Weight-Loss calories too few?

Weight-Loss
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Thndrstrck

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I'm 22, 6 feet tall and 170 pounds and I'm eating an average of 1300 calories a day, is that not enough? Some people have said its not enough but others have told me it is and im not sure which is right. I havent had much success losing fat with the 1300 calories a day but im afraid if I eat more ill gain fat.
 
Thndrstrck said:
I'm 22, 6 feet tall and 170 pounds and I'm eating an average of 1300 calories a day, is that not enough? Some people have said its not enough but others have told me it is and im not sure which is right. I havent had much success losing fat with the 1300 calories a day but im afraid if I eat more ill gain fat.
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At 170 pounds you are not fat. 1300 calories is very little for someone your size. Are you sure that is how much you are eating? How long have you been on the 1300 calorie diet? How much exercise do you get? What is your body fat percentage and how did you calculate it?
 
Ditto everything Harold said.

At your weight, height, and age, 1300 calories is WAY too little for you. A 5'2 130 lb woman is told to eat that much to lose weight ... why on earth would you think it would be enough for you?
 
i'm 5'10 145 and i lose weight eating more than that..i would put your minimum around 1700. if you're not losing weight there could be any number of factors causing it, such as water weight and eating more than you think (do you log your food accurately?) or impatience (how long has it been? weight loss isn't exactly linear)
 
I havent been eating 1300 for long, maybe 2 months. For exercise I lift weights 3 times a week and ride an exercise bike right after that. The rest of the week I usually run but I havent done that lately because of the heavy snow weve had where I live. Ive been trying to make up for that with running in place and jumping rope. I also do push-ups and crunchs everyday.
I don't know what my body fat % is.

I dunno why I settled on 1300 thats just what my usual daily meals ended up as most of the time. The meals I ate always seemed to be big enough and I felt full afterwards so I figured they were enough.
 
I can relate to this. I have a hard time hitting my recommended daily calories. For a while I was eating around 1400 (im 24 5'6 was close to 180lbs at the time) and I was not losing weight. I had a lot of energy for the most part but I wasnt eating enough. When I started counting my calories I noticed that not only was I not getting enough but the amount of protein and fiber in my diet was low. I made modifications to my eating habits and now I eat around 1700-1800 with the same amount of exercise and I have been losing weight consistently.

Just make sure you monitor your calories and ensure you get enough.
 
I do log my food everyday but I still find it hard to get beyond 1300-1400 in a day. I mean its hard enough to eat the amount needed for just maintaining weight let alone the extra you need for lifting weights and all that. One thing Ive considered is just buying some of those protein bars you see at health markets, those have a good amount of calories and such in them and would be easy to add in to what I eat. Is that a good idea do you guys think?
 
Don't do that. If you need more calories, then look at more calorie dense foods that are nutritionally healthy. Those bars are really not much more than candy bars.
 
I don't understand how you can find it hard to eat more healthy calories.

A handful of almonds
Some cottage cheese
Peanut butter
a couple of pieces of fruit (a banana, an orange, an apple)
some olive oil on a salad

I also don't understand how you can sustain a workout at your height and weight on as little as you eat.
 
I can handle actually doing the workouts I just usually feel like crap afterwards. So I made an account over on sparkpeople and it gave me a recommended daily calorie intake of 1610-1960. The low end of that is really not a whole lot more than I have been eating, do 300 calories truly make so much of a difference? Still does that look like a good number?
 
Yes, 300-500 calories make a huge difference.

That's like asking if 2 gallons of gas makes a difference between driving a subcompact and a sedan. :)
 
I don't understand how you can find it hard to eat more healthy calories.

A handful of almonds
Some cottage cheese
Peanut butter
a couple of pieces of fruit (a banana, an orange, an apple)
some olive oil on a salad
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I agree... Adding calories is probably the easiest thing you can possibly do... even healthy calories.

Nuts, seeds, and their butters (preferably raw) are extremely calorie dense.

And instead of only adding calories, you can also cycle your calories... do 3-5 low days to create a calorie deficit, and then a high day (your maintenance level or a little above that) to keep your metabolism going and to give yourself some extra calories and nutrients to recuperate.

Might not seem like a great difference, but it can make up a huge difference in your long-term results, not least because of the fact that you'll feel better overall.

At least, in my experience...
 
hanknicholson said:
And instead of only adding calories, you can also cycle your calories... do 3-5 low days to create a calorie deficit, and then a high day (your maintenance level or a little above that) to keep your metabolism going and to give yourself some extra calories and nutrients to recuperate.
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Medical case study to support this idea?
 
This whole calorie shifting idea has been going around various threads now and I wanted to see if anyone had any actual medical information to say this is actually true.
 
I will look for actual studies, but I know that Lyle McDonald has put out information on carb refeeds, i.e. that if you're doing low carb there are some metabolic changes you can counter by having 1 higher carb meal a week.

I think that may be confused with the psychological advantage of having a less diety meal every so often to keep you from feeling so stressed.

Then again, Martin Berk (I think) who promotes the whole Intermittant Fasting idea seems to think there's something to the idea of alternating between calorie surplus and calorie deficit - I think that's more geared toward fat loss while muscle building than metabolic advantage.

Finally, I have seen references to a study on 'starvation' diets where eating a higher calorie meal created a 'woosh' effect, although that was believed to have countered water retention rather than actually reversing the metabolic effects of being in a deficit.
 
The reason that calorie shifting works for so many people is that it allows them to stagger their intake to accommodate their lives, not because it has any metabolic benefit. Your metabolism doesn't adapt that fast, so the concept that you're "keeping your metabolism guessing" is just silly. :) Although there are some limited studies that show some form of random cycling may slow the metabolic adaptation that is normal when you reduce calories anyway.

Mostly what it does is give people a bit of flexibility in their eating over a period of time. It gives you the ability to have a "splurge" day or to accommodate eating out or office lunches or whatever ... by having your "high calorie" days coincide with these events.

It works really well for people who feel restricted or trapped by being tied down to the "same thing" (even if it's different food, but having to stick strictly to the same # of cals).
 
Here's a rather interesting article essentially discussing hunger & glucose and including some abstracts of studies.

John Berardi - Hungry, Hungry Hormones - Part I
John Berardi - Hungry, Hungry Hormones - Part II
John Berardi - Hungry, Hungry Hormones - Part III

Here's a brief summary of the author's conclusion:
Since there is no data, one way or the other, illustrating what happens in dieting weight lifters when refeeding, there's only speculation. Of course, Leptin itself aside, if there were some prolonged increase in Leptin, we should be able to measure the effects of this Leptin increase by observing increases in metabolic rate the day after the refeed. Unfortunately, metabolic increases as a result of acute overfeeding aren’t observed a day after the overfeed (or refeed). But no matter, I don’t want to make a big deal about either of these points. As I’ve indicated in previous columns, I do see other good reasons (i.e. a psychological break from dieting, increased adherence, better glycogen status, more intense workouts) for refeeding besides the Leptin issue.
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Seems like a very small amount of calories. I used to limit myself 1800 (male 5ft 7) when I was dieting and doing 20 min of excercise a day. This worked and I lost just over 50 lbs in 7 months. I am now at 120 lbs goal weight eating healthy and consuming about 2200 calories. If you eat to small of an amount your body goes into starvation mode and then you really won't be able to utilize your metabolism to keep your body functioning properly. I made that mistake once and it took about 2 months of healing my body to straighten it out.
 
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