Diet Help Please

Crash Bang Wall

Hi guys,

Im looking for some help with dieting for weight loss in combination with exercise (walking to work, 5 a side soccer and some gym work)

Whats confusing me most is carbs. I know I need them for energy but I dont know how much is too much.

If I give my daily diet, I would hope someone would help out with what I should be adding/taking out of my diet.

Morning:

Walk to work (50 mins walk) I drink 500ml water while walking.

Breakfast at work at 9, generally brown bread with banana & coffee no butter.

10:30 Sometimes sesame sticks, otherwise nothing.

Lunch: Toasted wrap with chicken ham cheese tomato

Dinner/Tea: Sometimes bown bread with say chicken or turkey or ham & cheese or scrambled egg with beans and 1 or 2 pork chops

I also try and drink 1.5 - 2 litres of water a day on top of the water in the morning.

Im currently approx 14.5 stone, although I havent weighed myself since xmas.

At weekends I would slacken off from the weekday diet with maybe ateak and chips one evening for dinner, which Im going to cut down to once every 2-3 weeks, or replace the chips with potatoes.

Thanks in advance....I suspect Im prob eating too much brown bread & cheese,

Cheers

abbyw1989

Hello Only thing I can see is the bread really... I cut it out completely and the weight's dropping off I'd recommend more fresh fruit and veg, never have too much of that! The walking's a good option, but make sure you do plenty of gym work too, I'd recommend 3-4 times a week to make the weight loss quicker.
Good luck!!

Irish_Elect_Eng

Hi,

Try using the free MY Plate tracker on http://www.livestrong.com/

I use it to track both my food intake and work-outs.
I makes cal-counting very easy s all the data is already there and takes into account the calories burned in exercise as well.

It opened my eyes to my eating habits and made tracking them and improving them easy.

The site is very good for recipes and fitness advice also.

Regards;

Derek

neuro-praxis

I strongly believe that carbs, if wholegrain and complex and in medium portions, are no harm whatsoever to sustainable weight loss.

My diet advice:

Increase your protein. Make your snacks protein rich - like a piece of meat, cheese or a handful of nuts and seeds. Have a good portion of meat or fish or eggs or dairy at each meal.

Mix up your carb intake - right now it is all bread. Eat brown rice, quinoa, rye bread, wholegrain pasta and so on.

Avoid sugar and white flour, eat moderately and enjoy some exercise. You'll be in great shape in no time.

Kimia

One other thing I would suggest is that there is no veg in your diet - I'd add these in. As much as you can.

seamus

Crash Bang Wall wrote: »

Whats confusing me most is carbs. I know I need them for energy but I dont know how much is too much.

OK, if you're just starting on this and don't understand the theory behind it, then forget about talk of "complex carbs" and "Low GI" and people telling you to eat more of X and less of Y.

If you don't understand carbs and how much you should be eating, then it's folly to alter your diet when losing weight.

Use a food diary/tracker. Best thing is to use sites as linked above. I use www.fitday.com

First thing to do is look at your calorie intake - find out what's the normal calorific requirement for someone of your age/sex/height/weight and make sure that you're not exceeding that. Tweak and monitor your diet to control your calorie intake. For normal weight loss, you want to consuming between 10% and 20% less calories than you require. Be wary of eating too few calories, strike a reasonable balance between hunger and consumption.

Once you've got an adequate grasp on this, then you can start look at the balance of carbs in your diet. Most food tracker sites will give you a breakdown of Fats -v- Protein -v- Carbs in your daily intake. Typical values for these tend to be 35% / 15% / 50%. That is, 35% of your calories come from fats, 15% from Protein and 50% from carbs.

There is wiggle room in that, you could go 30/15/55 or 35/10/55, but I reckon 35/15/50 is a good balance for any typical person. Forget about low-carb diets, refined carbs, High GI/Low GI, and all that kind of stuff for the moment. These are more advanced topics which IMO only people engaging in serious training need to be concerned about. For your average Joe, watching your calorific intake and the general sources of your calories is more than adequate for weight loss and/or maintaining your weight.
Confusing yourself with the more advanced topics is more likely to make you give up on the whole thing altogether.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Crash Bang Wall wrote: »

Hi guys,

Im looking for some help with dieting for weight loss in combination with exercise (walking to work, 5 a side soccer and some gym work)

Whats confusing me most is carbs. I know I need them for energy but I dont know how much is too much.

I'd say simple answer to carbs is don't eat white bread/white pasta/white rice/potatoes and chips. No pizza either.

As you're fairly active you could eat some brown bread with your breakfast, brown pitta/wholegrain pasta with your lunch etc.

What gymwork do you do and how often?

Crash Bang Wall

During the summer I was doing running outdoors.....10k and done a half marathon,

But at the end of Nov I joined a gym and got on a weights programme as I had read that it is more beneficial for weight loss etc than just running. Light weights (dumbells) squats, lunges and that kind of thing. I had a niggle with a muscle in my back over xmas so havent been to the gym, since early Dec so starting back on the same programme next week. Hence my getting confused over carb in take.

Was actually toying with the idea of scrambled eggs for breakfeast instead of the brown bread.

Will definitely increase veg intake as well