Getting back to healthy ways...

cournioni

Hey all. Well to start off, I am 24 and a half years old. I am 6'5 and I weigh 15st give or take (around the 94-95kg mark). I am looking to get back into a healthy way of training and eating. I have taken a year out from playing Gaelic football and I haven't really been training or eating properly all year so there is a good bit of work to do!

I haven't really gained weight as such, more like lost muscle and gained fat since stopping training and the wake up call came when I was in America and noticed alot of people around my age that didn't have an gram of fat on them. All toned and muscle. Time to stop fooling around!

So does anyone have any suggestions on how to lose the fat and gain the muscle. I have more or less an hour free every day to get the exercises done so I'm thinking that alot of it will have to be intense training, especially cardio for the moment. Any suggestions are very welcome!

My diet has changed gradually since I've come back from the holiday wake up call. Here is a list of what I generally eat during the day.

Breakfast: A bowl of Special K with Alpro Soya milk

Snack: Banana

Lunch: Chicken and veg soup with three slices of wholewheat bread

Afternoon snack: I generally don't have one but it would probably be another banana.

Dinner: 100% wheat pasta, chicken fillets x2 or Fish of some sort, with carrots, brocolli, mushrooms, parsnips etc. I do like to put a little bit of a hot tobasco like sauce on the pasta to give it a good burning flavour! And I usually have some seasoning on the chicken fillets.

After training: I usually drink a Maximuscle Cyclone protein shake 1-1.5 scoop(s).

What does everybody think, will I have to change much there? Please keep in mind that I have very little time in the day to work with.

Many thanks for your patience while reading that!!

CC.

TommyKnocker

Hi There

Firstly let me say that I am not expert, just an ordinary joe like yourself and there are more qualified and more expereinced folk on here who I am sure will give you good advice.

However in my opinion, your diet is not that great. I would estimate that your daily calorie requirements to be around 3000, using this site http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/harris-benedict-equation/

I also guestimated an activity multiplier of 1.375 (lightly active) as you did not mention anything about your exercise routine.

Now to your diet.

Breakfast: A bowl of Special K with Alpro Soya milk

Special K and the majority of branded breakfast cereals are rubbish. Full of sugar which is high in calories for little nutritional benefit. Why Soya milk? Are you lactose intolorent?

Hi GI carbs which will not keep you satited for long and little or no protein in this breakfast.

Oats with some mixed seeds and nuts mixed in, maybe some berrires sprinkled on top and some natural youurt would be a better option

Snack: Banana

Again, Hi GI carbs, no protein or healthy fats. About 90 calories

Maybe some cottage Cheese on 2 slices of wholemeal toast would be a better option

Lunch: Chicken and veg soup with three slices of wholewheat bread

What type of wholewheat bread? Check the ingredients list. If one of the first ingredients listed is "Wheat Flour" then you may as well be eating white bread. This is a marketing gimmick to fool people into thinking they are buying healthy goods.

Is the Chicken and veg soup home made or from a packet? If from a packet then there is little or no nutritional value in this.

One or two chicken breasts or a tin of Tuna with a large portion of mixed salad leaves and tomatoes, perppers, spring onions etc, would be a much better option. Olive oil and either balsamic vinegar or lemon juice for dressing.

Afternoon snack: I generally don't have one but it would probably be another banana.

Same comment as morning snack applies here. With no snack there is too long a gap between lunch and dinner.

Dinner: 100% wheat pasta, chicken fillets x2 or Fish of some sort, with carrots, brocolli, mushrooms, parsnips etc. I do like to put a little bit of a hot tobasco like sauce on the pasta to give it a good burning flavour! And I usually have some seasoning on the chicken fillets.

Dinner does not look to bad at first glance. However as your stated goal is to drop body fat and gain back muscle, then drop the pasta and increase the amount of veg. Season your chicken by all means and go with tomato based sauces or a small quantity of plain gravy rather than cream based or other heavy sauces.

After training: I usually drink a Maximuscle Cyclone protein shake 1-1.5 scoop(s).

Nothing wrong with this apart from a personal dislike of Maximuscle products :rolleyes:

In my humble opinion your diet has too much carbs, not enough protein and very little in the way of healthy fats to meet your stated goals. From what I have read, you should look to cut back on the carbs, especially the starchy kind (breads pasta, cereals etc), increase your Protein intake and get some healthy fats into your diet.

Again from what I have read, your daily diet should be made up of approx 35% Carbs (mostly from veg and some fruit), 45% Protein (lean sources such as Tuna, Chicken, Turkey, lean beef, Salmon, Fish, Low fat Cottage Cheese etc) and 20% Healthy fats (unslated nuts, Advacados, fish oil capsules, Udo's oil etc).

That coupled with a good training routine, consisting of weight training and cardio (intervals are best in my opinion for your stated goal) should see you on the road to where you want to get to.


Finally you did not mention alcohol consumption. Just be aware that beers and largers have lots of calories for no nutritional benefit what so ever. So if you do take a drink, you should moderate your intake. A really good session could undo most of your weeks training results. Just something to keep in mind.

Apologies for the long post and remember I am no expert, this is just my 2 cents worth.


Best Regards,

M

cournioni

Nice one B-Builder. I will tighten up on that for sure. Although some of it will be a little awkward with work as I mentioned before.

Breakfast should be no bother. I will definately go for that and ditch the Kelloggs products. I will also go for slimline milk from now on. The Alpro soya is just my preference to full fat milk. Hate full fat milk as its very thick.

The bread and cheese shouldn't be a problem at all. The whole wheat bread is home made, as far as I know there whole lot of wheat flour in it. I will make sure though!

The rest shouldn't be a problem either.

The training I do is usually treadmill (1-1.25 miles in ten minutes a night) 3/4 nights a week, and a host of weights exercises.

TommyKnocker

Hi there

I understand where you are coming from with work. I am up each morning at 04:40, leave the house at around 06:10 and go to gym straight from work, so don't get home until around 21:30 ish.

However when I am cooking dinner each eveining I will cook some extra chicken breast/turkey steaks and/or some hard boiled eggs to bring into work the following day for my lunch and snacks. Tins of Tuna are also easily transportable. Mixed unsalted nuts mixed with some dried blueberrires and/or cranberries make a good snack as do Oat cakes and peanut butter.

Caution: Don't go overboard on the nuts as they are quite calorie dense!!!

Part of my reason for getting up so early is so I can throw my lunch stuff together. I don't buy from our work canteen. This way I know exactly what I am eating and can work out my daily calories easily.

We have a number of small fridges available to us in work to store our personal food stuff in. But if your place of employment does not provide this facility, then you could look into a mini fridge from say Argos. See http://www.argos.ie/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Search?storeId=30001&catalogId=1500001801&langId=-1&searchTerms=mini+fridge&Submit=GO+%3E

All it takes is a little imagination and some forward planning to ensure that you can eat a reasonably clean diet all the time.

With your threadmill work, try running hard for say 1 minute then resting for 90 seconds-2 minutes to catch you breath and do this say 8-10 times. Gradually try to increase the time of the hard efforts and decrease the recovery time.

You need to keep challenging your body, as after about 6-8 weeks, your body will adapt to a particular training routine and the results you got at the start will start to taper off until you are no longer making progress.


Best of luck with your goals,

M