question about caloric intake / 7-Day Zig-Zag

artslady96

I am looking to bust a plateau and know that I must improve the quality of food. However, I recently have concerns about the quantity I eat. I typically consume under 1300 calories and burn 400 calories through exercise. I looked into the Zig-Zag diet (http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm) and it's telling me to eat 1848 calories on average everyday. Is that too much? How do you know what's enough without being too much? Any advice would be helpful.

sgarrard01

He he he... i'm stalking your posts!.... one way to break a pleateu is to up your calories to maintainanace for a week and then go back to the 1300 (+exersize cals) diet level! But you first need to sort out your eating habbits to a slightly 'cleaner diet' you cant fuel yourself on sugar and processed food!

You'll also feel 1000000000x better incorporating more 'clean' food!

TubbsMcGee

I zig-zagged to get out of my plateau. Totally recommend it!

Edited to add: definitely make sure you clean up your eating habits, too. Opt for less chemically-processed foods, and more fruits/veggies/products with natural ingredients

Maddi_InBetweenDays

I started zig-zagging from that's site suggestions a couple weeks ago. It did break my plateau, but I realized I wasn't eating near enough, as I rarely ate back exercise calories (hence the plateau). I find it hard to get the higher calorie days in without eating junk or over eating. I usually try to add in an extra "snack" on those days.

But make sure on that site that if you set your activity level to include your workouts, don't eat back the exercise. If you say no activity, then you can eat back the exercise.

I hope it works for you!

Eleisabelle

I don't think 1800 too much. You have to look at your basal metabolic rate (BMR--what your body needs just to keep your heart beating, lungs working, brain processing, etc.; 1200 calories or more for most people, though there are exceptions) and at least meet that, while eating below your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE--BMR plus daily energy use for exercise, normal tasks, etc.).

Think about it this way: when you eat 1300 calories and you're doing 400 calories of exercise, you're only getting a net 900 calories. That's not remotely going to meet your BMR requirements, let alone fuel your workouts and enable your body processes to work in a way that maximizes health.

And yes, eating cleaner will help, too.

artslady96

Yes, I will be paying more attention to eating cleaner and slowly increase caloric intake. For the next few days, I will try 1450 calories daily.