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The 12 beers a week diet :P
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05-05-2011 5:52pm#1Hey folks,
I'd like to lose a bit of weight, I'm slowly but surely gaining body fat %'s.
I don't want to cut in to my social life so I thought I'd give myself a rule of 12 beers a week. This is certainly a realistic goal to set in beer terms - but does it have a place in a weight loss programme, that's the question?
I'm vegetarian (except for fish), so I find it easy enough to avoid the usual junk food. Although I could do with eating more fruit for sure.
I'm 28, just under 6ft and around 12 - 12.5 stone.
Any advice would be brilliant
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So what is a typical days food and liquid intake for you (be as detailed as possible (i.e. don't just say a mug of tea if a mug of tea fro you has 200ml of milk and 4 spns of sugar) )
Also what exercise/sports do you do now if any?0 -
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Breakfast would usually be a couple of bowls of cereal (usually bran flakes, or something similar).
Lunch would be something like a tuna fish and cheese sandwich, scrambled eggs with toast etc.
Probably have around 2 cups of tea a day, with a splash of low fat milk and no sugar. Then maybe some green tea as well but I doubt that counts really.
I'm not the most avid cook, so dinner would often err on the side of laziness. It could be a microwave dinner thing from Superquinn (which I don't think have too many bad ingredients), or things from the salad kitchen - pasta, carrots and nuts, couscous, rice salad, things like that. I used to get more take aways which I've stopped now.
I'd probably eat a good few snacky things throughout the day like a few biscuits, popcorn, the odd bar, things like that. (this is what I could certainly replace with fruit).
As regards exercise, it's kind of intermittent. I sometimes would be moderately active if I'm doing a day that involves physical work. But those days would always have several days of very little exercise in between bar the odd cycle or the odd short walk to and from town etc.
Apologies in advance for the long post
Ok, well I am no expert, but your sample diet leaves a lot to be desired IMHO.
Breakfast: The vast majority of boxed cereals, including the likes of bran flakes are utter rubbish.
A healthier cereal based option would be some Oats, either as porridge or with some mixed seeds, nuts and berries added and some cold milk (I like coconut milk). Sort of like a home made muesli.
Another option would be some eggs (omelet, scrambled, soft/hard boiled) with some veg like spinach, mushrooms, peppers, onion, grilled tomato etc
Lunch: Is not too bad. Though I have pretty much eliminated starched based carbs (bread, pasta, rice, potatoes etc) from my diet. So you could try dropping the bread in favor of a large salad. Or make yourself a stir-fry the night before and eat it cold like a salad.
Dinner: Not sure what you mean by "Superquinn microwave meal" but most microwave ready meals are pretty bad nutritionally.
Honestly it takes little effort to steam some frozen veg or throw a salad together and cook some chicken, steak, turkey, fish etc. Also a homemade basic tomato sauce is easy to make and will keep for a week in the fridge. It can be flavored on the day with herbs, garlic etc. Stir-fries are another quick, healthy and nutritious option.
Snacks: You know yourself that your snack choices are not good. Some fruit, veg sticks with Humus, mixed nuts, a couple (2) oat cakes with peanut butter or cottage etc would be better choices IMO.
IMO the 12 pints a week are not going to help with your goal. You don't say pints of what. But say each pint provides 250 calories. These calories are mostly from sugar. There is no nutritional benefit gained from pints, so the calories are called "empty" calories.
12 pints x 250 calories = 3000 calories from alcohol per week, circa 428 calories per day.
At a rough guess I reckon that you need around 2,600 calories a day to maintain your current weight. The standard advice is to cut this figure by around 500 calories a day, 3,500 calories a week to illicit a 1lb/wk weight loss. This would bring you down to around 2,100 calories daily. Now take away another 428 calories to allow for the alcohol. This brings you down to 1,600 calories a day from food.
Personally speaking there is no contest for me if it came to choosing nutritious, beneficial calories from food or empty calories from alcohol. However if you are adamant that you will not drop you alcohol consumption below 12 pints a week, then this is a rough guesstimate of the number of calories you require to eat each day.
While eating a calorie deficit to lose weight (and by weight I mean body fat), resistance training (training with weights) is you friend. This will ensure that your body holds on to or increases lean muscle mass to meet the demands placed upon it from the training, The odd short, sharp, intense cardio session could also help with dropping body fat.
Obviously, your calorie requirements will change depending on the amount of exercise you take. I based the above guesstimate on a lightly active person of your sex, age, height & weight.
For an idea of the type of foods you should be eating have a look at the videos in this post.
Here is a typical days calorie intake for me05:20 Breakfast
20g Oats, 3 Almond nuts, 4 hazel nuts, 4 brazil nuts, 4 half walnuts, table spn of mixed seeds, 6 grapes, 6 raspberries, 6 blackberries, 3 strawberries, table spn blueberries with 200ml coconut milk.
200ml Cranberry Juice
1 Mug green tea
2 desert spns of coconut oil
Supplements: 1 multi vit, 4 fish oil caps, 1 Mega Cissus, 2 Glucosamine & Chondritin (for Joints)
09:00 At desk in work
2 scoops ON Protein, 5g Creatine 5g L-Glutamine, 300ml skimmed milk
2 generous tea spns of Peanut Butter
1/2 Banana
1 mug green tea
13:00Lunch
6oz fillet steak, 2 hard boiled eggs, Salad with Spinach, rocket, mixed peppers, cherry tomatoes, red onion, spring onion, grated carrot and 6 walnut halves with an olive oil, balsamic & ginger dressing.
1 mug green tea.
16:00 At desk in work
150g homemade Cottage Cheese and mixed berries mix.
1/2 Banana
1 desert spn of coconut oil
Workout between 18:00-19:30
Kettlebell Conditioning routine
19:35 Post workout shake
2 scoops of ON Protein, 1.5 scoops of Glucose, 5g Creatine, 5g L-Glutamine, 400ml ice cold water.
20:15 ish Dinner
6oz Chicken breastk, 4 soft boiled eggs scooped out of their shell and mashed up with a knob of butter, and a fairly large salad (mixed leaves, mixed peppers, red onions, spring onions, grated carrot, 1 table spn cashew nuts, 6 cherry tomatoes with a balsamic vinaigrette
1 Mug green tea
I would also get through another 3-4 liters of fluids throughout the day.
I eat like this most of the time. The only thing that really changes are the meats and veg from day to day. Otherwise it is much the same each day.
When I am looking to gain lean weight (muscle) I eat bigger portions and lift as heavy as possible and when I am looking to lose weight (body fat) I eat smaller portions and increase the conditioning workouts in number and intensity.
I am not saying that this is the perfect diet or that this is how your should eat. But I think it is pretty clean and works for me.
Finally at 6' 1" and only 12.5 st I really don't think you need to lose weight. I think what is needed to to re-balance the ratio of lean muscle to body fat. I imagine (purely my opinion based on my height and physique) that you could easily work to get to 13 or 14 stone with around 12% body fat and look really good at your height. But this would depend on how much you want to change your physique and how hard you are willing to work to get there. Nothing worthwhile is ever easy
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@Tommyknocker, thanks very much for taking the time to write out such an extensive post. I'm going to look in to it properly and see about structuring a better diet for myself.
For me weight isn't the issue per sé, it's really body fat %. I don't care what weight I am really, just want to tone up and shred some of the excess fat.
When I mentioned pints, it was beer I know I won't stick to a diet that has zero drinking, I wouldn't want to either as I enjoy going out etc. But I'd be willing to do some cardio/weights to keep the balance.
When you say around dropping 500 calories down to 2,100 would give me a 1lb/week weight loss, but including the ~400 calories from beer leaving around 1,600 from food...what kind of exercise routine would I have to do to subtract those 500 calories from exercise rather than diet?
Many thanks again!0 -
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Not an issue with your diet but just want to mention that if you eat fish you aren't a vegetarian.
+1.
OP you are a Pescetarian.
Also, this website has some useful information with low fat pescetarian recipes.0 -
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It'd take me 6 months or more to accumulate 12 pints!
About 6 hours for me!!:oI guess it's indicative of Irish lifestyle unfortunately. It just amazes me that noone bats an eyelid on a health and fitness forum on this. If the thread was titled 'want to get in shape and willing to limit myself to 10 bags of chips per week' I bet I could forecast the answers.
I think it's better to include the 12 pints and manage to sustain an otherwise healthy lifestyle, than to eliminate all treats and crash and burn after a few weeks. Some people like myself enjoy going out and having a few, and it would be far harder to stick to a diet and fitness programme were that social aspect to eb removed from our lives. Anyway, as anothe rposter pointed out, 12 pints = 3000 calories, which isn't a huge amount in the context of an otherwise well disciplined regime of healthy eating and working out. It will take the OP a little longer to achieve his goal, but he'll achieve it nonetheless.0 -
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