Struggle to eat 2000 kcal, let alone exercise calories!

justiningham

Hi

Sorry about this, but I struggle to eat the 2000 kcal I have set, let alone exercise calories! I therefore record my excerise in the notes section so that my calories don't go up!!! I am not hungry and seem to eat / graze often... My concern is - is it sustainable and am I eating the right things!? Just I keep reading the BMR, eat exercise calories and think I should be eating more!

justiningham

I am losing about a pound a week, so I guess its not that much of an issue... however long term I want to maintain my fitness and health - I am 6ft tall and want to get my weight down to 190 lbs (currently 213).

I have an office job, so dont do much exercise during the day, I do however train 5-6 days a week:
M-W-F - The spartacus workout with 8kg weight - I believe burns around 400 kcal
S-T-T - 30 mins of HIIT Cycling (30 secs fast/30 secs normal) - I believe burns around 150 kcal

Any assistance would be helpful to help me work out if I should eat more, how I would fit it in and what I could eat to keep my balanced diet.

I am planning to start Insanity in October - so will sort out the DVD's etc at the end of the summer.

Bus2012

I am exactly the same - I'm not alone hoorah!

I spoke to my trainer last night as i just don't know what to do for best and he reminded me about eating nuts and seeds which will bump up your calories, they will bump your fats up too but as long as you are eating natural nuts (not dry roasted etc) then they are good fats and will help you. I'm looking at trying to keep a check on my sugars as they are quite high and although most are natural it's still sugar!

Trainer said as long as you are getting close to your normal calories he personally wouldn't eat back exercise calories. He is also a fan of a long term balanced diet for good health, a good life and sustainability.

However as with everything different things work for different people so we need to try something for a while see how it goes and if it doesn't work look at the next thing.

You are losing so it seems to be working for you! Good luck.

bathsheba_c

Based on your diary, it looks like you would be fine adding fat to your diet, so you might want to try adding in some more calorie-dense, but healthy foods. Things like nuts, peanut butter, avocado, olive oil. Or you could easily get some more calories in by switching from skim milk to lowfat or whole.

justiningham

Thanks for the comments - I love nuts and mainly eat Almonds, although ran out 2 days ago and need to get some more today!
Whole milk on the other hand... I have been on skimmed for as long as I can remember and cannot drink whole milk (even in tea).

Bus2012

I'm a brazil nut and pumpkin seed girl - if you had told me a year ago I'd ENJOY pumpkin seeds I'd have laughed in your face. Also sunflower seeds in cous cous is a nice post gym food for me (a few sultanas don't go amiss either but only a few).

justiningham

I gues my concern is that my BMR is as follows:
Base = 1930
Sedentary = 2241
Light = 2568
Moderate = 2895 - this is what I think I should be eating as I now train 5-6 times a week - but couldn't imagine eat nearly 1000 more calories!!!

Bus2012

I hear ya with that. It's trial and error I guess. maybe try and up it a bit give it 4 weeks and see how you go?? I'm no expert i wish I was or i wish I knew one!!

Good luck

DeTaart

Make sedentary your aim....it's fine not to eat back all your excercise calories when you're losing weight and doing it at a healthy speed in my opinion. But aim to eat above base metabolic rate, and at least sedentary to avoid getting into bad habits/feeling lethargic. You need to make sure your workouts are fuelled - an extra 200 is easy - double up those almond servings to 24, have an extra pack of go-ahead snacks, double up your ham slices, do 60g porridge instead etc.

By the way, your workout programme and diary is awesome - well done!

pen_thief

I have a suggestion you might want to try. It's not for everyone, but could be really helpful for getting a large number of calories without eating all that much food.

It's called the Budwig flax oil/cottage cheese mixture. It has roughly 600 calories per serving and it's very delicious if you prepare it with stevia and fruit - some days I use cocoa powder and honey (which adds another 180 calories for 3 tablespoons to sweeten it up. Sometimes the stevia just isn't enough with the bitter cocoa powder added in). So there are some days I'm eating a 780-calorie bowl of goodness and I really take a chunk out of my calorie allotment.

The best part about Budwig is that it's a cancer and heart disease - as well as about 50 other types of ailments - preventative. My mom is on the protocol for cancer and is doing very well. My friend with chronic fatigue has been on it and is slowly beginning to make a recovery. It helped bring me out of depression caused by PMDD. So I can't recommend it enough both for people who want to keep weight on and look out for their future health.

Here's a link to the instructional video. The lady here runs a Yahoo group called "FlaxSeedOil2" that anyone following the "Budwig Diet" is free to join. It's mainly people with cancer, but there is a lot of good discussion that goes on. I recommend adding some stevia in there because it can be quite "bleh" without, but everyone seems to find their own special way of making the Budwig mixture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSoddptWL0s

Hope this might help some of you!

justiningham

Make sedentary your aim....it's fine not to eat back all your excercise calories when you're losing weight and doing it at a healthy speed in my opinion. But aim to eat above base metabolic rate, and at least sedentary to avoid getting into bad habits/feeling lethargic. You need to make sure your workouts are fuelled - an extra 200 is easy - double up those almond servings to 24, have an extra pack of go-ahead snacks, double up your ham slices, do 60g porridge instead etc.

By the way, your workout programme and diary is awesome - well done!

Many thanks for this and for the thumbs up on my training and nutrition - I've started to notice the difference :-)
I think your suggestion is very good, I am going to try to increase the snacks which will should take me up to 2200, which will be above my base.

Thanks everyone for the support, this is such a good website and iPhone app!