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General Fitness & Nutrition: Nutrition Advice please.

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  1.  
    • CommentAuthorFree MemberPlatti
    • CommentTimeJul 31st 2007
     
    Platti

    Recently started getting serious again with my training.  I'm watching what I eat on a daily basis but I really don't know how many calories I should be taking in on a daily basis.  Can anyone point me in the right direction please ?

     

    Thanks !

  2.  
    outofbreath

    Hi Platti,

    Daily calorie requirements can be expressed as broadly as approx. 2000kcals/day for adult women and 2500kcals/day for adult men. 

    However, for a more individual calculation factors such as gender, current weight, age and current activity level are taken into account.  Also, do you want to lose, gain or maintain your weight?  

    It is important not to be too hung up on calorie intake though!  The most important thing is to maintain good intakes of fruit and veg, get your energy from starchy 'complex' carbs such as bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, etc, and to limit the amount of fat, especially saturated fat.  

     If you find you are losing weight given your recently increased activity level, then you are expending more calories than you are taking in.  Well done you!  If you don't want to lose weight then try gently (say, an extra tablespoon or two) increasing your carbohydrate intake with the foods mentioned above, not cake and biscuits. If you do want to lose some weight, don't cut out carbs.  Look at modifying cooking methods, limiting portion sizes generally (except fruit and veg!).

    Sorry if this is a bit vague and it's kicked up more questions that it's answerd - but it's a broad subject.

     All the best.

    Out of breath (from running and typing!) 

     

    • CommentAuthorFree Memberdeco
    • CommentTimeJul 31st 2007
     
    deco

    This might be way too much info, but Nancy Clark's Sport's Nutrition Book is a good book on how athletes should nourish themselves. It includes information on losing weight as well as bulking up without adding fat, but the overall emphasis is just on eating well  (as Out of Breath recommends :) ). 

    Good reference book if you're interested and reads easily enough.

     

    Abby

    • CommentAuthorFree MemberPlatti
    • CommentTimeAug 1st 2007
     
    Platti

    Thanks for the replies guys, that gives me a guideline calorie intake whilst I hunt down that book, Thanks !

    Stu

  5.  
    Chairman-of-Cardio

    I Reccommend "The G.I Diet for Busy People" it puts foods in categories of Green light-Healthy, low calorie, nutrient dense, low sugar / Yellow - eat in moderation / Red- avoid . The book takes 2 hours to read, its only $14 on Amazon and gives you cool lists of foods to work from.

    for calorie numbers try Apex fitness. This site has free calculators for: Body Mass Index, Burn Calculator, Resting Metabolic Rate and Daily Caloric need.

    These calculators are only guidelines-don't get to hung up on the numbers / use the G.I. diet to choose the foods to eat and the calculators to get starting numbers. Thebn customize food plan to fit your own lifestyle. I reccomend eating simimlar foods for breakfast and lunch, then eating a different dinner each night.

    Lastly, drink TONS of water. Most people think they are hungry when in actuality they are thirsty. The body send similar signals to the brain for hunger and thirst. Try drinking a big glass of water 5-10 minuets before a meal and then it's eaisier to eat with your "brain" as opposed to your tounge.

     

    http://my.apexfitness.com/vip/content/fitness_calculators.php 

    • CommentAuthorFree Membermosaic23
    • CommentTimeOct 2nd 2007
     
    mosaic23
    Protein, protein, protein! It fills you up the most, and your body uses the energy from protein for over four hours after you consume it. In contrast, your body uses the energy from sugary foods, like sweet fruit, within an hour of your consuming it. When I come back from a hard workout, I'll eat some fruit or drink some juice to give my body the necessary immediate boost. But then I'll focus on protein and whole grain foods to give my body substance that will last over the next few hours. I also eat a few smaller meals a day. When I eat a lot of food at once - thus go from an empty stomach to a full stomach over the course of a few minutes - I feel like this shocks my body. So instead, I'll always have a bit of food in my stomach, and will constantly be adding a little bit more. Also, I always eat breakfast. This gets your metabolism going right away. The slower your metabolism functions, the fewer calories you'll burn; so you need to eat in order to burn calories.
    • CommentAuthorFree Membermkoso
    • CommentTimeOct 3rd 2007
     
    mkoso

    If you're looking to lose weight, you might want to try this site:

     http://www.sparkpeople.com 

     They have a whole bunch of different tools to calculate calories and help in weight loss.

     

    Mark

    • CommentAuthorFree MemberMary-Sara
    • CommentTimeJul 30th 2008
     
    Mary-Sara

    After my rides, I am getting a crashing feeling.  My head feels a little light and I want to take a nap.  Eating, anything or everything, will not make it go away.  I have started eating before I ride (I used to get up and get on my bike without eating anything) and sometimes that seems to help. I know my body is missing something, but I have no idea what it is.  Has anyone else been through this?  Do you have any insights?

    Thanks!

    Mars 

     

  9.  
    RunningKnows

    Mars, it may be a case of pseudohypoglycaemia....... a long word for basically an extremely uncomfortable feeling that you can't do a whole lot about.  It's not understood very well, but basically your body is getting upset because it "thinks" it's missing something, so it dumps adrenaline into your blood, makes you light-headed, shaky, and not very comfy.  It closely mimics true hypoglycaemia, but if you were to actually take your blood sugar you would find it in the normal to even perhaps high range (and this is from experience).  This is basically a diagnosed through exclusion (in other words, they test you and can't find anything wrong).  The first thing to do would be to have yourself checked out to make sure nothing bad and/or treatable is happening.

     As for what's causing it and what'll help, it's hard to know.  Some meds can leave you more susceptible than normal to it, but it can be extremely difficult to track down.

    This is anecdotal (in other words, what's worked for me), but it won't hurt and it might help...... I try to avoid high simple carbs right before a run, but will eat high carb foods that have a medium glycaemic index about an hour before I work out.  This tends keeps me level and feeling good throughout the run.  It also seems like high protein in the diet helps me, too (and endurance athletes have the highest protein needs of any, including weightlifters).

    Also, if it's any consolation, for me it tends to come and go in cycles (that relate to nothing in particular), so keep pushing and see how it goes.

     

    Best of luck!

  10.  
    VeniVidiRun
    I've found my own version of the 'Body for Life' philosophy works well.  Balanced meals, not more than the nutrition your body can absorb at one time, but more frequently than most people are used to eating.  Be careful of some of the indicators many folks use as measurements - I'm in great shape, eat right, run fast and far but at a slightly muscular 6' tall & 180 lbs my BMI is actually considered 'overweight' - what a joke.  Good luck as you discover what works best for you in your running. 
    • CommentAuthorFree Memberspudsmac12
    • CommentTimeJul 31st 2008 edited
     
    spudsmac12
    As long as you are eating healthy and consuming enough food to cover your Basel rate (2,000 - 2,500) and what ever you are burning off with running you should be fine to maintain weight. I disagree with "endurance athletes have the highest protein of any", it has been well documented that the Kenyan diet is low protein, high carb. It is also generally accepted that high carbohydrate diets are the staple of the typical endurance athlete. Not saying that protein is not needed, just that it high protein diets are generally not regarded as the best for endurance athlete compared to one high in carbs. I'm being as general as I can, but you can google - endurance athlete diet - and see for yourself. The first link should be to marathonguide.com, and they even point out some negative to a high protein diet, and recommend 12-15% of total calorie consumption to be from protein, that is drastically less then recommendations of up to 40% for bodybuilders. And once again I just want to reiterate that everyone is different and there are always exceptions to the rules. You have some great references for reading material and suggest that you pick them up and give a once over. Mary-Sara - Could also be overtraining and not diet related, but if you get hungry before, during or after your ride, then it is and I would recommend that you eat more before going to bed. Eating before is great, depending on what it is, but the body still needs time to digest and convert the carbs to sugars for your body to burn and this takes time, this also applies after your ride. By eating more the night before you will have a deeper well of sugars for your body to grab from for the morning.
  12.  
    RunningKnows

    Endurance athletes have a higher protein requirement than other athletes because they tend to degrade protein during long periods of effort (once you've gone through the immediate energy reserve you tend to burn a slowly changing profile of resources within your body..... protein is the second in the chain, especially since you can't burn fat without a priming source of either carbs or protein.... carbs burn faster at the outset and the balance slowly shifts in favor of protein).  That being said, most western diets have more protein than is needed for any athlete, and most endurance athletes have a perfectly acceptable protein status.  One potential pitfall in trying to figure percentages of protein based on total calories is that we burn a lot more calories than most, so our adequate protein intake would be a smaller percentage of total calories.  Higher carb diets are very important for endurance athletes, since we need our glycogen reserves for long events, but as for comparisons between bodybuilders, weightlifters, and endurance athletes, endurance athletes require the most (in terms of protein/kg of body weight), according to the peer-reviewed literature available.

  13.  
    spudsmac12
    Agree ;-) I just get irked when it gets implied that you need to eat a cow, or to a lesser scale a protein bar, after a work out to replenish lost protein and build muscle. And I completely agree that most western diets have more protein than any athlete really needs. The other point that you bring up is protein as a second energy source, that is why generally you need to eat high carbs to minimize that effect and tap into your fat reserve. My GF is still amazed at the amount of pancakes that I eat a couple of hours before a long run.
    • CommentAuthorFree Memberspudsmac12
    • CommentTimeAug 1st 2008 edited
     
    spudsmac12
    As for the body building thing, personally I don't care, I'm not a body builder and zero desire to be, I just checked what the suggested percentages were based off of a couple of sources (not forums, but PHD write ups) and they generally came up with 40%, or 1-1.4g/lb. I have no idea how many calories a bodybuilder burns in a day, if I had to guess some where around 3,500, the 1-1.5g/lb for a 200lbs guy would be 200g-300g or 800-1200cals (23%-34% of 3,500) I know that my highest average cal burn is roughly 4,500/day for a 120 mile week. Based on a recommended percentage of 15%, which is on the high end, would be 168g-protein, thats 32g less then the low estimate for a body builder. But, I concede that I have the big assumption of what a body builder's caloric intake and how accurate the 1-1.5g or 40% thing is. I also didn't do research on the topic and write it in a book, just looked at the numbers and seen if they make sense, and to me they don't. But, once again, don't know the first thing about the caloric demands and nutritional aspects of a bodybuilders diet, nor do I care to, the runners diet is complicated enough ;). I just wanted to show you were I was coming from with my previous statement.
  15.  
    RunningKnows

    I think we're basically on the same page, spud. 

    When you look at bodybuilders, they tend to have fairly low kcal requirements because they avoid endurance exercise as doing a lot of cardio tends to work against bulking up (or so the conventional wisdom that most bodybuilders follow, goes).  When they make their "cut" they'll go far lower than their daily requirement to lose as much fat as possible.  However, what seems to get lost in a lot of the diets published on the web is how most of the extra protein BB's take in is burned as energy, rather than for constructing muscle..... the South Park episode "Weight Gain 2000" isn't far off the mark!

     

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