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WyattE, you're not eating enough food. I'm female, 5'5" and weigh 155 pounds, and my daily caloric intake is anywhere from 2400-3500 calories, depending on my workouts. I am not fat. I'm muscular.
Hello. I need some input. I'm 193lbs, male, 5'10. My calorie intake per day is around 1100-1200 approximately, and I am burning around 600 calories a day approximately. I'm at a plateau trying to tone down but I have lost 50 lbs. so far. My recommended BMI is around 177 I believe. I would like to get to that weight but I don't know if I am burning too much or too little and same goes for eating, too much or too little? I just can't seem to tone down each week. I've been at this weight for about six months now. Any recommendations? I workout 4-5 times a week doing cardio and muscle workouts.
HOLY COW! You have stopped losing weight becuase you are eatting dangerously few calories for someone who doesn't work out, much less does. Your body has adjusted to the low calories and is hoarding fat! Start eating more calories in small meals to get your metabolism back up.
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Originally Posted by Crustedfilth
That sounds way too low even for your BMR. I'm 6'-3", 220 lbs and my BMR is 2181. I bet yours is really close to 2000 cals a day.
Basically you need to eat more. I'd re-calculate that.
Agreed. Assuming the OP is 25 years old, his BMR should be just under 2000 cal./day and if he's working out daily or every other day his maintenance intake should be closer to 3000.
You're starving yourself, dude. I would say add some meals, get your intake up around 2500 and start some muscle building workouts. Eating less than 1500 calories a day is counterproductive and it's definitely unsustainable.
I'll also agree that the OP is eating far, far too little. For comparison, I'm a 24 y/o male who is 167 lobs who works our 6x a week, and I need 2800 calories a day for maintenance. Your body is likely far in to starvation mode with only 1100 calories because you are eating about 1/3 of what you need to maintain your weight. With that low of a calorie intake, I'm surprised you are able to function without overwhelming hunger and a complete lack of energy.
I'd at least double your current calorie intake. Additionally, unless you are eating nothing but 1100 calories of chicken, you aren't getting enough protein to build muscle properly. If you don't provide your body with an adequate protein supply (around 0.8 grams per pound of body fat per day during muscle building), you will have a very hard time gaining any appreciable amounts of muscle. I went through that myself when it was taking me a long time to recover between workouts and I wasn't gaining muscle fast...I was eating about 1/2 to 2/3 the protein I needed. I started taking supplements to bump me up to what I need to be at and I recover and build muscle a lot faster.
To recap, bump your calories up to around 2400-2500, and also make sure you are getting an adequate amount of protein to build muscle. You'll probably need around 150-160 grams a day. If your current diet doesn't provide enough protein, you can take supplements (be sure to get whey protein), but make sure you count the additional calories from the supplements in to your daily intake.
I've been on whey protein over a year now and I love it! I'm 36 now, but since I was focused on losing weight for about 7-8 months, I got used to the low carb diet and low calories also, so now I find it difficult to eat more. Last week I tried eating more and I'm not sure I even got to 2000 calories a day. I ate more carbs, good carbs though, not junk food and I gained 3lbs. But I have been focusing my exercise routine on building muscle and do only about 20 minutes a day on my elliptical machine. I trying to focus on toning and defining my muscles. I guess I feel I should see results faster but maybe this takes a lot longer, like months or years to be defined. Would eating a high protein diet help define my body faster than a carb diet? I would say each day I spend an hour and fifteen minutes working out. I do give my muscles time to recuperate. I target a certain muscle group each day but usually can hit the muscle group twice a week. I do cardio for maintenance. Maybe I should focus on this routine and not worry about results on the scale or in the mirror, right? Thanks for all your replies, they are insightful and educating.
You need to double-check those calories and look at your portion sizes. I don't see how on earth you'd have enough fuel to sustain the activity level you are at. Most people DO greatly underestimate what they eat...so recheck it.
If you were really eating that little, you WOULD be losing weight, and experiencing enough fatigue to not perform well. I'd bet my bottom dollar you are eating far more.
WyattE, you're not eating enough food. I'm female, 5'5" and weigh 155 pounds, and my daily caloric intake is anywhere from 2400-3500 calories, depending on my workouts. I am not fat. I'm muscular.
Holy CRAP! I can't imagine eating that much food. I am 5/7", about 140, and I maintain at 1200 calories a day...for many many years. Obviously every BODY is different.
I've been on whey protein over a year now and I love it! I'm 36 now, but since I was focused on losing weight for about 7-8 months, I got used to the low carb diet and low calories also, so now I find it difficult to eat more. Last week I tried eating more and I'm not sure I even got to 2000 calories a day. I ate more carbs, good carbs though, not junk food and I gained 3lbs. But I have been focusing my exercise routine on building muscle and do only about 20 minutes a day on my elliptical machine. I trying to focus on toning and defining my muscles. I guess I feel I should see results faster but maybe this takes a lot longer, like months or years to be defined. Would eating a high protein diet help define my body faster than a carb diet? I would say each day I spend an hour and fifteen minutes working out. I do give my muscles time to recuperate. I target a certain muscle group each day but usually can hit the muscle group twice a week. I do cardio for maintenance. Maybe I should focus on this routine and not worry about results on the scale or in the mirror, right? Thanks for all your replies, they are insightful and educating.
Your body only needs a certain amount of protein to build muscle. Typically 0.8 grams a day should be plenty unless you are trying to bodybuild or something. For your weight, you should eat 150-160 grams of protein every day. Any less and you'll have a hard time gaining muscle. Any more won't really hurt you, but you'd be better off eating carbs for those extra calories instead so you'll have more energy.
Three pounds of weight loss/gain in a week is pretty extreme. Considering a pound of fat is 3,500 calories, you'd have to be eating 1500 calories more per day than you actually need (so around 4500 calories for you) to gain that kind of weight. Chances are the weight gain is all water weight.
I do agree that you are probably eating more than 2,000 calories a day. I'm 168 pounds at the moment, and spend maybe 6-7 hours a week working out, and if I go below 2400 calories in a day I get really hungry and run out of energy.
Here are a few tips:
1. For weight loss, keep accurate track of the calories you are eating AND drinking (this means soda, coffee with creamer, beer, etc...anything with calories). This means keeping some sort of a daily journal or tally of what you eat, and all of the grams of carbs/fat/protein. This way you know what you are really taking in, and how much protein you are actually getting. I use a homemade Excel spreadsheet for this (I can email it to you if you want), or you can keep a paper journal, or use FitDay online.
2. Weigh yourself once a week only (if you already aren't doing this). Try to weigh yourself first thing in the morning, before breakfast, and without any clothes on to get the most accurate weight. Keep this weight in your food/calorie journal.
3. If you are gaining muscle while losing fat, your weight is not the best indicator of how the fat loss portion of your diet is going. Still check your weight (it is easy to lose a pound of fat in a week, but much harder go gain a pound of muscle), but concentrate more on things like how well your clothes fit and yes, how you look in the mirror. You'll know you are losing fat when your pants get looser and you have to tighten up your belt.
4. I think a really good book for you to read would be Sports Nutrition Guidebook by Nancy Clark. It is a no-nonsense kind of book for athletes (both competitive and recreational, like most of us) and people just trying to lose weight and stay healthy. You'll find lots of information on how to control your diet for whatever goals you are seeking, and lots of recipes. Its not a long book, you could knock it out reading a chapter a night in a week, and it will teach you a LOT.
I'm currently at 1460 calories today and I'm trying to eat more carbs. Which means dinner could be 540 calories to put me at 2000 by the end of the day. And to me this seems like a lot. If anyone is eating more than this, what are you eating and how frequently? I'm curious. Oh, I heard something today, if you multiply your weight x 7 this equals out to the amount of calories you should intake in order to lose weight while exercising. Is this true? Does that formula equal success?
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