too high calories

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...my calorie intake is usually 2000+ under the estimated calorie needs (to still reach my goals) i need considering my exersises, yet i am not loosing weight i am not getting closer to my goal.

does anyone else think that the estimated/suggested calorie intakes are too high?
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Replies

  • Egger29
    Egger29 Posts: 14,741 Member
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    Rather than looking to hit the 2,000, try shooting for 250-500 cals / day lower than what you're averaging.

    If you're tracking your daily calories, you should be able to see what kind of things you're eating or adding where you can cut here and there. (E.g...MIlk instead of Cream in Coffee.)

    It's also possible to over-estimate on the exercise side of things, since there are other factors involved. (Eg...Say you help a friend move and it takes 4 hours. is that really 4 hours straight of heavy lifting and such, or is it better to break it up into smaller chunks.....Light Cleaning, walking, Stairs, Resting...etc)
  • ZoltanPapp
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    Sure good idea... the way i track my exersise is, that if i spent 4 hours in the climbing gym, i claim only half or less as an exersise... the calorie tracking is difficult, coz i never had done it before, sso i am new to it... my diet is usally very simple though (except coming up holliday...)
    i think my biggest problem is that loosing any weight at 6.1% bodyfat is really difficult...
  • Egger29
    Egger29 Posts: 14,741 Member
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    Can I ask you a question? Why do you want to lose weight at 6.1% body fat?
  • ZoltanPapp
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    Sure.
    I am a rock climber, and i am getting limited by how much my fingers can take. even a few pounds of difference makes some crims usable...
    i'll try to post a picture whe you can see the size of holds i often have to "hang on"
    So i think if i can go under 145 and stay healthy there it'd let me climb harder...
  • Kate_UK
    Kate_UK Posts: 1,299 Member
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    Did I read this correctly? Do you have more than 2000 cals left at the end of each day? If so your not eating enough! Your body wont let go of fat if you don't eat enough. It goes into starvation mode, afraid that you are in a time of famine.
  • ZoltanPapp
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    i am not sure if you can acctually see the size of the hold i am holding w my right hand, but that's one of the reasons...
  • SHBoss1673
    SHBoss1673 Posts: 7,161 Member
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    so, 6.1% body fat is pretty much at the limit of healthy, lower than that and you're talking about eating into your essential fats, which is not generally a good idea. Just saying. I doubt you'll find many people that have the experience or the expertise to help you with this particular issue.

    Besides that, I can say for sure that if you're talking about being 2000 calories below your daily caloric needs, at 6% body fat, then you're not eating anywhere near enough IMHO. That's an extreme amount for a morbidly obese person who can afford a large deficit, forget about someone with no extra fat to make up the caloric difference.

    Look at it this way. Creating huge deficits for someone who doesn't have the fat to compensate makes your body less efficient, gives your muscles less energy to work with, and will probably make you weaker and absolutely less alert. IMHO a deficit like that for you means you'll do worse at something as intense as rock climbing, not better.
  • Egger29
    Egger29 Posts: 14,741 Member
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    Hi Zoltan,

    Thanks for the response. Your situtation presents an interesting dilemma (for lack of a better term).

    I'm not sure what your current weight is at, but looking at your profile guage, I'm guessing you're looking to come down from 148 or so? That's not a big loss really, but the challenge is how do you do that when your body fat is 6.1%?

    If you do the math, 6.1% of 148 is 9, meaning you only have 9lbs total fat in your body. (Healthy averages for men are between 9 and 12% but some athletes can go as low as 5% (safely).

    So, with 9bs of Body Fat, that gives leaves you as 139lbs of lean mass.

    To maintain that and only lose body fat, you'd be reducing yourself to 4.13% BF overall and would be coming close to some possibly dangerous territory.

    While the diet mods that you can do to drop a couple lbs is easily done, a better option (IMO) would be to take a look at your sport conditioning and see where you can make some changes to increase the endurance in your forearms and grip strength.
  • ZoltanPapp
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    thanx for your concerns! i am weird this way... ones it took me 2 weeks to loose 2 pounds and i skied 4 hours every day and climbed 4 hours every day... and only ate a large chief salad and a can of bier. after lost the target 2 pounds i had a meal and i gained it back right away... no worries though, i feel like i eat quite enough...
  • ZoltanPapp
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    point taken!
    my endurance and grip strength are actually my strenghts... i used to be lighter, and it felt great. i don't mind lossing some muscle mass either if that's what it takes.
    all i try to do is make it a little easier on my joints and knuckles :)
    just last year i was constantly 143, but i broke my wrist and couldn't climb hard enough w a cast on (or without when i cut it off) to stay fit enough.
    i guess if i was more careful then w how much i ate, i wouldn't be dealing w this now. anyways it's fun to meet other people who work hard for a goal, whatever that goal is!
    the danger zone is a lot further than you think ;)
    self control is the key. the only lesson i learned the past 39 years that if you wanna lose wait you need to eat less and workout harder. it always worked before.
    i have a story about me regarding this, but it isn't really believable so i'll skip it :))
  • dmedina
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    Make sure you eat lots of steamed veggies. For snaks have small apples or strawberries. Also try almonds and they come cocoa roasted flavored too. Use turkey bacon instead of regular bacon. Use the egg beaters instead of real eggs and add veggies for flavor. Also snack on sugar free jello (from a box). Avoid anything with HYDROGENATED in the ingredients - very bad for your liver.
  • ZoltanPapp
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    ok. so what this site is recommending is about 2700 hundred daily intake. it was a different site that was recommending like 3800 for me to still lose wait. i consume about 1600-2300 per day. and that feels more than enough... eating over 2000 i never loose a g even if i work out twice a day... i guess i should have clarified the numbers earlier.
    i am 5'8 what do you all think what would be the healthy calorie intake for a very active person like me who wants to lose 5-6 pounds? i work about 45-60 hours a week (IT), and i climb 6 times a week that avarages to about 1.6-2.5 hours/day (this a Very modest calculation) on the 7 th day i try to rest but i like to do lite exersises, some running and some biking., or lite climbing...

    for all who expressed concerns i really appreciate it. yet i never ate a lot in my life...
  • SHBoss1673
    SHBoss1673 Posts: 7,161 Member
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    ok. so what this site is recommending is about 2700 hundred daily intake. it was a different site that was recommending like 3800 for me to still lose wait. i consume about 1600-2300 per day. and that feels more than enough... eating over 2000 i never loose a g even if i work out twice a day... i guess i should have clarified the numbers earlier.
    i am 5'8 what do you all think what would be the healthy calorie intake for a very active person like me who wants to lose 5-6 pounds? i work about 45-60 hours a week (IT), and i climb 6 times a week that avarages to about 1.6-2.5 hours/day (this a Very modest calculation) on the 7 th day i try to rest but i like to do lite exersises, some running and some biking., or lite climbing...

    for all who expressed concerns i really appreciate it. yet i never ate a lot in my life...

    First thing to remember is it's a slow burn when you only want to lose a couple. Don't expect 1 or 2 lbs a week, more like 1 or 2 a month (maybe). My last 12 lbs took me about 19 weeks to do. I would say a deficit larger than 250 a day is to much IMHO. Use calorie cycling, nutrition timing, and eating back all of your maintenance and half of your exercise calories to achieve this. If you do it this way you'll be losing fat, while keeping most of your muscle.

    I know you said you don't mind losing a little muscle mass. But that won't help your joints and ligaments. The way to allow your joints to hold up better is stretching, and strengthening the muscles, not canabalizing them. Remember, muscles wrap around your joints, providing them stability and reducing tension on the joints, if you do a static sport like rock climbing, isometric exercises are a huge help, those and plyometrics that can increase your functional strength for the "one big burst" concept that is so predominant in rock climbing and other fast twitch sports. I would look into those two forms to supplement your regular routines.
  • alantin
    alantin Posts: 621 Member
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    Hi!
    I train pretty hard too doing mainly Martial Arts and for a few months now I have been doing wall climbing about once a week (love it!) so this is a really interesting thread! I'm having a hard time loosing lately although I'm not anywhere near 6% body fat yet.

    I was wondering, what kind of training do you do in addition to climbing to help your grip? I began to do forearm curls (or whatever they are called) to get some endurance to my forearms.

    Also, training hard, the importance of rest becomes clearer and also a balanced diet to support it. My impression was that you don't really pay much mind to how you eat. Perhaps getting your diet in order with some recovery drinks (if you don't use them already) would help your climbing too.

    Training is:
    33% Exercise
    33% Rest
    33% Diet
  • alantin
    alantin Posts: 621 Member
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    I took a look at your diary.
    I wager that eating a much more would help your climbing a LOT!
    You need more carbs man!


    Ps.

    ""*You've earned 4556 extra calories from exercise today""

    What the heck did you do last Saturday??? :noway:
  • ZoltanPapp
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    Hey Alantin!
    Martial artist myself for about the past 20 years...
    Saturday I worked at the climbing gym for the first 4 hours (i am setting routes there).Tthis means that I am climbing up and down in my approach shoes with a bucket full of holds and bolts, and a power drill and ranches (about 30 pounds) clipped to my harness self belaying myself. taking down holds of older routes and creating new ones. trying every single move on the new route several times to check flow, and make sure clipping quick draws is safe for the members. This i think is acctually harder and more calorie burn then just climbing but i never clame extra minutes for it... after the 4 hours i stayed an another 8 hours and tried all the new routes (Several other routes went up besides mine). all together i claimed 6 hours for my 12 hours of stay, which is rather modest...
    For finger strenght please do 1-2 fingerboard workouts a week.
    For for arm strenght and endurance nothing is better then climbing. the best is to pick a long easy traverse, and do that. time yourself see how long does it take. restrict yourself of taking rests in nohand rest areas (corners, aretes). if the traverse or climb only take 5 or less minutes, downclimb it and climb it again without touching the ground! Use any feet to improve your technique! try to work your way up, and try not to always climb on the same exact holds. after 3-4 months you should be able to climb a lot and almost on any holds. when i used to do this i got up to warming up for 1.5 hours without touching the ground (approximately 1500 moves), and was able to incorporate many hard problems to my moves.
    high chance of tendenitis (i am not sure how to spell that). Anyways you got 2 choices rest it out or climb through. i chose climb through back in the days, and i wish i still had the will power to do it again, but now i am just careful rather...
    let me know how it goes!
  • ZoltanPapp
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    Hey SHBoss!
    I am sorry i didn't specify, but the joints i was talking about are strictly my finger joints. I do not have a climbing problem, i only wanna make sure i don't destroy my finger joints before time...
    isometrics are great i do that too, and several other cross training excersises...
    i apreciate all the help and care!
    yet if i was fine under 145 until last year before my injury, i'll be fine again...
  • ZoltanPapp
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    i disagree with this: "Thinking that you can speed things up by eating less than you need to is a lie and leads to ruin! "
    to the extent of determining how much you need is most of the times the individuals preference based on a comfort level people hate to go under...

    back in my martial art days, i had to attend a competition, between departments of the army in a style i wasn't even ever familiar with. i unfortunately didn't have a chance to train before, only after they told me 5 days before the comp. i was 20 pounds over my weight. i trained 3 times a day and i ate one piece of meet the 3rd day, and i kept on training. the day of the comp i was 22 pounds less the 5 days before, and felt great, and won all my fights. also i was the lightest in my category.

    there are times when you just have to suck it up, stop being sorry for yourself and give yourself no excuses. that's my philosophy.

    i think it all goes back to fear!
  • alantin
    alantin Posts: 621 Member
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    Thanks for your reply! I'm not really that die hard at climbing.. Yet. :wink: but as a beginner I pretty soon realized that my my single greatest weakness in this is my grip (I need to have some pretty good holds to climb anywhere..) so I thought that I need to really start doing something about it before any greater progress can happen. And I really can climb only about once a week at the moment.. :grumble:
    I ran a quick google search on "fingerboard" And found some really good stuff. So the idea basically is to do deadhanging on a couple of fingers and work up how long you can do that? Sounds like a sound exercise.

    I added that line to my signature after a flood of threads about starving yourself with 1000 Kcal a day for months upon months. :laugh: The tricks, that athletes do for competitions to get to a lower weight group and some such, are a bit different thing, though they too can be taxing for the body. "Pulling down your weight" it's called in my language. No idea what it is in English though.. What one wouldn't do for his sport and for a good competition. Right! :bigsmile:
  • ZoltanPapp
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    ok. here my advice for your once a week climbing:
    Your finger, grip and body strenght is more then enough for now!!!

    strenght in climbing is only secondary! (that's why many girls can do it better than us:)

    the primary thing is to be open minded!!!
    how solid your grip it doesn't depend on how strong you squize that hold, but more on how do you position your body, how much are you using your feet, how you adjust to the always new terrain...
    to get to introductory advanced level you don't need to be stronger, but to learn how to adjust your body. You will only need more grip strenght at medium and high advanced levels.

    in martial arts if your oponent is a very week person you might use raw power and try to run the person down... but if your oponent is the same or stronger as you, you'll need to adjust and not use raw power... now the rock is always stronger then you :)) so you better adjust and not try to use raw power coz you can get hurt.

    And back to martial arts, the lessons you can learn from rock climbing are most usefu in martial arts!!!

    Listen to the oar...