Help! Am I eating too much?

thirtysomething

Hi all, I would be grateful if ye could examine if I am eating too much. Into week three now of the new me and not really shifting the weight.

Firstly my stats - 6'2" Male - 208lbs - Low proportion of muscle weight there I'm afraid. (What should my ideal weight range be - medium/large frame)

Exercise - jogging Tuesdays & Thursdays - 3 Miles approx 27 mins. Golf Saturdays for 2 hours.

Food intake:
8am - Breakfast - Porridge with Honey & Whole Milk, Coffee with milk and brown toast with Low fat spread and Jam.

11am - Morning Snack - Banana & Coffee with milk

1 pm - Lunch - 2 x Brown bread s/wich with Low Fat spread lettuce, ham, cheese & tomato

6pm dinner - some variety here - Often meat & two veg with potatoes or Pasta with chicken. Chicken curry with rice or Chillie with Baked Potato.

9pm snack - bowl Weetabix with Whole milk.

Generally one treat night per week where I allow myself to eat anything I want. generally can't eat too much though as you when you are not used ti it.

All comments would be appreciated.

JimmNeutron

To be honest thats a lot less than i expected to see when i clicked into it.
It looks close enough to my diet. I would say have the 2 sambos at different times instead of all at once, maybe one at 11 with the banana as your snack and then the other with an apple and mars bar or something at 1 for lunch. Thats the only difference between my diet and yours except that i would have toast and milk before bed instead of cereal, and maybe a bowl of natural yogurt and fruit after dinner.

thirtysomething

Thanks, maybe the problem is that It is enough for weight maintenance but not enough for weight loss?

Dragan

Right,

Your eating too much carbs over the course of the day. I'm a "base your carbs around your activity" kind of guy, but your not really very active. 2 half hour jogs a week and a game of golf does not really constitute a workout plan I fear.

If I was you I would try and up my activity each week and jog some more, maybe hit the gym if you can?

I would drop the carbs from dinner, and definitely drop the weetabix before bed. That’s what made me fat when I was kid. Add in more protein as this will keep you feeling fuller for longer, over carbs. Eat plenty of veg as well, rich fibrous veg will add to your feeling of fullness after a meal.

As for the "one night a week" my advice is to either cut it down or knock it on the head. If your trying to lose weight and it's not going anywhere then it's not something you can do.

thirtysomething

Thanks Dragan, (forgot to include I tend to eat about 2 fruit per day also.)

I didn't think my carb intake was that high? Anyway, will try the carb cut & hit the weights for a few weeks and will come back and post the results.

Thanks again.

rubadub

You are taking in carbs at 9pm, not advisable for weight loss. Also you mention no portion sizes at all. Have you ever calculated how many calories you are taking in? reading your diet it could be 1000kcal, or could well be 5000kcal.

yop

OP - I am in the exact same situation yourself but would probably eat less for breakfast and would add about 4 litres of water to that intake and also cannot for the life of me shift the weight I have put on over the last 6 or 7 weeks even with doing 10 laps of the track 3 times a week, on the bike twice a week for 1 hour and 1 hour squash.

I wonder it is our metabolic rates that could be causing this?

Dragan

yop wrote:

I wonder it is our metabolic rates that could be causing this?

Unlikely. It would be hard to cripple your metabolism to the point where your doing everything right but still nothing is happening.

The logical deduction is that you are doing something wrong. Post full diet and workouts, include estimated intensities.

Shrimp

try low-fat milk, and drink plenty of water .. water is essential to weight loss... Caffeine has a diuretic effect so all the more reason to drink extra water.

Backtoblack

Yep, lots of water is good idea.. once you get into it, you'll find you're able (and end up needing) to drink a lot of it! Good for your skin too (sorry i'm female!)
I think homemade lowfat smoothies are great and also fruit salads are a delicious way to eat a lot more fruit!
The gym might be a good idea.. or walking to work, the stairs instead of the lift.. all the things you hear that you don't tend to adhere/listen to?

Would anyone else agree that boiled eggs are great? Full of protein & low in fat?
Change white bread to brown bread (but I think you said you do that)..
And low fat milk. If you get used to low fat milk, you can really notice the difference if you have fullfat for a change.

Best of luck anyway.. keep trying!! Don't be disheartened at all!!

Sangre

JimmNeutron wrote:

To be honest thats a lot less than i expected to see when i clicked into it.
It looks close enough to my diet. I would say have the 2 sambos at different times instead of all at once, maybe one at 11 with the banana as your snack and then the other with an apple and mars bar or something at 1 for lunch. Thats the only difference between my diet and yours except that i would have toast and milk before bed instead of cereal, and maybe a bowl of natural yogurt and fruit after dinner.

Gah?

frobisher

Backtoblack wrote:

And low fat milk. If you get used to low fat milk, you can really notice the difference if you have fullfat for a change.

Is changing to low fat milk going to make a difference? I'd say that at most I go through maybe 1 to 1 1/2 litres a week. Is a few small % on just that going to have any effect?

rubadub

Backtoblack wrote:

Would anyone else agree that boiled eggs are great? Full of protein & low in fat?
Change white bread to brown bread

Well each egg has about 5g of fat. Change to wholemeal bread, most "brown" bread is mainly the same old bleached wheat flour with some brown flour to colour it. You might well know this but it is worth pointing out, only a few brands are wholemeal.

rubadub

frobisher wrote:

Is changing to low fat milk going to make a difference? I'd say that at most I go through maybe 1 to 1 1/2 litres a week. Is a few small % on just that going to have any effect?

Normal milk is about 4% fat, low fat is 2%, skim is negligible. You are drinking up to 1500g per week, so if you went to low fat you have 2% less, which is 30g of pure fat.

g'em

rubadub wrote:

Normal milk is about 4% fat, low fat is 2%, skim is negligible. You are drinking up to 1500g per week, so if you went to low fat you have 2% less, which is 30g of pure fat.

.. which is still not going to make a blind bit of difference if the rest of your diet is full of crap.

If you can honestly say that you eat:
1. absolutely no processed foods
2. wholefoods wherever possible
3. veg/ fruit (preferably veg) with every meal
4. regular small meals equally distributed throughout the day
5. no takeaways
6. lots of healthy fats, lean protein and starchy carbs are kept to a minimum (morning times and after a workout) and come from wholegrains
7. and drink a minimum of 2.5 L water a day

..then the differences found in full-fat vs. low-fat milk come into play. Otherwise it's just worrying about the details when the bigger picture still hasn't been addressed (not getting at you rubadub btw just amazes me when you see people worrying about which type of milk to drink or which nuts are best when there are waaaay more important things that will clean up a diet quicker!!)

rubadub

g'em wrote:

(not getting at you rubadub btw

No bother . I wasnt saying it was going to make a huge difference, was pretty netural, just doing the math for him. 1.5L a week is not a lot to drink but some people would be downing that each day, in which case 30g per day is about 33% of your daily amount.

I also hate the advertising of foods where they will quote in % fat for some items and grams of fat for others, it is misleading. Yes milk is relatively low in fat at "just" 4% but you could be drinking it by the kilo! then they might say crisps "just" contain a few grams or fat or salt, yet the portion is 24g.

All the little things add up. Changing one or 2 won't have much effect.

JimmNeutron

Sangre wrote:

Gah?

Sorry, just the little imperfections in my diet:D

TerrorFirmer

I think, your diet, even without exercise, is not remotely enough to sustain excess weight without dropping any of it.

I would eat a hell of alot more on a daily basis then what you have posted there, and although I'm stilling doing my weights sessions I've not done cardio since last October or there abouts (:eek: I know ), and have only gained a negligble amount of 'bad' weight...i.e. basically it's made no difference to when I was doing cardio really, apart from the obvious being my fitness levels have gone down but thats besides the point.

If that's truly all you're eating I really think it's not possible to sustain being overweight....it may not be the perfect ideal diet for everyone here but to be honest in comparison to the average person out there, your diet is quite a good one.

I myself ate a kg of natural yoghurt and a tin of peaches yesterday as a snack (after a huge feed of wholemeal sandwiches)....so I'm not one to talk about diets though.