Criticize/Rate my Diet

Mellor

Ok, changed the diet alot over the last month. it wasn't bad before, just lots of small things. (Like frying when I could grill etc)

Breakfast
Bowl of cereal/muesli with low fat milk and two strawberries/half banana
or two eggs with a piece of wholegrain toast, no butter
current cereal is this
I've found it a bit sweet, and i'm not delighted with data on it either. Any other suggestions (i'll prob rotate with oats/fruit/water)

Snack
Mug of tea, drop of low-fat milk. plain biscuit once or twice a week

Lunch
Wholegrain sandwich/wrap with salad, tuna or ham, mayo, no butter

Snack
Mug of tea

Dinner
Baked Chicken/Salmon/Cod with veg. (cauliflower/broccoli/carrots), rarely spuds
Chicken/beef stir fry, extra veg no rice Avoid jar sauces, use dry spices and soy (if I use rice, its half a portion of wholegrain)

Snack
Fruit or crackers (if its late I skip this one)



Goal is to lose weight. Currently lost 3kg in 4 weeks. Aiming for another 5 kg in 5 weeks. Main concern is portion size. since i'm using alot of fresh foods now, there isn't nutritional data on packs to check. Beer at the weekend is probably the biggest fault

Any thing hugely wrong.

ragg

for starters, the dietI follow is a bit different, I cycle between Very low carbs and high carb, if i am training. I find it works really well.

First thing that jumps out in your diet, is the cereal. Ditch it, when it comes to food, if it is heavily packaged, its usually bad. think whole foods at all times. Personally, I'd have the eggs every day, its not bad for you.

With the Snack, add some almonds and lose the bikkies.

the Lunch, personally, I'd ditch the sandwich unless I was training after, but another option is a small stirfry, with brown rice. I LOVE bread, but only have it before training.

Your dinner looks good. Learn to cook - you can make really tasty nutritious sauces :pac:

Mellor

ragg wrote: »

First thing that jumps out in your diet, is the cereal. Ditch it, when it comes to food, if it is heavily packaged, its usually bad. think whole foods at all times. Personally, I'd have the eggs every day, its not bad for you.

Its just a speed/variety thing not having eggs everyday. Its about 50/50 at the min.
Surely some of the whole grain cereals out there are decent.
Is there any other option other than oats.

With the Snack, add some almonds and lose the bikkies.

To be clear on the biscuit, this is a single biscuit once a week (friday). (Actually, todays friday and I didn't bother.) Its not a half a pack with tea

the Lunch, personally, I'd ditch the sandwich unless I was training after, but another option is a small stirfry, with brown rice. I LOVE bread, but only have it before training.

forgot to mention, I also make up extra stir fry for dinner and freeze it to bring to work for lunch. I don't use rice. 1 out of 4 times I might spread a two portion bag of rice out over 4 portions.

Are whole grain sandwiches that bad? (see note on portion size at the end)
What other lunch options are good

Your dinner looks good. Learn to cook - you can make really tasty nutritious sauces :pac:

I'm pretty happy with dinner. I almost never use processed food. And any sauce I make is pretty light and adds barely no cals (cayenne/soy/balsamic last night)


One thing that a lot of people say is that I eat tiny portions. The bread I buy here is much smaller than the thick slices at home. I only ever use two slices for lunch (none of these farmer 3 sambo 6 slice lunch)
Last night dinner was;
Chicken (84g raw)
75g Broccoli (estimate)
75g Cauliflower (est)
Half a tomato, vinegar, soy and spices

This was slightly smaller than normal so I had a snack later on of 4 small pickles



Any other opinions on the OP?

Whats a good portion size for meals.

ragg

Dude your diet isn't bad, far from it.
I would say if it is a diet for weightloss, then the carbs should be cut down a bit. yopur primary goal should be to get a calorie defecit.
your next goal should be to check where the calories come from.

In my opinion,
You want Protein, good fats carbs, in that order.
If you are training, you add carbs before and after. and reduce the fats accordingly. while maintaining your calorie defecit.

Maybe alternate your brekkie & lunch. If you ahve a cereal, oats or something, ditch the sandwich and vice-versa.

And i wouldn't worry about the couple of bikkies here and there, in reality.

Also, wont be reading this, as you are already on your weekend, lucky bastard :pac:

Al_Fernz

I'd be concerned about the lack of fats in your diet. They seem to be extremely low, which will probably mess up your hormones and leave you feeling pretty sh1tty. You look like a man who would benefit from having a few almonds or brazil nuts in your diet somewhere.

Also, I would keep an eye on your weightloss. Don't lose too much too quickly. If you are then you need to up the overall kcals in your diet.

Mellor

I dunno about losing too much too quock
At the min i'm losing 0.5-1.0. Kg a week, thats not "too much" is it

Vegeta

No its not too quick, what you are doing is working. Any extra changes may not speed up weight loss but they may improve how you feel and operate day to day

The advice above is pretty sound.

Its a constant improvement thing, you cant just turn on healthy eating, so when that box of cereal runs out don't replace it with the same brand, its 15% sugar. That's one little improvement.

Obviously you are not in Ireland at the minute if you are buying stuff that's different from "home". Its hard to recommend a cereal, but its hard to beat porridge and eggs for breakfast.

Look you are on a winner here, you are eating salad and veg, controlling (weighing) portion sizes, you can tell your cereal isn't that great.

Obviously protein in every meal is ideal, a bit more healthy fats would be good, a few nuts etc (remembering to count them in the calorie total for the day) but life can be busy and so what if your diet is not 100% perfect.

You made a decent effort and its working, well done, keep it up and try and limit the beer consumption

Wish mine was as good as yours.

cowzerp

Not bad at all, what i would say is leave out the carb snack as your last meal as its the worst time to have it, even if its not too late, if you feel the need for a snack have a small tin of tuna or a boiled egg etc..

keep it up

corkcomp

if you were not seeing results or were stuck on a plateau id day maybe ditch the cereal then, or at least switch to porridge .. but of your dropping 1kg every week and you like cereal then I would keep having it! any carb (within reason and as long as you dont over do portion size) first thing in the morning are ok for most people, assuming you dont have any insulin regulation problems ..

Mellor

corkcomp wrote: »

if you were not seeing results or were stuck on a plateau id day maybe ditch the cereal then, or at least switch to porridge .. but of your dropping 1kg every week and you like cereal then I would keep having it! any carb (within reason and as long as you dont over do portion size) first thing in the morning are ok for most people, assuming you dont have any insulin regulation problems ..

Well, 1kg is a good week, .5 is more common.
I've no problem switching to oats, infact I had porridge and half a bananna this morning.
I'll prob try find a better cereal and rotate it in and out to keep breakfast interesting.

Vegeta wrote: »

Its a constant improvement thing, you cant just turn on healthy eating, so when that box of cereal runs out don't replace it with the same brand, its 15% sugar. That's one little improvement.

Obviously you are not in Ireland at the minute if you are buying stuff that's different from "home". Its hard to recommend a cereal, but its hard to beat porridge and eggs for breakfast.

Yeah, I won't be buying that one again. I knew there was far too nuch sugar the minute I tried it. although, i'm not exactly loaded at the minute so i'll finish it off at least. I think I can get my hands of most products the same as home, just need to keep checking labels. I've noticed alot of foods are a little sweeter here.

If I find a decent brand of porridge i'll be laughing, and hopefull just keep adding dinner options to my collection,


one more thing, what kind of nuts are good for snacking on, obviously raw not roasted etc. But is there a list of nuts ranking them in kcals/100g or something
thanks

ragg

Go for almonds, hardley any usable carbs, loads of protein and good fats.

jsut use them to snack on & to up your calories. When you cut most of the carbs out of your diet, like you seem to have, you need to keep you calories from dropping to low. Nuts are idea for that.