Which diet should I be aiming for?

Mars Bar

Okay, okay...I know it's another thread from me!

I've started to *try* and eat healthier for the past two weeks as I wanna lost weight for a holiday in August.

I bought wholemeal pasta and pesto sauce and wholemeal crackers to snack on. I usually have toast with white bread for breakfast and try not to eat after 7 o clock. I'll have a cup of tea before going to bed.

I've been trying to read around about the different diets and from what I gather, for losing fat and building muscle (in conjunction with exercise of course), a high protein diet would be better than the pasta as that would be a high carb diet.

Have I gathered that correctly?

I rarely eat potatoes and I only eat the bread with toast but I could happily eat pasta everyday from now until the end of time! :pac:

I usually throw in some peppers with the pasta to add a different flavour.

Blatter

Hi mars bar,

I think you should post up a typical days diet and let us know exactly what you are eating and we can give you advice and recommendations from there.

And please be 100% honest, we won't bite:D I always question whether people leave stuff out in fear of getting a lecture.:p

Mars Bar

SOCCER4LIFE wrote: »

Hi mars bar,

I think you should post up a typical days diet and let us know exactly what you are eating and we can give you advice and recommendations from there.

And please be 100% honest, we won't bite:D I always question whether people leave stuff out in fear of getting a lecture.:p

Haha, well I can tell ye that up to two weeks ago, I tried every biscuit on the shelf and drank a can of coke every day! I was also very fond of pizza. It resulted in a stone weight put on over 7 weeks due to medication I was on. My appetite was feckin' ridiculous. I'm 4 foot 10 and far too heavy for my frame.

Honestly, what I do now is:

Morning

Get up. Cup of tea, white toast, another cup of tea.

Afternoon

Wholemeal crackers with philadelphia light spread.

Go to the gym, weights, stretches and some light cardio and then I go for a 40 minute cycle that includes a few tough inclines. Drink a 750ml bottle of water, never finish it though...

Evening dinner

Wholemeal Pasta with pesto and peppers (anytime between 5 and 6.30pm)

Night Time

Wholemeal crackers again and a cup of tea and bed.


Now, I would imagine that if I was eating pasta, I should be working it off so I might be better going to the gym in the evening? I'm going for a 2 hour soccer session tonight so I'll be eating the pasta for the energy.

I will also admit to not drinking enough water and a lot of tea when I'm at home but in general, I've never drank a lot of fluids.

Blatter

mars bar wrote: »

Haha, well I can tell ye that up to two weeks ago, I tried every biscuit on the shelf and drank a can of coke every day!

Honestly, what I do now is:

Morning

Get up. Cup of tea, white toast, another cup of tea.

Afternoon

Wholemeal crackers with philadelphia light spread.

Go to the gym, weights, stretches and some light cardio and then I go for a 40 minute cycle that includes a few tough inclines. Drink a 750ml bottle of water, never finish it though...

Evening dinner

Wholemeal Pasta with pesto and peppers (anytime between 5 and 6.30pm)

Night Time

Wholemeal crackers again and a cup of tea and bed.


Now, I would imagine that if I was eating pasta, I should be working it off so I might be better going to the gym in the evening? I'm going for a 2 hour soccer session tonight so I'll be eating the pasta for the energy.

I will also admit to not drinking enough water and a lot of tea when I'm at home but in general, I've never drank a lot of fluids.

Ok, so I imagine you are trying to get into shape for the summer? You really have to forget about about going on diets or what not, don't make things complicated for yourself.

You just need to concentrate on eating much, much healthier and continue doing the weights and cardio and you will get results, no question.

---

Now, to help you understand what exactly a healthy diet is.

Your body needs protein and fats to function correctly, they are essential. For soccer, or for any other exercise, fats and protein will supply you with the energy you need. Carbs are the least important of the food groups by some distance. You can function perfectly on very few carbs as long as you are eating enough protein/fat. It is a myth that the ordinary person that does weights and a bit of cardio a few times a week needs to eat a whole load of carbs before hand. There can be some weight in that argument if you are a professional bodybuilder, but your not. It should never enter your brain that ''I need carbs for this or for that'', because you don't.

Generally, if you avoid processed food(pretty much anything with more than 5 ingredients in it) and eat plenty of natural food, you have a healthy diet.

Processed food; bread, sugary cereals, sugary drinks, ready made meals, biscuits, chocolate, vegetable oil, margarine etc.

Natural food; fruit, veg, milk, cheese, fresh cuts of meat, fresh fish, healthy oils, butter, eggs, nuts etc.

There are plenty of fats and protein in the natural food and few carbs, wheras the processed food are dominated by carbs and have little to no protein/fat.

---

If i'm being honest about your diet, it's pretty horrendous. I'm not having a go at you, because your knowledge on nutrition is weak at the moment so it is not your fault.

The things that are wrong with it;

-Way, way too little calories(unless you are eating a gigantic amount of pasta)

-There is very little to zero protein or fat in that diet, which is scary.

-It is completely dominated by carbs, which is totally unnecessary.


What you should do is start to try and make the natural foods the core of your diet, and limit the amount of processed food you eat. This can be very difficult to do when you are living at home and the presses/fridge/freezer are full of processed food. You need to go out and actually buy these things.

There are some recipes to make delicious meals with these natural foods in this thread and this one. There are links to other websites that have several other recipes contained in those threads too.

A lot of people are surprised at how tasty real, healthy food can be in comparison to the sweet junk food. It just takes a bit more effort to prepare, whereas junk food is far too convenient.

Don't expect to just become ''healthy'' over night. It will take time to make these changes to your diet and eliminate/limit the bad stuff, but once it is done you don't look back. You will look and feel much better.

And keep up the training;)

Mars Bar

Thank you very much soccer4life.

I'm delighted that cheese and eggs are on your list. I LOVE cheese and eggs!!

In my house, my parents eat loads of potatoes and we never really had healthy diets so I'm just gonna have to learn and maybe teach them how to eat properly. Well, I did do Home Ec up to 3rd year but it was boring and painful to be learning it in that environment.

I'm just afraid of bland meals. I presume sauces aren't very healthy as they'd be processed?

I don't like fish unfortunately. I'd love to like it, but I just can't stomach it. Even the smell of it is nasty!

Blatter

mars bar wrote: »

Thank you very much soccer4life.

I'm delighted that cheese and eggs are on your list. I LOVE cheese and eggs!!

In my house, my parents eat loads of potatoes and we never really had healthy diets so I'm just gonna have to learn and maybe teach them how to eat properly.

I'm just afraid of bland meals. I presume sauces aren't very healthy as they'd be processed?

I don't like fish unfortunately. I'd love to like it, but I just can't stomach it. Even the smell of it is nasty!

The foods on the list above aren't the only natural foods you can eat, they were just the most common.

With regards the sauce, if the mainstay of your diet is healthy, a bit of sauce is not going to do you much harm. But if you want to be strict about it, you can look for the recipes of sauces on the net(you should find loads) and you will be able to make them yourself with natural foods like milk, cream, garlic, onion etc.

Also, it's very difficult to abstain fully from eating processed foods (such is the world we live in and it is full of them) so there will be foods you eat that are processed but not all unhealthy. Sausages, bacon, black pudding etc. are all processed but are also fairly nutritious. But the less processed, the better. So look for 70%+ pork sausages if you are getting them as they would be less processed than the 50% pork ones.

I wouldn't worry too much about the fish, one food will not make or break your diet but make sure you eat other forms of protein/fats(chicken, ham, bacon, pork, lamb, beef, mince meat, milk, eggs, nuts etc.) instead.

Also, there's very few bland meals in the recipes in those threads. You can use things like herbs and spices to make meals nicer or those homemade sauces. Butter on vegetables is a good idea to make the veg taste much nicer:D

Frogdog

OP, just to row in behind Soccer4Life, he/she has given you great advice.

If you stick with it and eat plenty of protein and fat and limit your carbs from what you're having currently, and keep up with your weights and cardio, you'll see massive improvements not only in your body and your appearance, but also your sleep, concentration, energy levels, etc. You'll feel a million times better.

Best of luck.

Mars Bar

No worries with the sausages for me as I don't like them!

Not last summer, but the summer before, my dinner's consisted mainly of stir fry's. They contained beef/chicken, peppers, mushrooms, red onion, sweet corn and soy sauce.

I'm gonna try and get back into the stir fry's again as they were yummy!

I've copy and pasted 3 recipes from the threads into a word document and when I'm finished my exams, I'll definitely give them a try.

Roger Marbles

Great advice so far.

If I could emphasise one thing, it would be to drop stuff like bread, pasta, just generally grains altogether and eat vegetables and some fruit as your carbohydrates.

People tend to feel less bloated when they get rid of grains from experience and they are not in any way nutritious compared to other better alternatives.

Loads of protein and fats from natural sources as described above is excellent advice.

rocky

SOCCER4LIFE wrote: »

Your body needs protein and fats to function correctly, they are essential. For soccer, or for any other exercise, fats and protein will supply you with the energy you need. Carbs are the least important of the food groups by some distance. You can function perfectly on very few carbs as long as you are eating enough protein/fat. It is a myth that the ordinary person that does weights and a bit of cardio a few times a week needs to eat a whole load of carbs before hand. There can be some weight in that argument if you are a professional bodybuilder, but your not. It should never enter your brain that ''I need carbs for this or for that'', because you don't.

From the man himself, Masterjohn in a comment on his blog:

""essentiality" as defined by the biochemical establishment is not any index of optimality. There is no "essential" saturated fat, and no "essential" monounsaturated fat, but there are "essential" polyunsaturated fats. And, moreover, neither arachidonic acid nor DHA are "essential," but only linoleic acid and alpha-linolenic acid. By this logic, we should emphasize soybean oil and flax oil.
"

And I agree that "essentiality" is silly

boomtown84

@soccerforlife...."For soccer, or for any other exercise, fats and protein will supply you with the energy you need."

this is wide of the mark.do you play football?carbs are so important for energy in sports.fats just aint gonna cut it for energy.
you know of any professional athletes that don't eat carbs??i don't.
low carb is great for people losing weight but low carb for sports people is a big no no.
and no......crossfit aint a sport!!:D

ps.i agree with a lot of your advice i just took exception to this because of your name.:)

Amtmann

boomtown84 wrote: »

@soccerforlife...."For soccer, or for any other exercise, fats and protein will supply you with the energy you need."

this is wide of the mark.do you play football?carbs are so important for energy in sports.fats just aint gonna cut it for energy.
you know of any professional athletes that don't eat carbs??

For the type of middling exercises that most people do, fats are generally sufficient. If you want to perform like an athlete or at a gruelling pace at whatever sport you fancy, then yes, carbs are required.

Mars Bar

It's amazing how much you learn on boards.

I changed my diet to include more fruit when I'm feeling hungry in between meals.

I still haven't figured out what exactly I want to do with dinner but Stir Fry's seem to be doing the job for me at the moment.

Some days I eat very little but that's due to changing medication that is messing with my appetite. I was worried about it at first but reading the fasting thread, I don't feel so bad. I just make sure I have plenty of water.

Since the middle of April I have lost just over 10lb. The doctor was well impressed with me last week!

I go to the gym about 6 days a week (I cycle there!) and do my program laid out for me and that takes about two hours to get through. Ah, the joys of being recently graduated and unemployed...

gavtron

well done, keep it up...loads of spare time for training and preparing good meals now!!

Paul Tergat

Nice one Mars!

Mars Bar

Officially one stone lighter!

Hit a patch where nothing seemed to be shifting and it's disheartening even when you're expecting it. It picked up again though so I'm delighted!

Mars Bar

I've been very rude and not updated this thread. My goal was to be a stone lighter by 15th of August for my holidays.
I made that target with an extra 3lbs so I weighed in at 9st 7 for my holidays!

Since then, I've taken the foot off the pedal a bit as I was a bit tired of the constant healthy eating and working out for 3 whole months but I still go the gym and I don't eat chocolate anymore. I've stayed at 9st 7 for the month now and I'm quite happy seeing as it has been a feast of bread and pizzas!

I'm updating this post to say it is time to get back on track. It's more for myself than anybody else.