help figuring out calories

horgan_p

o.k. following on from the thread below and not wanting to hijack it :

i have decided to turn my back on the lipotrim thing ( liver / kidney problems ? no thanks).

i understand that in order to lose weight i need to burn more calories than i take in.
what i would like to know is how to figure out how many calories i use on a daily basis.
i have read and figured out how to work out how many calories i need to burn in order to lose the amount of weight i want to lose.

then i need to work out 3 meals per day that put me at least in the ballpark of how many i use less how many i want to burn (?) ,not sure about this part.


3 meals because i work an office job and lunch may not be at the same time each day. and without a canteen (subway across the road) i need to probably make lunch one of the higher calorie meals , i can control what options are open to me better when i am at home.

at home i have the use of : a cross trainer,an exercise bike, some very basic weights (no bench).

i am well able to walk and actually enjoy it best when its just me and my ipod.
other than that my lifestyle is pretty sedentary.

i would like to do the best i can initially at home with the tools i have , then move onto a gym.

workout in the morning is probably (being honest) not really going to happen , unless its saturday or sunday.

i am in all fairless a fairly unfit lump of a yoke.


suggestions , comments or sarcasm all welcome (well maybe not the last one)

i would like to lose 4 stone (56 lbs).not a quick fix , but a steady rate of loss would be sweet.

i think i have been as honest as i can be, i am around 5'7 and currently weigh 90 kgs (14 stone)

hunnymonster

sorry have to ask another personal question. How old are you.



Good on you for deciding to do this properly. your body will thank you for it.


Straight off, you need 5-6 meals a day not 3. This is going to take quite a bit of planning. For example subway will be out (except for an occassional treat). Probably the best thing to do is take lunch into work with you. Pitta breads and wraps are useful for making food portable. If you really want to go hard core on this use lettuce leaves as wraps. I currently love a wholemealpitta stuffed with a chicken breast or can of tuna or some salmon with loads of salad for lunch


Don't avoid fat (this is the one I struggle with) but make sure the fat you take is good fat (i.e. avoid stuff in packets and that says "hydrogenated".


Try to eat protein with every meal. If you really can't incorporate solid protein into the meal then have a small glass of milk with it or a small tub of natural yoghurt.

take loads of measurements and photos. Nothing inspires like watching your success.

hunnymonster

For exercise, if you like walking then knock yourself out. would you consider working up to a run? Every so often when you are out walking raise your game a little. Power walk to the next set of traffic lights or something. Getting yourself really out of breath occassionally is good for you. Weights are hugely important.

hunnymonster

oops sorry, got interrupted by work there. Anyway weights. The advantages are
1. muscle makes you look good
2. muscle has higher energy demands than other stuff (read fat) so you get to eat more to stay still :-)
3. lifting weights is fun

horgan_p

no problem , i am 30.

i really dont see 6 meals a day being a runner ,working in a call center and all.

i'm not being negative , just being realistic.

i would love to increase exercise to burn more calories and keep the meals simple ( wholemeal pitta and chicken sounds right up my street).

hunnymonster

I might as well say is as kindly as I can before the more direct people arrive home. If you want to eat 6 meals a day you can. A handful of nuts can be a meal. a yoghurt & fruit can be a meal. It's important that you don't go long periods without eating so that your metabolism continues to fire on all cylinders. It sounds like you will be permanently eating but honestly (I've been doing it for 2 months now) it doesn't feel like that. It also has the advantage that you always have something in your tummy so you never feel hungry.

horgan_p

sorry , it seems my definition of meal and yours are different.

see ? learning already.

ali.c

horgan_p wrote:

no problem , i am 30.

i really dont see 6 meals a day being a runner ,working in a call center and all.

i'm not being negative , just being realistic.

i would love to increase exercise to burn more calories and keep the meals simple ( wholemeal pitta and chicken sounds right up my street).

Right well you dont have to eat all six meals in work, from what you were saying getting the impression that you work shifts? Correct me if i am wrong btw. Right so i have no idea of your schedule but heres just some thoughts

meal 1: Home
Meal 2: Home/Work (depending on what time you start at)
Meal 3: Work
Meal 4: Work
Meal 5: Home/Work (depending on finishing time)
Meal 6: Home

Most people get coffee breaks? It may be that you need to schedule your meals around your breaks. You dont have a canteen, so prepare your next days food the night before and chuck it in the fridge. if you dont have access to a fridge in work get a cooler bag. Now i realaise that not eating in subways with your collegues (sp?) may be hard at first, but no harder (if not easier) than when you were on a shake only diet.

you are going to be running a calorie deficit for a while, so i think its important to get some resistance training in their. this blog posts a daily no equipment workout (cross-fit style) you could do it a few times a week?

http://skievat.blogspot.com/
If you have a hunt around the web, there are loads of body weight excercise you can to build up your strength.

hope this is of some help!

horgan_p

o.k. heres a quick one off the top of my head:


breakfast : porridge and coffee (black with sweetner , not sugar)
elevenses (or whatever) : yogurt and apple
lunch : chicken wrap or brown pitta or sandwich with a sachet of mayo
midafternoon : piece of fruit

dinner : chicken breast / steak cooked in foreman grill. vegetables.

evening : nuts/fruit.


i usually drink around 3-4 litres of water during the day.

excercise :

cross trainer :15 mins.
bike : 20 mins

weights :
dont know the right names so bear with me :

2 dumbells with 5 kgs

set of 20 bending forearm to shoulder.

set of 20 arms out streched lying down bringing them into my chest (sorry for the description)

set of 20 ab crunch things.

further 10 mins on the bike.

this should bring me to around an hour / hour and a half exercise.

exercise 4 times a week on alternate nights.
long ( 4-5 mile ) walk on nights not exercising.




is this a good start point, just listing what i feel i could easily do at home.

hunnymonster

It may not be useful to you but what I ate yesterday was

9am porridge made with milk

10am (on way to gym) banana
(ran for 2 hours)
12noon (at gym) 200g strawberries (no I didn't weight them I had half a 400g pack!)
(swam for 30 min)
1pm (after gym) past (half a mug cooked shells), chopped chicken breast mixed with walnut oil & lemon juice
(I kind of considered these 3 as two meals lumped together. I spend a lot of time in the gym so sometimes I have to do this - wouldn't expect sane people to do this though)

4:30 - soup - veggie soup is great because I can make a big out at the weekend and just heat up portions all week. I usually chuck a boiled egg or few prawns or anything with protein in just to balance it out a bit.

7pm - chickpeas, tuna and salsa with salad

10 pm - pint super milk with honey mixed in. I'm sure people will give out to me for the honey before bed but I was craving something sweat and it was either this or choc bikkies.

I possibly also should ahve swapped the 4:30 with th 7pm meal to get the higher calorie meal in early but I only went shopping at teatime. I realise I'm lucky because I have a kettle, microwave and fridge in my office and "home" is about 100meters away.

ali.c

Sorry I forgot to add use www.fitday.com to plan your meals, it'll give you a breakdown of the nutrional value of what your eating and calories. You can also track your weight etc and it give us pretty graphs! Sustainable fatloss is in the region of 1-2lbs per week anything else you lose is muscle or water. I recommend keeping a food journal and try to remember that you are building new habits and that you wont always eat perfectly but after a while you'll be your bad days will be better than your good days previously. Why not start a fitness log in the sub-forum? Its always nice to get feedback and support

hunnymonster

Sorry, I took too long writing my post and you got in before me.

horgan_p wrote:

o.k. heres a quick one off the top of my head:
breakfast : porridge and coffee (black with sweetner , not sugar)
elevenses (or whatever) : yogurt and apple
lunch : chicken wrap or brown pitta or sandwich with a sachet of mayo
midafternoon : piece of fruit
dinner : chicken breast / steak cooked in foreman grill. vegetables.
evening : nuts/fruit.

i usually drink around 3-4 litres of water during the day.
excercise :
cross trainer :15 mins.
bike : 20 mins

weights :
dont know the right names so bear with me :
2 dumbells with 5 kgs
set of 20 bending forearm to shoulder.
set of 20 arms out streched lying down bringing them into my chest (sorry for the description)
set of 20 ab crunch things.
further 10 mins on the bike.
this should bring me to around an hour / hour and a half exercise.
exercise 4 times a week on alternate nights.
long ( 4-5 mile ) walk on nights not exercising.
is this a good start point, just listing what i feel i could easily do at home.

Sounds great. If you could manage to do your weights exercises before the cross trainer and bike you might feel better doing them. Lunges are another one you can do at home and will (to be perfectly crude) will work your bum. The dumbell exercises you're alreadytalking about are all upper body.

horgan_p

so i am in the right ball park ?
i was just listing what i honestly think i could stick to ,at least to start.
btw obviously not a full sachet of mayo in the sandwich.


i thought meals were meals in the old Irish sense of the word.


my apologies

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Malteaser!

RE: 6 meals a day...

THe "meals" don't have to be substantial ones. Only like 4-600kcals each. Big snacks if you want to think of them that way. Shouldn't really take anymore than 5-10 minutes to get it down you.
At 90kg you need to be consuming about 2500-2700 kcals per day to lose weight. you might not actually be eating enough now to lose weight, counter-intuative as it may seem!

Looking at your proposed plan there's only 2 real significant servings of protein during the day (lunch and dinner) and almost none at breakfast. It's really important to be getting some in then. And ideally you should be getting some lean protein with every meal. Try to shoot for 200ish g a day. You'd probably only be consuming 100-120 if you ate as proposed. Also, you're seriously lacking in healthy fats!

Do you have access to any heavier dumbbells than 5kg? Or would you consider joining a gym?

You'll find it alot easier to lose weight if your putting some effort into training in a gym rather than just taking it easy at home.

Hanley

hunnymonster wrote:

I might as well say is as kindly as I can before the more direct people arrive home..

Haha sometimes people neeed to be made realise it's not easy to make the neccessary changes and a direct approach is often neeeded. Give em an inch and they take a mile and all that.

Besides, positive vibes will only get you so far!!

ali.c

Its not bad, a bit low on good fats fish seeds etc. Fruit in itself is not a meal, it contains fructose (a type of sugar) its not bad or anything but by itself its not great, as it has little or no protein. Why not add it to some natural yogurt with a tea spoon of mixed seeds*? Or alternatively a tin of tuna?

*yup i have a bit of a thing for seeds, in my porridge yogurt and salads just yumm. Linseeds punkin seeds sunflower seeds seasme seeds love then all.
I mash it all up in a blender looks a little like baby food but its yum!