Q&A for: 15-Jan-06
1222. Q:
Mike, I recently read your article recommending a 43%: 30%: 27% protein to carb to fat calorie ratio to burn fat and have been (for the past week) attempting to meet this (with some success). Over the past year, I have lost approximately 90 pounds and have gone from 282 pounds to 194 pounds (41-year-old, 5'10' male). I did this by reducing my caloric intake to about 1500 calories per day but determined that my caloric intake was approximately 25%: 45%: 30% protein to carb to fat caloric intake. My question is, since starting this new ratio, I do not get very hungry and my caloric intake has dropped to around 1400 calories per day, and I some times have to force feed myself all that protein. Is it okay to eat so little? I would like to eventually get down to a 32' waiste (currently at 36', formerly 48') or 170 pounds: whichever comes first. I work out about 90 minutes three times a week and include 30 minutes of cardio and 60 minutes of weight training. Please help.
A:
HUGE CONGRATS on your weight loss! That's a great accomplishment! To answer your question, no, I would not recommend staying at 1400 or even 1500 calories for you to achive your goal because that's too few calories. Losing fat and weight (and especially keeping it off afterwards!) when you are just slightly overweight is harder than when you are very obese (like you were at 200+ pounds), so you have to optimize your diet a bit more. The danger of staying at low calorie levels in your present condition is that your metabolism will shut down before you reach your goals, because you will not have enough energy coming in through food or from existing fat reserves (because you've burn through most of them).
So my recommendation would be to slowly INCREASE the calories till you are at 2000-calorie level at least. Do so gradually, over the course of 1-2 months. During that time your weight loss may stop or you may even gain a couple of pounds, but I still recommend that you go through with it because once you establish 2000+ calorie level, your metabolism will be much higher and you'll be in much better position to achieve your ultimate goal of 170 pounds or 32-inch waist AND, even more importantly, not be in danger of regaining weight later.
As to the exact protein/carbs/fat ratio, it's less important than upping your overall calories. If you are more comfortable at your old 25/45/30 ratio, stick with that and just try to increase the size of servings of meats or fish or whatever your sources of protein are -- that'll also help you bump the calories up the 500 or so needed to reach the 2000 level.
Again, congrats on your tremendous accomplishments so far and best of luck reaching your goals! Always feel free to ask me anything and I'll do my best to help.
1223. Q:
carbohydrates like brown rice and wholmeal bread provide energy. I eat a diet which is fairly high in carbs. My question is - why is eating a diet fairly high in carbs seen by many as being bad. I understand that white flour carbs like white bread aren't nutritious and contain little. Surely goods carbs like fibrous - hence filling - wholemeal carbs - cannot be any near as bad. Of course I'm aware that eating more carbs than I need in energy(calories) a day will make me overweight. By the way my weight is very constant - despite my high carb diet. I eat a high carb diet as I know it provides the energy I need - low carb diets surely leave people feeling drained.
A:
You totally have the right picture of eating carbs. If you are happy with your present weight and you eat healthy carbs like brown rice whole-grain bread and you don't overeat, then you have no reason to change to a low-carb diet! Low- or medium-carb diets are appropriate when trying to lose weight and fat but if you are not trying to do that and are eating healthy foods then you certainly don't need to follow such diets.
1224. Q:
I'm confused, In your diet Myths, it says that it is not true if you eat before you go to bed you will gain weight. I saw Oprah's TV show once and she said one of her secrets to losing weight was not to eat anything(even water) before 7:00 P.M. before she went to bed. Which one am I supposed to listen to??? Thanx for your help. Great Site!
A:
Listen to me :) The reason why a myth like 'Do not eat before sleep' exists is because most people eat junk, especially at night. If choosing before not eating anything and eating junk you would of course choose to not eat at all. What I am telling you is that if you structure your diet following the principles in my article and eat right, then eating at night will only help you lose fat.
What Oprah and almost all other popular diets try to do is to give you one quick fix to solve your problems. In Oprah's case it may be not to eat at night. Others will tell you to skip one meal per day or not eat bread or replace every other meal with Kellogg's Special K, etc etc. Most of them will give you some quick result up front (usually drop a few pounds quickly) and that's it -- they will NOT continue to give you results going forward and are not likely to prevent the weight from coming back.
Instead of 'quick fixes' like that I am giving you a complete nutrition approach to losing weight and keeping it off. You can't pick and choose only the parts of my advice that you like -- in other words, you can't eat junk at night because I said it was OK to eat at night -- instead you need to eat the way I describe in the article, including at night. Hope that clears things up a bit.
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