Calorie deficit and exercise!

[watermelonlipbalm]

So I'm over thinking this... but this is just the way my brain works 😅
So I totally understand the theory behind calorie deficit. I've been reading and sfollowing people online who swear you can't loose weight without a calories deficit.
So I went to the gym tonight and worked hard. I did half an hour of intense swimming and my body is already shattered. I'm just thinking if I didn't hit my deficit today (I ate aLoT of chocolate) then how could that outweigh my exercise? My muscles have worked way more then usual! Surely that still makes a difference?

Does what I'm saying even make any sense 😅

Yes it will make a difference because your body will have burnt more calories than normal. However it doesn't burn much compared with energy dense food like chocolate.

you don't burn as much as you think you do' less than 500 for a swim like you described

I would change the way you think about exercise and food. its an easy mind frame to get into : “I’ve worked out hard so I’ve earnt this in calories” Half an hour of swimming won’t burn a hell of a lot but it’s something, keep going.

Get a calorie target, and use that for food only. Dont add any recorded activity to the target. Exercise doesn’t earn you food, but it will aid in your goals.

Tbh I never really think of the calories I've burnt. Going to the gym and feeling my body work hard makes me feel good enough normally. I'm new to this calorie deficit thing, I think I find it all abit obsessive. I trust how it works but counting every calories is just abit much and then feeling like my work outs aren't enough makes me feel worse 😳

90% of weight loss comes from what you eat. Always remember that. There is no short cut with excercise. Excercise will help of course but without whatchujg what you are eating very very closely you won’t lose weight.

Forget the exercise part of it. You can be very tired and your muscles "shattered" after exercise that burned very few calories. You could burn in a hour what you could eat in literally seconds.

If you don't go to the gym to burn calories anyway, as you say you go to feel good and work hard, just continue that. Your diet and whether you lose weight or not is a totally different thing.

I lost 20kgs last year by exercising . I was breastfeeding and roughly counting my calories. I averaged about 2500 a day . I think about 500-600 calories burned were from breastfeeding . I took up long distance running ( I use to run long distance years ago) and was running about 45 kms a week . I was also walking a ton. It took about 7 months to drop the weight .