Calorie restriction AND IF? And you are a six foot tall male and considering 1400kcal a day? That does sound a bit mad. You need more calories.

Honestly I wouldn't combine calorie counting with the paleo diet. The two don't go together. Just eat meat&veggies&whatever else paleo until you feel satiated. I don't worry about it, and I lose weight anyway. And 1400 calories doesn't sound like it'd be enough, don't worry about calories and just go by feel. Much less stressful too, but that's just my opinion. I find that eating paleo, I actually don't eat a lot of calories in a day, but I feel totally fine and full after every meal.

• John,

  Here's how my progression went:

  • I started out with trying to manage a caloric deficit through eating less and exercising more. This equation simplifies out to "starving yourself". Now if you "starve yourself" you will lose weight, no doubt about. But it will kill your body composition. I mainly focused on minimizing carb intake while maximizing protein and fat staying within the deficit. The result: I lost weight, body comp improved (at that time I was severely overweight and hadn't been doing any resistance training), and I felt TERRIBLE, WEAK, and TIRED. This worked for about 35 lbs of the weight loss.
  • I changed my diet to a Paleo diet and stopped counting calories. My body comp SIGNIFICANTLY improved as did every facet related to performance and aesthetics. The weight continued to drop and body comp continued to improve.
• I began incorporating IF and it pushed my development to the next level. I followed the leangains protocol and compressed my feeding window to 8 hours with the occasional 24 hour fast thrown in. I currently follow this approach and will continue as it has made food prep and eating much easier on my schedule and I love the results.

Matt
PhysiqueRescue.com

I'd say do the calorie counting if you have trouble staying under your caloric goal, OR do the IF. Doing IF helped me stay under my caloric goal but I was still pretty savvy on the types and amount of food I was eating when I did eat. It took some adjusting physically and mentally to find the IF time frame that worked for me, but I adjusted and really like it now.

I eat late for dinner and then don't eat till 14 to 16 hours later which usually puts me at about lunchtimish the next day. I drink tea or black coffee for breakfast but otherwise stay fasted in the morning. I don't work out but it helped me shed 10 pounds and I found it to be very livable. A side benefit is that I'm a bit less sensitive to being 'hungry' which used to be a big deal for me.

You didn't say how much you weigh, so it's tough to know for sure, but I'd guess at 6 feet tall, that would be a very large caloric deficit. I think sustaining too large of a caloric deficit is stressful on the body. Stress leads to elevated cortisol which I think makes your body more likely to break down muscle and more likely to store fat. So while this likely would mean weight loss, it may also lead to a worse body composition (aka skinny fat).

I'd say do the calorie counting if you have trouble staying under your caloric goal, OR do the IF. Doing IF helped me stay under my caloric goal but I was still pretty savvy on the types and amount of food I was eating when I did eat. It took some adjusting physically and mentally to find the IF time frame that worked for me, but I adjusted and really like it now.

I eat late for dinner and then don't eat till 14 to 16 hours later which usually puts me at about lunchtimish the next day. I drink tea or black coffee for breakfast but otherwise stay fasted in the morning. I don't work out but it helped me shed 10 pounds and I found it to be very livable. A side benefit is that I'm a bit less sensitive to being 'hungry' which used to be a big deal for me.

being a 6ft female, if I eat 1400 cals a day, I dont even get dishes done. I'm napping because i just dont have the energy to go on. eat, sweetie. eat good meats, good veg, good fats. the body knows what to do.

I eat paleo food choices, fatty and lean beef, lamb, fish, tubers, greens. I calorie count with a gram scale meticulously. Daily. I use and excel sheet I made to keep track and notes. I follow leangains with paleo foods, 16hr IF, eat 2x at 12pm and 7pm, train at 11am fasted with BCAA. Workout days are 2000cal very low fat, lean beef, sweet potatoes. Rest days are 1400 cal zero carb high fat. I've lost fat very slowly this way. If you dont count, good luck dipping below 10% bodyfat. Paleo man didn't drive either. Any of you walking exclusively?