I Eat 1300 Calories A Day Ride My Bike 50 Miles A Day And Lift Weights 3 Times A Week And Also Run I Am 161 Pounds 6ft Male And 19 percent fat. Do I eat enough?

If , you are an active male with these statistics and level of output, you are consuming around 1800 calories too few. Be careful. Also, 19% body fat is not so bad, and you have also got to take it off slowly, a 3500 calorie defecit a week will = 1 to 2lb of fat loss a week, any more is un reasonable long term. It's a wonder you are not in a catabolic state and eating away at your own lean tissue. If fat loss is your goal then you should never be more than 10 to 15% under your calorific maintainence intake per day, or your heading for a serious metabolic breakdown. You have got to NUTRIFY not starve the muscle.This is a common mistake made when people of all body types,eg endo, ecto, meso, wish to loose body fat and or grow more lean tissue, paradoxically MORE good whole organic foods are LESS, when it comes to increasing your Metabolic rate and loosing body fat and growing lean tissue......... A concerned reader, school teacher and Kickboxing Instructor.

--

Great Answer by the last poster. I'm also a martial artist who's very strict with diet. Let me be clear: if you are only eating 1300 calories, you are eating a dangerous diet and may be doing damage to your body. How long have you been living this way? I find it hard to believe you're at 19% body fat unless you started pretty fat or you just started this severe calorie deprivation. Know that body fat calipers can be tricky to use, even for professionals, so don't obsess over them. You should be able to see improvement in the mirror every 2-3 weeks. Use the Harris Benedict equation to calculate your caloric intake. This equation works, trust me. Also, I would disagree with the last poster--"organic" means nothing if you're talking about losing body fat and staying in shape. There are no indisputable studies that show better health from eating lots and lots of organic products. What you want focus on is "whole food," which is something we can all afford and easily obtain--"whole food" meaning it's not processed. That means all the stuff our great-great grandparents probably ate on daily basis: whole grains (no "enriched flour" nonsense), vegetables (all kinds are good) and fruits (lots of people worry they're eating too much fruit sugar--I think you're fine as long as you keep within your caloric goal--I've cut body fat while eating upwards of 10 servings of fruit a day, although with lots of cardio), meats (though watch the saturated fat) and beans, and a reasonable amount of dairy (again, watch the saturated fat--and also, be stingy with any liquid calories like milk). Danger foods for me are nuts and nut butters: you have to be disciplined not to eat too much peanut butter, for example. A "serving" is two tablespoons--200 calories--and most of us who are active men don't find that amount satisfying. I could sit down and eat half a jar as a snack, so I never eat PB on an empty stomach.

One friendly bit of advice to remember going forward: plenty of *good* wholesome calories help you lose weight, keep you healthy so you don't get sick as often, bring happiness to life, allow social interaction and family gatherings, and keep us connected to our family food traditions (so we're not the weird ones who go on some bizarre "cutting" diet that consists solely of chicken breast, spinach, and an occasional sweet potato). When it comes to diet, think in terms of months and years--avoid trying to cut fat too fast. It's just not worth it since you're already an average healthy man body fat-wise, and I'm assuming you're not a competitive bodybuilder or competitive wrestler/martial artist.

You have lots of discipline it sounds like--you'll have no problem adapting to a healthier, richer diet.