Stalled? Try eating more. Yes, you heard me!

So, I've been stalled around the 200 mark for nearly three weeks, even though I've been staying within my calories and exercising regularly (though, in all fairness, when I looked back at my LoseIt! reports, I wasn't consistently eating all of my calorie allotment, which is also a big no-no).  In talking to others, it was suggested that my heavy-duty workouts might be part of the reason.  Not that working out itself is a problem, but that maybe the fact that I wasn't "eating back" some of my exercise calories maybe the reason I was plateauing.

In case that's not clear, say I have a 1,200 calorie allowance each day.  Let's also say that I exercise 800 calories.  That would give me an allowance of 2,000 calories.  But what I was doing (and what most folks probably do) is to eat their 1,200 allowance and not eat
into that additional 800, thinking that at the end of the week, you will have exercised away 5,600 calories, equaling about 1.6 pounds lost.  Simple math, right?

It very well could be that our bodies go into starvation mode similar to what happens if, say, we don't exercise at all, have a 1,200 calorie allowance, and only eat 900 calories each day.  Simple math again would dictate that at the end of the week, I'd have "dieted" away 2,800 calories.  But since the 1,200 would be the minimum my body needs to function, to reduce my intake to 900 would throw my body into starvation mode.  I think the same can occur if you're eating your minimum but are also working out heavily.

I decided this past week to eat back about half of my exercise calories .  So, using the earlier analogy of a 1,200 calorie allowance and 800 calories from exercise, I would be eating about 1,500 to 1,600 calories.  Which, I will admit, isn't super easy when you have a band and are eating healthy.  But, it HAS gotten me moving downward again.