What's your opinion; enough calories OR not enough??

Hi All, since I have started fighting fat back in January 11th 2008 I first had to change my eating habits, I would normally eat only lunch (12pm) and dinner (5pm).

But with my new fitness lifestyle I eat like this;

Breakfast
Snack 1
Lunch
Snack 2
Dinner
Snack 3

This took me a while to get use to eating this much, but I am at the stage now where I am comfortable with this and I never feel hungry.

I have calculate my daily calorie intake to be about 1300 to 1400 a day.

Now by digging around online, reading and checking up I am thinking that this is too little, and I should be aiming to consume 1600 to 1700 a day.

What do you think? Do I need to be increasing my calories?

My goal is fat loss and I am strength training 3 times a week and I also follow a spinning class 3 times per week (after my strength training workout).

Tags: calories, day, per

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Permalink Reply by SpinDiva on January 16, 2009 at 6:19am

You need to increase your caloric intake by quite a bit actually. It doesn't have to be bad but you need to eat more. With weight training 3 times a week you should consume protein just before or about 30 minutes after your workout (protein shakes are a great way to feed your broken down muscles so they grow lean and strong).

Spinning uses a lot of calories (depending on how hard your work). You need to have stored glycogen to use as energy. Again your calories can come directly from very healthy meals, protein shakes, fruits, veggies and of course eating high fiber foods such as brown rice, sweet potato, etc.

This definitely depends also on your height and weight but 1300-1400 calories is what I usually recommend for women who are working out and trying to loose weight then we increase a little to maintain.

I'm not a dietician or nutritionist, this is just my opinion as a Personal Trainer. You have to provide your body with enough calories (energy) and protein to sustain itself during your workouts and to feed the muscles you just worked.

Good Luck.

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Permalink Reply by Lisa Newton on January 17, 2009 at 4:54am

Clicking Diana's link will definitely give you a good calorie number to shoot for, but food and how much you eat is still a personal decision. Spin Diva's food list is great.

Do you feel tired? Are your workouts going as planned or do you feel exhausted as you try to do them?

For me, if I don't eat enough, I struggle to get my workout finished, so I know I'm not eating enough.

Based on what you wrote, have you thought about doing your strength training and spin classes on different days of the week?