Sport New fitness minded person seeking nutrition advice

[jhuerena]

So I started my new lifestyle 2 weeks ago and I'm struggling with a few things I can maybe get some pointers on. First, a bit about me.

I'm male, 5'7"@245lbs. I'm very fat. But my biggest stumbling block right now is my eating. It's not that I eat too much, it's that for 15 years I've been eating too little. I haven't eaten breakfast since I was 8, and I haven't eaten lunch since I was in high school. I was down to 1 meal a day for 10 years now and with all the stickies and other thread advice, I'm trying to work in breakfast and lunch into my eating habits.

My question is two pronged:

How long until my body leaves "starvation mode" so that it's not trying to store all the extra food I'm giving it and instead uses it for daily energy?

How can I eat 3-5 meals a day without feeling completely stuffed all the time?

I am eating healthier, and taking in about 1500 calories a day on average (counted) with a fluctuation of as high as 1700, low as 1200.

Thanks,

Justin

 

[nicolaw]

If you start eating better foods, your body will be loving you, regardless of the calories. Basically just stick with it, only eat till your full (but make sure you do eat at least 3 times a day). It will be easy for you to slip back into old habits, especially if you're on the run in the morning and your body just doesn't want food. Maybe just start with fruit, yoghurt, something small like that.

What's your exercise like? because those calorie amounts are probably suitable for someone not so active.

Congrats on making this lifestyle change too, anything will help at this stage.

 

[jhuerena]

I don't have a set "routine" so to speak, as far as exercise goes, that's something I was trying to get a bit of advice on in the weight loss forum. What I do do is 6 days a week, I go to the gym and do cardio. Every third day I do weights in a full body workout, doing the machine assisted circuit my gym has, 3 sets of 8 on all 16 stations. I don't have a social life beyond my family so I do have a lot of time to burn after work.

Before I changed diets, I was consuming maybe 1000 calories in 1 meal a day. Now that I'm exercising, I know I need to increase my calorie intake, but I also want to burn off fat, which I seem to be doing at a steady pace of about 3lbs a week.

Justin

 

[Chillen]

So I started my new lifestyle 2 weeks ago and I'm struggling with a few things I can maybe get some pointers on. First, a bit about me.

Welcome to the forum, I think you will enjoy the people here and the information you receive.

I'm male, 5'7"@245lbs. I'm very fat. But my biggest stumbling block right now is my eating. It's not that I eat too much, it's that for 15 years I've been eating too little. I haven't eaten breakfast since I was 8, and I haven't eaten lunch since I was in high school. I was down to 1 meal a day for 10 years now and with all the stickies and other thread advice, I'm trying to work in breakfast and lunch into my eating habits.

There is nothing written in stone where you have to eat frequent/multiple meals per day, every day, to lose tissue; it "can be" quite the contrary actually. Most will recommend multiple meals for physiological reasons, such as staying full longer, reducing hunger cravings (but it doesn't necessarily get rid of them), and other reasons that may be more person specific. There has been a few quality studies on this.

I normally recommend multiple meals for the deficit dieter, primarily because it can real in personal benefits to "assist" the dieter to stay within their dietary perimeters, but its definitely not due to it have some kind of "magic" in improving one's metabolic system.

My question is two pronged:

How long until my body leaves "starvation mode" so that it's not trying to store all the extra food I'm giving it and instead uses it for daily energy?

The two word: Starvation Mode, gets thrown around a lot, but I refer to it as metabolic adaption. In a nutshell (keeping this very simplistic for readability), it is where the body makes various physiological/biological adaptions (increasing/decreasing the good/bad hormones, etc), while becoming more efficient with what you are doing with diet and activity. When this is heightened "enough" where the person sees this process in their results, can very from person to person, and can depend on various circumstances surround said hypothetical person.

No one (at this point, with your personal information given) can give you a "specific answer" to this question. In order to narrow down (if) you are possibly experiencing negative metabolic adaptions, we would have to put your diet/activity under examination, and some personal particulars.

Such as:

1. Your dietary trend: 1. How long in calorie deficits (weeks, months), 2. How large of calorie deficits, 3. Rate of tissue loss 4. Decline/increase in tissue loss within described time, 5. How faithful to calorie deficits, and so on and so forth.

2. Your activity level: Basically your training, etc.

(Brief synopsis, only)

I'm male, 5'7"@245lbs. I'm very fat.
I am eating healthier, and taking in about 1500 calories a day on average (counted) with a fluctuation of as high as 1700, low as 1200.

Thanks,

Justin

1500 calories, with just your gender, height, and weight in mind, is far too low. You do NOT have to insanely starve yourself to lose good tissue.

We need to discuss your BMR calories and calories with activities included, to get your calories and macros up to snuff. Your calories are far to low, young man.

Let me know when you see this post, and I will continue.

Much success to you, and peace and happiness


Chillen

 

[jhuerena]

Thanks for your reply, Chillen

I normally recommend multiple meals for the deficit dieter, primarily because it can real in personal benefits to "assist" the dieter to stay within their dietary perimeters, but its definitely not due to it have some kind of "magic" in improving one's metabolic system.

Well, I may be a bit out of the mold on this one then. With having 10 years of 1 meal a day, I've trained myself to ignore hunger pains to the point where there's times I don't even realize I'm hungry.

1. Your dietary trend: 1. How long in calorie deficits (weeks, months), 2. How large of calorie deficits, 3. Rate of tissue loss 4. Decline/increase in tissue loss within described time, 5. How faithful to calorie deficits, and so on and so forth.

Answers in order: 1. My dietary trend prior to two weeks ago would be ignore breakfast and lunch, eat 1 large dinner, if I had to guess max 1500 hundred calories in one sitting. This would be supplemented with soda and juice throughout the day, especially on weekends. -- 1. I've been in a true calorie deficit for 2 weeks only (may be longer, but this is when I started working on my fitness and calorie counting.) 2. I'm not sure how "large" my deficit is simply because my body has adjusted to maintain weight at my single meal status, so I don't know what my BMR is. 3. I haven't had my BMI officially measured so I cannot answer this accurately. I do know I've lost 4 lbs since I joined the gym on 7/2. 4. Again, I've lost weight but don't know about how much fat/muscle. 5. For two weeks, very faithful, counting every calorie.

2. Your activity level: Basically your training, etc.

Once I've started the gym (keep in mind this is still very recent), I've been going 5-6 days a week, cardio every day. I've set a weight regimen that I'm going to work on every third day, started that on Sunday. Otherwise, I work at a desk job and may go swimming at the gym with my kids on off days.

1500 calories, with just your gender, height, and weight in mind, is far too low. You do NOT have to insanely starve yourself to lose good tissue.

That's the problem though. I'm not hungry at all, I feel full, sometimes overly full, with my new eating habits. I've signed up for FITDAY and I'm faithfully inputting everything I eat and measuring portions so there's not a guessing game here.

Your calories are far to low, young man.

I know, but eating more makes me overfull and I'm concerned my body isn't digesting fast enough. I don't get hungry at all on my current eating habits and sometimes have to force myself to eat even though I don't feel hungry.

What should I do?

J

 

[tenreps]

HAVE you seen a doctor about your situation? COULD be your body has adapted to what you been doing for so long it will not respond to more food. IN any case it might be wise to seek some profesional help, if you haven,t already.=============GOOD LUCK AND STAY POSTED.

 

[jhuerena]

I was actually thinking about going to a doc. to see if I did some permanent damage to my metabolism, but I just noticed today that it seems things are speeding up for me. I was hungry this morning and got hungry again at around 11am. I'm hungry now actually, should probably go eat those carrots I brought with me to work but I was concerned a couple days ago when all I felt was full all the time. I actually made it to 2100 calories last night after dinner when I got back from the gym, and I didn't do it by feeding myself crap, it was lean pork roast, peas and 2 cups of milk.

J