Hi! I've been lurking here for a while and could use some advice. I have been weight training (all DBs) regularly for the last six months and on and off (mostly off) for many years before that. I was preparing to start the NROLW program in about a week, but I am concerned about eating the recommended number of calories for me (2016 on wo days, 1760 w/ no wo). I have been eating at 1400-1600 calories since March and have lost about 15 pounds.
A little bit more about me: I am F, 37 y.o., 5'4", 142 pounds. Over the past two years I have lost 50 pounds, and have 10 pounds to go to get to my "magic number". I realize that this magic number weight is arbitrary and may end up being too low or too high, depending on body comp, but after all the work I have put into losing weight, I'm not sure I should stop short of my body weight goal and start increasing calories (particularly with a beach vacation only eight weeks away!) On the other hand, I like the idea of starting this program over the summer when the gym will be relatively dead.
Is there anyone out there who went from a deficit to maintenance when starting the program and if so, what was your experience? any recommendations or suggestions for me? Also, I'm planning on continuing with cardio on off days from weights. It's not clear to me from the book whether I should eat at the higher level of calories on cardio days or only on days when I weight train. Thanks for any help!
It's not clear to me from the book whether I should eat at the higher level of calories on cardio days or only on days when I weight train.
In this book, it is on training days, which you can take to mean weight training. Other days, whether doing the optional cardio or not, you eat at the lower number.
If I had to do it over again, I probably would have continued with the way I was eating before and then added calories if I needed to. My story is similar to yours, lost a bunch of weight, still working on the last 10 pounds. I followed the recommended calories according to the book's formula (I was so excited to eat more!), and ended up gaining 9 pounds through stage 1, though it is slowly coming back off (I've got 2 more workouts left in stage 3, have lost 4 of those 9), but that may be my body adjusting to be sure I'm getting the right amount of calories and macros. I vaguely remember a section in the book that says to maintain your caloric intake and then use stage 1 to assess where you are, i.e. more fatigued you need to increase calories, but I may be recalling that incorrectly. I have decided that this whole working out/eating clean thing is a big science experiment with one subject-are own individual selves.
thanks! Miss Jane, someone may have to stage some kind of intervention to tear me away from the computer and all the information you've provided Based on what I'm reading this all sounds like more art than science. Or to the extent that it's science, you just have to experiment on yourself.
Tawny, thanks for the advice. That's pretty much where I ended up after doing a little reading. As it is, I'm pretty close to a 300 calorie deficit from what is recommended in the book, so I think I might try to start with the 300 calorie deficit and move up from there if needed. On training days this will end up being slightly more than I have been eating, but I weigh in daily (I'm not obsessive -- it actually helps me have perspective that any particular day's weigh-in is not that important and helps me focus on the trend) so I should be able to gauge (sp?) if I'm getting into trouble at the scale. Obviously, I'll also be monitoring how I feel to see if I need to up the calories.
Now on to preparations: new watch battery for timing rest periods (I stink at waiting around between sets), and practicing form for the exercises in stage 1.
I'll be curious to know how it works out for you -let us know! I also weigh daily, for the same reasons you do - there's nothing more frustrating than eating well all week to discover that you've gained 2 pounds, even if you know it's water weight. Much better to look at the trend over time. Good luck!
What comes up as maintenance calories for the general population that has your weight, might end up being below or over maintenance. No magic number of calories that you can calculate will be your exact number.
The best thing to do is analyze your current diet and see if you are doing things right for your goal. If not, you would have to adjust (add protein, calories, etc.). The book has a premise that you are not eating enough, which doesn't have to be the case. I would personally save myself a negative experiment, as I know how unpleasant it can be to gain instead of lose in an effort to do things by a book or a by a formula. So step one: analyze what you are doing now, if you can't do it yourself, there are plenty of us here that can help look at your food.
Thanks everyone! I totally get it about the maintenance calculation not being precise. Since I'm so close to my initial goal weight (down another 2 pounds as of today, so only 8 to go!), I'm probably really only talking about doing Stage 1 in a deficit; then I'll slowly up my calories and monitor how it's going. I just finished doing the workout program from the Womens Health Perfect Body Diet book (but not the diet), so I don't think Stage 1 of NROLW will be that much of a shock to my system. From what everyone says the later stages seem to be harder and hopefully when I get there I'll be able to increase my calories to support the workouts without compromising my goals.
As far as content of my diet, I have been making an effort to get 30% protein daily and that is going relatively well. I'm keeping the Fage yogurt people from needing a government bailout, anyway. If anything, I could probably use a little more fat. I'm generally getting 20-25%, though, so it's not a dire situation, just room for improvement. I eat whole or minimally processed foods; I don't use artificial sweeteners or much sugar; I drink buckets of water. In general, I try to avoid eating starchy carbs after lunchtime, but that's not ironclad. And unless I've totally blown through my calories for the day, I have a square of dark chocolate and some ginger peach decaf tea after the kids are in bed and I've finished all my work for the day. My body seems to be doing well with this style of eating, but I'm definitely open to suggestions for getting more protein. I have one protein shake every day -- for breakfast after lifting on weight training days and just in the afternoon on other days. I've tried mixing the PP with cottage cheese or yogurt, but I hated that. (Maybe a different brand of PP would be better? I use the 365 store brand from Whole Foods) I'm not a vegetarian, but I'm not a huge meat eater either, so I think that's part of the difficulty. A chicken breast or a turkey burger for a snack, just doesn't appeal to me, but if I end up needing to do that to get results, I'll do it.
I really like ProMatrix Vanilla Ice Cream flavor of protein powder. I can only find it at Nutrition Zone, though, and it's one of the pricier ones, but the nutrition content I think is better than others I've found that are cheaper, like Muscle Milk Protein Plus, and WalMart's brand which I think is called Muscle Fortress? The ProMatrix tastes really good, and I can mix it with lowfat plain yogurt and it tastes like french vanilla yogurt. I also put it on oatmeal with a little non-dairy creamer (1tbsp) and some water to thin it a little, because I can't drink milk. My kids love, love it in milk.
Help - anyone increased calories to start NROLW?
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