[mselle]

I started my "new healthy lifestyle" yesterday...and I've been doing great, but I just noticed that I feel a little (just a little tiny bit) dizzy.

Here's what I've eaten since yesterday:

Breakfast: Grande Caffe Latte w/nonfat milk, 1 cup of cheerios (eaten dry, I love dry cereal!), one banana

Snack: Baby carrots! (Yummy!)

Lunch: 1/2 piece of Lavash bread from Trader Joes with bell pepper, onion, spinach, 3 kalamata olives and balsamic vinagrette (spelling, I know) dressing, and a small bowl of the leftover spinach and bell pepper/onion with dressing on top. Only used about 2 tblsp. of dressing for a grand total of 25 calories worth of dressing, and that dressing is actually DELICIOUS!

Snack: A handful of almonds- uncooked and not salted- probably about 20 almonds and a cup of hot tea. I had a yummy white tea by Lipton, it was Mango and Peach and it made my my entire office smell so good.

About 20 minutes before I got out of work I drank one scoop of my Whey Protein powder with about 6 oz. of water because I needed some fuel for my muscles to burn at the gym. Got home and made dinner (Corn Salad) and put it in the fridge to cool while my boyfriend and I went to the gym.

I didn't eat any meat yesterday (an no I'm not vegetarian). Today I've had cheerios and an apple for breakfast...carrots as a snack...and leftover corn salad for lunch. I'm probably around 600 calories so far but I've still got two more snacks and dinner to go.

Should I feel lighthead/dizzy?

[munstermommy]

Hi! Congested on eating healthy! I would say you definitely need to add in some more protein and fiber heavy grains (double fiber slice of toast dry instead of cheerios?). You want to give your body enough calories while staying full and not eating too much/little. Are you calorie counting? Did you check your nasal metabolic rate before deciding hw many calories per day you should consume? If you get ur bmr and work off of thqt you should ha able to fuel your body at regulat intervals without feeling hungry let alone dizzy! Let me know if you have other questions, I will check back! Good luck keep working! Oh and how much water are you drinking? 8 glasses of water (8 x 8 oz. Is the BARE MINIMUM you should be drinking a day. Hope that helps!

[munstermommy]

Omg I am so sorry mselle about the congested, dis this on my phone with an auto spell checker that substitutes words randomly! Eek sorry! Let me kbow!

[QuilterInVA]

You are eating wrong for exercise. You eat carbs before exercise and protein within an hour after exercising. You need to spread your calories out better during the day and get some protein into your lunch. If you went to the gym and then started feeling dizzy, its because you used all your carbs up.

[munstermommy]

Ahhhhhhhh! BASAL METABOLIC RATE lol hate this phone GRRRRRRRRR!

[Porthardygurl]

Offhand..i can see you dont get enough protein in your diet..If you look at what you ate for lunch, there is no sign of protein ...you need a balance between healthy fats, proteins and carbs..Your body will use carbs as energy quickly..you need a protein to help sustain you a little longer...

I mean..20 almonds and a scoop of whey...not a lot for the day protein wise..you need to add a bit more in..When i was on a diet...i used to do a scoop of whey 3 to 4 times a day..i think the equation is..for every pound..i think you need a certain number of grams of protein...

Someone else remember the formula?

[munstermommy]

Basically for weight loss the recommendation is about .5-1g of protein per lb of body weight. Now that depends on your BMR weight loss goals, etc. as well and let's all admit it's d*** hard to get 150+ grams of protein in a day! I find that a 50/30/20 diet (50% carb/30% protein/20% fat) diet has worked well for me, and I average about 110-140 grams of protein per day (that's with a scoop of whey in the morning with breakfast, then either egg whites, protein bars, chicken, turkey, etc. throughout the day). However, with my activity level, I am at about 1800-2000 cals a day for LOSS. So it is different for each of us based on our activity level, BMR, etc. Hope that you can work some more protein in, it is hard, but your body will love you for it!

[iHeartU]

I agree with the others that you need more protein. Another problem might be if you're drinking enough water or not. I know when I get dehydrated, I'm dizzy as heck.

[tuende]

It might just be a first day, thing- like your body saying 'what are you doing to me?!' I calorie count, but I slowly up my calories over the weeks if I start to plateau. After a while I'll drop back down to 1200 and when I do, the first day is rough, I get headaches, sometimes I feel a little lightheaded (not too much though) but it always goes away after the first day. Like other posters have said, make sure you're getting your nutritional bases covered, protein included- admittedly hard to do on limited calories, but definitely worth it. You'll notice you function so much better on fewer calories when you're getting all your macronutritents in there. My trainer wants me to eat 1g of protein per lb of 'lean mass' which for me is about 110 lbs. So hard for me to get 110g of protein in per day (I really love carbs of any kind), but I feel so much better when I do!

[mselle]

So after reviewing it all and reading everyone's comments I added some protein for dinner last night and lunch today...and I already feel much better. I think I got so stuck on trying to eat more fruits and veggies that I completely forgot about my proteins!

And- I don't want to get too excited just yet, but this morning when I stepped on the scale it read 200.4 - which is my lowest weight in over 6 months! The only reason I got to 199 six months ago was because I had bronchitis for 2 weeks, and as soon as I was better the weight went right back up. I can't wait to get out of these 200's!!!

[NightwingFanGirl]

Glad adding protein helped! Good luck on breaking into 1derland!