I'm a 24 yr old female, 5'7", currently 124 lbs (BMI 19.4), have lost over 60 lbs in the last two years (did it verrry slowly, only adopted daily exercise into my life in the last year or so) and am onto my last 3-5 lbs. I exercise 6-7 days/week (usually 60-75 mins cardio, 15-20 mins of strength training) and consume roughly 1300-1350 calories/day. My family believes I'm not eating enough but I've read in various health-related websites that as long as you don't let your intake fall below 1200 (that "Daily Recommended Intake") then you're OK. But I'm confused: if I'm putting in a total of 1300-1350 calories in my body every day (healthy foods: lean proteins, veggies, fruit, whole wheat carbs, etc) and burning off 600-800 during work-outs, do I need to compensate for the burn by tacking on an extra 600-800 calories each day? I keep a food journal and I'm not sure how to log my daily intake: do I tally up calories to INCLUDE what I've burned off (i.e. total intake: 1800 calories, burned off 800, leaving a total of 1000 calories) or EXCLUDE it (i.e. total intake 1350 calories, burned off 800, leaving a total of 550 calories for the day)? I gotta admit, 1350 calories plus intense work outs do tend to leave me pretty tired during the day but, hey, the weight is definitely coming off so I must be doing it the correct way, right? thank you for the help!
My name is Jason Chiero, I am a practicing Certified Personal Trainer. My suggestion is to calculate your caloric intake first, below is a link to my webpage where I did a video to teach you how to do this:
www.thetraininggenius.com/2009/09/21/you-are-what-you-eat-so-quit-eating-crap/
Then I would calculate my calorie burn. Once you have done that. Simply subtract your calorie intake from your calorie burn.
Last, general guidelines say that you can burn 500-1000 calories more than what you take in and be safe.
The best way for you to tell whether or not you are burning too many more calories that what you are taking in is if you find yourself unwilling to engae in spontaneous activity.
Basically if you find yourself choosing to sit around or lay around instead of doing things you want to do then you need to increase your caloric intake.
The danger is that if you are burning through too many calories and ultimately nutrients you run the risk of gaining the weight back.
I hope this helps.
Jason Chiero, CPT
www.thetraininggenius.com
Thank you for the response! I know I burn off more than I consume (given my sedentary RMR of about 1360 and the additional 500-600 calories I burn six to seven days at the gym) and I do tend to suffer from the mid-day "I'm too tired to work out this afternoon" which I tend to attribute to caffeine crash (which is why I've started cutting myself off from the coffee pot around 9:30 to get the crash over before the end of my work day). I'll check out the recommended website now! Thanks again!!
no problem...i hope it helps!
Jason