Diet recommendations ?

far2gud

Male 5ft 10 Mid Twenties 12.5 Stone

Hi,

Since the start of the new year I have been trying to improve my diet, I have given up sweet things and have stopped drinking coffee. Below is a typical days diet. I am alternating between chicken, steak and pork for the meats and hope to include some fish overtime.

Stats and typical daily diet below, is this okay and should I be adding/removing anything from this?

Thanks in advance



Male 5ft 10 Mid Twenties 12.5 Stone

Breakfast

Bowl of Bran Flakes
2 pieces of fruit

Lunch

Quiche, deli ham or sliced checken with bowl of salad
2 slices of wholegrain brown bread with butter
2 Pieces of Fruit
Large glass of milk

Dinner

Grilled Steak, chicken breast or pork chop with gravy
Green Beans, broccoli or cauliflower
Boiled spuds or pasta with butter
Large glass of milk

EileenG

What is your goal? Weight loss, muscle gain or general health?

Overall, I'd suggest you replace some of the fruit with vegetables. 5 fruit and veg should be in the form of 3 or 4 veg and only 1 or 2 fruit. Veg generally has more vitamins and nutrition than fruit, and less calories.

Put some protein into your breakfast. Eggs are great. If you don't want to cook in the morning, then something like cottage cheese would work.

You don't have a lot of protein at lunch either. Why not open a tin of tuna or salmon and eat that instead of the deli meat or quiche (high cal for the amount of food). More salad, less bread.

Dinner looks fine.

Giving up coffee may not be necessary. Overall, unless you are one of the unlucky few who is sensitive to it, coffee has more health benefits than disadvantages.

far2gud

I am trying to loose weight and gain lean muscle, the egg idea sounds good but I can never find the time in the morning - to lazy to get outta bed!!

I thought caffeine was bad for you? if not I'm back on the coffee so.

Thanks for the response

rubadub

I would ditch the branflakes (22% sugar & lots of salt) sooner than the coffee.

Maybe switch to porridge or museli, or make your own, i.e. just have uncooked porridge oats, milk & fresh/dry fruit & nuts.

Also changing to 6 meals a day will increase your metabolism. So will doing resistance/weight training.

cozmik

far2gud wrote: »

I am trying to loose weight and gain lean muscle, the egg idea sounds good but I can never find the time in the morning - to lazy to get outta bed!!

You could hard boil a couple of eggs the night before.

far2gud

rubadub wrote: »

I would ditch the branflakes (22% sugar & lots of salt) sooner than the coffee.

Maybe switch to porridge or museli, or make your own, i.e. just have uncooked porridge oats, milk & fresh/dry fruit & nuts.

Also changing to 6 meals a day will increase your metabolism. So will doing resistance/weight training.

Not sure I have the time to switch to six meals a day, I hope to start the weights training over the next week. Didnt know that about the branflakes, 22%sugar!! thats madness.

The boiled egg idea could be a good idea with toast in the morning.

rubadub

You can make thick pancakes with porridge oats, milk & eggs. Just sub in oats for flour in any recipe, then liquidise them all up. This way you can make a big batch of thick ones, and keep them in the fridge or freeze them. Now you can pop them in the toaster each morning if they are thick ones.

So you get your eggs & porridge at the same time. Many people do not like porridge, most like pancakes.

The bran flakes is a shock to most, just proves it is worthwhile reading the nutritional info on packets. Do not presume stuff is healthy just because the ads say so!

6 meals takes getting used to. You could make lunch and just not eat it all and save some for an hour or so later. I found smaller meals meant my belly was not stretched, so I got full quicker. Also my next meal was never far away, so I could resist snacking. You are eating fruit, so that is easy to just keep until a bit later on, but it is recommended you get protein in with each meal.

cozmik

rubadub wrote: »

Also changing to 6 meals a day will increase your metabolism.

Pure myth.

http://www.theiflife.com/2008/11/05/eating-more-meals-does-not-speed-up-your-metabolism/

corkcomp

cozmik wrote: »

Pure myth.

http://www.theiflife.com/2008/11/05/eating-more-meals-does-not-speed-up-your-metabolism/

I think the idea of 6 meals is that you never have to long enough without food to get ravenously hungry and hence there is less chance of over eating (in theory) - one other advantage I can see, especially with carb heavy meals is that your body doesnt grind to a hault trying to convert all that glucose at once ... But, I personally go for 4 meals a day, I think 6 is a bit excessive unless someone likes small portions! I think the main thing is to avoid the trap of only eating once or twice a day

rubadub

cozmik wrote: »

Pure myth.

http://www.theiflife.com/2008/11/05/eating-more-meals-does-not-speed-up-your-metabolism/

Very interesting.

I have heard it said so many times on reasonable sites that I believed it true. It helped me hugely to switch to 6 meals when on a calorie deficit, for several of the reasons mentioned in that link. Somebody also recently posted about the "eating late at night puts on weight" theory to be a myth, but again in effect it does help people to lose weight. People are not living in cages being limited to the exact same calories per day, people do snack unnecessarily.

Perhaps it is a body building thing. I see it often mentioned to eat regularly to get stabilised insulin spikes (or something like that) for better muscle development, which would in turn increase metabolism, maintaining and building the new muscle. But also some study said this could be only a slight increase.

I also found the smaller meals gave me more energy. My biggest meal this year was the usual christmas dinner, which I always feel quite tired after.

If the metabolism thing is a myth I would still recommend it due to the other advantages, though the link did show the downsides, it suited me well though.

That site also has an article about skipping breakfast. http://www.theiflife.com/2008/05/21/why-you-shouldnt-eat-breakfastagain/
Having a big breakfast helped me hugely while on a calorie deficit.

cozmik

rubadub wrote: »

If the metabolism thing is a myth I would still recommend it due to the other advantages, though the link did show the downsides, it suited me well though.

That's fair enough mate, if it works for you that's all that matters.Personally I find 3 meals a day easier to manage.

EileenG

If you are a competitive athlete, then six meals a day are the way to go. Personally, I found it trained me to eat when I wasn't hungry, and lead to overeating. I do better waiting until I am hungry (not starving) before I eat. I average four meals a day that way.

Far2gud, eggs are incredibly quick to cook. You can scramble a couple of eggs in less than the time it takes to do toast.

While a lot of "experts" like Gillian McKeith make people give up coffee, there's a huge amount of evidence to show that it does more good than harm. For most people, it's their main source of anti-oxidants (because you drink coffee every day, but only eat blueberries occasionally). The caffeine does give energy, so a cup or two in the morning and before a workout are a good idea. The Harvard Nurses study found that coffee drinkers had fewer gallstones and lower levels of diabetes than non-drinkers.