Lose weight & tone up... Critique my routine & diet?

Dave!

Hey folks,

Right, gonna get back to the gym proper now. Just been swimming when I've gone the last few weeks, cos I've been lazy. Now I need to lose the bit of a gut, and tone up big styleeee.

The plan is to go Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.

M/W/S will be the 'real' workouts, with weights, etc. Thursday will be mostly cardio.

I wrote it down last, but it's at home so I'll try remember what the workouts were...

5 min jog, stretches
20 minute run
20 x 3 situps
20, 15, 15 press-ups
stretches

20kg* chest press - 15, 10, 8 reps
12.5kg bicep curls - 15, 12, 8 reps

20 lengths in the pool (breast stroke - and 1 length = 1 way only; my brother counts up and back as 1, the bastard)

* can't remember what weight I use for the chest press, that's a guess

Thursday's routine is pretty much the same except without the weights, and with longer on the treadmill.

So that's more or less what my routine was before, only not very strict! I should probably stick some more weight training in there, I'm a little short of ideas though. I was going to say that I'm only looking to tone/build certain areas (biceps, chest, abs), but really I think if I aim low then that's what I'll achieve. If I can get myself motivated enough or get the frame of mind right, then I should be trying to get my whole body in shape. I weighed myself last night @ 80kg, and arbitrarily wrote down a couple of goals, but I have no idea if they're realistic or not:

31st August - 79kg
30th September - 78kg

My diet isn't too bad in that I don't eat a lot of garbage. I think my main problems are that I don't eat at the right times (e.g. I usually skip breakfast, and I go to the gym straight from work and never remember to eat something beforehand, so sometimes lack a bit of energy for the workout), and I tend to have very big servings for dinner (after the gym, and I'm usually sedentary for the rest of the day then).

Typical food day for me might be:

Breakfast ~8am
If I have any, it's usually scrambled eggs on toast (2x full eggs on 2x slice of McCambridge wholewheat bread with butter)
Cup of tea with low fat milk and 1x sugar

Lunch
Usually just 1x sandwich (big slices of ham from Lidl, grated cheese, lots of lettuce, on 2x slices of the smallest pieces of bread I can use! Buttered, though )
A cup of tea with milk and 1x sugar

I also have 3x cups of coffee during the day. Usually with milk and 1x sugar.

Dinner
I'm pretty broke at the moment, so a lot of my dinners these days are mince-based

-~250g Mince, mushrooms and onions in beef stock, with potatoes
-~250g Mince with potatoes and Heinz beans
-2 or 3 (depends on size) Pork chops with lots of frozen vegetables, in white sauce
-8x frozen fish fingers with potatoes and beans

Snack
I'll usually have a cup of tea in the evening, and if I'm going to eat again it'll probably be scrambled eggs, same as breakfast

Weekends
These are probably my downfall.

I'll go out max 2 nights a week, but on 1 of the nights I'm likely to end up in a food establishment, and not ordering the McSalad...
I usually drink Guinness x 6 or so pints, and then move onto shorts

I should probably:
-cut out the sugar from tea (couldn't drink it with no milk), and the milk and sugar from coffee. I just drank my coffee black this morning, so will keep that one up
-replace potatoes with something else. I was using frozen veg with everything for a while, but I'm not mad about the veg without white sauce!
-eat smaller portions for dinner. My lunch is pretty small already I think.
-stop binging on food after the pub!!

So that's my diet, roughly.

I'm open to suggestions and pointers on anything I've posted above, so feel free to rip it apart!

Cheers

jinxremoving

Breakfast: eggs are good, you could try ditching the bread and having some omlette with mushrooms or even try oatmeal and berries the odd morning. I wouldnt worry too much about the butter!

I would suggest maybe making a larger portion of your stew/curry etc and having the leftovers for lunch. i find a sandwich doesnt fill me at all. kidney beans are cheap and they can be thrown in to bulk out mince dishes etc.

-lose the sugar from tea/coffee. It might taste a bit odd but after a few days you wont be able to drink it with sugar again!

Dinner: ditch the fish fingers and go for frozen fish fillets. lidl/aldi are cheapish for them. More veg, get whatever is on offer for 69c in lidl and use those or frozen etc.

You might think your diet isnt too bad but theres definitely a lot of room for improvement! best of luck with it all

Dave!

Thanks for that!

It's been suggested that I switch my meals around so that I eat dinner during lunchtime in work, and then just have a snack/small meal in the evening. Seems to make sense, since I could use the extra energy in the gym, and once I come back from the gym I'll be fairly immobile for the rest of the evening. What do ya think??