No exercise energy from weight loss

Well, it really doesn't matter to your body what time of day you eat your calories. Calories in, calories out. The "no eating after 6" rule is really targeted at people who binge in the evenings, in front of the TV, or whatever. If you eat planned meals that are within your nutrition guidelines, it doesn't matter what time dinner or dessert is. Remember you are trying to run a calorie deficit each day in order to lose weight. Your body will be using what you've eaten most recently, but then dipping into the surplus you've stored as fat -- doesn't matter when you ate it.

A great training diet calls for 3 smallish meals and 3 balanced snacks each day, so you'd be eating a little something 6x.day. I usually do breakfast at 7:30, midmorning snack at 10:30, lunch at 1:00, afternoon snack at 4:00, dinner at 7:00, snack at 9:00. Lest this sound like a lot, it's not. I've lost 30 pounds on this plan and rarely exceed 1700 calories a day.

Breakfast is a must for good energy and to avoid overeating throughout the day. Breakfast should contain protein (eggs, peanut butter, yogurt, etc) and healthy carbs.

Snacks should most always be a balance of protein and carbs. Fruit with peanut butter or a handful of nuts, cheese with crackers, etc. My exception to this is my afternoon snack, which is usually mostly carbs - a whole-grain granola bar or crackers. That's because I work out in the evening and like to have some good carbs about two hours before my workout to get my energy up. My lunches also concentrate on protein and veg. so I have room for some carbs late in the day. If I skip this snack I always feel that "no gas" feeling in the workout.

Please remember that carbs aren't bad. Especially not for athletes. They're necessary. The thing to pay attention to is the quality of the carbs. We need to take in more whole grain and whole grain flour products and vegetables and fruits, and take in less white breads and white flour products like regular pasta and bagels, and sugary foods. Those kinds of carbs have high calories but are almost bankrupt of nutrients. They don't give you any good energy to speak of. Switch to whole-grain bread, whole-grain pasta, brown rice, other grains and beans, real grain granola, and more fresh produce and you'll notice a huge difference in energy and well-being. Carb calories add up quickly, so you need to make sure that they are 'worth it' -- meaning that they are giving your body important nutrients, not just taking up room in your stomach.

There's a lot of good nutrition information out there, but you have to evaluate each source carefully because there's also a lot of BS and hype. Take a look at The Zone and Fit for Life.

Also, it gets a lot easier if you're tracking calories and planning meals. Like a lot of people here, I use fitday.com most days to get a close estimate of the calories I've taken in and burned. It's easy -- you just plug in the foods you've eaten and the serving size, and it gives you a ballpark on what you've taken in. You can also enter your exercise activity and see whether you have a deficit or not. My favorite feature is 'reports', where you can discover whether the foods you chose actually gave you the nutrients you need. Doing that for a few days may show you that there is a category of nutrient you are deficient in -- making up that deficiency could increase your energy.

Good luck!


 

I just wanted to say thanks a million to you three for the suggestions. Believe it or not, it helps out tremendously to know that I'm not the only one suffering with this dilemna. I truly believe if I can lose the weight that my energy levels will exceed what they were when I was stuffing pasta and bagels down my gullet.
I'll look into that fitday.com website and keep scanning the forums on-line to see if anyone has a tasty meal that I can adopt. Thanks again guys (or gals as it dictates) for the information. I truly appreciate the feedback. Good luck on any events coming up.

I know a lot of people dont really believe in the whole energy/metabolism boosting supplements but I really found they worked for me especially when i was sick adn still wanted to train. I say try and look for a supplement that has things like green tea, cocoa bean powder, Taurine, CoEnzyme Q10, Dimethylglycine, Trimethylglycine, Tyrosine, L-Phenylalanine and of course make sure you arent getting defficient in any vitamins thats another energy killer right there. The one supplement that my doctor reccommended was made my TriVita called energy now, it didnt have all sorts of chemicals and was basically very natural and healthy but let me tell you the difference it made was UNBELIEVABLE!!!