Calories and Exercise

I’ve been doing a lot of research about how many calories I should be eating, as well as exercise calories.  The Lose It program is all about eating back your exercise calories.  But should I really be eating those exercise calories back?  I thought the whole point of losing weight was to exercise the calories off.  Why should my eating change just because I exercised on a certain day? 

I’ve read a lot of articles and opinions, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not going to eat back my exercise calories.  I’ve also decided to reduce my daily calorie budget to 1212 (to have me losing 1.5 pounds per week vs. 1 pound per week).  This is not going to be set in stone.  If I find that I’m still hungry/ravenous, the calories will be going back up to 1462.  I did a number of calculations, and the majority of them had me eating around this number just to lose 1 pound per week.  Remember, I’m 5’1”, so I obviously can’t eat the same number of calories a 5’6” or 5’8” woman can eat.  It sucks.  It’s not fair.  But that’s how life is.  I need to suck it up and deal with it.  And until I fix my metabolism and gain some muscle, I’m going to have to stay at that number.

I’ve also decided I can’t only go by the number on the scale.  It will only set me up for failure, because the scale doesn’t always tell you what’s going on in your body.  Starting tomorrow, I’ll be taking measurements as well as weighing myself on Wednesdays. 

And I need to suck it up when it comes to exercise.  I’ve been whining about morning exercise for quite some time now, and the past 2 days, I haven’t even attempted to get my butt out of bed.  I’ve been reading some of these “Day in the Life” blog posts going around, and a number of these bloggers are getting up between 5 and 6 AM to work out, and all the while are going to bed around the same time I go to bed. 

Come on, Heather.  Do you want to lose weight?  Or do you want to be stuck at this weight, or worse, keep inching up the scale, forever?? 

The decision is mine.  All mine.  And it’s all up to me whether or not I start losing this weight once and for all.