Minor Diet adjustments?

TerrorFirmer

Hi there guys,

With the help if advice from people in this forum, I've gone from 16 stone in Nov 05 to 11.9 stone now in April.

I've been sticking to more or less the same diet over that period but now that I've lost alot of the weight I'm concerned that what I'm eating is insufficent to enable me to keep a stable weight while giving me what I need.

Breakfast:

Medium Bowl of Fitnesse Cereal with milk. Glass of OJ.

Lunch:

Special K Bar with fruit, often a Banana. Sometimes a brown scone with butter.

Dinner:

Always a large dinner, most nights its something like Chicken, Rice and vegetables followed by a fruit yoghurt of some type.

Pre-Sleeping snack:

Usually either some cheese or in most cases a few slices of Chicken.



As well as that I usually eat alot more combined with junk on weekends (freedom from work), but since I've started this diet I've found that no matter WHAT I eat on weekends (sometimes eating about 4000kcal per day) the weight has been steadily dropping. I never eat any junk from Monday through Thursday.

I also am aware that my intake is fairly poor from the morning until my dinner, but I simply never feel hungry until my dinner in the evening.

I go to the gym about three times a week (usually just moderate usage, exercise bikes, walkers, etc) but even though the weight has been steadily dropping I still have a lot of excess fat on my stomach/rear that is actually not much smaller then what I had when I was sixteen stone. Sometimes I feel like I weight the exact same if it weren't for how I look in pictures now and when I see the size pants I wear now in comparison! :rolleyes:

anyway, any advice would be great. Thanks. You've been a great help so far!

g'em

first off well done on the weight loss, that's fantastic!!

But... (there's always a but ) If this is the diet you've been following it does sound like you may have been losing a lot of the weight through water and muscle loss, particularly if you're finding that your problem areas are still a bit on the wobbly side. are you only doing cardio when you go to the gym? doing a weights program will help you 'tone up' all over and make you firmer. while you've lost plenty of weight, you need to make sure that you have a good lean muscle base to keep your metabolism functioning properly and it'll help prevent you putting the weight back on in future.

A special k bar and a banana for lunch? is that all? What about a brown bread sandwich or a pasta salad? or best of all lots of protein? And as much of a 'diet' dereal as fitnesse is, how high in sugars is it? how high in fibre is it? porridge all the way for breakfast is best. If you find you're not hungry between meals try eating nuts which are calorie dense in small portions and contain plenty of good fats and minerals. And just remember that OJ is sort of empty calories- you're better off eating the whole fruit to get the fibre benefits. At the minimum make sure your OJ is freshly squeezed with the bits left in.

TerrorFirmer

Yeah the muscle loss is what most concerns me, especially when I tend to go for such long periods without food in the mornings/afternoons.

At the gym I tend to do just cardio, yes, but I do it regularly enough as I said above, 3 times a week.

I know its not all muscle loss, as the jeans I wear now are size 34/36 (were 40) and my legs,face, upper body etc are all wayyyyy slimmer. Its just the belly in particular that is a problem area.

I hate porridge so thats not really an option for me, but I do love weetabix, would this be better for me?

I think a big problem here is that I've become overly worried about what I eat - like I feel guilty if I ate a bowl of cereal AND brown bread with just butter for breakfast, although I'm sure in reality this is perfectly fine.

Say I was to change to this below diet - how much better would it be.

Breakfast - Two Weetabix with milk, slice of brown bread.

Lunch - Few Slices Brown Bread, Banana and....what else would you suggest here? The reason I normally eat little is that I just don't get hungry until evening!

Dinner - as above, a large enough dinner normally consisting of chicken/pork with rice, pasta or potato with vegetables.

Pre-sleep snack - chicken or cheese, but mostly chicken. With Banana or Apple.


I used to never go to the gym and eat way too much food. Now I eat alot better and go to the gym 3 times a week - It really would kill me to think all the weight lost was from muscle and water alone

ps - thank you for the reply I really appreciate it

g'em

HavoK wrote:

Breakfast - Two Weetabix with milk, slice of brown bread.

Lunch - Few Slices Brown Bread, Banana and....what else would you suggest here? The reason I normally eat little is that I just don't get hungry until evening!

well weetabix is probably the lesser of two evils!! and what about putting something in the bread??!? some tomato, cucumber and tuna maybe? or sweetcorn? chicken? any salad and/or lean meat really. Ideally you would try to eat protein at every meal i.e. 5-6 times a day. Your body can't actively store protein to be used later on, so to provide your muscles with the protein they need to grow you need to constantly supply yourself with it.

HavoK wrote:

I used to never go to the gym and eat way too much food. Now I eat alot better and go to the gym 3 times a week - It really would kill me to think all the weight lost was from muscle and water alone

It won't be just muscle and water, but there's probably a higher loss of both than is recommended. Cardio doesn't build muscle, weights do, simple as that.

TerrorFirmer

Thanks for all the help g'em. I will start this updated diet tomorrow, and see how it works out after a month or so.

Its amazing how complex the process of weight loss is when compared to the common base line of "Less food = weight loss"

TerrorFirmer

Today I ate:

7am Breakfast - Two Weetabix with milk, slice of brown bread with butter, some juice.

1pm Lunch - Chicken sandwhich with a handful of crisps and water.

4pm Snack - Special K Bar

7pm Dinner - Chicken with veg and rice.


How's this shaping up against my old one? Better? I will probably eat a few slices of cheese or chicken later on too with some Ribena.

Any advice on what more I could do, please let me know...

g'em

yeah its better!! I'd still say you need to eat more between meals, drop the crisps, swap some nuts/ fruit/ yoghurt for the special k bar- those things really aren't 'halthy' at all, they're highly processed sugar bars with a brilliant marketing ploy behind them

And as always, lots of water/ green tea. It's certainly a hell of a lot better than what you used to eat iirc....!!

TerrorFirmer

Okay, I will swap the special K for a yoghurt/banana or something. That's great, thanks again g'em, I will stick with this for a while and see how I go.
I will try and give up the crisps but in the canteen at work, they charge practically nothing for a sandwich and the "Handful" of crisps is more like a bagful with what they give me.

Anyway, thanks again, appreciate it

justsomebloke

also i would suggest a small snack again between breakfast and lunch

Aedh Baclamh

And replace the butter with honey

zAbbo

Do you mind me asking what height you are?

I'm on a similar path myself, and have added a protein shake in the morning before brekky and one an hour before dinner in the evenings. Combined with a regular weights program and I've noticed a nice increase in muscle definition on shoulders and arms.

Are you taking any supplements?

TerrorFirmer

Aedh Baclamh wrote:

And replace the butter with honey

Can do that no problem, whats the benefit?

And zabbo, I'm around 6ft, but not taking any supplements....I plan going down that route eventually but want to get rid of the excess fat etc before I start.

Transform

Do NOT replace the butter with honey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do not wish to go into the specifics as it has been covered before

Choose wheat free meusli and naturral yoghurt for bfast and hit the weights in the gym

REMEMBER - aerobic exercise will get you smaller but it will NOT change your shape and give definition.

Aedh Baclamh

Heh, that's weird because I was recommended that here on this site.

g'em

butter and honey each have their places in a diet. Tbh, butter I just don't eat any more, no need for it. But if you must, better that is a low in salt brand. It'll still have all teh saturated fat in it of course...

And as for the whole flora vs butter thing... well like I said, I use neither and I don't see why anyone else needs to so the less I say about it the better- there's much more efficent ways of lower your cholesterol

But honey, imho, is a great food, if its used the right way and in small amounts. Honey is pure sugar, and gets used very quickly by the body, therefore being a good natural source of energy. It also has anti-fungal, anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties, it helps promote the release of antioxidants and of course tastes great as a sweetener. The trick is not to use it too often and use as raw a source as you can find.

Personally as a treat I use it to sweeten smoothies on occasion, but only ones with oats in it and won't use lots of fruit alongside, generally just natural organic yoghurt and some berries

Aedh Baclamh

Oh ok.

I presume it's okay to have it in porridge every morning though? That's hardly over doing it?