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Tara's Friday Bite – Are You Under-eating?
Believe it or not, the most common problem I see in my office is under-eating. Don’t get me wrong, there is a whole lot of over-eating going in our country! However, typically when people first start changing their diet and exercise routines they slash their calories in hopes of seeing faster results. When you under-eat you may initially 
see a drop in fat but soon you will experience a frustrating plateau in weight loss, then a reduction in energy/performance. If you continue over a period of time, you can damage your metabolism, upset your hormones and lose bone density. In order to understand why this happens, let’s take a step back and look at your metabolism.
Many people think that the majority of the calories that they burn are expended through exercise. That’s not necessarily true. Even when you are just sitting in a chair you have a lot of action going on in your body. Your body is thinking, breathing, digesting, etc. All this action uses energy. The measure of this energy is called your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) and it is expressed in the form of calories. The most accurate way to measure your RMR is by using a simple breathing test that can be found at your local gym or through your nutritionist. However, a quick way to estimate your RMR is by using a calculator like this one at Active.com: http://www.active.com/fitness/calculators/calories/. This calculator will tell you how many calories you are burning daily BEFORE exercise. Then on top of that you need to incorporate average calories burned during your daily exercise routine. Check out Discovery Health’s activity calorie burn rate calculator here: http://health.discovery.com/centers/cholesterol/activity/activity.html. Add that number to your Resting Metabolic Rate and you have the average number of calories burned per day, including exercise. If you want to maintain your weight, this is the number of calories to aim for. If you want to lose weight, subtract 500 from this number and that should result in about 1 lb per week.
The more active you are, the higher your RMR number will be. If you are also trying to eat as clean as possible (i.e., lean protein, fruits, vegetables, etc.) you may actually find that this is a hard number to hit. The answer is not to stuff yourself or trade in your brown rice for a deep dish pizza. Instead try to add some more nutrient-dense foods like avocados, quinoa, sweet potatoes, olive oil, peanut butter, etc. You are working hard and you need this food to fuel your workouts and rebuild your muscles. Remember, the difference between a workout where you feel great and energized and one where you are staring at the clock hoping not to die is the food that you put in your body! Make sure it’s the right quantity and quality. You deserve it!
Tara Coleman www.taracoleman.com
Tara Coleman is a Clinical Nutritionist living in San Diego, CA. She blogs for Total Gym Inside twice a month with “Tara’s Friday Bite.” Leave us your comments with ideas for future topics or email Tara directly at tara@taracoleman.com.
