pyro said:
I want to stop all the fried meat for a bit, I always (used to) eat takeaways, no salads or fruits, I just want to detox from all that. I'v started eating a few apples a day, eating salds, and I just want to cut on meat a bit. It's just that when I don't eat meat, I really do feel as if I don't get enough energy, the other day I was helping in moving some heavy stuff around (empty beer kegs) and while I could usualy cary 4 at the time I was struggling with just one!
Thats your problem there matey. Rather than replace fried, fatty meat with better varieties you have just cut it out completely. Big mistake.
I'm not surprised your strength has gone down considerably since protein is so important to our muscles. Don't worry though begin eating properly and you will be sorted out in no time.
Your problem is a common one. Your diet was basically
very high in fat. 1 gram of fat equals 9 calories compared with 4 calories per gram for carbs/protein. You have drastically reduced your saturated fat intake which is a very good thing, however your overall calorie intake is now likely very low since you have failed to increase your carbs/protein to compensate.
When you cut out all the rubbish food you actually find that you can eat a
lot more food overall in a given day. This might help you understand what I mean better.
Okay lets imagine you are eating 2500 calories per day and are burning 2500 calories per day. Therefore you are neither losing weight nor gaining it. However you are eating very unhealthy foods, a lot of takeaways and fried stuff. Therefore your calories might for arguments sake be split in to the following values:
Protein - 400 calories
Carbohydrates - 800 calories
Fat - 1300 calories
Total = 2500 calories per day.
However you have since realised that its not very healthy and have cut out all your fried foods and takeaways which has reduced your fat intake down to say 500 calories per day. Great. Except that your daily calorie intake is now only 1700 per day.
Not only did you cut the fat but you also cut your protein out because you used to get your protein from fatty, fried sources. Therefore you daily protein intake is more like 100 calories and your overall calorific intake is down to 1300!
You say that you have been eating a few apples a day so that has probably pushed your carb intake up a tad. Perhaps up to 1000 calories per day so now your overall calorific intake is at 1500.
Now remember what happens if you are consuming less calories per day than you are burning? You lose weight. You are burning up 2500 calories per day yet you are only eating 1500. Your body has to find the other 1000 calories from somewhere so it hits your fat and muscle stores and uses those for fuel. Since your protein intake is so drastically low you will probably find that a very high percentage of the weight loss is muscle. Not good at all mate.
On top of all this you would be eating 1000 calories below your maintenance level which will slow your metabolism dramatically and put your body in to starvation mode.
You got off to a good start by getting rid of the saturated fats but you need to eat a lot more lean meat for protein and more complex carbs to get your calories up to an acceptable level. If you are struggling to get enough meat in then by all means grab yourself some whey protein and have a shake or two a day but you would be much better off eating whole foods.
I hope this has helped you understand where you went wrong mate. Any other questions just let me know.
