noob diet and fitness question feedback?

thegreatiam wrote: »

first, you need details.
What are your goals? fat loss? muscle gain? maintenance?

A bowl of porridge is not informative. your bowls could be way bigger than mine, and Ive been told I have huge bowls.
Measure and weigh your portions, and we can judge if you need more or less.

Assuming fat loss:
At a glance I suggest not enough protein, and not enough fats too much sugar.

A rule is you should get a large portion of protein each time you eat.
Eggs, for breakfast with that porridge. Skip the OJ.

Put some chicken or turkey or tuna or other meat on your lunch salad.

dinner is fine. maybe mix up the veg, but really it depends on portions.
To choose portion sizes get your protein first. Make it about a hand sized amount. If you have big hands you need more protein. then get double the amount of veg, then pick another veg and put the same amount on. If you are unsure if you have too much veg, add more veg. As long as you are getting good protein Veg is your go to food.
Fats are good, cook your meat with real irish butter, and put a knob(of butter!) on your veg. Feel free to put a glug of EV olive oil on your lunch salad.

Snack, fruit is ok, nuts and yoghurt is better. dried beef snack is best. (dealz beef jerky 1.49 per 35g bags)
Fruit is high sugar. so keep it to a minimum
Assuming muscle gain: Take all the advice above and double it. then drink a pint of milk with every meal.


Second you weights program is all pecs this is not a great program. You need back, and legs before you work pecs and biceps.
If you are a beginner you need to
A, keep it simple.
B, keep it short
C, keep it realistic
Also what are your goals? overall fitness? get huge muscles so you can walk around all oiled up in a thong? lift up as much heavy stuff as you can?

I would recommend, as a start to any goal, a program like strong lifts 5x5 or starting strength.
they are both simple, 3-5 exercises a day, 2 workouts, 3 days a week, low reps so you can keep your form in check and linear progression which will start of gentle but quickly push your muscles to working, they also get most of the body done in about an hour 3 times a week.
This will give you a good base to start from and a good knowledge of some basic lifts. Increase your muscle mass, make you stronger and make you overall fitter, after 12-15 weeks you can choose to tweak it to a more goal orientated program.

cardio is optional but recommended, but do it after the weights, for about 30 mins of going hard. Sprints running or cycling or rowing would be "better" than a 1 hour jog. Although either is fine.

Lastly, take a read of the stickies for some info about food and diet choices.

Post up your goals and targets if you have them and portion sizes, track everything you eat either on paper or via an app.

thegreatiam wrote: »

Again, no details.
chicken, boiled egg, peppers etc is a vague as it comes.
How much chicken? 100 of breast meat? 2 slices of processed meat? how many peppers? 8? 32? how big are they? what exactly is ETC? track everything you eat, if your salad is 30g of lettuce and 5 black olives with pips then say so.

If your salad is 350g of chicken, 10 boiled eggs, 5 medium red peppers, 42 olives, 90g of lettuce then say so.

Start measuring and weighing your food, you need to start thinking in terms of grams and calories or you're facing a battle.


Also:


You are still a little vague about your goals.
Toning simply means how taught your muscles look. Muscle definition is created by fat loss: lower body fat mean more muscle is visible.

For that taught athletic look you need to train and eat like an athlete. Fix your diet first.

And for the love of god don't start thinking you can bulk up too much without deliberately trying to.

People who are bulky have spent years and years and put in huge effort training and eating to get bulky, they didn't just wake up after a few session in the gym and were suddenly bulky.

"Oh crap, I accidentally got all swol' by doing a few bicep curls. Aw well, best get some oil on me and head to the thong shop"

To bulk up you need to eat more than you burn, and train hard. and do this for a long long time.

You are cutting fat, your main concern is to not to cut too much muscle mass. Train hard, eat slightly fewer calories then you use each day (300-500 per day) and eat a lot of protein. At least 1g per lb of body weight.



Strong lifts is a good program for your position, you get a lot of leg training and back training through rows, squats and deadlifts. You also get some arms and shoulders from bench and OH press.
You do not need to worry about anything else at this stage, don't feel like yo need to add in bicep curl yet. Stick with the simple entry level program for at least 12 weeks. Then decide what to change by then. Taking on too much at the beginning will either wear you out too fast or will cause imbalances. (training your becks and biceps too much more than your back and shoulders will cause you to round out and create problems later on.
If you want to add extra stuff to the work out add mobility exercises.