Calories, good fats etc.

miss.piggy

Hi all.
I am a 26 year old female, 5ft 8" and approx 10 and a quarter stone. I do plenty of exercise including lots of weights and am quite strong and toned. A typical week's exercise would be; 1 tough 45 minute spinning class, 1 body pump class (1 hour), 1 body balance class (stretching, pilates type class), 1 weights session in gym by myself, 1 approx 25 min run and maybe a few walks or half hour cycles. However I would like to lose some body fat as I would like a flatter stomach and there are a few pairs of trousers which used to fit me a couple of years back but are quite tight now!
Anyway my question is this; I have signed up to the fit day website and have started entering my food intake to get an idea of how many calories I am eating. According to it by total calorie requirement is approx 2,300 kcal. I have a really good diet, no junk (except for chocolate and home made cake at weekends!), not much bread and when I do it eat it is homemade and brown. Lots of veg etc. etc. For breakfast I usually have porridge made with soya milk and water and served with 1 tblsp udo's oil and 1 tblsp milled mixed seeds (flaxseed, sesame seed, pumpkin seeds and goji berries). Anyway when I was entering this on fitday I noticed that the oil and flaxseed mix adds quite a few calories and quite abit of fat. I am wondering if I would be better off cutting these out as maybe they are one of the things that are preventing me losing that little bit of body fat. What do you think? Do you think the health benefits are such that I should keep them in my diet?
Thanks

TommyKnocker

Hi There

I am no expert, just someone into keeping fit and healthy like yourself, but in my opinion I do not think that you need to worry about the tblspn of Udo's oil and milled mixed seeds. Both Udo's oil and Flax are 2 excellent sources of Essential Fatty Acids (EFA's) and the amount you mention is in no way excessive.

It would be worth while for you to post up your daily food intake with times and foods eaten. I am sure that some of the more knowledgeable folks on here would be able to point out where you could maybe tweak your diet slightly to help you achieve your goals.

Also you should see if your gym do body fat measurements and have yours measured. Then have it measured every 2-4 weeks and track the reduction in BF% rather then your overall weight on a scales, where you may be also losing lean muscle as well.

Is the 2,300 calories your requirement for maintenance or for fat loss? If it is your maintenance figure then you should look to drop it by around 400-500 calories per day (3,500) per week and keep up with the workouts to effect around a 1lb weekly weight loss, hopefully mostly from body fat, which would be both healthy and sustainable.


Best Regards,

M

corkcomp

miss.piggy wrote: »

Hi all.
I am a 26 year old female, 5ft 8" and approx 10 and a quarter stone. I do plenty of exercise including lots of weights and am quite strong and toned. A typical week's exercise would be; 1 tough 45 minute spinning class, 1 body pump class (1 hour), 1 body balance class (stretching, pilates type class), 1 weights session in gym by myself, 1 approx 25 min run and maybe a few walks or half hour cycles. However I would like to lose some body fat as I would like a flatter stomach and there are a few pairs of trousers which used to fit me a couple of years back but are quite tight now!
Anyway my question is this; I have signed up to the fit day website and have started entering my food intake to get an idea of how many calories I am eating. According to it by total calorie requirement is approx 2,300 kcal. I have a really good diet, no junk (except for chocolate and home made cake at weekends!), not much bread and when I do it eat it is homemade and brown. Lots of veg etc. etc. For breakfast I usually have porridge made with soya milk and water and served with 1 tblsp udo's oil and 1 tblsp milled mixed seeds (flaxseed, sesame seed, pumpkin seeds and goji berries). Anyway when I was entering this on fitday I noticed that the oil and flaxseed mix adds quite a few calories and quite abit of fat. I am wondering if I would be better off cutting these out as maybe they are one of the things that are preventing me losing that little bit of body fat. What do you think? Do you think the health benefits are such that I should keep them in my diet?
Thanks

id advise you to let your calorie intake as it is for now, you can always reduce it later ... Try switching your exercise program around, in terms of order, duration and / or intensity ... your body adapts to exercise relatively quickly - e.g. walking for an hour a day is great for a couch potato starting off but what if you already walk for an hour a day and want to loose weight?

EileenG

Can you post a link to your fitday account? I'd be interested to see what else you are eating.

One thing: I'd ignore what Fitday tells you about your maintenance calorie requirements. It always over-estimates. I found that in order to get me to tell me something that was close to reasonable, I had to enter myself as bed bound, and then enter whatever exercise I did that day. Fortunately, it has no problem with someone who is bed bound cycling 30 miles a day.

Fat is not a bad thing. Yes, it's high in calories, but you need quite a lot of fat in your diet for good health. Going too low in essential fatty acids will slow fat loss right down.

miss.piggy

Thanks for the replies.
Eileen G - I have only started with the fitday thing and I'm still building up my library of foods - I find alot of things aren't on there. So far I only have todays breakfast in!!
Yeah I was thinking that 2,300 kcal sounds like an awful lot - that's my maintenance requirement according to fitday but also using the method that I think b builder posted on here at one stage for calculating BMR and then multiplying by a factor depending on activity level.
To give you an idea my lunches vary alot but might be something like a salad with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, onion and kidney beans or a home cooked lentil dahl with veg in it or a small tin of sugar free beans and half a tin of salmon. For dinner I would usually have fish or chicken with lots of veg and maybe some sweet potato. I try not to snack in the evenings but might have something like a 40 kcal ice lolly or a belgian options hot choc (40 kcal) or some sugar free jelly. The weekends are similar but I would have some red wine and chocolate and maybe some homemade cake (I love cooking and baking). So I know they are probably my downfall.