Diet advice/ calorie intake.

Magill

Since New year i've really cleaned up my diet, i cut out all the junk and mostly stuck with good low fat recipes. I started cutting out most of the "Bad" carbs in the last 2/3 weeks with just having small portion of rice, maybe twice a week at most and a wheaten loaf being the only major carb sources i've been eating during the week.

A typical days meals are like follows.

breakfast - 3 weetabix with a very small handful of dried fruit /w semi skimmed milk

Lunch - Veg/Carrot soup /w slice of wheaten bread sometimes

Dinner - lean meat or fish with a lettuce/tomato/onion salad /w 2 slices of wheaten.

I'll eat fresh fish twice a week (250-300g Salmon/haddock/Trout fillet) , a lean steak once and chicken/turkey on the other days. Sometimes instead of the salad i'll eat a lot of mix veg with a small portion of white rice (Brown rice is disgusting..)

Snacks i've been sticking to just a couple of fruit per day (Orange's or some grapes mostly) and maybe a pack of low fat crisps once on the weekend or if the bellys rumbling at 7-8pm i'll take another couple of weetabix.

So by my calculations im probably consuming between 1500-1900 calories(Maybe less actually.. poor math :P). The only problem is going by some calculators online i should be taking between 2700-2900 to maintain my weight.


Im 6'4, 308 last weigh in, yesterday (I've lost about a stone since i started weighing myself just over 16 days ago).

Im at uni 4 days a week and have just started doing lightweights this week (Will be sunday/monday + wednesdays), at home from thursdays - sunday mornings so i don't be as active but i do walk my dogs (Approx 2.5-3 mile per walk, thursday - saturday). So i'd say im at least somewhat active.

Anyway im not sure if im eating far too few calories, but i really don't know how else i could keep the count higher without eating what are apparently unhealthy foods for weight loss. I feel fine and certainly don't feel like im drained of energy compared to before newyear. Any advice on the diet would be excellent.

saa

Two words, good fats!
The base number that is thrown around for males is 1800, which is in dispute but just a guide if you add in some good fats that will up your calorific intake, just because its fat doesn't mean its instantly stored at fat, numbers aside you just need to make sure your body keeps burning fat and working properly, maybe wait until you hit a plateau and then up the calories and change up the exercise, and if you feel fine and you're function well on what you're eating then don't worry your body will tell you when something is wrong not some article online (gosh so many weight loss guides contradict each other you just have to figure out what works for you), you're not starving yourself (and hopefully not depriving yourself!) but if you stop loosing keeping your cals at 1800-1900 would still be creating a huge calorie deficit.

Believe me I've been doing this since July, after xmas I of course got a renewed sense of wellbeing, improved my diet tremendously, I didn't even think about junk food, couldn't imagine wanting it again, thought this was a new start and I'd never got back but honestly what caused you to go past 300 pounds just doesn't dissapear in few months its still there, and I snapped and thought ah feck it instead of facing the cause of the weight gain and managing trigger foods and situations like parties or friends houses where I have no control over food. Oh and I was taking it far too seriously in the negative way I was focused too much on numbers, I am not a number, this process will take more than a year so now I am joining a gym and keeping active while keeping up the good food habits instead of following every single calorie in and out, it only work for me for a few months but I know for other people they do it for a year or two and it does the job, there is just a risk factor as always with regain because the original reason they gained weight does not disappear with the pounds.

Sorry for the long post just thought another view from someone in the same situation would be of some use to someone out there.

saa

Oh and I just remembered if I could start again I would have ate more and not as "healthy" at the start of the weight loss when my body was burning more and then gradually reduce things to keep moving with the lower and lower calorific needs for my new lighter weight.
And to avoid snapping back.