to think 2000 calories a day is too high

[kepler10b]

for a lot of women.

i've never been overweight but after several years of happy marriage, too many hours at the desk and nights on the sofa i have put on a few too many pounds for my liking.

so i decided to get down the gym and also take a look at my diet.

i've never counted calories before but decided i'd look at how many i was eating.

definitely below the recommended levels of 2000 a day for a woman. honestly if i ate that much everyday i would be obese.

my typical calorie intake has probably reached more like 1500 and i reckon without doing loads of exercise in order not for my weight to creep up as it has been it needs to be more like 1300.

i am small frame and 5'2" but that isn't that unusual surely?

i just wonder where this 2000 calories a day recommendation came from and how people are supposed to lose weight if they keep to it?

Im what you might call a lazy bastard, Im just eating less because I actually do fuck all to burn calories. Always worked for me before just cutting down, Im barely eating fuck all but my body seems to think it's getting something cos the weight is not falling off.

Im sick of being a size 14 and just want to get in my size 10s again.

Gets harder the older you get.

Im 5ft 2 and 10.9 stone.

omg I eat loads more than that. I probably eat 2500 a day? More! I have a bit of a wobbly bum in the winter but it goes away on its own in about April. I've got cartoon biceps, though, from all the heavy lifting. Maybe if you're muscly it works differently because I have never ever lost wobbles by eating less food. Eating less just makes me really knackered and grumpy, and wanting sweets! If I want to get a bit fitter/flatter I tend to eat a bit more and run around a lot.

When I am training I need at least 3500 to maintain, preferably protein/fat heavy. When I am not I stick to around 2000 ish and have a 'normal' balance.

I think 2000 is just the average, you are small and slight I am tall and heavily muscled, we are both women - so in order to give a number for the average women we both need to be taken into account

I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum. Just done the Livestrong rating thing and I'm 5 ft 3 ", weigh 7 stone 2lbs and eat 850 calories per day.

That sounds awful but I've been that for the last 25-30 years and no matter how hard I try I cannot eat any more or put on any more weight. I've tried drinking Complan as well as my proper food but just get full of the Complan and so lose my appetite for the food which seems daft.

I'm seeing a personal trainer who is a dietician too and she's trying to help me get my muscle weight up a bit.

What can I do? All you ladies who eat 2500 calories per day, what form does it take please? She's told me to eat more protein which I'm trying to do but I'm really struggling.

ps I look crap and people always comment on how crap I look so please don't anyone tell me I'm lucky cos quite frankly I'd love to weigh a stone more . No eating disorders btw.

I'm a tubster so I maintain at about 2,400

Tis all relative...

What do you eat in an average day juneybean?

mrbearn I got into body building coming from the opposite direction (I needed to lose fat).

Protein is your friend for muscle building, if you do a weight lifting session you need to eat a bunch of protein not too long after to repair the damage to your muscles and to help them build. Basically what you are doing when building muscle is tearing the fibres ever so slightly when you extend it, then your body repairs and recovers it by making the muscle just that little bit bigger/stronger. To do this it needs protein.

When I am not training I carry a bit of extra fat because I eat more carbs. I know low carb isn't considered too highly here but if I eat carbs I get fat, if I cut carbs and eat fat/protein I lose fat.

So it depends what you want. If you want to 'fatten' up then lots of carbs. If you want to muscle up then lots of protein. I eat low fat if I am carbing and high fat if I am training/eating a lot of protein. Personally I find fat+carbs together is the way to make me porky, one or the other seems OK.

On a training day I do this:

Breakfast: Wholegrain Toast with lots of butter and peanut butter. Some fruit.

Workout

Lunch: Protein shake made with soy milk and berries. Some sort of animal protein (i.e. a steak or chicken or something), lots of salady veg.

Dinner: Protein again, either animal or nuts or tofu or something. I replace rice or pasta with lentils or beans or something that is proteiny as well as carby.

I snack if I want to and don't worry too much if it is junky, because I know I can burn it off.

Good luck.

Thank you! Are your lunches and dinners huge portion wise? I have this pathetic amount on my plate and usually end up pushing it around or saving it until later.

I'm quite active and eat as soon as I get in but half a jam sandwich and I'm stuffed .

My downfall is red bull and pepsi max (the carbon/sweetners don't help with weight loss?!)

On a work day:

Scrambled egg on toast for brekkie
Prawns with lashings of mayo and ketchup and lettuce with some grated cheese
Huge bowl of pasta
Couple of bars of chocolate snuck in

Today however:

A breakfast bar
iceland special fried rice and some chicken dippers
a curry ready meal
2 cans of red bull
1 can of full fat pepsi

now contemplating a kit kat chunky

But bear in mind my stomach is probably twice the size if not bigger than yours.

Do you like mcdonalds lol? That's supposedly calorific!

Oh and I'm not terribly active, I go swimming once a week if that but I do chase children around 3 days a week (tis my job!)

I do like Mcdonalds as it happens but can only manage the little burger and small fries

Neither of you sound as though you eat tons more than me though or is it all in the portions?

Probably in the portions, like I say my stomach is probably bigger than yours and I need more to feel full. Doesn't help that my mum makes big portions and it's in my head that it's good to clear your plate

No not huge a perhaps 125grams for the animal protein at lunch but I don't hold back on butter or cream or mayonnaise stuff when I am doing it. The biggest thing for me to get my head around was that fat was not the enemy by fat I mean actual food fat. Like butter and meat and olive oil. Not fucked around with fat like hydrogenated shit etc.

Jam sandwich is pretty pointless when it comes to eating TBH. If you are going to have say half a sandwich make it nice grainy bread (preferably seedy so you get some more oil/protein), some actual butter (not horrible chemsitry experiment margerine) and some real peanut butter. A lot more use to your body than jam. I like peanut butter and honey sandwiches. You could even whack a banana on there as well, is there anything finer than banana and peanut butter together? I don't think so.

Macdonalds is pretty pointless as well. I am not averse to the occassional cheeseburger but I don't think of it in terms of actual food. It tastes good (like the jam sandwich) but it really isn't going to be much use as far as keeping everything ticking over.

Mrbearn, are you doing resistance training?

When DD1 was swimming she went into the programme quite underweight (imo) and ended up gaining a stone and a few pounds during the season. As far as I can remember from the printout her coach gave her, she was to have a whole grain breakfast before swimming practice (difficult as she left the house at 5.30 am but usually a big bagel with butter or cream cheese, sometimes fibre rich cereal and milk) and a protein and whole wheat meal afterwards, which she got in the school cafeteria. She had eggs and toast most days, sometimes ham too. Muscles weigh more than other tissue.

Hmm, well so yesterday I ate:

breakfast -
three cornmeal pancakes fried in bacon fat with maple syrup
milky coffee

lunch and general grazing -
fruit cake (this is admittedly unusual, I was finishing off the christmas cake)
a whole aubergine, sliced and cooked, with houmous
a boiled egg
an avocado
grapes
an apple
milky coffee with gingerbread

dinner -
sweet potato and chickpea stew
brown rice

I dunno what that comes out to. I'm not very up on calorie counting. I feel like I need a lot of food, though! I definitely require at least six pints of milk, two pies and a pint of custard a week to feel human, but I am from the North.

Don't calorie count it gets you no where other than obsessing about food.
If you want to lose weight, (really want to ) then don't deny yourself any thing

just eat a bit less of it. Excercise more than you do already; (use the car less, have a stroll at lunch, a couple of classes, walk instead of using the elevator etc and walk faster...)

I lost loads of weight doing this (no idea how much, as I dont bother weighting myself but I am much thinner and fit size 10/12 instead of 16, though after 3 kids I will always have a little wobble.

Thanks for link Trillian, just addes to my favourit!

I was kidding really about the jam sandwich and macdonalds (sort of nice though they are it would be a once every 6 month thing to eat). I love real butter and I think my diet is pretty healthy. I like chicken, steak etc and always have good organic meat not rubbish stuff.

Mathsanxiety, yes I am doing resistance training and finding it jolly hard work! Really interesting to hear how well your daughter did though and that she put on weitght.

It's my appetite that is the problem it's just so tiny.