My diet.. am I eating enough?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

the last couple of months I've been working on fixing my diet and generally I've been doing ok, haven't had any sugar or milk in the apartment since february iirc and barring the occasional impulse bought take-away once (maybe twice) a month I've been pretty strict about it.

but i was reading a thread here, and someone suggested to track your calories on http://www.livestrong.com/myplate/ so I figured I'd give it a go. It reccomended a daily calorie intake of 1400 or so for someone my weight, how much i was looking to lose (2.5 a week.. I just picked it at random) and with my level of exercise (i occasionaly walk to the toilet).
I put my general diet into the form and it said I was getting 1000 calories a day. Is that ...ok for a 14 stone 28 y/o man.

generally I eat for breakfast - a handful of sunflower seeds. Sometimes I'll make some porridge and throw the seeds into it, but I'm getting by with just the seeds and am not hungry until lunch time so they seem to be working.
Sometimes I'll have 2-3 boiled eggs instead

Lunch I don't have anything set.. I might have a banana and a pear, I might have 2 pears, I might boil 2-3 eggs if I didn't have them for breakfast that day.

Dinner I usually fry a chicken breast, a pepper and 1-2 red onions, with some steamed broccoli and carrots (quite a bit of these) and then a bit of brown rice.

if I get hungry later on I have a pear, or an orange if I remembered to buy them.

I drink alot of water, or some rooibos tea throughout the day too.

I've lost half a stone or so in the past 3 weeks, i was 14.7 last time I was at my parents and I was 14.0 the last time I was there so I know I am losing weight but.. am I eating enough to be semi-healthy? I'm not starving during the day or anything which is why it never occured to me to check before, what I eat tends to do me but if 1400 a day is what's reccomended to lose 2.5lb's a week then is 1000 a day just idiocy?

g'em

Sir Digby Chicken Ceasar wrote:

it said I was getting 1000 calories a day. Is that ...ok for a 14 stone 28 y/o man.

In a word, no

That's very, very little for your body to be surviving on, and with the diet that you have it's extremely sparse on proteins and fats (not to mention other micronutrients). You'll lose weight purely by virtue of eating so little, but the sustainability of that kind of diet would be questionable to say the least.

It's great that you're taking the weight loss seriously, but sometimes when you make massive changes to your diet sheer determination can have a profound effect on your appetite, and we can fool ourselves into the alluring trap of thinking that eating very little = faster progress.

I'm even amazed that it recommended as little as 1400 cals a day for someone your age/ size. Are you positively absolutely sure that's right?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

yeah says 1409

"Your Recommended Daily Allowance based on a 2,000 calorie diet scaled to your calorie goal" and the goal was 2.5lbs a week

should I throw something proper together for lunch so, rather than just snacking on whatever fruit I have around. I've seen people say fish is a good lunch food but I've never been terrible fond of it. If it's just a case of buying some fish, grilling it and eating it with.. i dunno... tomatos and lettuce or something, Im sure I could force it down.

g'em

even without going through the huge big equations for working out calorie allowances that are even in the stickies the rule of thum that I always went by (and that I've seen recommended in various Fitness forums (fora? can never make up my mind on that) is

Weight gain = weight in lbs x 15
Weight maintenance = weight in lbs x 12
Weight loss = weight in lbs x 10 (and even that's extreme)

So in your case, @ 14 stone or 196lbs it would be 1960 cals/day.

Even the 'average' man is recommended to get 2,500 cals per day, 2,000 cals is recommended for women.

But anyway, yes, a fish addition at lunch would be great, preferably of the oily kind, like a tuna steak or salmon. And how about vegetables? Broccoli, cauliflower, kale, spinach etc.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

more broccoli? I tend to eat a full.. bushel.. or whatever of broccoli with dinner, as well as 3-4 carrots. I love it, but im pretty sure I dont want it for lunch and dinner.

I used to eat quite a bit of tuna alright, but stopped getting it recently. I'll start picking it up again, and maybe some salmon to throw into the freezer for whenever.

also.. so I'm theoretically down 1500 calories a day?
lol, yeah that's not good

g'em

sorry, I missed that part of your OP - long day :pac:

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

heh, I was wondering
thanks for the advice

yop

Very good thread, I would be the same as the OP with regards not been able to shed weight and I would have a good deal of exercise in a week.

I worked out the weight * 10 there and its telling me 2000 cals per day. I am 6ft, 14st 4lbs and can't shift under 14 stone now for over 1 year.

Is the logic that if you burn off 2000 cals in your exercise in a day, do you up your cal intake to 4000 calories to ensure that you are still on the "Lose weight" range?
If you dont what happens?

nic2ie

that *10 rule is very handy. I just converted my Kg into pounds haven't gone as far as putting it into stones because i think i would be too much of a shock ) One question I have is it better to eat 3 square meals a day or 5 or 6 smaller ones throughout the day?

Mellor

yop wrote: »

Is the logic that if you burn off 2000 cals in your exercise in a day, do you up your cal intake to 4000 calories to ensure that you are still on the "Lose weight" range?
If you dont what happens?

No you don't increase it. for lots of reasons.

1. You aren't doing 2000cals of exercise a day.
2. Even the excercise you are doing, you daily expediture includes for some activity, plus resting calories consumed. So the full amount comsumed during exercise isn't additional cals burned.
3. It's not a lose weight range either, too bit a deficit over a long period creates problems, a once off intense day won't stop your body burning fat.
4. Your fat stores, and mroe importantly the glycogen stores are what you burn during excercise, there's enough here to handle a days excercise, the food you do take in refills this. With the rest of your daily needs coming from fat stores, repeating this proces is how you lose weight