Paleo Suggestions concerning calories

[ErikHutson]

I have been doing paleo for a few days now as well as IF a few days a week and feel good. I weight about 255 pounds with my goal to be 175 by summer of 2009,

My question is I'm consuming between 1600-1900kcal a day and havent had any real fatigue yet but im concerned I might be taking in the wrong amount of calories and am looking for suggestion to improve my lifestyle


Breakfast:

2 whole eggs
2 cups Broccoli
1 cup green grapes

Lunch:
15oz of Romaine Hearts
4oz skinless boneless chicken breast
2 stalks of celery

Snack:
Apple
2oz Almonds
5oz of tuna in water

Dinner:
4-6oz chicken breast
3 cups Normandy Blend vegetables
2 celery stalks

Snack:
5oz tuna in water
2oz of almonds
Large Navel Orange


Am I consuming to much fruit and almonds? I would also like suggestions on how to improve the diet.

What are good sauces to add to meals that are paleo friendly


my ending day calorie intake was as follows

1806 calories

141g of carbs
83g of fat
155g of protein
40g of fiber

[Tony Ferous]

Looks good, you could make some tweaks though:


Does the carb figure include the fibre? you might want to stay below 100g of non fibre carbs,
Not too many folk here eat 5 meals per day, it wont encourage bodyfat burning, workout on an empty stomach and wait a while before eating,
Add a fish oil supplement,
There was a thread on sauces recently.

[ErikHutson]

the carb figure does not include fiber so it would be 101g counting the fiber

Why does eating 5 times a day not help with bodyfat burning?


When I IF I always wake up and do crossfit on an empty stomach.

I will check out the sauce thread

Thanks!

[Darryl Shaw]

Erik,

1600 - 1900 Kcals/day is barely enough to meet your BMR so you need to figure out your actual energy requirements before you start worrying about trivial stuff.

You can find plenty of BMR calculators online and although they aren't all that accurate they're close enough for most people. In order to figure out roughly how many calories you need per day make a rough estimate of the number of calories you need for daily activities plus your workouts and add it to your BMR then, as your goal is fat loss, deduct 250 - 500 Kcals from that figure. Obviously this is a fairly rough calculation but that final figure will be roughly the number of calories you need to eat per day to achieve a steady 2 lb/week weight loss. If you find you aren't losing weight though just eat a little less but if you find you're losing more than 2 lb/week you're probably losing muscle so increase portion sizes until you settle on a steady 2 lb/week weight loss.

[Jay Cohen]

Agree, doesn't look bad. I'd add more fat, red meat, and more calories in general assuming that you are training strong, getting sleep, yada yada yada.

Pending your age and fitness goals, you need to eat more.

[Mike ODonnell]

Are you losing weight? Then you have your answer about calories. Don't overtrain and add in a up day of eating whatever you want to keep the metabolism strong.

[George Mounce]

I'll tell you the two days of rest I just took and the shepard's pie (recipe coming soon!) I ate did wonders to how I felt. Eat more, live happy!

[ErikHutson]

My stats are

5'9
255lbs
23 years old


Ive done calculators before but came up with this


BMR= 2374.55


Now I have seen on crossfit forums that they use an activity factor of .8, which Im confused as the harris benedict formula has a sedetary lifestyle starting at 1.2

How would I go about getting the right activity formula?

All I do is the Crossfit WOD with a 3/1 on/off as my main exercise.

[Emily Mattes]

Eric, I believe the 0.8 "activity factor" you saw over on the Crossfit boards refers to the number of grams of protein you want. In the Zone, protein and blocks are estimated on about 0.8*LBM (where LBM = number of pounds of lean body mass).

I have heard from a lot of people doing strength training that that is a pretty low protein requirement--if you go for about one gram of protein to one pound of body mass you should be golden.

As for calculating calories, as someone else said you should look at a BMR calculator. A good rule of thumb is if you mainly do office work during the week, you want to calculate your caloric level to be your bodyweight x 12. This is going to increase depending on your workout program. Calculating BMR is not an exact science, unfortunately, so once you get an approximate level you will have to mess around with it to find a point where you're losing weight but not starving.

[Steven Low]

Easy way to add more fat -- eat your tuna with OIL instead of water.