Newbie feeling weak on a high-protein diet

[FemalePower]

Hi all,

I am quite confused over what is happening to me and I hope you'll be able (and willing) to help me. I am eating a 1300 calorie diet with 130g of protein, 130g of complex carbs and 28g of fats (actually, fats are usually about 22g). How did I set this? I read somewhere on www.bodybuilding.com that for loosing fat + gaining muscle one should calculate calorie intake as 25*body weight in kg and 40% of this should be proteins, 40% carbs and 20% fats. I eat 5-6 meals throughout the day.

I have been following this diet for only six days while weight training and almost immediately started feeling 'spacey' - I found it really difficult to concentrate, I would go from one room to another and forget what I wanted to accomplish - several times in just few minutes. I am taking a holiday and I have all the time pretty much to myself, but I accomplish very little in a day because everything takes so much time and thought. I'm afraid to think what would this do to my work which is mentally very challenging. I just feel plain dumb. I have this little voice in the back of my head that my brain is simply not getting enough carbs for fuel... Or maybe not enough healthy fats as well.

At the same time I started to feel very tired and weak. I feel great after having a breakfast (30g protein / 30g complex carbs), but my energy quickly fades away as I go about my day and I need a nap in the afternoon to go on. At first I thought it was just because of difficult training sessions (I became so tired in 1hr after working out that I had to lay down), but today I took a day off (no weights, no cardio) and it didn't get any better.

This is not the first time I've tried high-protein diet and the last time I tried I got similar results (very tired, feeling dumb), so I stopped. For some reason I hoped that it would be different this time.

I would really like to have a well-defined body and it seems that I need to load on proteins - but I don't want to live out my life as a zombie - no energy and no brain.
Any ideas, suggestions, anybody with similar problems?

Thank you very much for your help!

The confused newbie

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If you need more facts about me and my training:
- I am 166cm tall and weigh about 53kg (5' 5'' and 117lbs).
- My scale says I have 15% body fat, but I don't trust that, because it shows I have more on my bloated days, even though the 'bloat' is supposed to be only water and therefore the fat percentage should go down.
- My goal is to loose the 6lbs of fat I gained over the summer and gain muscle - I have no idea how much would that be in weight, but I like well-defined muscles.
- I started a light weight training program three months ago - I thought it would be a good 'warm up' into a more serious routine. I tried to limit my calorie intake at 1200kcal/day (only 60g of protein), weight train 3 times per week and do cardio of 20-40 minutes for 4 times per week. Exercise went pretty well, but I would overeat quite regularly and as a result I added 2lbs.
- About 10 days ago I started on a more serious wight training program (prepared by fitness instructor) with tree sets of 8 repetitions (building up to 12), training different muscle groups 3 times per week. I really gave it my all and selected weights that I could barely lift in the last two or three reps.
- I do cardio 3 times per week on alternating days (basically 20 minutes of the type of cardio recommended by BodyForLife - intervals of high intensity).

[twinnett]

I would say that your calories are too low, esp. fats. You are already very low in weight and I would say that you need to build muscle! I would recommend upping your calories. Your maitenance is probably somewhere around 1750-1800 calories and I don't think you should dip much lower than that, esp if you're feeling bad!

Are you getting enough water and sleep? What are you eating exactly and at what times?

[tanglewood7x]

1200/1300 calories just isn't enough - thats gonna be about the minimum your body needs just to exist - thats before you start doing your day to day activities & obviously any kind of exercise is going to increase this calorie expendeture.

If you don't eat enough, especially when weight training your body just hangs on the every last bit of fat as it basicly goes into starvation mode.

I know this as I done the exact same thing your doing now & I was eating more like 1500 cal a day but after 6 months of this my body couldn't cope any more & I got pretty ill.

I'm no expert but I recon you need to be eating more like 1600/1700 cal a day & up the Fat a bit too - sounds scary I know but it worked for me & I feel much better & I'm losing those last few pounds slowly now whereas before even with the low cal & load of cardio & weights it didnt shift!

Hope this helps

Good luck :-)

[FemalePower]

Gals, thank you for your perspective on things. It's good to know someone is willing to help :)

I set the calorie intake this low because I wanted to loose those 6lbs as soon as possible and I definitely didn't want to gain any extra inches in the process of gaining muscle (well... they would look great on my arms, but very bad on my thighs). As I mentioned I want to gain muscle (all over), but at the same time I want thinner thighs which can only happen if I loose the fat stored there (I am 'pear-shaped' with almost no fat in the upper body - skinny arms, you can see my ribs, small behind, but with have big, flabby thighs). If I add any more inches there I will have to start buying bigger pants which is not the outcome I was looking for.

It does seem that cut it too low, though.
I've been surfing around bodybuilding.com and found two calculators with very different results:
This one (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/idssports3.htm) says that I should be getting 1360kcal per day (75g of protein / 187g of carbs / 35g of fat).
Another one (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/issa64.htm) says I should be getting at least 1688kcal per day (105g of protein / 254g of carbs / 28g of fat).

I've been on and off diets for the better part of last 10 years which kept my weight at 50kg, but I was loosing muscle in the process. I must have quite slow metabolism by now so I'm a bit reluctant to eat 1700kcal per day - maybe somewhere around 1500/1600...


As for my diet, here is a typical day:
- I drink at least 2l of water per day, sometimes more
- 9am: 30g of whole-wheat meal (don't know the English word for it - sorry) + 300g of skim milk + 20g of EAS Whey Protein
- 12am: 100g of turkey breast with some veggies and 2 whole-wheat crackers (20g).
- 3pm: homemade protein bar (oatmeal + egg whites + cottage cheese + whey protein) - 226kcal, 21g protein, 21g carbs, 6g fat
- 6pm: Universal Nutrition Hi Protein Bar (298kcal, 33g of protein, 32g of carbs, 5g of fat) - however since most of the carbs here are sugar alcoholes I don't think I will eat this again. Yesterday I felt sick afterwards.
- 9pm: 150g fat-free cottage cheese, 30g of cranberries, tomato

As I am on a holiday I have no need to get up early and I sleep as long as I want. It's weird, though - since I started this diet I wake up after about 7 hours of sleep, but normally I would wake up after 8 or even more.

I welcome any other comments or thoughts you might have.
Thanks!

[Amanda76]

I don't think 6 lbs is an emergency situation. You may set a goal that you want to lose 6 lbs within a month because that's realistic. But trying to do something like that "as fast as possible" makes people make bad decisions. I think you need to break that kind of thought pattern to get out of the cycle you've gotten yourself into.

I'm with everyone else...it's mostly your low calories making you feel spacey and weak, not the fact that you're eating the greater percentage of those calories in protein.

If you are correct in the assumption that you have lost a lot of muscle through your yo-yo dieting, you are going to have to work to fix your metabolism before you can expect to have muscle definition. A lot of us here (myself included) have been through that and I know that mentally it can be difficult to risk fat gain for the sake of gaining muscle. But if you are consistent (quit the yo-yoing), your efforts will pay off. It really shouldn't take so much convincing for a person to understand how important it is for them to eat plenty once they recognize a part of the reason they are unhappy with their body has to do with losing muscle. But for whatever reason, it seems people need to be hit with a brick before it sinks in that continuing to undereat is not going to produce different results than it has in the past. ;)

You will not be able to continually make gains with as few calories as you are consuming. Muscle requires more energy (calories) to exsist than fat and you can't expect your body to create muscle when you aren't feeding it enough to even maintain what's there. When your workouts start going south because of your diet, you have double the problem because at that point you're unable to stimulate your body the way it needs to be stimulated to maintain muscle...so your body will begin using the more calorie-expensive muscle for energy and hold on to fat for as long as it can because of this famine-like situation you've put it in.

You need to eat more REAL food. And twinnett is correct that fat is one of the things that can keep your brain from feeling so fuzzy (there's a reason salmon is known as a "brain food"...that'd be a great real food to eat a couple nights/week ;)). Upping your cals might be enough to allow that to happen with your current macros. However, 40p-40c-20f is just a place people like to start at. You may find you do better at 40-30-30 or switching to more of a keto diet. Or, you may find you need more carbs than protein (typical for people who do a lot of long-distance cardio or who have physically demanding jobs). 1,500-1,600 cals is certainly more reasonable than 1,300 so if that's what you're comfortable starting with, go for it--and play with your macros from there.

[freebirdmac]

It really shouldn't take so much convincing for a person to understand how important it is for them to eat plenty once they recognize a part of the reason they are unhappy with their body has to do with losing muscle. But for whatever reason, it seems people need to be hit with a brick before it sinks in that continuing to undereat is not going to produce different results than it has in the past. ;)


And that rock hurts! Just like the truth. If you don't eat enough, which you weren't, you will go absolutely nowhere. You'll maybe lose a few pounds and some inches off your lower body, but it won't look any different than it does now. Just a tad smaller.

Muscle takes up less space than fat. If you replace a good portion of your lower body fat with muscle you will lose inches. And your lower body will look much, much better.

In the past 6 weeks I've increased my cals from about 1350 to an average of 1600, dropped cardio, and continued to lift 3x a week. I've seen my workouts improve, no feeling weak or sick after workouts, and I can really tell I've gained some muscle. I'm getting ready to add some cardio back in and I'll probably have to eat even more.

It is scary to eat more, but you have to do it. Those 6 pounds, which is about what I need to lose in bodyfat, can wait.

[twinnett]

I will use myself as an example. I started out a year and a half ago eating only around 1000 calories a day. I was 105# and sick and weak and miserable and was doing about 2 hrs of cardio a day.

Fast forward to now. I have been working w/ Emma Leigh and we raised my calories, cut way back on cardio, started lifting heavy and EATING and now my body fat is LOWER than a year and a half ago and i've gained a ton of muscle! My metabolism has speeded up and I feel SOO much better!

I know it's scary, but like amanda said: you don't need to raise cals all at once! Do it a little at a time as you're comfortable with it! It WILL pay off!

[FemalePower]

Thank you all for your great advice! I think my body wanted to teach me a lesson in last few days and you helped me understand it :)

My plan now is to increase calorie intake a bit every week. Right now it is difficult for me to eat more than 1400-1450 kcal per day (without eating junk food), so this is where I will start. Then I will add 50 kcal every week until I reach 1600. By that time I will know if I want to go higher than that.
When I lift weights I really push my limits so it would be quite disappointing if it was all for nothing because I didn't eat properly.

Also, my post-workout shake consisted of 30g protein + 30g carbs, but it seems this wasn't good enough since I felt weak. I changed it to 20g protein + 40g carbs and I felt much better today. I also need to make sure that I eat my next meal less than 3 hours after that one because it seems that my body burns that post-workout shake pretty fast.

Amanda 76: well, one month is about the timeframe I had in mind :)
You see, loosing 6lbs demands creating approximately 21,000kcal deficit - that is 700kcal per day over 30 days.

Thank you again!
Have great holidays :)

[Amanda76]

Thank you all for your great advice! I think my body wanted to teach me a lesson in last few days and you helped me understand it :)

My plan now is to increase calorie intake a bit every week. Right now it is difficult for me to eat more than 1400-1450 kcal per day (without eating junk food), so this is where I will start. Then I will add 50 kcal every week until I reach 1600. By that time I will know if I want to go higher than that.
When I lift weights I really push my limits so it would be quite disappointing if it was all for nothing because I didn't eat properly.

Also, my post-workout shake consisted of 30g protein + 30g carbs, but it seems this wasn't good enough since I felt weak. I changed it to 20g protein + 40g carbs and I felt much better today. I also need to make sure that I eat my next meal less than 3 hours after that one because it seems that my body burns that post-workout shake pretty fast.

Amanda 76: well, one month is about the timeframe I had in mind :)
You see, loosing 6lbs demands creating approximately 21,000kcal deficit - that is 700kcal per day over 30 days.

Thank you again!
Have great holidays :)

Sounds like a good plan...glad you had a healthy weight loss goal in mind!

[terracotta]

At 117 lbs, 1400-1800 would be a good fat loss range. I dislike the 40/40/20 diet split as it puts fats pretty low when dieting. I MUCH prefer 40/30/30 or 35/35/30 for people on a large deficit.

[FemalePower]

OK, terracota, I will also use more fats as you suggest. 30% of 1400 is about 45g of fat per day. That's about twice as much fats as when I wrote my first post. We'll see if it does the trick of making me more alert :)

BTW, I'm feeling much better now, but it seems I caught a stomach flu or something and can't follow the diet right now - high-protein meals just lay in my stomach for hours after I eat them. :(

Thanx.