Diet And Calories... Please Help! (muscle, lift, reduce, build)
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I feel like what I'm doing is the wrong way to approach losing weight and I need advice... I am 5'10, 26 year old male and weigh 190 right now. I have a muscular build but havea stomach, no question. I have been going on this unhealthy routine of having a glass of juice for breakfast at 8am, and then at 1pm having a salad and at dinner having 1 piece of chicken at 6pm. In the middle of the day I work out and run for about 45 minutes burning around 400 calories... I dont use machines of any kind because i dont want to put on muscle becasue that puts on weight. I have lost a significant amount of weight, but I am hungry throughout the day. My main problem is that I am confused. If I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner like normal I will get on the scale at the end of the day and it will say something like 196 when I just weighed myself in the morning to a 190... For some reason, I care about what the scale says. I look better and feel all right, but I know I am going about this wrong. I do not understand how a person can eat 4 or 3 meals a day and not gain weight, wether the food is healthy or not. All that seems to be working is eating barely anything. Please help and if anyone can suggest a daily plan it would be SO helpful. I'm trying to actually train my body to eat the same thing daily. For example, oatmeal for breakfast, salad for lunch and chicken and vegetables for dinner, with water throughout the day. Pleae help me... I'm lost and over-weight...
Right off the bat, I will tell you that you aren't eating enough. Because of this, your metabolism has slowed down since being on the diet. That is why after an initial weight loss, you aren't losing any more weight. If you are eating only what you listed and nothing else, you are probably only eating 800-100 calories, tops. A "normal" daily intake is closer to 2500 calories.
What you need to do is calculate your required daily calories (based on your current weight, there are online calculators for this), reduce that number by 15-20% and use THAT number as the total number of calories to eat during the day. For weight loss, a good rate only .5-1 pound per week. 1 lb of fat is 3500 calories, so to lose 1 lb a week, you only need to cut 500 calories a day from your diet (500 calories/day x 7 days = 3500 calories).
Google: spark people diet. They will have a whole meal plan. You are undereating if you only have juice salad and chicken. The scale goes up because its suppose to. The food weighs something plus you retain a bit of water with it. It is normal to have pound fluxes of 5-10. If you exercise hard it can go up to 15. But most are usually in the 5-10 range. Also a lot of people seem to gain a few pounds before a loss shows. I have no idea why I just see it mentioned a lot and it happens to me and my s.o. too.
At spark you just fill in your stats and it will give you a food guide & exercise that you can use. But if you were only eating that low calorie you may start gaining at first when you eat the proper amt. I would advise to lift heavy with weights in that time to stave off a lot of fat gain. It may work and it may not but it does not matter in the long run. In the long run you HAVE to eat more than some juice leaves and a little bit of chicken.
I like to use the scale too. Some people say toss it. I say: know thy enemy! lol
I like to take weight after workouts or salty meals. I got to know what increases my scale thats just water weight. If you actually fill out all the nutritional info and do the weight logs on spark you can go back and see why things happen with your loss. I know in my body for one, if I eat sushi, I am waking up with an extra 10 lbs that will slowly peel away over a couple days. Its just from the salt though.
Or if I have real soda..that also throws a few water pounds on me.
SamuelB, sounds like you aren't eating enough. I do went that route at one time. Worked for a certain time then hit a plateau. Nowadays I eat 5-6 times a day, around 2300 calories per day and I've lost body fat but maintained my weight. Who cares what the scale says. I weighed the same just 3 weeks ago and could not fit into my size 34 jeans nor button them, but now, less than 3 weeks, I fit into them just fine and they are really comfy and feels great. I'm exercising 5 days a week for about an hour per day, then all I need to do is fuel my body with healthy foods, keep track of my caloric intake and let my body shed the body fat(even though the scale says the same thing each week). I wish I could explain how all this is working but I'll leave that to those who are more knowledgeable than I am and who are more educated than me. My 5-6 food intake per day is more like mini-meals or snacks. I'm never hungry either. I haven't felt this great in over a year!
I agree with the others - you are not eating enough. A glass of juice in the morning doesn't not constitute a healthy breakfast! I am a fairly small woman at a healthy weight of 128. Accordding to all the calculators, in order to maintain this weight, I need to eat around 1,700 calories per day. However many calories I exercise off I need to add on to that.
In order to lose one pound per week, you would need to burn off 500 calories a day from your base caloric need or reduce your intake by 500 calories.
It is very common for your weight to fluctuate through out the day. I recommend weighing first thing in the morning, after you've used the bathroom.
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