Am I Eating Enough?

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Frijj

Frijj

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After reading LB's thread about fatties I decided I should probably lose some weight. Starting BMI of 24.9, no muscle and 20-22% body fat. I'm 5'10 and approx 76-78kg.

I'm doing an average of about 600-700 cardio calories every day. No weights.

About 1500-1700 calories in, giving me a net calorie intake of about 1000-1100 a day.

A friend of mine is a registered dietician and reckons that's nowhere near enough, but she said she isn't great with sports nutrition.

Apparently I could start burning muscle instead of fat and put my health at risk.

What do you think, oh wise D&E Gods.
 


Frijj said:
After reading LB's thread about fatties I decided I should probably lose some weight. Starting BMI of 24.9, no muscle and 20-22% body fat. I'm 5'10 and approx 76-78kg.

I'm doing an average of about 600-700 cardio calories every day. No weights.

About 1500-1700 calories in, giving me a net calorie intake of about 1000-1100 a day.

A friend of mine is a registered dietician and reckons that's nowhere near enough, but she said she isn't great with sports nutrition.

Apparently I could start burning muscle instead of fat and put my health at risk.

What do you think, oh wise D&E Gods.
Click to expand...

If you're in a calorie deficit you will be losing some muscle mass anyway. The greater the deficit the greater the loss of all tissue. The body mobilises fat and muscle protein to produce glucose when it doesn't have enough.

The best way to avoid this is to lift weights and ensure adequate protein supply. As a newbie you'd probably find you actually gained muscle on a calorie deficit for a short period of time. Or at least see an overall altered body composition.

You're probably eating too little and I'm virtually certain you won't have considered your protein intake.
 
Charmless Man said:
If you're in a calorie deficit you will be losing some muscle mass anyway. The greater the deficit the greater the loss of all tissue. The body mobilises fat and muscle protein to produce glucose when it doesn't have enough.

The best way to avoid this is to lift weights and ensure adequate protein supply. As a newbie you'd probably find you actually gained muscle on a calorie deficit for a short period of time. Or at least see an overall altered body composition.

You're probably eating too little and I'm virtually certain you won't have considered your protein intake.
Click to expand...

I haven't considered protein at all. I thought that was only important if you were seeking to gain muscle. I guess not!

I was planning on losing as much body fat as I could - it's really just a bit of a belly, that's where all my weight goes - and then deciding to try and put muscle on.

My reasoning was that if I do weights I'll not see as much weight loss and that'll demotivate me from dieting (even though I'd still be losing fat)

I suppose I can't do that. Should I start lifting? Can you even do cardio and weights together and burn fat? Confused as fuck about this man :lol:
 
Frijj said:
I haven't considered protein at all. I thought that was only important if you were seeking to gain muscle. I guess not!

I was planning on losing as much body fat as I could - it's really just a bit of a belly, that's where all my weight goes - and then deciding to try and put muscle on.

My reasoning was that if I do weights I'll not see as much weight loss and that'll demotivate me from dieting (even though I'd still be losing fat)

I suppose I can't do that. Should I start lifting? Can you even do cardio and weights together and burn fat? Confused as fuck about this man :lol:
Click to expand...

Stop weighing yourself and measure yourself and get body fat checked instead. Judge yourself in the mirror not on the scales.
 
Frijj said:
I haven't considered protein at all. I thought that was only important if you were seeking to gain muscle. I guess not!

I was planning on losing as much body fat as I could - it's really just a bit of a belly, that's where all my weight goes - and then deciding to try and put muscle on.

My reasoning was that if I do weights I'll not see as much weight loss and that'll demotivate me from dieting (even though I'd still be losing fat)

I suppose I can't do that. Should I start lifting? Can you even do cardio and weights together and burn fat? Confused as fuck about this man :lol:
Click to expand...

I'm virtually certain we talked about this via PM.

Of course you can burn fat with weights and cardio.

If you start lifting weights you will experience #n00bgainz and you will look better even if you don't lose any fat so you will have no motivation problems.

Furthermore - do you think the action of lifting a weight somehow by-passes your cardio vascular system?
 
Frijj said:
I haven't considered protein at all. I thought that was only important if you were seeking to gain muscle. I guess not!

I was planning on losing as much body fat as I could - it's really just a bit of a belly, that's where all my weight goes - and then deciding to try and put muscle on.

My reasoning was that if I do weights I'll not see as much weight loss and that'll demotivate me from dieting (even though I'd still be losing fat)

I suppose I can't do that. Should I start lifting? Can you even do cardio and weights together and burn fat? Confused as fuck about this man :lol:
Click to expand...

http://stronglifts.com/5x5/
 
shogun1904 said:
Stop weighing yourself and measure yourself and get body fat checked instead. Judge yourself in the mirror not on the scales.
Click to expand...

Had my body fat checked, it's about 20-22% atm.

Charmless Man said:
I'm virtually certain we talked about this via PM.

Of course you can burn fat with weights and cardio.

If you start lifting weights you will experience #n00bgainz and you will look better even if you don't lose any fat so you will have no motivation problems.

Furthermore - do you think the action of lifting a weight somehow by-passes your cardio vascular system?
Click to expand...

We may have done you know.

I was just under the impression that to burn fat you had to do cardio + have a calorie loss but to gain muscle you had to have a calorie surplus so you couldn't do the two together :oops:

I suppose I should try lifting some weights tomorrow then
 
Charmless Man said:
I'm virtually certain we talked about this via PM.

Of course you can burn fat with weights and cardio.

If you start lifting weights you will experience #n00bgainz and you will look better even if you don't lose any fat so you will have no motivation problems.

Furthermore - do you think the action of lifting a weight somehow by-passes your cardio vascular system?
Click to expand...

Indeed, I can run for hours but a set of squats with more than my bodyweight on the bar will still get my heart rate up & have me breathing heavily & sweating.
 
Frijj said:
Had my body fat checked, it's about 20-22% atm.



We may have done you know.

I was just under the impression that to burn fat you had to do cardio + have a calorie loss but to gain muscle you had to have a calorie surplus so you couldn't do the two together :oops:

I suppose I should try lifting some weights tomorrow then
Click to expand...

If you lift weights but are in an energy deficit you will lose fat. Which is what you asked.
 
Frijj said:
Had my body fat checked, it's about 20-22% atm.



We may have done you know.

I was just under the impression that to burn fat you had to do cardio + have a calorie loss but to gain muscle you had to have a calorie surplus so you couldn't do the two together :oops:

I suppose I should try lifting some weights tomorrow then
Click to expand...

Your bodyfat % will drop a lot quicker by doing weights and cardio than cardio alone. Dinnar why I am giving you advice like, it sounds like we have pretty similarly shit physiques.
 
Charmless Man said:
If you lift weights but are in an energy deficit you will lose fat. Which is what you asked.
Click to expand...

See, I didn't realise that. I thought that if you did weights and had an energy deficit you'd gain nothing. I always thought that to put muscle on, to build muscle you absolutely had to have more calories in than out.

This 5x5 thing sounds really good though. Cheers.

shogun1904 said:
Your bodyfat % will drop a lot quicker by doing weights and cardio than cardio alone. Dinnar why I am giving you advice like, it sounds like we have pretty similarly shit physiques.
Click to expand...

I didn't realise it was even possible to do weights and cardio together :lol: :oops:

I thought that cardio would just burn muscle not fat if you had any muscle.

I'm glad that appears to not be the case.
 
Frijj said:
See, I didn't realise that. I thought that if you did weights and had an energy deficit you'd gain nothing. I always thought that to put muscle on, to build muscle you absolutely had to have more calories in than out.

This 5x5 thing sounds really good though. Cheers.
Click to expand...

Yes, but people do see some initial muscle growth if they're untrained regardless.
 
Frijj said:
See, I didn't realise that. I thought that if you did weights and had an energy deficit you'd gain nothing. I always thought that to put muscle on, to build muscle you absolutely had to have more calories in than out.

This 5x5 thing sounds really good though. Cheers.



I didn't realise it was even possible to do weights and cardio together :lol: :oops:

I thought that cardio would just burn muscle not fat if you had any muscle.

I'm glad that appears to not be the case.
Click to expand...

Yep. You will be surprised how quickly you can improve your body to a certain point initially.
 
Frijj said:
To be fair, I did start this wanting to know if I was putting my health at risk with a net calorie intake of 1050!
Click to expand...

In fairness I probably have similar problems to yourself. I've never worked it out properly but doubt at this point I'm getting enough calories or protein. Considering shakes now as in an 11 hour shift I only get two half hour breaks at work and can't motivate myself to prepare food beforehand.

In the time I've been doing stronglifts alongside cardio I'm noticing improvements in strength and aesthetically, much more so than so cardio alone.

A lot of the good advice I've been given has come off here
 
If you want to lose a bit of weight then a good guideline is to lose about 1 lb a week.

To do that you need to consume about 3500 less calories a week, i.e. 500 a day.

Work out how many calories a day you need to exist - IIRC this is the BMR. Then work out your total daily energy expendiSay that this is about 2000 if you sit on your arse in an office all day. You should then be aiming for 1500 cals regardless of all of the cardio you are doing (which sounds a bit too much IMHO).

Edit: I might be getting confused with TDEE which is total energy expenditure but have a search on the threads on here. http://iifym.com/tdee-calculator/

If you are burning off 500 cals a day then you should be consuming a lot more. I have reduced calories to 1800-1900 a day on average and I've been strength training x2 a week and running x1 a week.

There are loads of web sites with the various calculators.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/bmr_calculator.htm
 
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