650 Calories and Insanity

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  • arguablysamson
    arguablysamson Posts: 1,706 Member
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    Hi everyone,

    I recently started doing Insanity and have been eating around 650 calories for a while. Now I was wondering is that a good idea? I mean I pick my meals wisely so I don't starve myself; however, since I'm going for the muscles as well, do you guys think I need to add more calories to my diet?

    My dear, that is an extremist and totally nutty way to eat. I've done it, and yes, it gets results, but you will sabotage yourself in the long-run since A. it will be hard to maintain the motivation to stay doing it, and B. it will cause your body to burn muscle as well as fat. You'll also feel cold, sick, lethargic, and get depressed and dizzy. Not a good idea.

    Shoot for 1,100 calories if you must, but even that is pushing it. Depending on how much you want to lose, there are various approaches. Go to my forum and learn a better way to drastically cut down if you must...

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1241325-how-to-do-one-meal-a-day-the-basics

    But don't overdo things. It may feel logical now, but it works against you when all is said and done.
  • nking404
    nking404 Posts: 73 Member
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    HEY!! I just recently completed insanity and its a very intense program and your definately going to need a higher calorie intake than 650 a day. Like everyone else said you are starving yourself, you need to fuel your body in order to make it through these vigorous workouts. Good luck on your journey
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
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    Not sure why some people felt the need to respond so negatively, but anyway, who are you to tell me not to ask MFP???
    I was just wondering if I'd be getting the muscle-results I want with this much intake and am looking for people who can POSITIVELY help me with it.
    Please take your negativity, sadness, and anger somewhere else. Thank you.

    I am positive you won't get the results you want doing insanity on 650 calories. But what will happen is you will have bad skin, bad nails and your hair will fall out... and you'll make yourself really ill and probably stop your period which could then stop you having kids later in life...
  • Courtney4805
    Courtney4805 Posts: 71 Member
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    This makes me really sad

    It makes me really sad, but also a little angry.

    MFP gave you a number based on your goal when you signed up & you chose to ignore it. No need to ask - MFP pretty much already said you should be eating more than 650 calories a day.

    THIS
  • daw0518
    daw0518 Posts: 459 Member
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    At 5'4'' & 140lbs, you're already at a healthy weight.

    My only advice is to enter your goals into MFP and eat the amount it tells you + eat back some/most of your exercise calories. You should be eating an absolute minimum of 1200 calories, but with insanity it would probably be more like 1700+. If you use the site the way it is designed, YOU WILL GET RESULTS. In a healthy way. It takes time, obviously, but it's worth it if you don't want to be completely miserable.
  • joehempel
    joehempel Posts: 1,761 Member
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    If you are doing Insanity I would follow THEIR nutrition plan rather than MFP's.

    I just finished it up with fairly decent results, and let me tell you, you'll burn more than what you're eating in a day. If your goal in the next few weeks is to lose all the muscle in your body, then by all means, eat 650 calories. You will absolutely NOT build any muscle eating 650 calories. You won't even get toned or lean....you will shrink away your muscle and be every bit of "skinny fat".

    But at 5'4 and 140 pounds, I'd be eating more like 1800 calories a day....maybe even more depending on your job and lifestyle.
  • shortt123
    shortt123 Posts: 39 Member
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    Thank you supertiredmom for your comment about Victoria secret models not being the greatest source of inspiration, their pics are so photoshopped
  • abideedum
    abideedum Posts: 71 Member
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    So if OP was doing 5:2 (i know she isn't but just go with me here) what would be the answer then? Insanity on the days your not fasting?? Obviously it would go against the insanity food plan but what would peoples reactions be then?
  • snowmaniac
    snowmaniac Posts: 600 Member
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    Based on your height, weight, and age, your approximate TDEE just to stay right where you are would be around 1650 - 1700 calories per day if you are not even exercising. If you plan on doing an intense program like insanity, you will probably need to eat closer to 2400 - 2600 calories per day if you are just looking to maintain. Do you want to lose more weight or add muscle? You can't do both at the same time. If you follow the Insanity Nutrition Guide, which is the right way to do the program, they will probably peg you around 2700 - 3000 calories per day if you want to add lean body mass believe it or not. If you aren't going to do the program the right way, I would highly recommend you not do it at all.

    BTW, here is a link to the Insanity Nutrition guide if you got the discs second hand and do not have the support information.
    http://www.teamunify.com/cast/__doc__/Insanity Nutrition Guide.pdf
    Do the calculations yourself and see.
  • shortt123
    shortt123 Posts: 39 Member
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    I think everybody is different, and everyone's caloric load is going to be different, especially when you factor activity level into the equation. What works for you may not work for someone else. What do you eat to make up 650 calories?

    Now that I'm back on the healthy wagon, lol, I may return to a healthy protein diet, it's only 1000 calories, which is still very low. Actually when I followed it before, and felt great I should add, I know I had more than 1000 calories at the end of the day.

    Eat when your hungry. Don't eat when you are not, unless of course it's at the time of day when you should eat.

    Do you have energy, & feel good on 650 calories a day?
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
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    So if OP was doing 5:2 (i know she isn't but just go with me here) what would be the answer then? Insanity on the days your not fasting?? Obviously it would go against the insanity food plan but what would peoples reactions be then?

    when you do 5:2 you eat at maintenance on the 'feast' days and 500 cals on the fast days, so yes, you could do insanity on the feast days, though i always found that i was hungry the day after insanity... so i wouldnt fancy trying to only eat 500 cals the day after pure cardio!
  • shortt123
    shortt123 Posts: 39 Member
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    Oh & I don't count calories anymore. Eating sensibly is better, For me anywAy.
    Of course, however, I do have a rough idea how many calories I've had at the end of the day
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    So if OP was doing 5:2 (i know she isn't but just go with me here) what would be the answer then? Insanity on the days your not fasting?? Obviously it would go against the insanity food plan but what would peoples reactions be then?
    If she were following 5:2 with the "typical" women's TDEE of 2000 cals then the numbers are quite stark....

    5:2 = 11,000 cals per week (average 1,571 daily)
    OP's 650 x 7 = 4,550

    Personally I don't find fasted training a problem but it did take a while to get used to.

    OP - please eat more before you harm yourself.
  • GillianMcK
    GillianMcK Posts: 401 Member
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    So you want you to do more on less fuel, think of your body as a machine, if you want a machine to do more/go further you're going to have to put more fuel in for this to happen.

    So you've only been doing this a week because you want to lose weight, unless you are planning to become anorexic and all the issues that go along with that then this diet is not sustainable.

    Eat calories at a rate to maintain a sensible weight loss of 1lb a week, this is a sustainable lifestyle and teaches you how to eat when you're maintaining weight, yeah you'll probably see huge losses in the first few weeks eating at 650 calories but this will be water and glycogen stores that you're losing (how you will complete insantity workouts with severely depleted glycogen stores I don't know), but as soon as you go back to eating a normal number of calories you're glycogen stores will build up and you'll put weight back on (for my weight loss I'm aiming for 5lbs below where I want to be to allow for this happening when I switching to maintaining.

    At 650 calories a day you are in effect promoting an anorexic lifestyle which is not allow on these forums.
  • Grumpellina
    Grumpellina Posts: 49
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    People aren't trying to be mean to you/are not being mean to you. People are concerned and there is a difference. You posted this in a public forum that can be accessed without anyone even having an account to this site, so you must expect that people are going to read your thread fully and voice their opinions about what you are doing and attempt to give you advice. That is as far as they can go, though. We can only hope that you pay mind to what we are trying to tell you because you will end up hurting yourself if you are not careful. To put it kindly for you, you need to eat more food and actually workout, or you will damage your body in the long run. You will end up binging and ultimately gain a lot of the weight back, if not more, and this is in no way healthy to you because you will then become even more frustrated to try to lose it again. If you don't want to do weights, fine. Become a cardiobunny and cardio it out, and eat more. If you are looking to get definition and muscle mass, that is also not the way to go. In order for your body to actually gain muscle mass you will need to eat more, so that your muscles have food and can grow. You can't expect a plant to grow in concrete, don't expect your body to do the same without fuel. Re-comping is more difficult than cardio and takes a lot more time, specially when you are at a deficit because you are only tiring your muscles out and not actually gaining any mass; losing is more like it. Please contact a dietician if you don't believe it. We are only trying to help you, not criticize you.
  • squiguk
    squiguk Posts: 29 Member
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    I've done Insanity and if done properly, it literally is insane! I'd be genuinely concerned for you to try it on only 650 calories a day, I'm sure it would make you dizzy/sick and it definitely wouldn't give you muscle definition (if you did complete the programme).

    In my opinion, wanting to lose weight for a specific reason and wanting to be fit, healthy and toned are 2 different things - I've done plenty of 'quick fix' plans that do work short-term but the weight always gopes back on. So its always better to consider fitness as a long-term goal, eat healthy food (and enough of it!), do regular exercise and your body will thank you for it...
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,401 MFP Moderator
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    Dear Posters,

    I wanted to offer a brief explanation for the locking of this thread.

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