UKC

I need some help please. I'm trying to lose weight by counting my calorie intake and increasing my exercise, but I'm concerned that I am not taking in enough calories. I have read that I should not be taking in any less than 1200 calories per day otherwise my body goes into starvation mode, and I don't want that. So if someone can give me some advice based on what I am currently doing then I would greatly appreciate it.

My current BMR based on height and weight is 1498, I multiply this by 1.2 for a sedentry lifestyle because I work in an office and can spend all day sitting down which gives me 1797 calories per day, which I believe is what I can eat without gaining weight (please correct me if I am wrong).

So given my 1797 calories per day that I have available, on top of this, I exercise 6 days a week, 3 days climbing (I time this on a regular basis and have found that I do around 35-45 mins of climbing per 3 hour climbing session) and 3 days cardio doing around an hour of moderately intense cardio each session. Approximately burning around 500 calories give or take 50 depending on the session.

Most days of the week I eat between 1200 and 1400 calories, unless I am very hungry in which case I listen to my body and eat that bit more to supplement.

I suppose my question is really, if I am burning off the calories by doing exercise, should I up my calorie intake to reflect this, or am I OK sticking to between 1200-1400 calories per day.

I have so far lost 6lb in the last 4 weeks, I am looking for a 1 1/2 - 2lb weight loss per week. But I just want to make sure that I am not losing weight to the detriment of my health and nutrition.

Thanks in advance for your patience in reading this answering any questions that I have.

In reply to staceyjg:

i dont mean this facetiously, but on a climbers forum where half live on pork pies, half live on energy gels, half starve themselves over half a grade and all would spend their last dime on shiny gear rather than food, you may not get the most informed answers.

being a bit of all that, may i suggest lookin into what those consumed calories consist of. eg, a diet high in carbohydrate calories will differ significantly from a diet high in protein calories in both the way they are metabolized and the way your body wants more.

will stop before i get further into opinion, as i am not the nutritionalist you seek.

good luck tho.

In reply to ice.solo:

OK, valid point on what my consumed calories consist of, just in case a nutritionalist does come wondering along to my post.

I mainly eat protein in the form of fish and chicken with lots of fresh vegetables, and salad but on days when I am climbing I tend to ensure that I have some form of complex carbs with the protein like brown rice, cous cous or wholemeal pasta for lunch and then a couple of bananas and a sandwich for dinner.

p.s. I have all the shiny gear I need at the moment, but need to lose around 2 stone if not more so that I can use it more efficiently!

In reply to staceyjg:

Sorry I'm not a nutritionist, but...

1. Have you seen the info and calculator on Owen Barder's 'Running for Fitness' site?
http://www.runningforfitness.org/faq/dailycalorie
(For all I know it might be what you used to calculate your requirements!)

2. Have you read Matt Fitzgerald's 'Racing Weight'?
http://www.racingweight.com/index.php
(Because he's a top sports nutritionist and it's very, very good!)

Also not a nutritionist, but having lost 5 stone in a year recently, I think the amount you need to eat is different for everyone dependent on metabolism. I seem to have a VERY slow metabolism, and I don't up my calorie intake for excersize, not even for a full day winter mountaineering. My body just doesn't seem to need it. I just experimentally worked out what was good for my body by trying different things. I think as long as you eat lots of fruit and veg and have a varied diet you can't go too far wrong. If a nutritionist does rock up, they may correct me on this!!

In reply to staceyjg: Also not a nutritionalist, but your weightloss seems sensible enough. Do you feel ill with it?

In reply to staceyjg: I'm not a dietician or nutritionist but I do enjoy eating. I advise eating cake. Lots of cake all the time. With ice cream.

In reply to Zygoticgema:

Also not a nutritionist but I thought I'd come on to throw my useless opinion in too - drink alcohol straight after work and if you get drunk enough you won't be hungry for food! huzzah!

and more seriously, sounds like you're doing it sensibly, good luck with it! Also 11 days bouldering in font may help :-p

In reply to Scarab9: ok, sensible advice. You need to aim for approx 1400 kcals intake per day taking into account exercise. So if you burn 300kcals whilst climbing then you need to have eaten 1700kcals in total that day.

Drink plenty of water. Think about what you're eating pre and post exercise to. jam sandwich on white bread with a glass of milk is a very good post exercice snack which will aid recovery and is cheap!

Then eat cake

In reply to staceyjg:

Do you see ANY other animal on earth wilfully starving itself or wilfully persisting in a state of hunger? Nope.

That fact is that you don't need to count calories as long as you eat the appropriate macro nutrients. 'Eating less and doing more' is not sustainable and is certainly no panacea to a bad diet.

Eat plenty of real foods - that means quality meat (a lot of it - and don't scrimp on the fat content), and seasonal veg (but moderate the proportion of starchy carbohydrate if you are trying to lose fat).

In reply to Scarab9:

Hey Bambi,

Font is one of the reasons that I'm doing this, want to be at my optimum for climbing! Will save the drinking til font and have a few bevvies after some hard climbing! Yay! roll on font!

In reply to Zygoticgema:

Hey Zyg

Why do I need to increase my calorie intake to encorporate exercise? surely the higher the defecit the more fat that is burnt!

In reply to staceyjg:
Whoever else you might listen to on this subject please don't listen to Shani, he/she's a krank for every pseudo-scientific diet going, especially if it contradicts mainstream science.

In reply to Shani:

I'm not starving myself, or willfully persisting in a state of hunger, I just struggle to moderate my food intake if not completely monitoring, I have found there is a fine line between eating enough to maintain muscle rejuvination and not eating too much that you gain weight or stay the same.

I don't eat processed foods, eat plenty of meat and veg, and limit my carbs, I just do this by monitoring it.

In reply to Anonymous:

Thanks

Hadn't spotted your post when I started typing my response.

In reply to petestack:

That looks like a great resource, will look into it at lunchtime today! thankyou!

In reply to staceyjg:

Have a look at this. I try and follow this as it makes sense and leaves me feeling full of energy and feeling good. Also it should reduce your weight as a knock on effect.

http://solfernandezcom.blogspot.com/2011/01/font-face-font-family-times-new...

In reply to girlymonkey:

Well done with your weight loss, hopefully I will have significant loss over the next few months and also manage to maintain it too.

In reply to wayno265:

I don't feel ill with it, and want to remain that way as I'm currently in training for Font.

In reply to Adam Lincoln:

Cheers Adam, something else for me to look at over lunch, thanks!

In reply to petestack:

I've just found a really good article in the 2nd link that you posted, here is the direct link to the article:

http://www.racingweight.com/Article-81,The_All-you-can-eat_Diet_Part_Ii.htm...

To summarise, if you reduce your calorie intake, you effectively start to reduce your metabolism because your body is trying to keep up with the fact you are feeding it less, so therefore making it harder to lose weight. Whereas increasing your exercise to encorporate the weight loss will actually allow you to acheive your weight loss without slowing your metabolism and also increasing your level of fitness at the same time.

Sounds good!

In reply to Adam Lincoln:

That is quite a good article - essentially he is advocating a 'paleo diet' and more importantly is poo-pooing chronic calorie-restriction. Sound advice.

In reply to Shani:

I know Hence why i posted it.

In reply to staceyjg:

Bambi is appropriate today as my legs are rather useless after the winter climbing this weekend followed by impromptu run last night! I keep forgetting they're slow to start working if I get up after being sat down :-/

Is this similar to my expectations of coming back from Font a climbing beast thanks to so much bouldering? :-p

In reply to Zygoticgema:


aww I didn't mean you! (actually just referring to the "need advice from a nutritionist" followed by every response starting "I'm not a nutritionist" rather than the actual content of the posts. You're still a tart though :-p)

In reply to staceyjg:

I am a nutritionist (not practicing though).

Looking at the information you have provided you seem to be losing weight sensibly and, as you may have read, if you lose weight slowly you have less chance of putting it all back on as your body hasn't gone into starvation mode and hopefully you aren't depriving yourself of anything you really fancy. I highly recommend working on the 90/10 principle, that 90% of the food you eat should be wholesome, nutritious (wholegrain, veg, fish etc) while the remaining 10% should be the foods you just have to have and would otherwise miss.

Good luck with the weight loss, you sound to be tackling it fine

Message me if you want any info, although it's nearly 10 years since I finished my degree...

C

In reply to caroleb:

Thanks Carol, just spotted your post, will drop you an email tomorrow.

In reply to Shani: That isn't a particularly healthy way of looking at it, there are not, for a start, other animals on earth who have access to such an abundance of meat and fat. You give a dog access to as much meat as it likes and it will over eat! We have the ability and the scientific knowledge to understand what is going on much more and whilst your method may be healthy and moderately effective it will not be optimal, why limit ourselves to what the other animals do when we have such a tool? you do not get better than the masses by doing what the masses do

In reply to staceyjg: Once again not a nutritionist, but one thing to bare in mind is that if you want to sustainably lose weight the changes need to be long term lifestyle changes, cutting back on unnecessary luxuries and picking lower calorie and GI foods over a long period of time will keep the weight off. Another trick is to allow yourself luxuries in moderation, I tend to avoid alcohol for the majority of the week, but am by no measure T-total!

In reply to staceyjg:

(Trade Secret, don't tell anyone, the weight loss business need to stay in business. They want weight loss to be short term, followed by weight gain)

http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=432428&v=1#x6113658

Best way to lose weight is eat more, and drink water

You should then combine that with exercise.

In more detail, food equals energy/calories (fat, protein sugars etc)

You need energy to lose weight or do anything including nothing if you get my drift.

The human body adapts to it's environment, ie if you stop eating, it thinks its starving, and any future food you eat is imediatly stored as fat simply to keep you alive, you will suffer low energy, it's why fat people tend to get fatter, and how low calorie food companies (ie less food pay more companies) stay in business.

If you eat more, and by more i mean real food, then you will natuarally have more energy, and exercise will come easier, (water is required to break down fat).

Now for the clever bit, if your lifestyle is such that given a choice of escalator or stairs, you take the stairs, even a bound up those stairs, and you adapt this in most things in life, not just climbing at the weekend or twice a week down the gym. Then your body will always have to have a regular fast supply of energy, and will then convert all you eat into energy, preventing weightgain. That which you don't use, provided you drink water will be lost as heat, especially if you are a bit miserly with the central heating.

It used to be calories in less than calories burnt = weight loss

But you won't burn calories if you just "can't be bothered"

Or another way a Ferarri consumes a lot of fuel for not a lot of miles (fit person)

Where as a polo diesel consumes less fuel for loads of miles.

just adapt your body's throttle response and your mpg will follow.

Not in any books, but discovered it worked for me.

In reply to The Big Man: I can speak from experiance that this is most definately true. If you really want to lose weight the best thing you can do is ignore main stream nutrition ideas, it's a complete load of bollocks. I actually feel sorry for the people that try these crazy diets with any hope of success.

In reply to _MJC_: P.S. You burn 70% of callories while at rest, so manipulating that is what will make the most difference. It's things as little as the previous poster said. If you can go one better an arrange your food around it too though you'll be even better off; as in eat the right food depending on where your metabolism is at. So, for example, after excercise is the best time to be consuming your carb dense foods. There is far more to it really than can be said in one post.

In reply to _MJC_: I take it you mean ignore mainstream crazy diets? and not ignore main stream nutritional science? Big difference

In reply to Woottang: Yeah badly worded. I just mean rubbish in the media.

In reply to Woottang:

Large carnivores such as lions and poloar bears exist entirely on meat and fat. Hunger MAKES them active - as it does in us - you cannot escape this evolutionary driver. The key is cycling through feasting and hunger. Chronic hunger is bad.

In reply to staceyjg:

I'm a nutritionist. So is my cat. So is Ben Goldacre's dead cat. She charges £200 a go for advice whereas my cats advice is free.

The funny thing is that anyone can call themselves a nutritionist, such as Patrick Holford or Gillian McKeith (or to giver her her full medical title, Gillian McKeith).

Ask a Dietician. It's a protected title, so you need to actually have recognised qualifications to call yourself a Dietician. Although this doesn't preclude bad advice, it certainly weeds out the quacks and sellers of patent nostrums and snake oil.

In reply to RankAmateur:

I have a degree in nutrition (which too be honest I don't use much now), the course ran alongside the dietetics course and was aimed at students who wanted to work with the 95% of relatively healthy population and were interested in health promotion, as opposed to dietetics which mainly deals with people in ill-health

I'm not necessarily sticking up for all nutritionists as I know there are an awful lot of bogus nutritionists out there, it’s just that there are definitely nutritionists out there who genuinely know what they are talking about and who in some ways might have more interest and more specialised knowledge in this area.

If you’re looking for a nutritionist I would recommend checking that they have some sort of accreditation, I‘m a member of the nutrition society who check you have a relevant nutrition degree before awarding membership.

In reply to caroleb:
The general public wouldn't know what the difference is between a member of the Nutrition Society, the Institute for Optimum Nutrition and the Society for the Unwarranted Promotion of Woo.
Members of all the above will claim to be accredited.

In reply to RankAmateur:

How do I become a member of the Society for the Unwarranted Promotion of Woo? It sounds like fun!!

In reply to staceyjg:

Im a registered Dietitian and performance nutritionist working with elite athletes in a national sporting insitute but as the above comment mentions anyone can call themselves a nutritionist this is true and you can get protected names. BUT it can all mean sqaut if the level of your knowledge is not upto scratch with recent cutting edge nutrition research and a sound understanding of physiology the 2 go hand in hand. So sometimes unregistered nutritionists do know there stuff its just mighty hard to get registered as its a vigrous timely process. I know some awesome nutritionists that are just on another level.

I would go with Adam on his link this guy certainly knows his stuff in terms of nutrition/weight loss/exercise and good eating.

In reply to staceyjg: Counting calories is a flawed method, a calorie is a unit of energy as measured by burning said item in an artificial environment and measuring the heat given off, the more heat the more energy the item of food has (in theory). The problem is the human body is not that simple, there are more complex processes at work.

The larger issue at hand is that the human body is not properly adapted to eating the modern "healthy diet" advocated by many public bodies at present. We did not evolve eating as many refined carbohydrates as we do now but instead relied more heavily on animal fats and the insulin response to glucose backs this up perfectly.

Personally, I put a lot of weight on after tearing my ACL in my late teens and stopped exercising, at my heaviest I weighed 18.5st. I tried everything but found I was constantly hungry and was never able to keep off the few pounds I did lose for any length of time. I came to the above conclusions after a conversation with my grandfather's heart specialist, he put me on the right track after ranting about how my grandfather's 70 years of "healthy living" had actually led to his heart failure.

A year later, I was down to 10.5st. Every morning I eat a fried breakfast (bacon, eggs, mushrooms, etc), for lunch I tend to have a salad with plenty of meat/cheese thrown in and for my evening meal I have whatever fresh meat takes my fancy along with some seasonal vegetables. If I'm hungry, I eat (nuts, cold meats, cheese, etc for snacks), I have never starved myself and yet I've kept the weight off for two years now. I enjoy the food I eat and I feel immeasurably better.

A lot of my friends were skeptical when I first started eating this way (I refuse to refer to it as a "diet") but the results were plain to see and several of them have since changed their eating habits and lost drastic amounts of weight too.

If you're interested in learning more drop me a PM and I can give you some literature to have a look at.

In reply to Lemming:

Sounds like another thumbs up for a paleo style diet (with dairy).

Counting calories IS flawed. We are NOT bomb calorimeters and plenty of factors affect the calories available from food such as danaturation, cooking etc... Also, isocaloric diets have different outcomes depending on macronutrient composition.

Glad to see you are tucking in to fry ups. Saturated Fat phobia/paranoia is one of THE great cover-ups in public health of modern times.

In reply to staceyjg:

OK, thanks everyone for your advice. Just to put the record straight, I am calorie counting, and I will continue to do so, however, I do find that by counting calories, I eat a lot more than I normally eat, because I tend to eat much more healthy food than when I'm not calorie counting. I hate being hungry, so eat more fruit and veg and protein to fill up, however I do like the occasional bowl of pasta or rice or potatoes, because I don't want to just cut them out completely, so hopefully, I am getting a nice balance of healthy eating (just enjoyed a homemade 5 veg spag bol which was delicious and fresh). I will try not to limit my calories too much, and will continue to exercise, but listen to my body whilst doing so.

Like I said before, I have so far lost 6lb in 4 weeks, I am hoping for between 1 and half and 2 stone by the end of April (font easter trip), but possibly more to follow after that. I'll let you know how it goes.

Stacey

In reply to staceyjg: Things like pasta/potato etc are very welcome after hours of climbing or intense exercise as they will help you recover (by replenish glycogen, the increased metabolism means the carbs will be used as such rather then being stored as fat).

In reply to Shani & lemming:

im actually with you guys on this, tho i dont like the 'paleo' tag (silly pseudo-scientific label thats half the problem with the whole nutrition thing. in fact i even i even hate the word 'nutrition' used this way...).

counting calories i think is INTERESTING as it simply gives you more info to work with. another step towards navigating your own body, and about the only way of actually quantifying your energy intake/use.

i count calories when im doing trips. i like to know im getting a few thousand, with as much from fat as possible once i get enough protein and carbohydrates.

if youre exercising a good amount the fat/flesh/vegetables/nuts/berries thing seems to work ONCE YOU GET IT IN MOTION, ie the exercise comes first.
so long youre getting your metabolism turning over enough it all falls into place.
to use the term paleo requires other aspects of paleo life - eating like the stone age but sitting behind a screen 10hrs a day will be a conflict in metabolic interests.

i find my weight, muscle/fat percentage etc remains very favourable, and i consume a LOT of olive oil, fatty fish, animal flesh and vegetables. carbohydrates which i demand come from pumpkin, sweet potato etc not cereals (tho occasionally buckweet).
call it paleo or pre-industrial if you like. i think its simply eating fresh food.

if youre training it helps to monitor calorie intake and expenditure. for quantifiable results you need yardsticks. thats the difference between training and 'exercising'.

personlly im a fan of occasional calorie restriction. i dont see it as forced starvation, nor even as fasting. simply as another method of piloting your system for a given purpose.
more beneficial i do find tho is calor ie restriction in reference to what those calories are made up of and how they are metabolised. 2000kcals a day when its half olive oil and i shift to primarily endurance (+100mins constant exercise) sessions is much different to 2000kcals of mostly protein and 90min weight sessions with only 30mins swimming, or even 30mins of intervals.
i find it helps to sometimes burn significanty more than you take in, then to re-normalize or 'load' prior to a peak period.

also, depending on how hard youre training makes the difference with how much of your intake goes towards repair. be aware that sometimes just rest will shift your demands a lot more than manipulating your eating.
and sometimes the reverse.

i also watch as i get older and metabolise things differently. that makes more of a difference than everything else together.

i think its good to mix it all up, plus do the occasional fast and depletion sessions.
translated to the real world its the non-adaption thats half the benefit.

In reply to ice.solo:

Yeah - I have to agree with pretty much all you have said.

I normally only eat once or twice a day (I kind of fell in to Intermittent Fasting by skipping breakfast - I just never felt that hungry in the mornings after eating a paleo diet - and then found it drove me if I hit the gym at lunchtime in a fasted state).

Occasional calorie restriction in terms of eating less-than-maintenance for a couple of days a week, probably has evolutionary benefits (autophagy of sick/weak/old cells) etc....

What I like about it is that I can eat all I want (of the 'right' foods). No hunger. No calorie counting. No chronic cardio. And still stay around 10% BF. Easy peasy. I can even have the occasional gorge on sugary crap and it is not a problem.

Calorie counting DOES/CAN play a role in getting to single digit body fat as part of a cyclical ketogenic diet - and requires a glycogen depletion phase to promote partitioning, but it is questionable how healthy single digit BF levels are (unless you are genetically programmed to achieve this without CR). Also such restriction can punish motivation.


Why I am here I'd like to add that fruit is bloody overated as a health food as are nuts. Keep it meat, with a few seasonal veg! Don't avoid fat that comes with the cut.

In reply to staceyjg:
Don't think it has been mentioned, but you would be better seeking advice from a dietition since that is a propper accredited qualification.

As it happens anybody can call them selves nutritionalists, e.g. Gillian Mckeith, if you like her, I appolagise, but she is a sham and a lier. If you want prove read 'Bad Science' by Ben Goldacre.

mini-hijack:

In reply to Shani: Large carnivores such as lions and poloar bears exist entirely on meat and fat. Hunger MAKES them active - as it does in us - you cannot escape this evolutionary driver. The key is cycling through feasting and hunger. Chronic hunger is bad.


What? I've read all of your posts and I need to jump in to disagree. You're portraying personal opinions as fact, but the only reason I object is that it will be needlessly disheartening to a lot of people.

You're making a bunch of assumptions with the statements in your posts. Firstly, you keep pointing out that animals do not choose to go hungry if they can help it - you're assuming that all animals have optimal, healthy diets: which isn't true. Secondly, I don't see why you have any reason to believe that if you take a 'listen to your stomach' eating approach then you should be healthy. That may be true for you, but what of the millions in the world that are morbidly obese? Why aren't their bodies natural hunger control mechanisms making it impossible for them to eat as much as they do? Sure, they are over-eating but the point I'm making is that you can't rely on our bodies being evolutionarily perfect as a dieting mechanism. Thirdly, we live in the real world. This isn't 1000 years ago - we live in a time where there are frozen pizzas, and countless temptations. People need to build that into their plan - saying that you're just going to eat troughs of veg and slabs of meat because that's what humans did 'back-when' is unrealistic for most people. I LOVE my pizza.

For some people, being hungry is something that just needs to be accepted. I used to be quite over-weight, brought myself down to a normal weight and maintain this weight with a calorie/nutritional intake based on a whole lot of factors in my life. My weight stays the same and my fat levels don't change, but I feel hungry a lot of the time. I've tried different combinations of nutrients, different types of eating (different grains etc), different schedules of eating but nothing makes any difference to me. In the end, I've accepted that if I listen to my stomach, I'll be fat. The funny thing is, I have lost weight and put it back on a few separate times in my life, but each time, no matter how much I eat, I end up at the same weight.

I guess it's also important to think about how calorie counting and inducing hunger as a way to diet are also a way of controlling what's going on. The hunger is a motivation for many dieters, a reminder of what they're doing. Eating the perfect diet just isn't realistic for most of us lesser mortals.

In reply to DosacV:

Firstly, you keep pointing out that animals do not choose to go hungry if they can help it - you're assuming that all animals have optimal, healthy diets: which isn't true.

I don't really understand your point. Certainly animals in captivity seem to get fat. Domesticated animals, particularly cats and dogs, are also getting fatter. There are cases of bears in the US and Canada foraging out the back of pizza parlours and restaurants - and becoming obese because of the change in diet. My point was that hunger drives exercise - in search of food - amongst the animal population. If climbing/running is your 'hunt' then you need to eat food at the end of it.


Secondly, I don't see why you have any reason to believe that if you take a 'listen to your stomach' eating approach then you should be healthy. That may be true for you, but what of the millions in the world that are morbidly obese? Why aren't their bodies natural hunger control mechanisms making it impossible for them to eat as much as they do? Sure, they are over-eating but the point I'm making is that you can't rely on our bodies being evolutionarily perfect as a dieting mechanism.

You seem to think that HG were in a constant state of hunger? Food was fugitive, but not necessarily scarce. Do you think that two million years of evolution has lead us with poor appetite control, or do you think that poor quality neolithic foods are fooling our metabolism? Do you trust fatigue to make you rest and thirst to make you drink?

Why does obesity follow the pattern of a Western Diet? Why in poor countries like Jamaica do you get obese parents and scrawny children? Are the mothers feeding themselves and underfeeding their children? Neolithic foods disrupt key signalling hormones. This is why we are fat.

I like the idea that there were more skinny poeple 20 years ago in the UK because we ate less (as we had less) and did more. I know as a Spectrum playing kid that the great UK famines of the 1970s and 1980s passed me by!


Thirdly, we live in the real world. This isn't 1000 years ago - we live in a time where there are frozen pizzas, and countless temptations.

Yep - well done for naming a refined carbohydrate. Exactly the kind of 'food' I'd recommend you avoid. In fact you could primarliy start by avoiding wheat, linoleic acid and fructose.

Of course if your metabolism has been screwed up my years of poor quality food then you may well have a problem (due to poor leptin and insulin sensitivity). But assuming you haven't screwed up your metabolism, eating REAL food should enable you to get down to quite a lean physique without trying to under-eat every day.

Temptations is an interesting word. Try this experiment. Go out to a steak house and try to eat as much (fatty) steak as you can. You will soon fill up and will be unlikely to eat much more....however once that desert trolly comes round, tell me if you can suddenly find room.

Sugary food has a unique pull on us. This pull is stronger if we are hungry from dieting!

Eat REAL food - the kind you'd be able to get out in the wilds and hunt with a stick. Eat seasonally if it helps. Keep exercise short, intense and occasional.

HTHs

In reply to _MJC_:

I can attest to that, having recently started to move myself to a place that i would think of as fit, most dont think i need to bother, i came across an interesting problem. My cardio has notably improved but i hit the wall on monday and couldn't finish a 15m problem as my energy stores were phenomenally depleted. This has highlighted that if you do more you need more. Carbs seem to have fixed it though, we will see if a slight change in eating has worked tomorrow but between times i am far less fatigued than i was.
Not that this helps on weight loss but just thought i would chip in with my recent exp.

Liam