Overhauling an awful diet

Danbo!

I recently lost my job and with the change in routine and a bit more free time I reckon it would be a good time to change my diet as I desperately need to. I know where I'm going wrong as I'm going wrong everywhere, but want to make sure I'm going right, em, right.

Old diet was: (look away if faint hearted!)

Breakfast
nothing (!)

Mid morning snack (11am)
coffee (coffee shop white coffee) and bar of chocolate or muffin

Lunch
2 cheese sambos on white bread, usually with a can of coke, crisps and another bar.

Dinner
my 'healthiest' meal, usually chicken or beef with some sort of sharwoods/uncle bens sauce (curry/jalfrezi/hoi sin etc.) and white rice. Some nights I'll have fish (Donegal catch breaded type) or processed chicken (birds eye in breadcrumb type) and oven chips

In the evenings I may even 'treat' myself to more crap, a bar or some sweets while watching tv

At the weekend one night I'll usually replace the above dinner with a Chinese or take away pizza.

Yep, all pretty shocking. I wouldn't consider myself morbidly obese but I am quite overweight, mostly in the stomach and chest area, and the only reason I'm not bigger is because I cycle to work and cover 120km a week, 24k per day. I'm 25, male, 5'11" and about 14-15 stone.

The good thing is I'm not a fussy eater and will eat pretty much anything, (except nuts!) and am good at cooking when I find the time, which I have plenty of now. From a bit of reading I guess my biggest mistakes are no breakfast, far too much sugar and White bread, and the frozen food/takeaway dinners, so pretty much everything!!

So, where to start? My initial idea was to go:
Breakfast - weetabix and banana and coffee
Snack - fruit (apple/orange/pear)
Lunch - salad sambo on brown bread
Dinner - same as curry-type dishes above but with a lot more veg added and change to brown rice. Other nights would be chicken breast with boiled potatoes and veg, or brown pasta with chicken and sone sort of pasta sauce, and to just get rid of the fish and processed chicken, and more importantly the takeaways.

Any further advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks a million for reading.

Rockery Woman

I too have an awful diet - reading your post just made me think what did I eat today - tis awful

Breakfast - 2 poached eggs and 2 slices of white toast with real butter

Lunch - Berry crumble with fresh cream

Dinner - Red bull:eek:

9pm tonight - big burger, chips, onion rings and massive chocolate brownie milkshake in Eddie Rockets!

There is always someone worse than you!

But seriously - I really need to overhaul my eating habits - your menu interests me!

I also ate 3 mini marsbars and a bag of tayto during the day.....

Blatter

Danbo! wrote: »

I recently lost my job and with the change in routine and a bit more free time I reckon it would be a good time to change my diet as I desperately need to. I know where I'm going wrong as I'm going wrong everywhere, but want to make sure I'm going right, em, right.

Old diet was: (look away if faint hearted!)

Breakfast
nothing (!)

Mid morning snack (11am)
coffee (coffee shop white coffee) and bar of chocolate or muffin

Lunch
2 cheese sambos on white bread, usually with a can of coke, crisps and another bar.

Dinner
my 'healthiest' meal, usually chicken or beef with some sort of sharwoods/uncle bens sauce (curry/jalfrezi/hoi sin etc.) and white rice. Some nights I'll have fish (Donegal catch breaded type) or processed chicken (birds eye in breadcrumb type) and oven chips

In the evenings I may even 'treat' myself to more crap, a bar or some sweets while watching tv

At the weekend one night I'll usually replace the above dinner with a Chinese or take away pizza.

Yep, all pretty shocking. I wouldn't consider myself morbidly obese but I am quite overweight, mostly in the stomach and chest area, and the only reason I'm not bigger is because I cycle to work and cover 120km a week, 24k per day. I'm 25, male, 5'11" and about 14-15 stone.

The good thing is I'm not a fussy eater and will eat pretty much anything, (except nuts!) and am good at cooking when I find the time, which I have plenty of now. From a bit of reading I guess my biggest mistakes are no breakfast, far too much sugar and White bread, and the frozen food/takeaway dinners, so pretty much everything!!

So, where to start? My initial idea was to go:
Breakfast - weetabix and banana and coffee
Snack - fruit (apple/orange/pear)
Lunch - salad sambo on brown bread
Dinner - same as curry-type dishes above but with a lot more veg added and change to brown rice. Other nights would be chicken breast with boiled potatoes and veg, or brown pasta with chicken and sone sort of pasta sauce, and to just get rid of the fish and processed chicken, and more importantly the takeaways.

Any further advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks a million for reading.

Great that your deciding to change! You'll feel way better for doing this!

Right, i'll give criticise your diet..(constructively of course).

Replace the weetabix with porridge, eat some eggs with a slice of toast with real butter if you want also. Breakfast should be a big meal of yours, especially seeing as your cycling in the morning.

Snack on fruit as you suggested.

In you salad sambo, use butter and add some meat ( maybe chicken or ham ) and/or egg.

Your plan for dinner is fine. Maybe add some cheese in there somewhere.

The reason for my suggestions is from the look of you new diet, it seems to be lacking in fats and protein, and a little over reliant on carbs.

other sources of fats and proteins: peanut butter, fresh fish(salmon, mackerel etc.), nuts(try find some you can eat) and cottage cheese. Maybe use oat cakes or ryvita instead of bread to cut down on your carbs.

Also, join a gym and lift weights 3-4 times a week. This combined with health eating, will give you phenomenal results. Post up on the fitness forum if you want any advice on that side of things.

Lantus

no more cycling to work so unless your going to start adding in equiv exercise you need to sharpen up!

Diet needs major work, read read read. internet has all the answers or keys to it anyway.

Then exercise should be some cardio and some resistance.
Basically your eating refined sugar or processed food, as far from healthy as possible.

The more ingredients the worse it is. Added sugar, thats a no.

I use the A to F f of grading. A would be an apple. Mush it up and it becomes a B because the sugar is absorbed quicker. Add sugar to sweeten it and it's suddenly a C. Put it in a pie and it's an E.

Think about it...... from nature to abhorent nurture.

hint: lean proteins, veg, fruit, cooking your own food, spices, herbs, macronutrient ratios, blah .....

Danbo!

SOCCER4LIFE wrote: »

other sources of fats and proteins: peanut butter, fresh fish(salmon, mackerel etc.),

Thanks for all your great advice, completely forgot about fresh fish, love that stuff!

Lantus wrote: »

no more cycling to work so unless your going to start adding in equiv exercise you need to sharpen up!

Thanks for your advice too. Personally I'm not too good at sitting around with nothing to do, so the plan is to keep up the 120km distance per week, but over 3 days instead. Cycling doesn't do much for weightloss if only in short distances, I was doing 12k each way and each journey took only 25 mins. Now I plan to do 40k at once every second day.

Lantus

Danbo! wrote: »

Thanks for your advice too. Personally I'm not too good at sitting around with nothing to do, so the plan is to keep up the 120km distance per week, but over 3 days instead. Cycling doesn't do much for weightloss if only in short distances, I was doing 12k each way and each journey took only 25 mins. Now I plan to do 40k at once every second day.

The body becomes highly adapted to any form of repetative cardio exercise. That means fat loss through cycling would be harder but it's still great exercise. One thing to mention is that your cycling to work may not be very intensive. Do you arrive bathed in sweat and out of breath? Or is it a cruise through the country.

Getting the right intensity level is just as critical as what you do.

Danbo!

Lantus wrote: »

The body becomes highly adapted to any form of repetative cardio exercise. That means fat loss through cycling would be harder but it's still great exercise. One thing to mention is that your cycling to work may not be very intensive. Do you arrive bathed in sweat and out of breath? Or is it a cruise through the country.

Getting the right intensity level is just as critical as what you do.

Cycling to work was downhill with wind behind me on the way in, hardly break a sweat, the way home would be uphill into the wind, but only for 25-30mins. Now that there is no commute for the time being, I'd be looking at 40-50k through the Dublin mountains so fairly intense I hope. I'm thinking the diet improvements should have a good effect as long as I keep up the cycling or cycle more in longer sets.

stripysocks85

Have no advice as I'm learning myself, but just wanted to wish you good luck. Fair play to you for all the cycling