cheat day during maintaining??

Well, I don't know if I should use a term maintaining or not since I didn't lose any major weight lost but now I'm 16 year old girl, 5"1 and right around 104-110 pounds. This morning I was around 106-107 pounds and I tried not to count calories since that is NOT what I want to do for the rest of my life. See, usually I would eat around 1300-1400 calories and usually have one major cheat day where my calories will be quite vary from 1600 to 2000 calories...it's depend. But I do some weight lifting and abs workouts everyday and run 30 minutes 3 times a week. If I went back to my home country (Thailand), I used to eat a LOT MORE and I didn't gain any weight. Since I moved to USA, I had an excercise bulimic and now I'm recoverd (which explain why I don't want to count calories nor over-excercise again). I'm not sure if I eat like this to maintain...will it be too much to cause weight gain?? I don't really care about how much I weight (well...don't go above 110 pounds) but I want to "toning up" so...any suggestion? Cheat day during maintaining?

Oh!!, by the way...I eat wuite healthy. I'm not a cheese person and not a fast food person. Not really a chips person too but I like bakeries stuff once in a while...chips and chocolatge in moderation. AND the most important thing is I HATE soda and butter :D)

Thanks

well toning up will make you look better but it will make you put on weight (if you do it right). However this is a good thing because being toned at 110 looks better than being not toned at 104. so maybe you should stop concentrating on the scale so much and instead try using a tape measure to measure inches.

also I'm sure a cheat day is not going to hurt you because you are very active.

yeah... another thing is I found myself eating a lot (I don't know if this is only in my head or not) but that was because I was in Thailand almost my whole life and I did a LOT of shopping and walking with my friends. We have cars in Bangkok but we walked and used sky train because there're too much traffic) PLUS I was a swimmer so now I'm stuck in a boarding school and I don't know if I would be active or not but the sure thing is I still eat A LOT.

And if putting on more muscle..isn't that means you might need more food to feed your body and that I have to eat MORE ? Is there anyway that I can try to eat normally and toning up?

Most people don't control their weight by religiously calorie-counting but by self-regulating.  A little more food one day, a little less the next.  Eating when hungry, stopping when full.   If you exercise and are active a lot then you'll naturally be more hungry.  Listen to your body, trust your own judgement and you'll be fine.

Original Post by charming_imy27:


And if putting on more muscle..isn't that means you might need more food to feed your body and that I have to eat MORE ? Is there anyway that I can try to eat normally and toning up?

No because in order to build muscle you need to have more energy than you are using. the best way to have more available energy than you're using is to eat more... like above maintenance. that's why men and women body builders eat so much. because they want the calories to go into building more muscle. even if they eat over their actual "burn" they won't gain fat because the muscle will be using the calories to repair itself and build itself bigger.

Oh..Thank you for your responds. It's actually good to know HOW to maintain because we all have to live in a real world, right? And when I go back to Thailand, I'l get to eat a lot of variety foods which some of them will be fattening more than others but, hey! I'm 16!! And I'm not over weight! So, I want to spoil myself once in a while. I was thinking that I could even eat teriyaki chicken almost everyday (if I like...i mean) but with a right proportion and so on. So!! happy maintaining!!