Exercise makes me starving and messes up my diet

[GoodVibesHere]

So I am trying to lose weight and at the same time get a bit fitter. I'm a couch potato so I'm talking mild to moderate exercise here.

I've been doing really well with the 'diet' and have adjusted what I eat really well. Been eating heathily for 3 months and the weight is slowly slowly coming off. BUT as soon as I add any exercise - BOOM - I'm starving hungry and go way over my calories and the weight stops dropping. It puts me off exercising tbh. Is there a way to exercise AND lose weight or should I lose weight first and not do any exercise until the excess weight has gone? It's getting me down now because I was doing so well.

What do you mean by 'exercise'? No need to go overboard, just a 5-10 min run each morning after coffee and before breakfast should do it, or when you get home after work. No need for a massive gym session imo, though I'm not really authority. I found I have to trick my body into losing weight so it almost doesn't figure out what is going on. Gym exercise or too much all round gives the game away.

If you are overweight - like me - it will be down to a bad relationship with food, being hooked on junk food like chocolate or cake and so on. Trying to fight a 'battle' on two fronts can create problems. I know ideally everyone says you change your diet AND exercise more but... I'd say go easy on the latter if this is happening. A couple of 1kg dumb bell stretches in front of a full length mirror and the plank and push-ups is okay though imo.

Yes I have to say OP I have found exercise completely counter productive when trying to lose weight, I just get ravenous and eat more, not less and the exercise calories dont compensate for that at all

Its not ideal because exercise is good for us. Swimming was the worst.

I'm a keen exerciser and it hasn't stopped me gaining weight over the years.

I am trying, for the umpteenth time, to lose weight and this time I will focus on eating less.

It's also a matter of convenience. I used to enjoy a bit of doing weights, but then me and my sister (who has never been fat) went on a harder lifting programme. I slept well but was so fucking hungry it made me ragey. My sister found she ate more, but was burning it off.

however, the sheer inconvenience of having to eat so much more to stay sated put her off, although she saw big gains in strength.

She now does moderate weights twice a week but has a good well balanced diet.

sorry, that might have been a more involved answer than you wanted! 😂

You are making the choice to overeat the moment you feel hungry after exercising. There isn’t really any need to go way over your calories.

Plan for these moments- a protein yogurt you can grab, or time your meal so you are going straight from working out to eating dinner.

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re swimming, apparently that's because being in not-warm water kicks off your appetite. I ditched swimming for fitness in my 20s, when I was still very slim, because I'd be so hungry after.

it's interesting to read replies. There are life stages I couldn't have got through without an hour workout to bash out stress, even if at 11pm. But, yes, I just got fatter while I was doing that.

Have you tried cutting out processed foods and sauces and things? It's quite hard to put on weight from steamed vegetables and popcorn and so on!

I tend to gain weight from exercising regularly, partly because I think muscle weighs more.

Weight loss is 95% diet and only 5% exercise. (According to Dr Jason Fung, who wrote The Obesity Code).

If you want to lose weight through exercise, you have to do A LOT of it, very regularly.

And, as you've found out, exercise can be counterproductive. If it's not the psychological "I've been to the gym/swimming/for a run so I deserve a slice of cake", then it's the physiological.

What diet are you doing?

So I was doing well on around 1,200 calories per day made up of a simple breakast, salad & protein/pulses for lunch, chicken breast and veg for tea. No alcohol as I don't drink. Lots of water, no sugar. Plenty fibre. Snacks = carrot sticks & hummous, oatcake & cottage cheese.

After 3 months of this I started 2 weekly gym session of 35 mins cardio. It makes me ravenous but I just have a handful of almonds or a couple falafel afterwards. It takes me over the 1200 calorie limit. I'm constantly starving now. And the weight has stopped coming off.

Have a read of Why We Eat (Too Much) by Dr Andrew Jenkins (a bariatric surgeon), which explains why calorie counting doesn't work.

I've had this problem too!
I now only do a 20 minute strength program twice a week (so I don't lose muscle) and daily long walks. This stops the famished feeling.
I'm successfully losing weight and I'll start to ramp up the exercise when I'm in maintenance.
Well that's the plan anyway!

1200 might be too low for you. What's your TDEE? You should only be cutting a couple of hundred calories at most a day.

I lost lots of weight (5 st and dropped from a size 18 to 10) in 2015 just calorie counting and walking at least 10k steps per day... then I started running half marathons and you see on mfp my weight gain right up to the race and then drop again the following month - did this 4 times! I would be starving for 2 days after a long run and over eat. I then switched to weight lifting, and apart from during lockdown when I used lower weights and did more cardio in my garden, I have been at least 1.5 stone heavier and cannot budge it because it makes me hungry and I over eat. Right now I am up a couple of stone but that's because I have spent a year stress eating 😩I don't mind weighing a bit more when I am lifting heavy as I love how strong I feel and console myself that at least a little bit of the weight gain must be muscle! I'm getting back into mfp and walking (and some lifting - easing back into gym routine).

I'm similar OP and prefer walking for this reason (well and many others!) I walk (fast) for 30 mins before lunch.

Well what it is I have heard quite a few times, Diet is 80% Exercise 20%. When i lost weight i was walking for good lengths of time at least a few times a week, that was all, in conjunction with diet changes.

Yes maybe I need to go easy on the exercise until I reach goal weight or near enough. It's a shame as I was hoping to get a bit more fit as my job is sedentary. I've only been doing twice weekly gym cardio sessions of roughly 35 mins but perhaps I'll drop it to 20 mins and not 'over exert' during those sessions. Or maybe I could just do one session per week but that doesn't seem very much.

Someone upthread said calorie counting doesn't work, but it was working very well for me until I added in the gym sessions.

Just to add I fast too, mainly because I can quite comfortably not eat 8pm-12pm, if I eat in the morning I'm then more likely to want a morning snack or bigger lunch, holding off on eating suppresses my morning appetite and then means I've got a smaller window for eating. Works well for me (and the 30 min walk before lunch helps delay that last half hour when I'm starting to get hungry ha) it's much easier sticking to a 1200 calorie limit with 2 meals rather than 3 (as I allow myself an evening snack, my vice).

I definately can't do fasting, or just two meals a day. I've always preferred a slightly more 'little and often' way of eating. In terms of my diet I really nailed it over the last few months and was losing weight nicely. Fortunately I don't have a sweet tooth, and I love salad & vegetables, eggs, lean protein, pulses etc.

It's just a shame I can't tone up/get fit at the same time as losing weight.

Protein. If you're eating enough it'd hard to feel hungry

It's just a shame I can't tone up/get fit at the same time as losing weight

Maybe try weights or yoga instead?

Giving up on the exercise would be mad, given all the benefits to mental and physical health. And you can absolutely exercise while losing weight - so really you've got two choices here.

Either you up the exercise so you're burning off far more calories than you use. This is difficult at first but over time becomes much easier as you get fitter (hence why distance runners are thin). I can easily burn 2,000 calories on my long runs, which obviously would be very difficult to eat back. Now, you can't go out and run that sort of distance today. But over time you can; so if you look to the long term exercise can certainly help you lose weight and keep it off.

Your other option is just not to eat after your gym sessions. When you feel hungry, ignore it. Being hungry doesn't have to equal eating more. Sit with your hunger instead (if you know you've already eaten enough, that is - I'm not advocating a starvation diet). Wait for it to pass. And as you get used to exercise it will get easier.

How much weight (lbs/month) were you losing before you started exercising, OP?

Exercise makes me hungry, too. I would stop eating completely if I didn't exercise.

Of course calories counting works. It worked for you @GoodVibesHere and it works for many. Doesn't mean if works for everybody because it is a complex topic.
Back to you, exercise is key to good health. Exercise when you are undereating pushes your brain to tell you to fill up. Normal evolution. The solution is to be prepared, so have in your fridge, food that will fill you up without sabotaging your diet.
Buy 1 kg of fresh green bean and cook them without salt and have them in your fridge so that you can eat them with zero to little consequences. Buy tuna in brine, have some hard boiled eggs. You come back from the gym, eat an egg, then go and have a shower, wash your hair, put cream on your body, brush your teeth and you should be fine. You have had some food, your brain is satisfied and it stops screaming at you.

Tackle this issue as you would in normal life. Where and when do you fail? Do you buy something between the gym and home, take no money. Is it the second you step in the house, have some low cal food ready. Fennel is great. Have cupboard with no snacks or prepare yourself a turmeric latte with almond milk sweetened with stevia. It is warm, sweet, satisfying.

Don't stop doing the exercise, understand how the metabolic response works, why this happens, and do not miss rest time. Can be rest day or just putting your feet up at home.

Oh and asparagus! Forgot to mention asparagus! Cook them in a pan with 1 cm of water or in the oven, and have them ready. High fibre, prebiotic , and delicious!!!

It's just a shame I can't tone up/get fit at the same time as losing weight.

You can easily tone up by doing strength exercise like yoga or weights instead of cardio. This will have the added benefit that the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn, even at rest, and shouldn't make you ravenous like cardio does.