My Diet - Suggestions for Alternatives

marathonic

Okay, I'm 5' 11" and currently weigh 12 stone 4 pounds. I do a little bit of cycling and would like to take up club cycling and probably some racing next year. For the next few months, my primary goal will be weight loss - should make it easier to get up those hills on the bike. I can then start concentrating on building up the legs. I'm not sure what weight to aim for (probably around 10.5 - 11 stone).

Up until the last few weeks, my diet has been atrocious - lots of frozen ready meals, sausage rolls, oven chips (I thought these were healthy ) I live on my own and so have total control over what food comes into the house.

My diet for the past two weeks has consisted of the following:

Breakfast (about 8 a.m.):

Bowl of Porridge with Semi-Skimmed Milk

Snack (about 11 a.m.):

Two Pieces of Different Fruit, e.g. orange, apple, kiwi

Lunch (about 1 p.m.):

Three Slices of Sesame Seed Ryvita with either 1/2 Tin Tuna, 2 boiled Eggs or cottage cheese

Snack (about 3 p.m.):

One piece of Fruit and a Mullerlight Yoghurt

Dinner (about 6 p.m.):

A mixture of different veg from frozen bags and 1/2 tin tuna (if I din't have tuna for lunch) or a chicken breast. The veg is steamed and chicken cooked in olive oil or else the whole lot is stir fried with some soy sauce added at the end (is soy sauce bad?)

After this, I usually don't get hungry but if I do, I'll have an egg or a piece of fruit.

My main concerns are:

1. Am I eating enough/too much?
2. Am I eating too much fruit - sugar wise? (I am considering switching from one of the 11 a.m. pieces of fruit to some nuts)
3. I've read bad things about low-fat yoghurts - what should I replace this with?
4. Do you have any suggestions for changes to add variety to lunch and dinner, e.g. possibly steak or something (I don't know how good or bad this is)?

Bear in mind when making suggestions that I am living on my own so suggested meals should suit cooking for one.

Thanks.

EileenG

Without knowing the amounts you are eating, it's hard to say for definite, but it doesn't look like a lot of food. Seems to be low on protein and fats.

Yes, I'd think that replacing some of the fruit with nuts or seeds would be a good idea. Raw almonds are great. Chicken and tuna is fine, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with a decent steak. Red meat has all sorts of great stuff in it that you need for good health.

Low fat yogurts are usually full of added sugars or sweeteners. Try some natural yogurt instead. It looks to me as if you are not eating enough fat as it is, there's no need to go for low fat yogurts. Cottage cheese is another option, much higher protein too.

It could be worth buying a tub of whey and making the odd whey shake (after cycling is a good time). Handy snack meal with lots of protein.

I'd throw some veg into your lunch as well.

spaceylou

Well your diet is high in fruit but that is not necessarily a bad thing (better to have too much fruit than too much chocolate) but I think because of the sugar in fruit it is recommended that your 5-6 a day (and that is meant to be a minimum) of fruit and veg should be a fairly even split of fruit and veg rather than mainly one or the other.

Also variety is the spice of life so having more choices will make any changes to your diet easier to live with.

What about houmous and raw veg sticks (carrots or celery are pretty good for this) as a snack. Houmous is made from chick peas so there is protein in it and if you can make your own (tin of chickpeas, dash of olive oil, squeeze of lemon juice, garlic clove, tahini (or if you are cheating some sesame seeds also work) all woozed up in the food processor, salt and pepper to taste)

Or a big bowl of salad with your tuna at lunch time, lots of lettuce, baby spinach, rocket, cucumber, onion, radishes, tomato, fresh herbs, grated carrot etc or whatever combination is in the fridge.

Beks

You seem to lack variety. I'd suggest stir fry veggies and tofu (or meat) for dinner with a small portion of rice or noodles. Steamed veggies must get pretty boring. Stuffed roasted peppers are nice too. If you accidentally make too much then just take it in to work the next day for lunch!

jomag45

Hey there. I agree with the other posters, try to introduce a little more variety into your diet. And do include a little red meat. I was in a similar situation about a year ago, and I've been doing competitive cycling since then too. I dropped from over 12.5st. to 11st now. That kind of wight loss really helps with cycling, especially in the hills. Compared to before, the bike seems to want to fly up hills now . I too have a pretty good diet, but I supplement it with a protein shake after every training ride. That gives me an additional 400 calories, but provides a source of good quality protein during the replenishment window in the first few hours after exercise. Without this, when you start doing serious training, your body will simply not be able to recover fast enough to be able to train 5 or 6 days a week. One other tip for weight loss that worked for me was that I ate very little after my evening meal, maybe some fruit. Good luck with the cycling. Hope to see you on the road some time.

barbiegirl

Ok looking at that list and putting ww points to it where possible I calculate you're eating about 12 -14 points a day. WAY to low. You need t eat a certain amount in order to lose weight and when you are excercing heavily you need to eat more.
Join a support group of some sort that wiull help you measure what you are eating against what you should be.