Avoiding Starvation Mode

Yesterday was a pretty good diet for a rest day, except I wasn’t getting enough calories! I was adding up my meals for the day after dinner last night and realized I’d only had 1285 calories. I wasn’t overly hungry either, though admittedly I hadn’t done much all day either (except go out and buy my first pair of skinny jeans – and I had far more trouble finding a pair that fit over my muscular calves than ones that fit my hips and waist, which is a first). While I am trying to lose a couple of kilos, cutting back on too many calories can send your body into starvation mode. In order to survive the “famine” your body slows the metabolism right down and stores as much fat as it can, making it that much harder to lose weight.  So in order to prevent that, I’m trying to make sure I never go below 1600 calories per day. Hence the Muller Rice pudding last night followed by blueberries and cheese an hour later.

Overall it was a much better diet week than just about any I’ve had since Christmas. Not only did I do all the workouts I had planned, but I managed to keep the calories down most days, and vary my intake based on how much exercise I’d done. Unfortunately getting double the calories on Friday (from cheese, chocolate and wine) pretty much negated all my careful work the rest of the time! My average daily calories for the week were 2060, despite 4 of the last 7 days being less than 1850 calories. On average I was getting 21% protein, 48% carbohydrates, 28% fats and 3% alcohol, with a respectable 28g of fibre. Not a terrible nutrient balance, but I would have preferred more protein and fewer carbohydrates and alcohol. And again that balance changed a lot from day to day, with 22% fat one day and 33% the next.

So this week’s goal is more of the same, only without the giant binge day!

The Score:

Calories:	Protein:	Carbs:	Fat:	Alcohol:	Fibre:
1668.63	103.25g	202.42g	51.27g	0	31.39g
	25%	48%	28%
Calories burned through exercise:		Rest Day

What I ate:

Time	Item	Amount
09:45	Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 each
	Cold water	200mL
	Whole Scrambled egg with 2 egg whites	3 eggs
	Heinz Beanz, reduced sugar and salt	185g
	Mushrooms	100g
	in butter	5g
	Raw tomato	120g
	Sainsbury's pressed apple and cherry juice	100mL
10:30	Black Tea	500mL
12:15	Raspberry and Echinacea tea	250mL
13:15	Turkey cottage pie	270g
	Irish Yoghurts Diet Apricot and Nectarine	125g
14:00	Green Tea	250mL
17:00	Sponser Protein Snack bar	1 bar
18:00	Orange, mango and cinnamon tea	250mL
19:30	Sainsbury's Pork loin	53g
	Boiled and mashed sweet potato	200g
	with butter	2g
	Steamed broccoli	85g
	Bisto Best pork gravy	about 5g
20:00	Muller Rice smooth toffee	190g
21:00	Blueberries	110g
	Extra Mature cheddar	25g
21:30	Ellactiva Chocolate Calcium Chew	1 chew
	500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 pill

Plus 500 to 1500mL of cold water sipped from a water bottle throughout the day.