Fat man/slim girl nutrition and gym advice

MyStubbleItches

So, looking for a bit of advice from you lovely people. I've read through the stickies and scrolled through a lot of other threads and to be honest there's so much info on here I ended up more confused than ever! That's a testament to the knowledge on here, not an insult!

I'm the 31 year old fat man. 5' 10", 226 lbs last friday. (I was 228 5 days previously, I'm thrilled with that little victory). I'm quite strongly built, worked in construction pretty much full time til a year ago so quite muscular anyway but I always had a belly. This has increased in the last year or two and the dreaded man-boobs have appeared.

The beautiful one is also about 5' 10", about 135-140 lbs, so obviously quite slim. She just wants to tone up, stomach, hips, arse and backs of arms (triceps?).

So we became two of those annoying New Year gym cloggers a few weeks ago. We got assessed and I got the first part of my programme about ten days ago, she's getting her's tomorrow but she's been doing mine in the meantime.

I'm incredibly slow at typing but if anyone wants me to give the programme I can take an hour tomorrow to type it in!

Basically I'm doing leg extensions which push me to my limit, leg curls which I also find tough, leg presses on which I increased the weight myself as I was doing what was given quite comfortably, sets of calf raises which are grand and I can't really see the point of but I presume they must be doing something and the Reebok stepper thing with weights that is tough enough going.

Then core work is the plank, kb crunches, kb twists and back extensions.

Cardio is 10 mins on the crosstrainer, 15 secs sprint/min, 8 mins on the bike at 30 secs sprint/min and a 5 min incline walk on the dreadedmill at 4.5km/hr.

Foodwise I've made significant changes. I got the myfitnesspal app and am keeping a track of food on that, which I find great. I'm taking in 1850 cals/day and am sticking to that fairly well although I'm peckish a few times during the day. I think I might be taking in too few calories. I was and am very good to drink water, always have a bottle close by.

A typical day would be a bowl of porridge in the morning 70% water/30% milk, 1 1/2 cups coffee with milk (all milk is whole, anything else is just coloured water to me), an apple and usually a boiled egg.

Lunch might be a bowl of Cully&Sully soup and a sandwich of brown sliced pan, 3 slices packet ham, lettuce, cucumber, onion and sparingly-applied mayo, full fat. Cup of coffee. If I'm on the road I get a half plate of a regular meat and two veg dinner, yes with gravy.

In the evening I'd have another sandwich like that, a yoghurt, tea and until I read through some of the posts here, a special k cardboard bar.

I used to be a hoor for the pints but I've cut back there too, trying (mostly succeeding) to keep it to one outing a week but that could be 10 pints of lager.

So, any observations/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

The gym is 3 times a week. I have high cholesterol so any dietary advice would need to take that into account. Doctor said no cheese, nuts or shellfish. She also said no beer but I said that the cheese and shellfish were going to be murder to cut out (they were, I love them) and life is also for living so she smiled sweetly and said ok.

My name is Mystubbleitches and I have been clean of cheese and shellfish for a year now. I want to live to see grandchildren, please God and to hack around a golf course in my sixties. I also want to live life though, I'm willing to put in the hard work but not to die of boredom!!

Thanks for reading.

MyStubbleItches

I'm just wondering should this be in the nutrition forum? If so, could a mod please move it?

Hope my post makes sense as I'm a little surprised that nobody has replied to it yet. Can I do anything to clarify anything?

wonderboysam

Yo dude I'm not really in the know so don't have much advice just wanted to say good luck, your new diet looks great to me and imo 90% of it is diet so never do the oul food reward after a good workout routine that I used to!

gl!

gymfreak

Hey OP,
I'm guessing that the reason that you didn't get many replies is that the forum has been bombarded with posts like this since Christmas...so probably just bad timing:D:D

Just one or two comments.
Main take home point is that you need to be consistent- you need to make the new fitness and diet plans a habit and do them consistently to see changes.

With regards to myfitnesspal, I do find that the kcal are extremely low. I've read in numerous places that a good way to estimate your kcal allowance would be
bw in lbs x 12-fat loss
bw in lbs x 14-weight maintenance
bw in lbs x 16 -weight gain.

With regards to your diet, start off simple and don't try to get everything perfect at once. Small changes bit by bit happen to stick more as a habit. So for now eat mainly meat, fish, eggs, veg and fruit and try to limit high GI foods (I know with me these cause MAJOR crashes in blood sugar..but everyone is different).

With regards to exercise...maybe ask your partner to have a quick read of the 'women and weights' http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056232328

Good luck!

MyStubbleItches

hanks million for the replies folks.

gymfreak wrote: »

Hey OP,
I'm guessing that the reason that you didn't get many replies is that the forum has been bombarded with posts like this since Christmas...so probably just bad timing:D:D

Just one or two comments.
Main take home point is that you need to be consistent- you need to make the new fitness and diet plans a habit and do them consistently to see changes.

With regards to myfitnesspal, I do find that the kcal are extremely low. I've read in numerous places that a good way to estimate your kcal allowance would be
bw in lbs x 12-fat loss
bw in lbs x 14-weight maintenance
bw in lbs x 16 -weight gain.

With regards to your diet, start off simple and don't try to get everything perfect at once. Small changes bit by bit happen to stick more as a habit. So for now eat mainly meat, fish, eggs, veg and fruit and try to limit high GI foods (I know with me these cause MAJOR crashes in blood sugar..but everyone is different).

With regards to exercise...maybe ask your partner to have a quick read of the 'women and weights' http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056232328

Good luck!

Gymfreak, hadn't thought of that. Of course this forum is going to be like the gym at this time of year, clogged up with ambitious but clueless people like me! I just did a quick calculation on your figures and that would suggest that I should be taking in a LOT more calories, 2710 as opposed to my current 1850. Thing is, I don't think I could physically manage to take in that amount (presuming I'm not allowed to top up with beer!).

Two days ago I felt peckish between meals and was on the road so I picked up a packet of coooked and sliced chicken breast and just had half of it, c. 100g. I was fine then and for the rest of the day. I've definitely changed my eating habits in a big way, I used to be the typical country boy, home from work late in the evening and starving so tucking into a big plate of dinner, spuds and all. So I really feel better having smaller (and healthier meals) more often.

So all in all, the quantity of food I'm ingesting is satisfying my hunger, I just need to find a few small and suitable snacky things to fill the gaps. The chicken is grand, might hard boil a few eggs and keep them handy too.

So, if I'm feeling satisfied with my food intake should I increase the calories from my 1850 or should I stick with it?

Will show herself the weights for women thing later, thanks a million for that.