Increased exercise & weight loss

captain P

*@mods... could you fix the title of the post and get rid of where it says amp; (no idea where that came from*

Hi!

Sorry for the long post!

Just looking for a bit of advice. Due to a change in circumstances I've recently increased the amount of exercise I'm doing and soon it'll be going up a bit more (see: my training log).

I've had to move back to my parents house & it means I don't have as much control over what I eat as I did. I can use their kitchen - but it's a bit awkward.
I'm concerned that with the increased exercise that I'll start dropping weight. I don't mind losing a bit, but I don't want to lose too much. I'm female, 26, 165cm (5'5") and approx 53-54kg (no scales in my parents, so that's a guess based on what I was before I moved).

Typical daily diet at the moment:

Breakfast: Porridge with handful raisins & sunflower seeds, banana & Supermilk (on the weekends I'll have toast & tea too).
10.30am: some oatcakes with philadelphia or something similar
Lunch: usually homemade salad with tuna, mayo, chickpeas, spinach, tomatoes, cucumber, onion, couscous/pasta, peppers, cheese etc.. depending what's available.
Dinner: At the moment most days is salad with a quorn fillet of sorts, maybe some potatoes.

I drink about 2L of water daily, more if I'm running.

3 or 4 evenings a week I'll have popcorn (made at home on the hob with sunflower oil and salt) & a glass of 7up. During the day I'll sometimes have a bag of crisps or a bar of chocolate. I LOVE my beer, and usually have several pints and maybe some wine on the weekends. But I've recently decided to cut beer out for a few months as it was affecting my stomach. If drinking now I'll have wine or some spirit & mixer.

I reckon I take about 1700 calories in a day.

I have IBS and find that meat, pasta, bread, sugary food and dairy aggrevate it, so try not to eat too much of them. I find meat the easiest to avoid and rarely eat it the last 2 years. I have bad sinuses so can't really afford to increase dairy without that being affected.

Any tips? Should I increase portion size? Would protein shakes be of any benefit of me? Do I even need to change anything or just keep up with what I'm doing?

Really appreciate any advice !

How do you feel about nuts? They're a really easy way to get extra calories into your diet. Or Oils?

Essentially you should try and replace any lost calories with calorie dense foods so that you don't actually feel like you're eating an awful lot more. Nuts and oils would be ideal for this, as they are very calorie dense, and you'd easily be able to snack away on 4/500 kcals of them a day.

captain P

Thanks Jaziel Shy Carpentry, not a big nut fan...but don't hate them. Good idea, I'll pop to Aldi over the weekend and pick some up and see which ones i like.

metamorphosis

Nut butters , oils like said, coconut oil especially - yum, full fat milk, cream and cheese, nuts - all simp,e ways to keep up calorie content. So easy to not lose weight with the increase in exercise then.

Do you know your BMR? once you do, its easy adjust then with added exercise to maintain or just lose a little

captain P

Thanks for the tips . I'll pop into some health food shops & Aldi/Lidl today or tomorrow and have a browse at the nuts/ oils etc.

My BMR, depending on the calculator seems to be between 1280 and 1350, and putting myself as moderately active I need about 2100 cals to break even. I reckon aiming for 2000 a day should be ok - and if I drop more weight I can increase it again.

I think cutting out the beer I would've normally had on the weekends is one of the biggest changes - that was probably keeping my calorie intake up !