Comment on my days foods - need help getting back on track

Can someone (or multiple people) comment on my day so far...

Mon, Mar 03 2008  

Breakfast    

Rolled Oats - 100% Organic Hot Cereal 150  cals 

Lunch    

Arugula - Raw 10 cals   

Cottage Cheese, Lowfat, 1% Milkfat 163 cals

Blueberries 21 cals

Almonds, Dry Roasted - With Salt Added 84 cals

Bananas 90 cals 

I have also brought a small apple, a small orange and a small yam.  I am going to be having dinner late 8-9pm and I am having spaghetti squash with homemad red sauce.

All that food looks great. The only thing I could even remotely be able to offer a suggestion for is to try and find almonds without salt added. But some people need more sodium in their diet than others. It just depends on your body and how it responds so if you find it works for you then don't change it! good work!

I agree - I normally have raw unsalted almonds but we have these almonds here at work sitting on our desk so those were a last minute add.  thanks for the comment - it helps!!!

Less than 600 calories?  What's your BMR?  How much are you working out? 

 

Sounds low to me. 

I try to have 600 cals during the day typically so that I have have about 400 cals for dinner.

I do'nt know what my BMR is, how do I figure that out?

I try and work out at least 3 days a week but I am starting to up that to at least 4-5, if I can.

 

Original Post by dcgirl:

I try to have 600 cals during the day typically so that I have have about 400 cals for dinner.

I do'nt know what my BMR is, how do I figure that out?

I try and work out at least 3 days a week but I am starting to up that to at least 4-5, if I can.

You need to be eating a lot more.  If you are working out this much and undereating, you will be burning more muscle than FAT.  You will not lower your BF% that way.  (Not that you need to lower your BF%, but I see it is one of your goals.) 

You should focus on building muscle tone. That means more targeted exercise, more food, and lots more protein. 

Here's what my calculator says.  Click the link if you want to play with the numbers.  (I don't know where you are in your weight journey now, so I left it at "loss".  You may want to switch to "maintain" in order to build some muscle, though.  In that case, you'd simply eat about 2034 calories per day.)

Your Estimated BMR (calculated at http://phord.com/cc):
BMR=1312 :: Sedentary Burn=1574

Your customized recommendation:
EAT 1429 calories :: BURN 2034 calories :: LOSE 1.21 lb per week

Reasoning:

Deficits: Your deficit is the difference between how many calories you eat and how many calories you burn. Your recommended deficit is 605 calories. This is the least of your Activity Deficit (722 calories), your Safety Deficit (605 calories), and your Maximum Fat Calorie Expenditure (624 calories).

Activity Deficit (722 calories): This is the number of calories you burn in your daily activities (such as being awake, driving to work, exercising, doing homework, etc.). This is an estimate based on the amount of exercise you indicated you do each week in the form above, averaged out for daily deficit numbers. For sedentary individuals this is 20% of your BMR.

Safety Deficit (605 calories): Nutritionists say that you can safely lose no more than 1% of your body weight per week. For the weight you gave (121 lb), you can safely lose about 1.21 lb per week. Because each pound of body fat contains 3500 calories of energy, your safe deficit is 1.21 lb * 3500 calories per pound per week = 4235 calories per week, which comes to 4235 / 7 = 605 calories per day.

Maximum Fat Calorie Expenditure (624 calories): One study found that body fat in humans can be converted to energy at a maximum rate of 31 calories per pound of actual body fat per day. Any energy you expend beyond this rate comes from your intake of nutrients and the breakdown (catabolysis) of your muscles. Weight loss in most people consists of about 75% FAT and 25% MUSCLE. Since we can calculate the actual amount of body fat in your body using your Body Fat Percentage (if given), we can determine the optimal calorie deficit to focus on FAT BURN instead of MUSCLE LOSS. To optimize your FAT BURN instead of MUSCLE LOSS, you should choose a deficit that does not exceed this value. (Persons wishing to lose muscle as well as fat can ignore this deficit limit.)