Do You Need To Eat More?

How do you track your food intake? Do you count calories? Maybe you use something like My Fitness Pal? (guilty!). Do you eat more on the days you train, or do you simply do what you feel and hope for the best?

It's amazing how many women pluck an arbitrary number out of the air and use that as their daily calorie count. When I was much, much younger, in the height of the eighties, diet culture was just getting into the swing of things. Every magazine was all about getting thin and staying thin - Kate Moss famously said nothing tastes as good as skinny feels, and millions of us lived by that mantra for years.

Even though 2000 calories is a standard daily count for women, I can remember aiming for 800 a day, and being totally distraught to go over 1200. And even all these years later, and with all those years of nutrition and fitness behind me, there's STILL have teeny, tiny part of me that is sure 2000 calories must be a bit much!

So now in the depths of menopause, when the weight seems to creep up every time you blink, it's super tempting to start cutting your food intake and increase your exercise/training load. And everyone says that's the key to weight loss - right? WRONG!

Ultimately, our bodies are doing the best they can to keep us happy and healthy. It's just that our head has a way of disagreeing.

You can easily work out how many calories you need per day just to get out of bed and live. Then you add some for daily activity - walking, brushing your teeth, working. Then you add more for the training you're doing - an hour's run can use up an extra 700 - 900 calories depending on pace and weight. So you can see that if you're trying to fuel yourself on 1200 calories a day, you'r

e going to be on a fast track to burn out. And women's bodies easily start burning up muscle to support a lack of fuelling from food. So just imagine how tired you're going to feel.

Food choices are important too. I like to start with whole foods - meat, dairy, pulses, eggs and veggies. Make sure you eat a rainbow of colours every day (not skittles!!) to maximise the nutritional

benefits of food. A plate of meat, veggies and a cup of sweet potato will serve you much better than a pasty and a bag of crisps.