Nutrition advice needed please.....

PaulC555

Morning all,

Okay, so I have started a concerted effort to loose weight. Some stats to help, Age 44, Height 5ft 9. Current weight is around 15stone. I want to try and get down to around 13.5 stone or less. Although this may be a struggle as I have been this weight for such a long time. My exercise programme at the minute involves running 5K twice a week, cycling midweek for 20-25 miles, and then a longer weekend ride of around 40- 50 depending on time, as my wife also rides and need to split our times.
I have been using a brilliant app for tracking my calorie intake, and herin lies my question.
The app has advised an intake of 2000 calories per day to get to the weight I want in the time frame I want.
It also allows tracking of exercise and then offsets calories burned to give you an overall nett calorie intake for the day if that makes sense......
My question is probably quite stupid, but on an average day like yesterday I am only intaking around 1600 calories per day, but when I exercise I show a calorie burn of say 600 calories for a cycle. This then shows my nett intake as 1000 calories for the day......but the app shows I should be eating around 2000 to loose weight effectively. So do I need to eat more to get back to the recommended daily intake after exercising....I'm confused as to how the weight will be lost.......any advice guys and gals appreciated......
Got myself a lovely team sky t shirt I am desperate to fit into for my hols to France....

frisbee

2500 is the recommended daily amount if you do no exercise. But what constitutes "no exercise" isn't clear to me. Is it driving to work and sitting at a desk all day, is it a 30 min bike ride or walk to work and back and an active job - lifting and carrying?

Its worth checking portion size if you are tracking calories. My rice and pasta portions weighed 2-3 times more than I thought they were.

I'm not sure I would compensate for exercise if I was tracking calories again. Or maybe only when I got very close to my target weight.

drlodge

I'm about the same age and height as you, and went from 12 stone 12 lbs to about 12 stone dead in under a year. That was with about 80 miles cycling per week and no difference to my eating habits, if anything I was eating more since I was burning more.

I would say just eat normally, the weight will come off with regular exercise as long as you're not eating stupid amounts..

mpatts

if I ate 2500 a day I would be massive.

I'm not sure this is in the least helpful, but I lost 2 stone with this method:

1) I rode my bike a lot
2) I ate when I was hungry, but always made sure I ate real food (a mars bar is not food)
3) For my main meals, I try to eat 1/4 protein, 1/4 carb, and 1/2 veg
4) I eat off smaller bowls/plates.

2 was, I think, the main contributor, otherwise I found I'd just think about food all the time. Everyone comments that I am constantly eating - I must eat 10 bits of fruit a day.

drlodge

There's a lot of sugar in fruit...I would say eating 3 normal meals a day with portion sizes appropriate to how hungry you are is the key, rather than snacking. Its amazing how the calories in snacks all add up. Oh, and cut out alcohol - its like snacking but much worse!

Rouge Penguin

Cut out alcohol as much as possible, that not only sabotages your efforts but also makes you snack.

Don't try to be saintly 7 days a week. Think daily calories, but also keep in mind a weekly total, you're more than likely fine having a cheat day or two.

Eat clean. By that I mean remove processed as much as possible. Real chicken, not reformed.

Try and avoid bread if you can. Have a spud, packet of tilda rice or salad for lunch instead.

Do body weight exercise like push ups and squats.

Your maintenance calories with no exercise are probably about 2200. Less than that and clean you'll lose weight.

Oh and avoid diet versions, they really aren't

PaulC555

thanks guys for the responses.....
I do eat well, real chicken, little processed food. Mostly rice dishes and pasta foods. I am teetotal so alcohol doesn't come into the equation. My normal eating habits meal wise havent changed, I have cut out the crap in between, choclate crips etc. I just wondered how exercise burning calories effected my overall recommended intake.....do I eat more to compensate for what i have lost exercising??? to keep the calorie intake more stable....

drlodge

I would try to balance it out over a week...assume you need 2,500 calories per day and burn around 500 calories/hour cycling for example.

bahzob

The "2500kcal per day" is a wildly inaccurate guideline and worse than useless.

Best way to lose weight in my experience is to force yourself to keep a detailed record of cals in vs cals out over a period of 2-4 weeks and find out what how you as an individual actually work.

Along with this my best tip for losing weight that worked for me during the early stages of getting down from the 90skg to 70skg is setup an indoor trainer that lets you watch TV and exercise at the same time. You can easily burn 300-500kcal per hour this way, which mounts up very quickly. If you watch around 10 hours of TV per week thats 1lb of fat gone.

PaulC555

What the app has made me realise is that I didnt actually eat unhealthily as my calorie content from my 3 meals a day is struggling to get above 1600. It was obviously the snacking on choclate and crisps that accounted for my weight gain. My Nett calorie intake for this week now shows if I continue exercising at the same level I will finish the week nearly 9000 calories behind my recommended intake......

JayKosta

Exercise is good for overall physical conditioning, but is of secondary importance for weight loss.
The primary concern for weight loss is calorie intake compared to calories burned.
In order to exercise you need more calorie intake to fuel the exercise routine - and that can result in 'rationalization' about need to eat more (or to reduce less).

About food choices - If possible reduce 'white flour' breads - 'whole grain' is better, and similar about 'white rice' - 'brown rice' is better. Search about diet info regarding 'glycemic index' of foods.

If there is a steady decline in your 'performance level', or ability to do typical daily activities, then you might NOT be eating (or resting) enough.

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

PaulC555

Well I am pleased to say that something worked this week. By keeping the calorie count around 1700 average along with over 100 miles on the bike and 10k running resulted in a 5lb weight loss. I know this will level out, but glad that counting every calorie, eating well has paid off. Niw to get it to level out and work towards my target. The app is fantastic and thoroughly recommended......

sloppyschleckonds

PaulC555 wrote:

Well I am pleased to say that something worked this week. By keeping the calorie count around 1700 average along with over 100 miles on the bike and 10k running resulted in a 5lb weight loss. I know this will level out, but glad that counting every calorie, eating well has paid off. Niw to get it to level out and work towards my target. The app is fantastic and thoroughly recommended......

Remember, 5lb of 'weight loss' doesn't mean 5lb of fat loss.