I’ve gotten down to 1500 calories, but my weight loss has slowed or seems to have stalled. I am finally within a healthy BMI, and my waist is at 34". I would like to lose another 10 lb for vanity reasons, but I don’t think it will be feasible at my current intake and activity level (sedentary due to glute tendinopathy, besides walking 1 mile per day). Also my diet is getting hard to stick to since I’m down to such a low intake. I’ve been at my current intake for 3 weeks. I am male, 5’9, 159 lb.
I’m pretty frustrated because I can’t do any cardio due to lingering glute tendinopathy, and my elbow tendinopathy which I had gotten rid of has come back, so now I need to rehab it again.
I know you guys have said before that there’s probably isn’t any relationship between calorie intake and tendinopathy healing, but I’m wondering if that holds true at extremely low calorie levels?
Do you think at this point I should just maintain and hold my calories constant, or steadily increase them again to see if that could help me with my tendon issues? Or continue to cut and do tendinopathy rehab? I seem to be stuck in my rehab for the past couple of months. It just seems like I’m going nowhere. I’ve been lifting/doing PT seriously for almost a year now (even longer before I found you guys, since May of 2019), and I honestly thought I would have gotten rid of all of my tendon problems by now. I am just really frustrated and feel like giving up sometimes. I don’t really have much to show for my efforts.
I would not correlate your energy intake to rate of pain resolution based on existing evidence.
I would strongly advise against being sedentary, as there are likely many things you can do activity wise, e.g. upper body work, isolation lower extremity stuff (calves, adductor/abductor work, leg ext), swimming, stationary bike, etc. A consult for rehab may be useful here.
I can understand the frustration for sure. I think getting a plan together for injury management would be my preferred first step so that you can exercise in a manner to prevent loss of LBM during the cut.
Thank you for the response. Assuming I heal my tendons, can strength gains be made at my current intake? I am eating the lower end range for protein, 50 to 60g fat, and 70 to 80 g of carbs.
I was trying to up the volume and lower intensity, doing sets of 10 to 12, but I was thinking of going back down to sets of 4 to 5 if I could still make strength gains.
I suppose I should have also said that I think divorcing the idea of tendinopathy = tendon damage that needs to heal before you don’t have pain is necessary. This is secondary to the diagnosis of “glute tendinopathy” in the first place.
As far as your question goes, your nutrition status is compatible with strength gains, as it is apparently not as low as you think it is (given no weight loss). I do not think you should continue to eat a low carbohydrate diet if you’re going to exercise and, additionally, I have significant reservations about your programming.
I really do think a consult would benefit your trajectory with this, but if that’s not an option, my advice is as follows:
Aim for 150g protein and 35g fiber per day. The rest of your diet would be fruits, veggies, whole grains, legumes, nuts, nut butters, and similar.
Do the beginner template for your upper body work and conditioning
For lower body work, you’ll need to use this article to find an entry point. This may be isometric movements, partial ROM, tempo, and/or very light stuff.