Diet and weight loss

tunney

I'm a fairly active person and I think I eat fairly healthy but from what is happening to my weight, my energy levels and my health I am not eating properly. Its a problem that occurs in cycles.

At the beginning of a cycle I'll weigh about 11st 10 and I'll have plenty of energy and feel great. I'll start back training (mainly cardio) properly, and within a few weeks I'll be down to 11st 4 or 5, I'll be feeling like **** and have no energy. No matter what I eat I can't keep my weight or my energy levels up. I'll stop training for a week and my weight will creep back up.

On an average day I'll cycle 20 miles, run 4-5 miles, and swim for 30-45 minutes. At weekends I'll either cycle long or run long. I have a dedicated rest day.

What should I eat on an average day to maintain my weight and energy levels?
Presently I have for breakfast 2 bananas and a scone spread out over the course of the morning. I'll have a sandwich, soup and 2-3 biscuits for lunch. A snack in the afternoon and then a proper evening meal. How does this sound?

Thanks for the advice/help.

dudara

Your diet seems to be pretty good. The only thing that I can immediately think of is that maybe you should eat more often, but eat less. When food is more distributed throughout the course of the day, blood sugar levels remain stabler.

silverside

you are not eating enough for someone who is training. Your weight should not fluctuate that much. If you are taking enough rest days you shouldnt need to take a rest week more often that 3 or 4 times a year. Feeling weak is a sure sign that you're not getting enough carbs.

need to eat a proper breakfast and lunch

e.g.

breakfast: 3 weetabix, fruit juce/yogurt, banana

lunch
eat 2 sandwiches if you need to

have a bowl of cereal or another sandwich/toast at 4 o clock if you are going to be training.

Maybe have your main meal in the middle of the day. Your metabolism slows down after 9pm so anything you eat then doesnt get digested as quick.

silverside

just read your post again.

You are doing a LOT of training. i reckon you are using nearly 2000 calories a day just exercising so you would need to be eating 4000 - 4500 calories total, i don't think you are anywhere near that, thats why you are burning up a pound of weight a week.

Do you not feel hungrry?

Try eating a lot more carbs spread through the day.

tunney

Do you not feel hungrry?

No not really. Thats why I thought I was eating enough.

So basically consenus is eat more carbs more often, and perhaps switch my main meal of the day to midday, and have a decent breakfast? Suppose a few weeks of that will show if my weight stays the same!

Cheers all! (Although any more advice will be greatly appreciated!)

rs

Just a couple of suggestions.

Do you drink enough water? and I mean taking in at least 2 extra liters on days you train? Dehydration could be part of the problem.

I'd also suggest that you are perhaps overtraining, and you are simply not giving yourself enough time to recover from your workouts. This would explain the weight loss, lack of energy, loss of weight. It would also explain how you feel fine after a week of rest.

How much sleep do you get?

How many resat days do you take a week? I'd suggest you have at least two, three if possible. And rest on those days, sit around, eat, watch tv etc. On training days you'll find that you can get more out of yourself, because you feel better.

tunney

Perhaps I don't drink enough water, but I think I do (good old pee test ). Sleep may be a problem though - I amn't a great sleeper so maybe I need to work on that too.

Rest days? I aim to only take one but generally take two. As for overtraining my RHR in the mornings is generally no more than 7 bpm elavated. So I thought that was okay?

emertoff

IMO you are overtraining considerably. 60 mins of cardio 6 days a week at your correct target heart rate is sufficient. Do some weights as well. Anything more will tire and weaken your muscles and will not have any effect on weight loss.
Drink about 2l water per day as advised and try taking a general supplement such as Multibionta or Vivioptal.

Supercell

Reading this topic has me wondering about fitness food.

Since starting back in the gym a few weeks ago i've lost about 10 lbs and my body fat index had dropped by 4% (it was 42% ..now 38%..still huge...).

I'm learning slowly about the "right " kind of food to eat and when. Was shocked looking at the nutrition info on a pack of brennans bread that each slice is about 70 cals...so a couple of sambo's wlth thin slices of cheese is easily pushing pushing 500 cals + , yet a small pasta dish can only be about 300 cals and far more satisfying .


I was wondering if anyone here has seen websites they found to be usefull for fitness eating, ie not diet eating, food that can be eaten in conjunction with 5 30 - 45 mins sessions per week.

At the moment am trying to keep it balanced more in the favour of cardio , ie its about 5/8 cardio and 3/8 weights , but notice that the cardio is becoming easier and easier to do, so probably will be increasing the time doing weight and bulking mustle in the coming weeks.

Has anyone here any recommendations for sites with good training meal planners or recipies etc that they found useful?

casper-

Originally posted by Longfield
I was wondering if anyone here has seen websites they found to be usefull for fitness eating, ie not diet eating, food that can be eaten in conjunction with 5 30 - 45 mins sessions per week.

Has anyone here any recommendations for sites with good training meal planners or recipies etc that they found useful?

Not any free ones (except for the Body For Life one - it has a ton of recipes), and I've never been able to bring myself to pay for any of the "expert" ones either. It takes a little more time and effort (unfortunately), but if you use a site such as calorieking.com, you can put together a few 5- or 6- meals a day plan and try to balance out your protein/carb/fat requirements in whichever proportion you think is adequate (40/40/20 for instance).

If you're at a gym, I suspect the trainers could probably help you work out a plan as well; no clue how much that would cost (€50 / hr? )

daveirl

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