Weight loss when you play a sport or exercise heavily
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Anonymous
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I'm struggling with how to balance playing tennis and exercising with the need to eat less to lose weight and keep it off.
I'd like to lose about 15 pounds. Right now I'm on the upper end of normal for BMI (153 for 5 foot 7) but would really look and feel better around 140. While you'd think playing tennis every day or every other day and working out would be a benefit for weight loss, it's really not. The cardio of tennis makes me hungry. I can try to power through that, but the other issue is that if I haven't eaten enough I don't have enough energy to play well. Intermittent fasting is not a great option for me either, because usually I play mid-morning and i have to eat something before that. Skipping dinner is not workable because I have a family, and I feel it sends a bad message to my kids to skip meals. Plus I'm hungry! I do try to eat plenty of protein. I definitely feel better when playing tennis or doing a hard core workout if I've had some carbs -- a piece of whole wheat toast with my eggs in the morning, for example. I try to make every calorie a good one -- I almost never drink alcohol and while I have a huge sweet tooth, I can stay away from sweets. But the hunger I have due to tennis and working out makes the rest of my day just miserable because I am trying to keep calories low enough to lose and keep off the weight. Any suggestions on how to balance these two things? I track calories on My Fitness Pal -- goal is to keep to 1200 calories a day but exercise can offset that (so if I burn 400 calories playing tennis, I "get" an extra 400 calories to eat, though I try to come in below my extra exercise allotment). |
Anonymous
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Rec player? College level player? Cardio tennis? It makes a huge difference. Rec will lose almost no calories playing tennis.
I just walk right now. I've lost 3lbs in one week just by walking and paying attention to my three meals. |
Anonymous
| 400 calories? For one hour of tennis? Unless you are playing with college level or pro level players, that seems really high to me. |
Anonymous
| I'm just regurgitating what my fitness app says -- it actually says 567 calories for an hour of singles, but I usually assume closer to 400. In any case, I usually try not to "use" all those calories anyway. The larger issue is how much I feel it if I don't each much beforehand. So it's hard to play and enjoy it when I feel lightheaded and weak. But then I've spent 400 calories on breakfast, and it's hard to get through the rest of the day on only 800 calories. |
Anonymous
Cardio tennis or competitive matches (used to be USTA leagues). |
Anonymous
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Are you drinking enough water? And have you adjusted your diet content to be heavier in fat and protein?
If heavy exercise is part of your weight loss regime, you're effectively trying to drive ketosis. You need water and less carbs to make that happen effectively: https://www.carbmanager.com/article/the-importance-of-drinking-water-on-keto-4f80281e-7356-c43a-52c5-6c4179f15156 https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/7-tips-to-get-into-ketosis (NB: You don't have to be on a strict keto diet, but you do probably need to figure out how to facilitate ketogenesis to feel okay while working out heavily.) |
Anonymous
| Hm. Wondering now. Cardio burns a lot of calories. If doubles then app is wrong, too many burned calories for doubles. How about drinking more and taking some sodium? You say you are dizzy, that is likely lack of sodium, try a bit of sodium before playing and after. That should help. You are not losing weight because you are not in a caloric deficit, so definitely eat before playing but not that much after. |
Anonymous
| Yo OP. I would smash you in tennis |
Anonymous
Don't know about tennis, but I when I'm losing weight I have to time my carb intake around my lifting. If I go to the gym without having eaten some carbs, my workout is crap. When I get home after working out and I'm hungry again, I have protein powder with water and a huge salad (romaine, apples, and little vinaigrette). Then I'm good until dinner. |
Anonymous
| I'm a runner, not a tennis player. Typically if I eat at all before a run, it's carbs and only carbs. (and maybe some yogurt.) I try to get some protein immediately after exercising - a protein shake made with milk is generally my go-to. You're already doing the pre-workout carbs, so maybe try the protein within 30 minutes of your match. Maybe your lighter meals could be the night after a match and the lunch the next day, and the heaviest meal could be the night before the match for glycogen loading. |
Anonymous
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OP, I used yo get dizzy playing tennis. I would do drills and points for 2 hours. In a Saharan climate. I was pretty slim then so this was not for weight loss. I used to bring a small bag of chips and eat a few chips at one hour break. I am certain it is the salt.
But, person above me is also right. I would have a large breakfast before. Not like a wedding supper, but carbs definitely carbs. |
Anonymous
Well at least this thread is giving me confirmation that I do need some carbs before playing! It's just hard to square that with weight loss, especially reading so much about how intermittent fasting is the way to go. No way can I play tennis at 10 am in July having not eaten anything since dinner the night before. |
Anonymous
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for a goal weight of 140 you should be able to lose just fine if you consistently eat between 1400-1600 calories. Stay in that range consistently by accurately tracking and be patient. You won't lose the weight as quickly as if you were eating 1200 calories, but it is more sustainable and you will feel better.
The reason people typically "can't lose" weighs is that they do not accurately or consistently track their calories. Thing don't move fast enough or the weight loss doesn't look like they expect so they give up after a few weeks. |
Anonymous
NP, but intermittent fasting has a place for some people. I exercise very well in a fasted state - always have. So, it’s a way to go for someone like me, but not for someone like you. That being said, I find that physically I excel only when I have a decent amount of carbs in my diet, so Keto and the like, which other people swear by, doesn’t work at all for me. You need to find what works with your body and your schedule. You may want to consider that you’re falling into the trap that many recreational athletes fall into, in that you are overestimating the number of calories you’re burning and underestimating how many calories you’re eating. Extra hunger definitely factors in, which is something that is very common and the undoing of many weekend warrior types in terms of weight loss. I’d probably start with assuming you’re getting too much credit for exercise, which is a frequent problem, even if you wear a tracker. Some of the estimates include the calories you would normally burn during that time period anyway, which is already built into that 1200 MFP is calculating for you. Are you measuring and tracking all food? That’s also another issue - underestimating the calories you’re actually consuming. Measure everything for a few weeks until you start to see the scale go down. Some people need to get pretty close to 1200, even with “extra credit” in order to jump start weight loss. The extra credit is the deficit. You Also may want to do a virtual call with a sports dietician / nutritionist if you’re not able to find a balance. |
Anonymous
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I think a lot of diets geared toward Americans skew toward "no carbs" because Americans tend to eat so damn many of them, and a lot of them just don't exercise.
I mean, take my dad. He is a lovely person but he eats like crap, and it shows. He used to be a normal weight but he hit almost 300 lbs in his 60's and now it's really affecting his health and his lifestyle. We'll go out to dinner and he'll order a steak with a baked potato and often corn (two starches) and then he'll ask for refills on the bread. (He'll also drink like 3 regular cokes, but that's a whole other ball of wax.) He gets very little exercise, so none of those carbs have anywhere to go. They just end up as excess weight. I told him that if he wanted to get serious about weight loss, he needed to pick one carb per meal and that's it. If he wants the baked potato (yum), no bread. No corn unless that's his only carb - he needs to order a salad or green veggies like broccoli or asparagus as his other side. Me, I have always eaten carbs, but I use portion control, and I use the same rule I taught my dad. If I eat pasta, no bread for me. (So I don't serve garlic bread with lasagne.) Mostly whole grains vs. white bread/white rice. I'm also fairly strict about portion control. I differ from my dad in that I get cardiovascular activity every single day, and often quite a lot of it. Those carbs are getting used as fuel. Humans do need carbs. They fuel cardio and they fuel brain activity. We just tend to eat too many of them and burn too few of them. My runner/cyclist/swimmer friends eat carbs. My friends who only lift or who don't do much cardio tend to go keto or paleo when they diet. |