#healthyhelp

Haylee here...

The smell of chocolate and peanut butter taunts me. It’s my own fault really. Lurking around the corner from my cubicle are the peanut butter brownie crunch bars I made for my sister’s bridal shower. In an attempt to pawn them off on my co-workers, I have brought them with me today. Thus far, the supply is depleting gradually and I’ve gotten a ton of compliments. However, the placement next to the printer was poor form on my part. Every time I get up to grab my documents the smell wafts under my nose and tempts me just to take a bite. At one point I stopped, hovering above the calorie laden chocolate feast. My fingers danced agonizingly close to the plate before my willpower kicked in and drove me back to my desk. I had a piece of dark chocolate instead.

I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. If I say it enough it will come true…right?

Haylee here :]

We shall call this post "The Importance of Eating". Since we started, my weight loss has been relatively stagnant, fluctuating up and down a few pounds here and there but never dipping below the weight I started at. Naturally, I'm wondering why. I'm eating healthy (for the most part), I'm exercising...sure I could probably sleep more and that would help but it is what it is.

Enter the Bodybugg. I've had this thing for a good while and it's helped me lose weight in the past. I calibrated it yesterday to make sure it was remotely accurate and based on my BMR it's right in the neighborhood. Okay. Cool.

My current fitness regiment involves working out 3x a week for two hours: 1 hour of Muay Thai and 1 of Crossfit. Today I was only able to do Muay Thai and I was pleasantly surprised by my burn. 500 calories and that's just while I was working out. On days that I'm doing both classes I'm likely burning 1,000+ (we'll test this on Monday).

So, this should mean the weight is falling off of me by now, right? Wrong. There are several factors in this little fitness equation. For starters, I am putting on muscle. I feel muscles in my triceps I haven't felt since I swam on a competition team. We all know muscle weighs more than fat, and if you don't you need to follow this blog stat!

Also, if I'm burning 1,000 calories on these days I'm not eating enough which is forcing my body into starvation mode. Starvation mode means I'm hoarding every pound I have. Let me do some math...I hate math:

My BMR is 1,675 - this means I burn this many calories simply existing (it varies based on height and weight. Check yours here.) 1,675 (BMR) - 1,200 (cals consumed) = 475 calorie deficit just from reducing what I eat.

Ideally I should drop 500 cals from eating and burn 500 from exercise creating a 1,000 daily deficit. 1,000 x 7 days = 7,000 which equates to 2 pounds a week. Still with me?

If I burn 3,000 calories in a day but I'm only consuming 1,200 I'm burning almost 2,000 which is wwwwaaaayyyy too much. My body is straight up panicking and wondering why I'm exercising so much but not giving it enough food. This also hinders my recovery. If I don't feed my body more it'll find ways to feed itself AKA muscle loss. Womp womp.

Here's the moral of my story: Be a gym rat, but make sure you're eating enough to sustain your routine. Figure out roughly how much you're burning when you exercise and adjust your eating to create that deficit.

Christine: