Eating More

I was just told by my trainer today that I am eating way too few calories.  I've been eating 1750 calories on average, and he said I should up it to around 2500 calories.  That sounds so huge!  I'm female 5'4", 145 lbs.  I am training for a half-marathon so I'm running around 20 miles a week.  I also do 2 hours of yoga, 1 hour of pilates, and 1 1/2 hours of personal training a week.  I am trying to get down to 120 lbs.  Doesn't 2500 calories seem like WAY too many?

edit: I'm 33 years old.

I'm curious to know the answer. That does seem a lot, but you are working out a lot too. If you are eating too few calories I don't think you can build up muscle.

I'm usually eating 1200-1400 calories. I'm training for my first 5K so I'm running 3 times a week. Perhaps I'm eating too few as well. (5'2, 165lbs and 37).

Plug in your numbers in to calculator to determine your maintenance ball park, then you can use something like the link below to calculate calories burned from running. Then you can calculate how much you need to eat from there. http://www.runtheplanet.com/resources/tools/c alculators/caloriecounter.asp

UD

You are running 20 miles a week,  pilates, yoga and I'm sure some weight training in there.  That amount of activity requires a high calorie load, no doubt about that.  Fitness trainers and body builders look at fat loss in an entirely different way than everyone else.  The majority of people on this site and elsewhere will tell you to eat less to provide a caloric deficit.  Whereas a personal trainer, body builder or exercise physiologist will tell you to eat your maintenance level of calories and BURN your calories through exercise to create a deficit instead of eating less.   

The reason for this is that you want to maintain your lean muscle mass,  while burning fat.  It is very hard to maintain muscle mass when your caloric deficit is coming from eating low calories.  By maintaining a high calorie level and burning calories from exercise, you will be burning more fat and not losing muscle mass.

Tom Venuto wrote and excellent book on this subject called Burn the fat, feed the muscle.  Check it out,  it's an excellent book for anyone wanting to burn fat.

1750*7=12250 cals/week to get our units all the same

20 miles*-130/mile = -2600

2hr yoga*-200/hr? = -400

1hr pilates* -250/hr?= -250

1.5 personal training we'll put in at -400

Phord puts you at about 1650 RMR *7= -11550

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12250-15300= deficit of 3050 for the week if I did my math right.  (Check it, I've been up for like ... forever.)  7,000 is the max allowable deficit on this site.  I'm pretty sure you are fine, even though I used your RMR for daily burn when you probably burn 100-200 more per day even if you work a desk job.

dunno how much your personal class gets the heartrate up.

Thank you all for your replies.  I'm still confused, though, since some of you are saying 1650 and others are saying, yea the trainer's right closer to 2500.  That seems like a huge difference to me!  I don't want to start gaining weight, but I would like to lose weight faster than I currently am.  I don't want to be slowing my metabolism and have that keep me from losing weight faster.

Original Post by dukie46:

I was just told by my trainer today that I am eating way too few calories.  I've been eating 1750 calories on average, and he said I should up it to around 2500 calories.  That sounds so huge!  I'm female 5'4", 145 lbs.  I am training for a half-marathon so I'm running around 20 miles a week.  I also do 2 hours of yoga, 1 hour of pilates, and 1 1/2 hours of personal training a week.  I am trying to get down to 120 lbs.  Doesn't 2500 calories seem like WAY too many?

edit: I'm 33 years old.

No, 2500 calories doesn't seem like WAY too many, depending on how active you are outside of your actual exercise.  Also, note that it's generally not a good idea to try to lose weight while training for a long run (marathon or half marathon); your body needs you to eat at maintenance so that it is fully fueled for your workouts.

I'll use myself as an example because I'm also 33, 5'4 and about 140 pounds (139 on the good days :-) ).  When I do hard strength training three days a week, I can eat 2300 cals/day on my "day after"s and about 2000-2100 cals/day on my other days and lose weight (slowly; half a pound a week).  In addition to the strength training, I teach for a living so am on my feet a fair amount and walk to and from work most days (about 5 miles round trip).  That's no more exercise than you get. 

The people who are telling you 1650 are looking at your resting metabolic rate if you were sedentary then adding exercise to that.  The problem is that that's not really accurate because exercise affects your resting metabolic rate.  My gut feeling tells me that 2500 is probably the number you need to maintain your weight at your current activity level and your trainer is basically trying to point out that weight loss and training for a marathon aren't supercompatible.  At the very least, you'd want to slow your weightloss right down to a pound every week or two.  So, I'd say increase your calories above 2000 even if you don't go as high as 2500.

Why pay a trainer for they're professional assistance if you aren't going to listen to they're advice?  Your trainer knows what you are trying to do, right?  If he knows that you want to burn some fat, and knows your activity level,  I'm sure he is going to know how to fuel your body to get those results.   It is in they're best interest for you to get the results you are looking for.  So why not listen to him?

My trainer told me the same things.   I was around 340 pounds and eating about 1700 calories a day, and working out 6 days a week.   After going through my diet log, he told me that I was barely eating enough to sustain a 120 pound woman at my current exercise level.  I brought my calories up to about 2600 and the pounds started flying off.   Now granted, I'm a huge guy and have a lot more to lose, so it will come off faster.  But I wasn't eating nearly enough and my body was hanging on to every calorie I took in.  

Original Post by downdeep:

Why pay a trainer for they're professional assistance if you aren't going to listen to they're advice?  Your trainer knows what you are trying to do, right?  If he knows that you want to burn some fat, and knows your activity level,  I'm sure he is going to know how to fuel your body to get those results.   It is in they're best interest for you to get the results you are looking for.  So why not listen to him?

My trainer told me the same things.   I was around 340 pounds and eating about 1700 calories a day, and working out 6 days a week.   After going through my diet log, he told me that I was barely eating enough to sustain a 120 pound woman at my current exercise level.  I brought my calories up to about 2600 and the pounds started flying off.   Now granted, I'm a huge guy and have a lot more to lose, so it will come off faster.  But I wasn't eating nearly enough and my body was hanging on to every calorie I took in.  

That seems like good advice, but I'll argue with the "listen to your trainer" bit.  For nutritional matters, I don't think that most trainers are any more informed than your average joe.  I know that at my gym, becoming a trainer just requires taking 1 certification class...

You are absolutely right.  A good majority of trainers don't have a clue about nutrition.  I don't know off hand what the certifying agencies to be a certified personal trainer require in the area of nutrition. 

What I would do is start asking your trainer why he wants you to increase your calories.  Make him explain it to you, see if he has a good grasp on nutrition and fat loss.