calories... im confused!
 

ok so i need help here regarding calories. im currently trying to diet and build lean muscles at the gym. I was told to decrease my calorie diet and eat healthy. I started buying this organic cereal called Nature's Path Flax Plus Pumpkin granola and have been including it in my diet. When i read the nutritional facts the total calories were 260 for dry cereal alone and 320 w/ milk. Does this mean i am gonna gain more weight instead of losing it? becuz i have to consider the other meals i have the whole day. I want to know if this cereal will actually help me lose weight (substitute for a meal), or will it just make me gain more weight?

http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/7...usrgranola.gif



Also FYI, kelloggs frosted flakes contains only 180 calories so whats up with that? why does the nature path cereal contain more?


My diet consist of:
breakfast (6-7am) Nature's Path granola cereal, one bowl w/ milk
work break (9-10am) oatmeal in a pack, 1 cup serving
lunch (12-1pm) roast beef sandwich w/ mayo and kraft single cheese
dinner (6-7pm) Nature's Path granola cereal, one bowl w/ milk


I am a noob when it comes to nutrition or diet so please let me know if something needs to be changed in my diet.

Just an FYI but im pretty sure anything "flax" will make you shit lots.
Posted via RS Mobile

i'm far from a nutritional expert, but here is my take on it...

i remember reading a while back that there is more nutritional value in a box of corn flakes (yes, the actual cardboard box) than the cereal itself. frosted flakes are the same as corn flakes, but with the frosting (which you know can not be healthy). so ya, more calories because there is substance in the nature's path cereal.

I have always found trying to count calories to control my diet gets very frustrating. now i just ask myself before i eat, "do i really want to be eating this?" and i am pretty good at compensating with extra cardio for those times when i do overeat and/or choose unhealthy food.

Try to compare it to your previous diet. For ex. if you were taking in 3000 calories while working out 3 days a week and still maintained body weight, then that means in order to lose weight while still working out 3 times a week, you'd have to eat less than 3000 calories. Simply put, your calories intake has to be less than the amount you expend.

Protein and carbs.

Go nuts and have fun building muscle.

well that cereal has nuts and other stuff in it so that is why the fat content and calories are up more, but that is a good thing nuts and shit is good for you, the corn flakes are like dog shit

320 calories IS meal replacement, how many calories do you think a single burger is worth? If you only eat portions that big say 5-6 times a day, you're still only getting the nutritionists' recommended 1500ish calorie diet.

While calories are definetly important in building muscle, where too much can mean you might not use enough and turns into fat, or too little means you won't even have the energy to build lean muscle, you should focus less on worrying too much about how many calories you eat and worry more about how much protein you're getting (which is what's going to get you all that muscle).

I would add some fruit / veggies... throw a banana into the cereal and add lettuce / tomato / cucumber to the sandwich.

I am not a nutritionist either but I am nearly 100% sure that 1500 calories in 1 day is too low. If I remember correctly a standard 70kg adult male should intake 2200 calories (female is like 1800) so they generalize it and say people should intake about 2000 calories a day.

ps. I realize that its only 500 calories but chronically it is a bigger deal. Also remember, if you decrease your food intake then your body adapts to conserve energy and metabolism decreases.

But I do agree with dude above noting that its not just calories. If you are serious, try to find a real RD (not the guy who works at GNC and tells you what you need) or a student studying dietetics and they can give you a better answer specifically for you.

Thanks, i guess i didn't make myself clear. I was just referring to the nutrition chart definition of what professionals would recommend as a daily caloric intake for the individual who is meeting all their nutritional needs (ie. all 100% of their vitamins, minerals and supplements they're body needs to function optimally). But obviously its a hard thing to eat completely right, so we need a little more nutrition/calories than is whats generally recommended.

But thats not to say there aren't very fit and cut people eating at 1500 a day, its just harder for anyone who isn't committed or has the resources to manage their diet accordingly.

And yea, I agree that the less calories you take in, the less metabolism you have, less calories you can burn, and less you'll be able to exert yourself.

So, keeping in tune with what I said earlier OP... Worry less about calories, more about getting the nutrients your body needs to stay healthy and build muscle. Like Biohazard said, look for advice from a dietician or professional, they can give you the facts better than most of us here can.

thanks guys! appreciate the input.

And remember, not all calories are created equal.

You could eat 1700 calories a day, and become malnourished, famished, depressed, and basically closer to death. This happens if you don't get enough fat and protein.

Or you could eat 1700 calories a day, and be fit and perfectly healthy, losing all excess fat storage that your body doesn't need. This happens when you eat a lot of fat and protein, but very little carbohydrates.

May I trouble you to elaborate on this?

I am trying to gain lean muscles, so I start taking the Quick Mass, which is 1,010 calories, 15g fat and 57g protein per serving. 2 servings on work out days, first thing in the morning and post work out and 1 serving right before bed on rest day.

Should I consume alot of fat with that high the calories input to be fit and healthy?

Thanks, I am really a noob when comes to nutrition.

No problem, I'll explain later.

^ looking foreward to it

i have a little trouble understanding this too.
i watched fathead after reading these forums and i think it would have been more powerful if he ate as many calories as the guy from supersize me but less from carbs, and still lost weight. instead he ate less calories and less carbs and lost weight. that was kind of a no brainer that he lost weight with that diet considering his normal caloric intake before doing the experiment was probably higher than his intake during the experiment.
right now i eat probably around 20-30g of carbs per meal which is not very much and ive been shedding weight very slowly. maybe im eating too much? might eat 2000-2500 calories a day. its probably my weekly binge drinking thats holding me back. lol

The guy from Supersize Me ate 30 pounds of sugar during the course of his diet. A pound a day.

The guy from Fat Heat ate what a normal human with a functioning brain would eat, if they were going to live off fast food. IIRC the calorie total (which is irrelevant) was roughly the same as what he was eating before.

One almost died, the other lost weight.

Is it not reasonable to assume that Spurlock's bad health was mostly due the pound of sugar per day he was consuming?

its a very reasonable assumption, but according to the guy from fathead, spurlock was also eating in the neighborhood of 3500 calories a day and sedentary. that had to play a big role in his weight gain too no doubt. i'd be interested to see him eat 2000 calories a day and most of it from carbs. now that would prove a lot!

Being sedientary wouldn't have much of an effect - fat head was mostly sedientary too, aside from going for a walk (which is not very active at all)

High carb/low fat diets have already been directly compared to high fat/low carb diets. The results are extremely different. In fact, I posted a video about it in another thread here somewhere.

I also saw a study from the 40's, where they wanted to see what happens to a person when they go through a famine (to figure out how to treat WWII survivors throughout Europe). They took 36 young, healthy men, locked them up, and fed them an average of 1570 calories per day. They were fed about 57/25/18 ratio of carbs/protein/fat.

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/w...t-blogsize.jpg

Eventually the subjects looked like holocaust survivors. The men were incapable of working properly, always tired. They could not perform normal activity, because all they could think about was eating (they were only fed twice a day). Depression set in too, which Spurlock noted when he did his supersize diet. Apparently the guy in the picture above cut off his fingers just a few weeks after that photo was taken.

15 years later, another unrelated study was done by a doctor running a weight loss clinic in UK. He was treating his patients by putting them on a high fat/low carb diet. Of course by then that was totally unacceptable to his peers. So he set out to see who was right.

He basically put his subjects on the same weight loss diet he put his clients on. Basically, they could eat whatever fat they wanted (cream, butter, fish, meat), and whatever green vegetables they wanted. The only restriction was carbohydrates, which was kept down to about 50g per day. They were kept under supervision for 2 weeks, and taught what foods they could and could not eat.

Despite being able to eat whatever they wanted, his subjects ended up taking in an average of 1560 calories per day. Almost identical to the starvation study. The macro-nutrient ratio was 17/21/62 % carbs/protein/fat. These subjects were healthy, mentally fit (not even complaining about being hungry) and in fact lost fat by the end.

So as you can see, even though the calories were the same in both studies, the outcomes were completely different. One group was starved, unhealthy, and lethargic, while the other stayed healthy, and reported no ill effects.

This isn't exactly a direct comparison, but I think you can see the significance here, at least in terms of "why are calories different".

What you really have to do is figure out what makes you fat. It's not "because you eat 2200 calories, but your body only needs 2000 calories". It's because of insulin.

Too tired to describe insulin though, sorry.

Watch this for now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNYlIcXynwE