Under-eating and Over-exercising??

I have this problem - I eat between 1300 and 1600 cals per day focusing on protein and restricted fats/ carbs in fat. The problem with this is that I exercise as follows:

Mon: 30 min run, 45 mins weights
Tues: 30 min run, 45 min weights, 2/ 2.5 hours rock climbing
Wednesday: Rest/ 30 min run/ 30min circuits
Thurs: 30 min run, 45 mins weights, 2/2.5 hrs climb
Fri: 20 mins cv, 45 min weights
Saturday: Either military training (so lots of phys) or 5 mile run and 45 mins gym and a few hours climbing
Sunday: military training (phys like a run and assault course) or 5 mile run and climb.

I'm really nervous about upping the cals since I've been going through a period of losing weight eating not very much (due to being busy and neglecting eating), and want to adjust my metabolism but don't want to gain fat. Also I feel tired at times and want to perform the best possible for a future career in the military. Can anyone point my in the right direction nutritionally?

why do you run that much?

because I'm hoping to go into the military and wasn't good at running before I started training, so run most days to improve (which has helped a lot) I do it for general fitness as opposed to muscle gain/ bbing

ah ha.
i suppose a career in the military would look like what you're doing now?

anyhow, you need at least one complete day of rest to recover.
your training volume is pretty friggin high.

what does your diet look like?

Under eating and over exercising. its like a rocking chair...it gives you something to do..but gets you absolutely nowhere.
in fact it couldn't be more detrimental to your goals, whatever they may be. unless your goal is to get burnt out.
up your cals and give yourself some rest days!! you deserve rest!

[QUOTE=Miranda;280397511]ah ha.
i suppose a career in the military would look like what you're doing now?

anyhow, you need at least one complete day of rest to recover.
your training volume is pretty friggin high.

what does your diet look like?[/QUOTE]

Thanks for your help!

At the moment its

830 run
900 1/2 cup oats with whey
1200 granola bar/ fruit
1230 gym
1330 whey and raisins (about 2 tbsps)
1600 8 almonds
1900 tuna salad (1 can tuna, 1/2 lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber)
2100 low fat yoghurt with whey


thats pretty standard, sometimes minus the granola bar and fruit. im really poor at forward planning and am at uni so go onto campus with pretty instant stuff as i don't have time to stop much.

[QUOTE=jess_muscles;280400421]Under eating and over exercising. its like a rocking chair...it gives you something to do..but gets you absolutely nowhere.
in fact it couldn't be more detrimental to your goals, whatever they may be. unless your goal is to get burnt out.
up your cals and give yourself some rest days!! you deserve rest![/QUOTE]

Really I just want to be as fit as physically possible, but at the same time with fairly low body fat and high energy levels. It's like a science getting this right though! I'll definitely listen to you and take a rest day - it's hard because I want to push myself so much I feel like a rest day is kind of lazy, but I can see what you're saying and it does make sense. Thanks so much for the help.

[QUOTE=tse;280402711]Thanks for your help!

At the moment its

830 run
900 1/2 cup oats with whey
1200 granola bar/ fruit
1230 gym
1330 whey and raisins (about 2 tbsps)
1600 8 almonds
1900 tuna salad (1 can tuna, 1/2 lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber)
2100 low fat yoghurt with whey[/quote]

do you run on an empty stomach? :confused:

you need more . . . of everything, basically.
you don't have to eat small meals every 2-3 hours if it doesn't suit you.
fewer big meals are good, too.


[quote=]Really I just want to be as fit as physically possible, but at the same time with fairly low body fat and high energy levels.[/quote]

define 'fit'. a runner looks different from a sprinter from a bodybuilder (or a figure athlete).

what you need to do is determine what you want to concentrate on and train and eat adequately. can't have it all :)

[QUOTE=Miranda;280406171]do you run on an empty stomach? :confused:

you need more . . . of everything, basically.
you don't have to eat small meals every 2-3 hours if it doesn't suit you.
fewer big meals are good, too.




define 'fit'. a runner looks different from a sprinter from a bodybuilder (or a figure athlete).

what you need to do is determine what you want to concentrate on and train and eat adequately. can't have it all :)[/QUOTE]

yes i do run on an empty stomach, eating before gives me cramp and i heard that cv on an empty stomach boosts your metabolism/ burns fat.

By 'fit' i mean i want to be able to run with weight easily, complete assault courses etc basically military fit, with the appearance as close as possible to a fitness/ figure woman. I would be happy however just to have a toned muscular body, I know the types of training I do will basically define how I look but it's just finding a good balance for me.

Your diet is seriously messed up :) Plus you have 3 goals each of which require a different dietary approach. You have your goal of being able to handle the fitness requirements of the military, your goal of not gaining fat, your goal of gaining muscle, and a goal of losing fat. You really need to prioritize and work from there.

Your maintenance cals are on the order of 2200/day. At your current levels you are bottoming out everywhere. Take a week and eat at maintenance. Give your body a rest from the low cal diet and replenish your stores. After that week you need to have your goals prioritized. Just guessing by what you've written and by your stats, I'd say you need to work on your fitness performance, followed by muscle gain, and leave fat loss for shorter time periods down the road. I'd stay at 2200 at 40/40/20 and focus on increasing your fitness performance and secondary, increasing lean muscle mass. Those two goals alone will be somewhat against one another as your fitness goal involves a good bit of cardio. By eating at maintenance you should have more energy for our fitness goals but it may be, at times, catabolic. But that is where prioritizing comes in. You put one goal first and take what you get with the other. Keeping the carbs reasonable is necessary for your fitness goal. You cannot even think abut fat loss as that will blow both fitness goals and muscle gains out the window and make it very tough to do either.

Remember, these are maintenance cals. You should not be gaining fat as your workouts will be properly fueled. Weight lifting will help you keep the muscle you have and hopefully gain more.

Down the road, after you're reasonably happy with your fitness performance, if even needed, you can do a limited time leaning out phase. That's when you can drop down to 1700 cals for 6 weeks or so. Any longer and you'll risk dropping off on your fitness performance.

It may take a few iterations to get your body looking like you want. The important thing to realize is there will always be tradeoffs based on which goal gets priority.

Oh, and get more protein through real food. Supps are great in a pinch or for that extra 10g, but most of your nutrition needs to come from whole foods.

Undereating and overexercising definitely isn't good for you and it's best to stop it before it gets out of control. That is what led me to develop anorexia in college; I never stopped eating and ate way more than your average anorexic (probably around 1500 cal/day), but I was exercising like 4 hours a day and not eating near enough to maintain that level of activity. It did a number on my metabolism. My weight went down to 80 lb., and when I gained weight back, it took me about 6 months for my metabolism to pick up again and start having some muscle definition and less water retention.

It's a rocky slope you're on.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Same boat here...I was eating around 1400 or 1500, but I ran miles and miles on an empty stomach..ended up skin and bones with a screwed up metabolism