Am I eating enough?

InfoHungry

Hi Everyone,

I just have a simple question and it's in the title, am I eating enough?

I'm going to give you a bit of background information. I'm 6ft, male, 30 years of age and eat 1500 calories a day. This number seems OK because my main goal is to loose weight but I also exercise too. On a normal day I would cycle to and from work (20 minutes each way), go for a 25 minute walk at lunch. When I'm at home I usually do a 40-45 minute spin session and then 30 minutes of weights.

Does anyone have any opinions? any at all would be great.

Thanks in advance.

mloc123

No..

The cycle to/from work and spin session probably burns about 600kcals (100kcal/10 minutes I find is about right for moderate effort cycling).
How long are you doing this and what are you losing per week?

InfoHungry

I have been doing this for about 5 weeks now. I started at 93kg and am now 87kg.

So would you have any recommendations on how much to add?

Alf Veedersane

My main concern would be how you transition back to normal eating levels when you get down an appropriate weight.

1500 calories isn't sustainable for your height for long. You'll find yourself being short of energy to keep up the exercise at the same intensity.

So 1500 is manageable for the short term but the weight loss should start to taper off a little as your body needs fewer calories so your deficit becomes smaller...and you're at a normal weight.

Longer term, have a plan in place to move to eating maintenance calories to maintain a normal weight.

Danjamin1

If you want to know what you should be eating and if it's enough you should try using an app to track your intake & exercise. I use myfitnesspal myself and quite like it. Put in your body measurements, your goals and your activity level & it'll tell you what you should be consuming to achieve your target. It's likely to have it's detractors as all apps will but I think it's good even just to see from a nutritional perspective what you're putting in to your body. Lost half a stone over the last 6 weeks by tracking my calorie intake & exercise with it.

Macy0161

Danjamin1 wrote: »

It's likely to have it's detractors as all apps will but I think it's good even just to see from a nutritional perspective what you're putting in to your body. Lost half a stone over the last 6 weeks by tracking my calorie intake & exercise with it.

Definitely recommend the my fitness pal for tracking intake, but I found the target it set me way lower than when I worked out my TDEE and took off my deficit (I went 500cals, but the initial goal mfp gave me was about 1600 iirc!). You can overwrite the goals though.

In my n=1 case, I've found any of the apps (myfitnesspal, strava, mapmyride/walk) overstate calorie burn compared to what my garmin with heart rate monitor gives, so I wouldn't recommend eating, or taking into account, the full calories they say you burn. Err a bit lower.

Just as I had it handy, I threw OP weight into the spreadsheet I used for TDEE, and I'm getting maintenance at 2643 for OP's current weight, so aiming for 1500 is a big deficit on diet alone, in my unqualified opinion.

Danjamin1

Macy0161 wrote: »

Definitely recommend the my fitness pal for tracking intake, but I found the target it set me way lower than when I worked out my TDEE and took off my deficit (I went 500cals, but the initial goal mfp gave me was about 1600 iirc!). You can overwrite the goals though.

In my n=1 case, I've found any of the apps (myfitnesspal, strava, mapmyride/walk) overstate calorie burn compared to what my garmin with heart rate monitor gives, so I wouldn't recommend eating, or taking into account, the full calories they say you burn. Err a bit lower.

Just as I had it handy, I threw OP weight into the spreadsheet I used for TDEE, and I'm getting maintenance at 2643 for OP's current weight, so aiming for 1500 is a big deficit on diet alone, in my unqualified opinion.

I do the same, the only activities I manually input in to myfitnesspal are things like swimming or resistance training for which I don't have anything else to measure (resistance calories burned are not supported in myfitnesspal anyway). It's always going to be a rough estimate using something as universal as an app as we're all different but it gives you a good guideline. 1500 calories is way way too low for a 6 ft + man to be consuming, I'm 5"8 and if I only ate 1500 a day even without exercise I'd be famished!!