I need friends!! LOL

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Hi, I'm a total newbie to this site thanks to my good friend, but I'd love to become friends with more people who might be able to lend support and/or advice to me! For instance, I'm dying to have someone help me understand what the negative affect of eating more proteins is??? Is it me or are the proteins kinda low?? I must be eating high fiber, high protein, low carb foods! Is that bad??? Oh and this whole exercise program that adds calories to your day because you burned them working out....I feel like that's defeating my purpose. Should I add them or not? I'm so confused.......

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  • cardboardboxes
    cardboardboxes Posts: 10 Member
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    Great questions!!! Here's what I think I've learned: too much (unused) protein can actually be bad for your kidneys! Of course, not enough will starve the body. The gist of the information is that there needs to be a balance (as with most things). If you are doing a lot of strength training or if your muscles had some sort of (other) trauma, you may need a little more protein in your diet for healing purposes.
    As for the extra calories, I look at them as if they were a treat for working out. LOL! I'm on about a 1200 calorie diet, so when I work out, I look at those calories as "free." If I burn 350 calories by working out, I can eat 350 "free" ones and still be losing weight.... or still be in my 1200 range. Does that make any sense?
    :)
    Good luck!!! I've found this site to be very helpful in keeping me diligent about how much I am eating. I hope it works for you as well!
  • pineappleroo
    pineappleroo Posts: 47 Member
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    The nubers that are on your page already give you a calorie deficit to lose the weight at a safe and healthy pace. Even id you eat the calories burt during excercise without going over you will still be burning more than you are eating.
  • daxa_yen
    daxa_yen Posts: 5 Member
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    Great questions, so it means great beginning for you. But the most important question is what is your goal. Do you wanna loose, gain muscles or? Let's start with this at first ;)
  • toniz63
    toniz63 Posts: 13
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    To lose weight you need to be burning more calories than you are taking in. Look at your BMR. That is the number of calories that you would lose if you stayed in bed all day and did nothing. My BMR is just over 1400 calories. This means that is I limit yself to 1200 calories in a day I still am defiect of 200 calories and would lose weight. By exercising, I increase my calories burned in a day and therefore am able to consume more calories and still be burning more than I am eating. I hope this helps you understand it better.
  • joleanrook
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    Hello and welcome! :flowerforyou:
    If your goal is to lose weight I would still log your exercises and just ignore the calories it "gives you back" that's what I do. (If you continually "reward" yourself by eating those calories back up your weight loss will take a lot longer.
    Continuing to log it is important because you are more likely to keep exercising if you can "see" the benefits. It will just make you feel better to know what all you have accomplished and keep your focus on overall health instead of just counting calories.

    I am also doing high protein, high fiber, but very low cal.
    As far as protein goes it's great for you, they only thing I would mention is if you have any kidney disease you may want to discuss with your nephrologist or physician just how much extra protein you should be incorporating in your diet, and likewise, what your cut off level should be.

    Protein is an essential building block for muscle and it takes about 10 calories to break down every gram of protein. Therefore, when picking meal replacement shakes or bars you should be choosing one based on the protein to calorie ratio (also low sugar low carb). For example:
    Bar A - contains 7 grams of protein but 150 calories. You will use roughly 70 calories breaking down these proteins netting you 80 calories per bar. Not a great option.:noway:
    However,
    Bar B - contains 10 grams of protein and only 75 calories. You will need roughly 100 calories to break down these proteins, which means your body will have to use 25 calories from stored body fat to make up for the lack of calories in the bar. This is a much better option! :wink:

    I hope that helps a little, let me know if I can do anything else, and best of luck on your weight loss!! :smile: Add me if you'd like!

    Jolean

    My sources: I am a medical professional myself, and I've also worked for a national diet company (Pm me if you just have to know who :)
  • smfabrizio
    smfabrizio Posts: 5 Member
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    My gosh thanks soooo much for the info! It was fabulous! I can't believe how many people replied to me! I walked away to make some dinner and I came back to so many responses. What a nice surprise.

    I'm so new to this that I don't even know what you meant by "pm" you if i wanted to know who you worked for. I feel so dumb. Private message? LOL maybe?
  • joleanrook
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    I'm so new to this that I don't even know what you meant by "pm" you if i wanted to know who you worked for. I feel so dumb. Private message? LOL maybe?

    YUP! Private message! :happy: