Advice please

NicheG

I'm looking to lose a good bit of weight at the moment. I'm 30 years of age, male and currently 105kgs, which even at 6ft4 is still on the heavy side.
I'm looking to get down to 90-92kgs. Ultimately, I do not ever want to go over 15 stone (95kgs) again.
Around the start of November 2006 I was in the same situation; where I was reaching about 108-112kg (at my very heaviest), which at that point I decided to take some action and consulted a nutritionist.
She had advised me to go on a 1000cal a day meal plan with emphasis on very high protein content. To cut a long story short, between 1/11/06 till Paddys Day 2007 I went from 109kgs to 93kgs which I thought was an unbelievable amount to lose in that space of time. I was very strict with the diet and had always enjoyed exercise. In my first week, I had lost 9lbs and had seen week in week out decreases of 3-4lbs on average. However, I kinda rested on my laurels and felt that I did'nt need to put the effort back in once I reached the low 90s (kgs).
From May07-Nov/Dec07, due to work and other commitments, I had almost completely cut out my gym sessions which in turn made me start eating more (for some strange reason). With the result that I put back almost all of the weight I had lost.

I want to begin that regime I had last year and was hoping to do it more sensibly this time and not focus on short term.

My diet is currently:

Breakfast: 1 small banana + Promax protein bar in the car on the way to work
9am-11am: I drink about 2 litres of water
11am snack: 1 small apple
11am - 12.45pm: Another 1 litre of water
12.45pm: I would get a wrap in the local Spar deli, with just plain white chicken, peppers and tomato (no mayo or any other condiment)
1pm - 4pm: Would try to drink another 1-2litres of water.

5.30pm-7pm : Gym (which I will get to in a minute)
7.15pm: I would have the normal chicken fillet (from any of the supermarkets) cooked on a George Foreman with steamed broccoli, carrots ans peppers. I would sometimes interchange the chicken fillets with the bog standard cod fillets (Donegal catch type). I would then have a Promax protein shake after this. Generally, dinner would not vary much from this except now and again, I would have the microwaveable prepared veg that you would get in Superquinn or M&S.
I would then not eat for the rest of the night and would maybe try and drink another 1-2litres of water.


Fitness
Although I enjoy the gym; I feel I am probably not acheiving optimum results.
My routine would be:

30 mins (10kmph-12kmph) on a treadmill
15-25mins (Level 9-11) on Xtrainer
Although I would'nt place too much emphasis on the machines, but with the details (weight and age) I input into both machines; I would expect to burn off 800-1000cals typically on an hour of cardio.

I would then do about 20-25mins of weights, which I totally lack any expertise in. I would do 3 sets of 10reps on the sitting bench press machine at approx 50-65kgs. Last year I was doing 65-80kgs on this machine. I would then use the squat machine where I would do another 3 sets of 10reps of between 110-130kgs (although this is probably not as beneficial as doing real squats). I would then interchange between tricep curls (same number of sets and reps at between 30-40kgs). Possibly then I would work on my legs and do some quad work (maybe 60-70kgs)

I have started varying my cardio and weights sessions, where I might do weights first then a 30min high intensity cardio session.

With DIET and FITNESS regime in mind; can anyone see any fault in either so that I can maximise my potential to lose the weight again, and this time keep it off.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated?

justsomebloke

ok my advise would be to speak to another nutritionist. Seriously that seems to have been a serious diet she had you on with no proper details of how to come off the diet when you where finished.

Ok the basis of her diet seems to be the same as other diets that I have seen, basically a large deficit in your daily calorific intake with a side to keeping as much lean body mass by having a % of protein in your diet.

however the problem with these diets is that even though you have a high % of protein in your diet you are still going to be losing a good chunk of lean body mass over the period of your diet which in your case seems to have been quite large and thus when you reverted to eating properly again you probably went back to your old ways but not having the lean body mass your body just put piles of weight back on and brought you back to your initial weight again.

Ok so from the look of it you are going to be going back to the old routine, however I would skip that as it didn't work the first time. Remember the results of a diet aren't based on how much you lose but how much you keep off and you have gone back to your original weight.

So initially jsut go through the stickies as there is a load of info in there that will help you, however basically eat more, also make sure to get more fats into your diet aswell. Also lifting weights is great for keeping up as much lean body mass as possible and lean body mass helps to keep your metabloism high thus making fat loss easier. So get a good lifting programme together. There are lots of threads here already so go through a few another threads and you will get a good bit of info

NicheG

Thanks for the advice jsb.
I never really realised how important weight training was until now. I just feel I need to be shown properly how to best use it to my advantage.
I'll have a look through some of threads to see what I need to do and how to approach it.
Its put me in a good frame of mind for the gym tonight.

davyjose

NicheG wrote: »

She had advised me to go on a 1000cal a day meal plan with emphasis on very high protein content.

WHAT??? I'm sorry, but I didn't get any further than this - no wonder it didn't work. This is a completely untenable diet to be undertaking, and will ultimately end with pigging out some night with a bucket of fried chicken.
If you want to lose weight, figure out how many calories you need to maintain your goal weight, after exercise, i.e. 90 kilos, and eat that, every day(probably in and around 3000), except for special occasions. That is a very maintainable diet.

Racing Flat

I don't think you need to drink that much water - that's 5-7litres a day! I went through a stage of drinking lots of water, forcing it down and it just lead to getting up at night to pee and sweating the sheets at night. There was a study done on marathon runners which found that those who were allowed to drink whenever they wanted (when doing a marathon on a treadmill) did better than those forced to drink the recommended amount according to the American College of Sports Medicine guidelines (Ref Tim Noakes). People are paranoid about dehydration, particularly in sport. Furthermore, the average world class marathoner tends to be 5% dehydrated after the race. I know an Inter-County footballer who was told that urine should be clear to ensure you are not dehydrated and he drank so much water to try and ensure this it was ridiculous.

I would also say, eat breakfast. A good one, at home or in work - not in the car. Sets you up for the day and all that.

Best of luck.

NicheG

I suppose the reason why I drink so much water is twofold. One is to (what the experts say) clear out all of the toxins in the body (and I am mindful of the fact that you don't need 5-7 litres per day to achieve this). Secondly (and probably rather bizarrely) is the fact where I work there is about 3 fastfood places within 200 metres of the front door and it is so easy when there is a lull in work to walk over to one and have something there for lunch. In my job there can be numerous small breaks during the day depending on when seperate tasks are complete and I found myself out of sheer boredom going over and getting small burgers, fries etc on possibly more than one occasion during the day. Bottom line was WHEN I GOT BORED I USED TO EAT. So its not rocket science why I am the size I am.
I found that knocking back a half litre of water if I found myself starting to get peckish would kill any such cravings. It tends to work.