PLEASE help me with my food diary!

jaybird90

Hello & thank you for reading this!

So I've read lots of different posts about how many calories I should be eating / whether I should be eating back my exercise calories or not. Finding it all a bit confusing and would appreciate any advice at all based on my food diary.. what am I doing right or wrong?

My weakness is definitely chocolate/biscuits. (Last week I had more chocolate than usual too because my flatmate had a birthday cake so I had some of that haha) So I'm trying to cut that down!

A little about me:

I'm a student so a lot of my day is spent sitting at a desk. But I do exercise around 4-5 days per week and my calories burned should be accurate as I wear a HRM.

I feel like my daily calories are low (especially net calories) but I'm not starving myself and am feeling satisfied each day. But should I still be eating more?

Thank you! :-)

kellicci

Can you also tell us your current stats....height weight, age....and goal weight.

jaybird90

Oh yeah of course!

Age: 22
Height: 5ft 7inch
Weight: 175ish
Goal weight: 150ish

ReaganAshley

Hi I have a nutritionist and I too workout 4-5 times a week. I do a lot of cardio like taking Zumba classes. She had me raise my calories to 2000 and keep my net calories between 700-1000. You just gotta eat 5-6 small meals a day, and if you work out a lot you wanna get a lot of protein so your not burning muscle. I'm a chocolate lover as well so I like to get dark chocolate it has antioxidants in it, but here is a great artical on chocolate. Hope some of this helps and good luck :-)

http://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/benefits-of-chocolate

jaybird90

Thank you for the advice! :-) I think I need to snack more often instead of waiting between meals.. any ideas on low-fat, low-sugar, high-protein snacks?

I really need to switch to dark chocolate over milk! The only reason why I choose milk is because I can buy it in small quantities, I can only buy big bars of dark chocolate near me and I just don't trust myself with that. Haha

kellicci

Oaky...so it looks like you're not far form your gola 25 pounds isn;t really that much....and you're goal on MFP is set to about 1450 calories a day before exercise....BUT when I calculated your BMR I got 1586!

Your BMR is the calories you need if you never leave you bed...like if you were in a coma....even just doing school work all day at a desk your TDEE would be around 2050.

I would recommend you raise your daily intoake to be at least your BMR...or close to it rounds usualy takes care of a few...so maybe set your daily in take goal to 1550-1650. The make sure you eat back most of your exercise calories so you're not too far under your BMR on a daly basis (under BMR every once in a while is okay)

I would also suggest you add some weight isn to your workout..either weight machines or body weight/resistance exercises like push ups, pull ups, squats, lunges etc to help keep up your muscle mass...and to go along witht hat make sure you're eating enough protein....I know you said your sugar was high this week that happens sometimes (like once a month for me! lol) but on those days your protein was also way too low. Make sure getting that lean protein is a priority especially after a workout.

jaybird90

Thank you so much for the advice! Everything you have said is what I was thinking I should be doing - just wanted for other people to have a check too. I definitely plan to add weight days to my workout routine as I think just doing cardio isn't doing much. Yes my sugar being high this week is definitely down to it being my time of the month.. I become a chocoholic! Haha

Thanks again :-)

ReaganAshley

Greek yogurt is great, Light String Cheese (I like the weight watchers), Roll up some sandwich meat, Hummus, Almonds or Cashew's.... The nuts do have fat but their the good kind but you do have to watch your serving sizes!