I am almost 4 months out and have been excercising about 5-6 days a week. I usually do an hour class and burn 400-500 calories. Once a week I burn 1000 calories during my workout. The problem is I eat between 800-1000 calories a day. I have recently increased my calories so I am able to have energy to my workouts but these past few days I am very fatigued and started getting headaches. I don't know if I am doing this right. Am I eating too many calories or too few? I have been losing weight but I want to feel good doing it. I eat healthy and eat every 2-3 hours ,maybe i need a change in a meal plan. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

I recently had the same question. My trainer said to go by feel. If I am exhausted and fatigued, I either need to cut back on exercise, or increase calories with a focus on protein. She suggested a shake before and/or after a workout to help repair the muscle that is being broken down during the workout.

My calories vary between my workouts. I have high carb days, low carb days, high calorie days, low calories days, to better suit my workouts. Pushing yourself to exhaustion and getting headaches is only hurting your body, you can't perform without fueling.

On days where I'm in the gym for 1.5/2 hours, I'll eat anywhere from 1600-2000 calories that day. My normal gym days I'm hitting 1200-1400 calories. Best thing it to check with your nutritionist if you've got one, if not, you gotta start doing the mathematical work on your own. Start with a base amount of calories, if you're busting your ass in the gym, burning 1000 calories, you obviously gotta up the calories. Putting your body in THAT much of a negative will eventually down regulate your metabolism, no it doesn't happen over night and your body won't shut down and go in to the infamously overused over hyped starvation mode.

Supplementation before, and after workouts. You can down a Protein drink before the workout, and have another afterwards, there's 50g protein (for a quality protein blend) and roughly 300-400 calories if not more. The more you work out, the more your calories need to be increased to offset fatigue and wasted workouts. You want to keep the muscle you've got and avoid muscle atrophy, if you're not feeding them properly, you're wasting your time working out, the weight lost will be muscle loss which in the end, no one wants. Are you tracking with a calorie website or journal? I like my fitnesspal because it allows me to see my "loose" deficit after I add how long I do a certain exercise each day, I say loose because it's not scientifically proven because every body is different, to get more accurate numbers you'll need to get some sort of calorie tracker, fit bit or body media type deal.