpower someone, curl them to victory? Deadlifts, Squats, Bench Press. Everything else is just to balance it out.

[oddmud]

"If a job is worth doing, it's worth doing properly."

Then no job is worth doing.

[Doublehelix]

At 164 pounds, are your sure you need 3,600 calories to maintain?

That seems awfully high to me. I am 5'10", 163 pounds and 50 years old, and even if I reduce my age to 20 and use the highest activity level, I cannot get up to 3600 calories.

If I enter your weight at 164, and I am assuming you are 6 feet tall (just a guess, I gotta start somewhere), and then I entered your age as 20, I get these numbers based on activity levels:

Very Active = 3,175 calories

Extra Active = 3,497 calories

By the way, "Very Active" is pretty intense, and "Extra Active" is over the top a bit, and probably only applies to a very few people, like serious tri-athletes that train 6 days a week with all aereobic exercises and are burning tons of calories a day. Do a Google search on BMR to get a feel for just how much activity those categories are set up to cover. I think you will be surprised!

I see you say in your original post:

I'm not eating a lot, at the most 3,000 calories a day, most likely 2,500,

No offense, but that sounds like you are guessing. Before I started counting calories, I *thought* I was doing OK, but once I started actually counting them, I realized that I was not eating as healthily as I thought I was. I went to fitday.com and started entering everything I ate. It was a real eye-opener!

If you are not seeing the progress that you expect, I would have to say that guessing is not an option, and that you need to start tracking what you eat, even if it is just for a few weeks to get a feel for what you are really putting into your body.

Usual stuff about maintaining your PCF ratio to 30/50/20, blah, blah blah. You have been around here long enough to have already heard all of that...

Good luck man, and here's hoping that you push through your block and start seeing the results you are looking for.

DH

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[Frankoman]

Its not so much a guess but my diet is not organized like it is over the summer. Right now, I eat random things from previous diets and if I did quick calculations in my head I'd figure come out to about 2,500 to 3,000 depending on the day.

I train 6 days a week with wrestling 3 hours a day and an additional hour and a half when the middle schoolers train, and on Monday and Friday I lift a full body routine from this site before practice, all of which I think is worthy of Extremely Active. Plus if you count the work I do in school (we have a campus) I do a total of 20 minutes of walking with a weighted backpack (25lb) in 4 5 minute intervals with a 90 minute break in between each one. Haha.

I'm 6'1", about 165 pounds, 16, and as you can see very active. haha.

Maybe it is just because I am not strict on my diet, so I think you could be right about that, though the reason I am not on a strict diet is because of the school hours, it makes it hard to maintain a serious plan. Also, sometimes if I wake up a little late in the morning I don't have time to prepare my usual meals.

But yeah, I've been around long enough to know how to set up a diet, I just need to apply it, haha. Thankyou for the info!