Does it matter what I eat in my calorie budget?
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Congratulations if that works for you - and yes, getting sufficient protein is vital - but there's no particular need for most people to go low carb, or to time their carbohydrate or general food intake.Try to eat a high protein low carb diet. I don't eat carbs after 3pm. You need carbs but they can also keep the weight on you. Also protein is important as it helps build muscle.0 -
For the food I tend to eat most of the time I try to apply the 5% fat per 100g rule (from a diet I did several years ago), though on the odd occasion I might treat (or if I've had a crappy day) myself to a pizza or spinach & ricotta tortellini with tomato & mascarpone sauce. Even the peanut butter (which I do measure) is a low fat version (and know that it's still over 5% fat, but came across it in the Insanity nutrition guide) and I buy oven chips that are lower in fat.
After following the 5% diet I feel guilty having something with a huge calorie or fat content, even if I'm having filled tortellini, if there is one that has 380 cals and another for 400 cals, majority of the time I tend to go for the one with fewer cals. I feel guilty if I eat anything high in cals, even all the ready meals I go for are a low fat version.
I don't weigh bananas, just put it down as small or medium in my food diary, but I always weigh out the summer fruits or grapes. The only treat I allow myself on a regular basis is a bottle of wine on a Friday and one on a Saturday, which is about 518 cals each, I know is empty cals, but I still count it and I don't have chocolate, sweets or biscuits in the house.
I started T25 2 weeks ago and thought I'd mention about being in the garden for 5hrs (nearly 50mins just mowing the lawns - there are 4!) is in case someone looked at my diary and noticed that I'd earned 1300+ in exercise. I don't drive so it means walking or bus to get anywhere and don't own a HRM or pedometer. I weigh myself in the same thing first thing on a Monday morning (though have to do this on a Saturday for the T25 too) and I measure myself on the first weekend of every month and again this is first thing wearing the same each time.
I know that some of the replies are aimed at the OP, but for the ones where I'm not sure are aimed at me, I just thought I'd share this info. However, whoever the advice is aimed at, it's all very helpful. Thank you.
Empty calories are fine. Just make sure you track them and also that you're getting enough nutritionally dense food as well. Completely cutting out foods you love and think about all the time could actually impede your long term success
You didn't need me to tell you to ditch the whole 5% fat mentality, did you? Okay here goes: ditch it. Don't let crazy diet rules drive you crazy! Track your intake accurately, lose weight. The End
Ah. No HRM or pedometer. This would actually make it harder to determine what you're burning. Some would argue that even with these toys, you can't really accurately calculate your burn either. Even without accurate activity tracking what we do know is that if you're not losing weight over a LONG ENOUGH period like six weeks, you must be eating at maintenance calories or higher. Would you be willing to forget eating back daily activity calories as a whole and just target a fixed amount everyday? I wonder if this may not be better for you. Google "TDEE calculator" and come up with daily caloric intake to reduce weight, and compare to what you've been eating. The scooby one seems to be very popular. I'm just going to shamelessly steal what poster "vismal" said in his weight loss thread:
"TDEE will always just be an estimate. It's a starting point. If your TDEE is 2100 and you want to lose around a lb a week, set your calories to 1600 (do not eat back exercise calories as they are taken into consideration already in determining your tdee). If after a few weeks you do not lose weight first make sure your tracking is accurate, you are weighing out food not estimate portion sizes, not having cheat days/meals, etc. If you are confident in your tracking and you are still not losing weight, drop down to 1500 then see what happens. Keep slowly reducing calories until weight loss occurs. More often then not stalls are from poor tracking of intake, not too high of a caloric goal."
Everything you said about your activity: no HRM, taking the bus, lots of walking, gardening etc seem to indicate your activity calories could be a wildcard. Keep up the daily and extra activity, but since the actual net caloric burn from those can be really hard to determine accurately, you must find a more robust method to account for them
If you'd still prefer to eat different calories everyday, you can watch a weekly average. The MFP app has a section in the Nutrition tab that'll show you a weekly histogram, average calories for the week, and how many calories you have left
Good luck.0 -
My rule is I try to eat 80% for health/to fuel my workouts and 20% for pleasure. Yes, as long as you are on a deficit you will lose. But I've eaten both ways: garbage and nutrient dense food. When I lose sight of macros and micronutrients, my energy, digestion, and general immunity seem to be impaired in comparison. I find that I am in the best health and have the best athletic performance when I focus my diet around lean proteins, fruits, veggies, nuts and even a little dairy works well *for me* every day. However, I give myself the latitude to eat a snack size bag of chips at work or I go to ice cream on the weekends. I eat bacon and eggs like they are going out of style. I never beat myself up for eating whatever I want at a restaurant because I rarely go and it's a treat. I guess I just try to treat my body right but also have a healthy relationship with food where no food is demonized. I choose not to eat flour much, but that's just because that's something that works well for me (the more empty carbs I eat, the more carbs I want!).
Find what works for you, but remember that you could be having a journey to better overall health, not just weight loss. :flowerforyou:
P.S. Also for me, eating more protein helps me stay fuller and more satisfied longer. It has also helped me retain my muscle mass through my weight loss.0 -
Depends on goals. Is your goal purely weight loss or is your goal to be healthy and decrease risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke etc. No argument that decreasing calories below daily expenditure will result in weight loss. However cdc estimates are that 7 million americans have undiagnosed diabetes which is a direct result of our food consumption, quantity and quality. Untreated and undiagnosed diabetes leads to stroke, heart disease, kidney failure etc. The results may not be apparent for years but the damage is there none the less. Finding the balance between healthy and enjoyable diet is difficult with our current lifestyles, I struggle everyday with it but also know that it is worth it when we find that balance and that our bodies will be able to carry us through a lifetime of enjoying life instead of struggling to get through the day. Good luck on your journey.0
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Those aren't the healthiest foods but they all fit my calorie budget.... is that ok?
The more active you are, the more important the actual food choices become, and the quicker the effects of bad choices will be felt.
The less active you are, the less they matter, and the longer it takes to feel the effects of bad choices.0 -
My experience is the opposite.The more active you are, the more important the actual food choices become.
The less active you are, the less they matter.
Here's one example:
http://www.simplyshredded.com/the-science-of-nutrition-is-a-carb-a-carb.html
Reasonably fit and healthy people don't need to worry about the type of carbs they consume, but overweight/unfit people may want to pay more attention to it.
Have you got some citations/explanations and so on to back up your view point out of interest (as this is an area that DOES interest me particularly.)0 -
Have you got some citations/explanations and so on to back up your view point out of interest (as this is an area that DOES interest me particularly.)
Eating a high-fat, low-carb diet and then trying to run endurance distances will lead to misery and poor performance.
Particularly in terms of macro ratios, what you do needs to be reflected in what you eat.0 -
Eat whatever you want as long as it's in your calorie budget. Seriously. I only learned that since joining here in Feb. Only thing with me, is I try to eat a lot of veggies for no other reason except that you can eat a lot for little calories and I like to be full.
QFT
I partake in quite a bit of "junk" but I find that it doesn't satisfy me for long. So I'm doing much better on using minimum amounts of junk (like 1 oz of baked potato chips, or 30 chocolate covered raisins) with large amounts of nutrient dense foods. I've rediscovered the awesomeness of salads. I can have 7 cups of pure deliciousness (including some cheese!) for 400 calories. This keeps me full ALL AFTERNOON. I tend to do salads for lunch so I can splurge on a high calorie dinner - like tonight's soft tacos.0 -
I partake in quite a bit of "junk" but I find that it doesn't satisfy me for long.
This as well. First plan I tried was eat anything within calories but that just left me miserable. Low carb diet works for me though, not hungry all the time anymore, and no cravings. BUT as Mr. Knight said, that really won't work if your fitness programme includes endurance training and long sessions of cardio.
Eating anything under limit is totally fine if you're fine with it, is all I'm trying to say. But complimenting whatever exercises you do with right food can't be a bad thing.0 -
Ah, I thought you were referring to 'micros' rather than 'macros' - I'd quite agree as far as macros go and it helping to achieve specific sports related goals goes. My highest recorded carb day so far was over 800g when 'carb loading' for an ultramarathon.0
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Depends on goals. Is your goal purely weight loss or is your goal to be healthy and decrease risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke etc. No argument that decreasing calories below daily expenditure will result in weight loss. However cdc estimates are that 7 million americans have undiagnosed diabetes which is a direct result of our food consumption, quantity and quality. Untreated and undiagnosed diabetes leads to stroke, heart disease, kidney failure etc. The results may not be apparent for years but the damage is there none the less. Finding the balance between healthy and enjoyable diet is difficult with our current lifestyles, I struggle everyday with it but also know that it is worth it when we find that balance and that our bodies will be able to carry us through a lifetime of enjoying life instead of struggling to get through the day. Good luck on your journey.
These are purely my opinions and I'm obviously not a nutrition professional:
a) Eating whatever, but at controlled calories is often a vast improvement over how many of us would have eaten prior to deciding to lose weight
b) Deciding to loosen up the reigns and eat whatever really has meant whatever in my case: tofu cheesecake, my favorite item in DQ right now is their Asian peanut salad, single serving brownies, apple slices as a workout snack, cooking beans again - packing it for lunch, eating it with potatoes sometimes. Eggs eggs and more eggs. Somehow I think I would not have been open to all this if I drove myself into a mini panic saying eat this and not that. Maybe I'm that different. But ultimately as things normalize, I'm naturally eating mostly food and sometimes junk. I do have to keep certain items out of the house - there's just no controlled way for me to eat them in reasonable quantities right now0 -
I do ~10 hours per week of fairly intense exercise mostly or all cardio depending on what you call BodyPump. I took a targeted approach to the fuel for exercise and take apple slices with me to classes. If I'm starting to feel low on fuel I munch on a couple. If it's just not happening I'll leave the class and go home
Perhaps if I were moving 200 - 400 lbs for fitness, this would absolutely not be an option0 -
Well, everybody has their own 'fuel mix'. That said, you have to log what you eat to find it. Can you eat whatever you want? In moderation. At some point in time you'll find that you can't eat as much with the less healthy foods. You'll be sitting there hungry with all of your calorie budget in your stomach wanting to gnaw your arm off. You do need to incorporate the good with the bad in order to get the volume of food you need to not be hungry.0
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Out of interest, what are you 'targetting' with apple?I took a targeted approach to the fuel for exercise and take apple slices with me to classes.
Apple is high in fructose and fairly low in glucose.
Fructose isn't very good at replensihing muscle glycogen - glucose is much better, yet you've chosen a fruit that has pretty high fructose levels and low glucose levels?
I would expect some sweets like jelly babies would do a much better job of giving you energy.
I'd suspect that for the case of providing energy for a workout, an apple would be 'junk' and the "processed sweets" would be 'real food'
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Out of interest, what are you 'targetting' with apple?I took a targeted approach to the fuel for exercise and take apple slices with me to classes.
Apple is high in fructose and fairly low in glucose.
Fructose isn't very good at replensihing muscle glycogen - glucose is much better, yet you've chosen a fruit that has pretty high fructose levels and low glucose levels?
I would expect some sweets like jelly babies would do a much better job of giving you energy.
I'd suspect that for the case of providing energy for a workout, an apple would be 'junk' and the "processed sweets" would be 'real food'.
LOL
The problem with the jelly beans is they would be gone in a week. Or a day. Can't very well do their job if they don't exist!
I pretty much have to be fairly desperate to eat apples, so all I have to do is buy a bag or two whenever I go grocery shopping and they'll be there in the fridge waiting for me whenever I pack my lunch/gym bag in the morning
I am not an expert on sucrose or glucose. There's probably much better choices out there! I figured apples have sugar. When I'm starting to feel 'meh' enough I grab a bite. Once when I forgot my apples I bought a banana at the gym.
But ya know I think you're right. When they had the free peanut M&Ms at the gym that was the happiest time of my workout life. 2 or 3 or 5 between classes and I seemed to be set for the next class! Some jerks may have complained about the temptation staring them in the face at a gym, though. :noway: Or whomever was buying them ran out of money or Easter candy. Never did find out the origins!!0 -
I do suffer the same with having sweets lying around.
Saying that, I impressed myself on a couple of morning club runs taking a whole bag with me and offering them to others, but not eating any myself. When I did an ultramarathon I tried to make a point of eating a few every hour or so to keep energy levels topped up as best possible - seemed to work ok along with the carb preloading as energy wasn't really the issue - just aching legs!
Separating them out in to individual bags when I first buy helps me.
Other fruits have considerably more sucrose comapred to fructose.
From a little googling - grapes are getting near 1;1 and bananas have high levels of glucose and sucrose with relatively little fructose.0 -
I do suffer the same with having sweets lying around.
Saying that, I impressed myself on a couple of morning club runs taking a whole bag with me and offering them to others, but not eating any myself. When I did an ultramarathon I tried to make a point of eating a few every hour or so to keep energy levels topped up as best possible - seemed to work ok along with the carb preloading as energy wasn't really the issue - just aching legs!
Separating them out in to individual bags when I first buy helps me.
Other fruits have considerably more sucrose comapred to fructose.
From a little googling - grapes are getting near 1;1 and bananas have high levels of glucose and sucrose with relatively little fructose.
Sweet! I'll definitely keep looking into this property of fruits and other food items. Guess I'm a lost cause , though - bananas and grapes, both banned from my house. If there's a bunch of two bananas going bad in the "managers sale" section I'll pick those up. The nice big fat cherries , too. I just have a sweet tooth and whenever nature has done a great job sweetening certain items those will get inhaled at indiscriminate quantities just like cake!
Great job with sharing your sweets! Strangely enough that thought never occurs to me 0 -
For strict weight loss it does not matter..as long as you come in with a calorie deficit.
if you are looking to be healthy, it matters what you eat.
So it depends on your goals and what you want.0 -
I eat what I like but have upped the protein for weight lifting.0
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Thanks for the advice for both myself and OP. I think I might up my protein a bit and check the TDEE for advice re cals etc. I've just had some sausages and fries (thought I deserved it after spending 10hrs gardening this weekend!) and still got 1100+ cals outstanding. Thankfully all the hrs spent gardening is a one off, cos I've done most of the work that was needed but couldn't do cos of all the rain we've had.
Looking back at my diary, it seems that sometimes I haven't eaten my full calorie allowance before doing any exercise, maybe my stomach has gone into starvation mode? Anyway, I'll play around with it for a few weeks or so and continue tracking, which I have been doing, and see what happens. I only want to lose the last 10-14lbs, but also want to get muscle definition - instead of fat.
Just out of curiousity, if you've exercised in the evening before your main meal and don't feel hungry, what do you do? I didn't have my tea till 1 1/2hrs after gardening and even then I had to force myself. Thanks0 -
No.
A) 'Starvation mode' is pretty much a myth.
Such adaptations happen over considerably more extended periods - days of eating incredibly little, many weeks seriously under eating and so on.
Don't feel hungry? I don't follow?
BUT.... I would say it depends on your defict and what you consider acceptable.
If I was had a fair bit of weight to lose and was on a 250 calorie deficit, I'd be happy to miss out on an extra 500 calories for a day, so my deficit was 750.
If I was on the same 250 calorie deficit but didn't have much to lose, I'd be mote tempted to eat it back.0 -
Thanks for the advice for both myself and OP. I think I might up my protein a bit and check the TDEE for advice re cals etc. I've just had some sausages and fries (thought I deserved it after spending 10hrs gardening this weekend!) and still got 1100+ cals outstanding. Thankfully all the hrs spent gardening is a one off, cos I've done most of the work that was needed but couldn't do cos of all the rain we've had.
Looking back at my diary, it seems that sometimes I haven't eaten my full calorie allowance before doing any exercise, maybe my stomach has gone into starvation mode? Anyway, I'll play around with it for a few weeks or so and continue tracking, which I have been doing, and see what happens. I only want to lose the last 10-14lbs, but also want to get muscle definition - instead of fat.
Just out of curiousity, if you've exercised in the evening before your main meal and don't feel hungry, what do you do? I didn't have my tea till 1 1/2hrs after gardening and even then I had to force myself. Thanks
Three possibilities for me:
1. Let it be. No dinner
2. Skip dinner. Wake up at 2 in the morning and eat some grub
3. I actually started trying to figure out smaller meals for evenings I just didn't feel like eating much. For example I did a banana with a tablespoon of peanut butter and 1 to 3 boiled or fried eggs for a while there. Guess this is an entire dinner to some people but the basic idea is to still try to eat something, that is maybe not your typical complicated cooked for an hour sit down dinner
Since you're just trying to lose 10-14 lbs it really makes sense that with such a small deficit, eating back inaccurate calories will easily wipe out your progress for an entire week. Also tracking condiments, sauces , splurges, night snacking, weekends, cheat days - all this must be accounted for an averaged out before you can conclude you're tracking accurately and showing a deficit0
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