exercise and binging advice!!

right now i exercise 45 ish minutes a day, 25 strength training and 20 some sort of cardio, 5-6 times a week, but exercising everyday. should i be taking a day off? will that affect my calorie intake? how important is it, and what are the effects?

also looking for advice and help with binging/purging, does anyone have a good meal plan they like to follow that helps them stay satisfied, healthy, binge free, blah blahblah...? any advice on coping and dealing with binging?! strategies? help!

Hello, I too am an avid exerciser which I find can sometimes catch up to me as far as calories go. I do think it is important that you are eating something about an hour before going to the gym to fuel your workout and always refuel afterwards with something healthy such as a banana, yogurt, milk, toast and pb etc. becuase this is the most important time to refuel your muscles and prevent binging later on. Your bodies caloric burn may be higher after a good workout which makes it the best time to eat. I too have delt with binging episodes and find that eating balanced meals more frequently will help to prevent this. An example of my meal plan for a day would be as follows...

Breakfast: oatmeal with berries, cinnamon and soymilk. 3 egg whites and a fruit.

Snack: greek yogurt with fruit and nuts or veggies cut up, 1 c milk

lunch: salad with 1/2c beans, tuna or chicken, avocado. Or 2 slices toast with pb and j or avocado and tommato.

snack: fruit or veggie or yogurt or crackers and cheese/pb etc.

Dinner: veggie, protien(chicken fish or tofu) and a starch such as brown rice, sweet potato or squash.

Snack: depends on appetite but sometimes a pb and honey sandwich, fruit yogurt and granola, cereal or oatmeal...

Also, taking a day off can mean simply going for a short walk etc. I know I usually stick to a rigid routinue but your body does need a break so that you can continue to workout the next days.  Also sometimes you must allow yourself to have a sweet or two to satisfy your craving rather than binging around it! Most importantly make sur eyou do not go over 4 hrs without eating or your blood sugar will get too low and may trigger a binge!Let me know if this helps at all!

Post copied from duplicate thread:

Original Post by nancybehrend:

You should probably give your body at least one day of rest to help the muscles heal from the work outs.

 

Have you checked with the activity logging here to determine about how many calories you are burning per work out?

 

In general, each person has a resting metabolic rate - mine for example is 1600 calories, so I am never to eat less than 1600 calroies per day in order to keep my body from "hoarding" calories based on a starvation assumption.

 

From that point on, any additional calories can be eaten based on your goals.  Are you trying to gain?  Then definitely eat more!  Are you maintaining?  For maintenance you need to figure in how many calories you approximately burn in "normal' life PLUS the work out calories.  And eat htem all if you are working to maintain.

 

If you are like me and trying to lose, then create a deficit - burn more than you consume.  I am guessing that's not you though!

 

 

I am a binger but never had the purging side over take me ......

 

To help me keep binges under control, I keep all danger foods out of the house.  Mostly chips nad other salty fatty snacks.

 

I am starting to eat WAY mroe protein and jsut eating smaller meals, but making sure I eat about every 3 hours - something small in between main meals.

 

Beans, cottage cheese, hard boiled eggs, edamame ... these items really satisfy me and keep me from over doing it it with other crap.

 

Good luck!  You're doing great and I read your bio and your family sounds amazing!

DO NOT POST THE SAME TOPIC TWICE.

Yes, you should be taking days off. Too much exercise and too little rest will result in you possibly damaging your body. Injuries, stress fractures, the works.

If you'd like help with a meal plan I can give you one, but I'll need to know your stats, first, as everyone has differing caloric needs. What is your age, height, weight, gender? Given your activity you are very active, no question about it.

Are you actively bingeing and purging? Purging can kill you even if you only do it the once as can lead to an electrolyte imbalance that will throw off your heart and cause cardiac arrest. Not to mention tooth decay due to stomach acid eroding enamel, dehydration, amenorrhea, arrhythmias and scarring of your hands. It can also lead to the tearing of the esophagus, and the stomach.

If you are actively bingeing and purging you need to go to your doctor, pronto. Combined with all the exercise you are doing and stress you're putting on your body already, you're at great risk.

that sounds like a great idea and great advice! thanks so much! i think it'll really help me!

i have all the tools for a meal plan, i just wanted to see what was working for other people too. i'm not actively purging, though it's been an issue i have all the doctors, tools, and support for it and i actively use it. thank you for your concern, but i dont feel very comfortable giving all my personal stats right now, i just want advice and tips.

You're free to PM them to me if you don't want to post them here.

Also if you are underweight binges arise from the body's survival mechanism kicking in.

I never binged until I had anorexia. Now that I'm at a healthy weight, I still occasionally have urges to binge, which is my body's way of saying it's still a little wary of me and doesn't quite trust that I won't starve it again. It's doing what it thinks is necessary and best, to get in as much food as possible when the opportunity presents itself.

But the urges are definitely not as strong, and I do not feel as compelled to, nor do I, give in to them. With time, and with my body's trust in me restored after remaining at a healthy weight for a while, the urges will pass.

Glad to hear you've had the courage to get support.  Just remember though, overexercising is another form of purging, so you should speak to your doctor and support team about it. 

All the best.

Mel.

Despite being a personal trainer, I never used to count calories and with out realizing it, I was not taking in enough calories for the amount of exercise I was doing, and I felt like binge eating a lot of the time.

The urges stopped once joined 2 websites ( calorie count, and another similar one) and found out how many calories I needed

The websites are just guidelines, but they were a good place for me to start and felt much better as soon as I started logging what I ate each day, and making it all add up to the amount the website suggested.

Eventually I found I needed a little more, so I have increased my calories more since and feel even better.

I was also quiet under weight before, which I believe contributed to my urges to binge, as well as not taking in enough calories.

I gained weight until I had a BMI of 19 and then my weight stabilized, and I felt and looked the healthiest I’ve ever looked so I just kept eating the same way and I still feel great, and I have lost the urge to binge.

Other people may need to gain past a BMI of 19 before their bodies feel satisfied and lose the urge to binge, every one is different so experimenting is the only way to determine what is best!

On the few occasions where I HAVE fell short of calories, my body has learnt to let me know it needs more food!

Once when I did not have enough carbohydrates for the day, I had a huge craving for sweet potato!

that really helps! and that's great advice i want to try and take. i'm kind of testing it out now, actually, it's just a scary proccess, thats all! but hey man, i'm strong =) so how soon did the urges stop? did you have to change your eating patterns at all?

thanks for the advice!!

thanks SO much for your advice and experiences...that really helps me, especially when you've gone through what i have. i feel like im cheating though getting the answers from your labor ;)

can you tell me more about the urges? did you have to change your eating patterns? how hard and long did it take to adjust? were there certain foods that helped? did you find upping your calories put an end to it, or does the battle go on a bit from screwed up hunger cues?

thanks so much for your advice and support. i really use it and it really helps =)

For me, I picked the foods I enjoyed, and I started making sure that I wrote down what I ate each day in the website’s food diary, and I made sure that the calories met the websites recommendations for me, and I also looked at the carbohydrate/protein/fat ratio

I started with the websites guidelines for carbohydrates/proteins/fats which was about 50 - 60% carbohydrates, less then 30% fats and 15 - 20% protein .

So, I included all the food I normally enjoy eating, but I made sure I planned the day in advance so that my food for the day gave me the recommended protein/carbohydrate/fat ratio’s.

I needed to measure and weigh a lot of food at first but it is just for the beginning part of the experimentation - I needed to make sure I knew roughly how much I was eating so I could link the % of carbohydrates/proteins/fats to how my body reacted - I wanted to see how my body reacted to a ratio of 50 - 60% carbohydrates, up to30% fats and 15 - 20% proteins so I had to make sure I ate about the right amount of them, in order to see how my body responded as accurately as possible.

I gave it at least a week to see how I felt, and then I made adjustments.

All you can do is to try your hardest to read how your body is feeling, hopefully you will be able to pick up on signs, like if you crave sugar and bread and carbohydrates, then try increasing your carbohydrate intake to 60% of your daily calories, or if you are craving peanut butter or chocolate then that could indicate that you may function better with more fats and etc…. it is trial and error, and it is not possible to get everything 100% right STRAIGHT away!

My urges to binge were mostly because I was not eating enough, and I was too underweight; I also was lonely and had issues but it was mostly a physical urge from my bodies need for food.

Once I learnt to give my body what it needed to function better, the urges just dissipated…. But at first, when I stopped binge eating, even though I was eating enough I STILL got the old compulsion to binge because I had been doing it badly for so long, and most people cannot just “ stop binging” one day and then never get an urge again- most people are in a pattern of binge eating and they automatically feel like continuing to do it for some time, but learning how to feed myself better certainly helped the process!

It was much easier to stop tell myself to get out of the pattern of binging ( the emotional/non physical routine of binging) once my body stopped crying out for my food!

By the way - it can be hard for some people to actually know how their body feels, so feel free to PM me if you are confused about what to do next, like if you feel a certain way and you want to know what it could mean in terms of how you should alter the ratio’s.

I am not a nutritionist or dietitian but I can offer support and help talk you through the process of experimenting to see what works for you, based on what I have gone through.