Malnutrition Is Fun!

Recently a friend from work submitted a dietary plan to a former Mr. Universe who happened to be visiting his health club. If I were to do the same with my old plan, Mr. Universe’s first question would most likely be, “Are you on a diet?” After my invariable answer of “no”, Mr. Universe’s head would surely explode into tiny little bits. My tendancy to adhere to the traditional 3-meals a day, avoiding empty calories like pop, placed my average daily caloric intake at around 1500 calories. Ouch. With a metabolism like mine, that’s basically starvation levels, with a likely mix of malnutrition for good measure.

This means I’m snacking more. A lot more. After changing my proposed dietary plan to six meals per day, including protein shakes and slightly increasing my breakfast and lunch portions, I should regularly get at least 2200 calories per day. Because of my countless months of eating slightly more food than the starving masses in Africa, I can confirm that metabolism does slow to account for a dangerous lack of calories.

For people trying to cut calories to lose weight, take note! Even with my metabolism, normally capable of burning off an entire pint of ice-cream in about an hour, I haven’t lost any of my fat storage in the last month. My relentless DDR addiction that contributes an average of 1 hour of cardio per day, has done nothing but cause my body to burn muscle in an effort to reduce my base metabolic rate. Of course I rebuild the muscle during DDR, but that means I’ve hit a plateu simply because I wasn’t eating nearly enough for my level of physical activity and body type.

So, I’m going to be making an effort to eat more. I don’t think I ever believed I would one day have to make a statement like that, but there it is.