Calorie Intake with 4:3?

maddystella577

Hi,

I am thinking I am going to move from the 5:2 way of eating to 4:3 – at least most weeks anyway. I want the benefits to stave off diabetes which runs in my family and to lose weight. My main concern is not eating enough on my regular days. Which is strange as I’m used to eating a little too many!
I was aiming for 1500 calories on my regular days and of course 500 on the fast days. Though this now equates to 1071 calories per day on 4:3 as opposed to 1200ish on 5:2 (if you average them out) which to me is much too low and I want to be healthy – I’m also fairly sedentary at this stage so don’t want the calories to be too high. As I increase exercise I will also increase calories but at this stage I am at a desk job 9 hours a day and only walk about 30 mins to and from work. I plan to incorporate 45 min walks a few days a week shortly but want to get in the habit of healthy eating first so it’s not too much change at once and I can stick it out.

The thing is, I don’t eat breakfast as I’m never hungry til midday and for lunch all I generally have a on a working day is some oats and berries at around 200cal. And then perhaps a few almonds as a snack mid afternoon. I also drink lots of water and herbal teas. I don’t like things like sandwiches and I’m not a fan of meat during the day. For dinner I generally have whatever is being cooked but as I’m not a big meat eater it generally consists of lots of vegetables and some form of carb like rice/noodles/pasta at around 500 calories and also a few snacks like pineapple or some toast. I’m trying to cut down on my wheat intake as that’s a problem food for me weight wise but it’s also where I get most of my calories from.. So I feel like I need to bulk out my lunch but I’m perfectly happy and satisfied after that lunch each day so I don’t want to add unnecessary calories and eating healthy seems to equate to low calorie but perhaps too low? I want to be able to steadily lose around 1kg a week not lose a lot of weight in a few weeks then put it all back on because my calorie intake is weird.

FYI I’m a 5’7 23 year old girl, 98kg and looking to lose around 3 dress sizes/20-25kg.

Any advice is much appreciated!

Thank you x

Sarasmaintaining

I did alternate day IF for my weight loss phase, and on my up days I ate at maintenance calorie levels.

Christine_72

Sarasmaintaining wrote: »

I did alternate day IF for my weight loss phase, and on my up days I ate at maintenance calorie levels.

Exactly the same for me

wannabeskinnycat

christinev297 wrote: »

Sarasmaintaining wrote: »

I did alternate day IF for my weight loss phase, and on my up days I ate at maintenance calorie levels.

Exactly the same for me

It's why I love IF. and I've sort of fell into 16:8 as I don't eat breakfast and I'm generally too busy to eat during my work day.

You do need to increase your cals. Try the 5:2 tdee calculator.

I don't eat anything low fat on normal days and I have peanut butter etc. I also have cheese and crackers for an evening snack. Try whole grains and fresh fruit yoghurt Things like 10g of chia seeds on a salad can add healthy cals. Make your own smoothies/juices for a quick burst of cals but with the macros you need.

Over the last few months I've bought a new food each week. There's so much I hadn't/haven't yet tried. Some have been a success and others have been confirmed as yack. But I was in a bit of a rut and I'm loving trying new foods.

Good luck x

Christine_72

This website is awesome. It will work out the calories for you if you IF or zig zag your calories etc

Christine_72

http://www.weightloss-calculator.net/ultimate-weight-loss-calculator-metric/

maddystella577

Thank you for your replies! A lot of help and I will definitely check out that website. Would eating my TDEE not be too many calories though? My TDEE is 2157 which is a lot to split between two meals and a couple snacks and would bring my net calories per day to almost 1500 a day which still seems like a bit much for regular weight loss while I'm still sedentary?