Quote:
I also talked with my friend who is a paleo diet coach. He said I'm very active and "chronically undereating" and he pretty much never wants to see his clients below 1500 cals/day.
I know it sounds like I'm looking for a reason to increase calories! I guess I can try cutting cals to about 1300/day for a few weeks and if that doesn't work increase them to about 1800 cals/day.
Thoughts?
Yes. You should:Originally Posted by ERHR
I looked up the calorie suggestions in the workout plan I'm following (New Rules of Lifting for Women) and it recommends (as a starting point, based on my BMR) 1950 calories on a non-workout day and 2200 calories on a workout day. It doesn't not recommend drastically cutting calories from that level (500 cals/day is drastic) but rather eating nearly all the calories and a lot more protein (probably 50% more than I'm getting now).I also talked with my friend who is a paleo diet coach. He said I'm very active and "chronically undereating" and he pretty much never wants to see his clients below 1500 cals/day.
I know it sounds like I'm looking for a reason to increase calories! I guess I can try cutting cals to about 1300/day for a few weeks and if that doesn't work increase them to about 1800 cals/day.
Thoughts?
A) Not take advice from anyone who says calories don't matter. They always matter.
B) You don't know your BMR. Unless you have been to a lab and been hooked up to some high end equipment every formula is just going to be an estimate. To compound things it's impossible to know how many calories you burn in a given day on top of your BMR.
C) You don't know how many caloires you're ingesting. Even when you're weighing your food you'll only be accurate within a range.
What is my point?
Don't panic.
Track everything.
Make changes one at a time and do it slowly so you can see what effect that one change has.
I would personally suggest you keep calories where they are for another two weeks minimum. The addition of NROL is the confounder to this equation.
If your weight/measurements don't change I would then suggest you increase calories up to 1800 over the course of a week and see what happens to weight/measurements after two weeks.
This way you'll have a better idea of what your maintience requirements are.
Finally - I'd look into intermittent fasting. Your Paleo friend at least should like this idea.


