How is this planned?

deny1crusade

Stats;

Gender: Male
Age: 24
Weight: 88kg
Height: 180cm
Waist: 36
BMI: 27

For the experts among you, I'm sure you can understand the problem with these statistics. For a start, for my height, my waist is significantly larger mostly due to my larger behind, thighs, and belly. It's these areas I wish to target but also understand that you cannot ever weight loss specific areas of your body, it has to be a whole body approach. Nonetheless, I have to get these stats down someway especially the derrier, thighs and belly region which is my greatest cause for concern.

I was wondering if anyone here would have any useful suggestions on how to complete this? For example, will I always be disproportionate around my middle area? My main concern is that if I lose weight around my whole body that it will lose it all proportionately such that my middle area will still look bigger. I also have relatively short shoulders, they are not broad which makes it worse as well for my lower half.

As for diet, well it's hard to generalize a particular day, but I'll try to give a general overview;

Breakfast: Cereal of some sort, depending on the day; Branflakes, Coco Pops, Weetabix, Cornflakes, sometimes Toast. This with a cup of tea.

Lunch: Tends to be sandwiches, usually just with margarine and ham, sometimes cheese (love cheese!), with either a cup of tea or milk.

Between Lunch and Dinner: Snacks of some sort, biscuits, crisps, but not many, just a small snack.

Dinner: Typical; Veg, Potatoes, and a meat/fish, wouldn't have a massive dinner.

After dinner, I tend to have snacks again, albeit more than afternoon and with more sandwiches later in the evening. Sometimes toward the end of the night I'd crave some snack as well to do me til morning.

I exercise too, about 30 minutes every 2nd day at the moment, usually before any large meal. I tend to either do weights for a short while, sometimes press ups etc., mostly on a treadmill walking, sometimes jogging. I don't go to a gym mostly due to cost and time restraints but I have weights, treadmill etc. so hope that helps somewhat.

Either way, that's that, I'm working a lot as well so don't have time to exercise twice a day as a lot recommend I think. Looking forward to your comments. :eek:

RidleyRider

Cut all the snacks like taytoes and choclate out of your diet completely. Put your everyday diet into a calorie counter and see what it comes up as.

People correct me if I'm wrong here but to maintain his bodyweight at the moment he has to eat 2700 kcals per day? So would I be right in saying a calorie deficit plus exercise is the way to go?

Sort out your diet for a starter. The rest will come to you with cardio/weight sessions.

Mellor

Your diet is awful.
That's your issue.

deny1crusade

RidleyRider wrote: »

Cut all the snacks like taytoes and choclate out of your diet completely. Put your everyday diet into a calorie counter and see what it comes up as.

People correct me if I'm wrong here but to maintain his bodyweight at the moment he has to eat 2700 kcals per day? So would I be right in saying a calorie deficit plus exercise is the way to go?

Sort out your diet for a starter. The rest will come to you with cardio/weight sessions.

Mellor wrote: »

Your diet is awful.
That's your issue.

Ah come on, my diet isn't that bad. I mean, Ridley Rider's comments that I should cut out snacks is, of course, good advice...but apart from that I'm struggling to find what else is wrong with it. My dinner is pretty standard I would have thought, and cereal for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch and supper. Can you elaborate Mellor on why my diet is 'awful', it would help to know which is the reason I set up this thread.

hardCopy

deny1crusade wrote: »

Ah come on, my diet isn't that bad. I mean, Ridley Rider's comments that I should cut out snacks is, of course, good advice...but apart from that I'm struggling to find what else is wrong with it. My dinner is pretty standard I would have thought, and cereal for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch and supper. Can you elaborate Mellor on why my diet is 'awful', it would help to know which is the reason I set up this thread.

There's a lot of calories in two slices of bread, unless your doing a lot of endurance training and need the carbs they're not going to help you.

Crisps should just be gone altogether. There are so many things you could be eating for a snack, you shouldn't be reaching for biccies while losing weight.

Log on to myfitnesspal.com, fill in your age, height, weight and get a daily calorie goal, then enter everything you ate yesterday and see what the totals are and what can be removed.

SunnyDub1

deny1crusade wrote: »

Stats;

As for diet, well it's hard to generalize a particular day, but I'll try to give a general overview;

Breakfast: Cereal of some sort, depending on the day; Branflakes, Coco Pops, Weetabix, Cornflakes, sometimes Toast (carbs,sugars,salts) This with a cup of tea.

Lunch: Tends to be sandwiches (carbs), usually just with margarine and ham, sometimes cheese (love cheese!), with either a cup of tea or milk. - no salad ?

Between Lunch and Dinner: Snacks of some sort, biscuits, crisps, but not many, just a small snack. (Carbs, sugars) Doesn't matter how much you of it you are eating it's still crappy non nutritious food

Dinner: Typical; Veg, Potatoes(carbs) and a meat/fish, wouldn't have a massive dinner.

After dinner, I tend to have snacks again albeit more than afternoon and with more sandwiches later in the evening. Sometimes toward the end of the night I'd crave some snack as well to do me til morning. - (you have this carving cause you are not eating a proper diet)

I'm no expert and I see your diet sucks - Badly, but then again it doesn't take an expert to distinguish that :rolleyes:

If your serious take that advice been giving, it's common knowledge by most people that snacking on crisps and bars and eating cereals laced in sugars each morning for breakfast isn't going to do good for anyones weight & health!

kennyb3

Looks like a special carbs and sugar diet aka the get fat diet.

Stench Blossoms

deny1crusade wrote: »

Ah come on, my diet isn't that bad. I mean, Ridley Rider's comments that I should cut out snacks is, of course, good advice...but apart from that I'm struggling to find what else is wrong with it. My dinner is pretty standard I would have thought, and cereal for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch and supper. Can you elaborate Mellor on why my diet is 'awful', it would help to know which is the reason I set up this thread.

Cereal for breakfast is crap. Change this to eggs or porridge.

Sandwiches are not great. Have a soup and salad with leafy greens and plenty of unprocessed meat.

Your snacks are also not healthy. Greek yogurt would be better. Or a small handful of nuts.

There is very little protein in your diet.

deny1crusade

Okay, I knew people here would give me some great critique but I really didn't expect my diet to be that bad to be honest. Yes, I expect the snacks and crisps to be assaulted, of course, but apart from that I really didn't see a problem. However, now that you've flagged more detail up, I'm starting to think about it more.

As for today, here is what I've had:

Breakfast: 1 Weetabix with a 1/3 cup of low-fat milk.

Nothing between Breakfast and Lunch...

Lunch: 1 Apple and 1/3 cup of low-fat milk.

Yet to eat dinner of course but I'll probably drink water all this afternoon.

I notice OP that you said potatoes were (carbs), so I'm wondering if I should avoid them for dinner then?

Also, can anyone recommend any low-fat, low-carb healthy nutritious filling snacks I can munch on if I get hungry. It's hard to avoid the snacks if I'm unsure of a useful alternative.

Thanks again for the advice.

Stench Blossoms

Ditch any low-fat products you have. Mostly the fat is replaced with sugar which is worse.

1 weetabix for breakfast is not a lot. Are you not starving?

If you ate a proper breakfast and proper lunch you probably wouldn't need a lot of snacks.

Do you like eggs?

Everyone has been led to believe that cereals are healthy etc, they aren't.

Mellor

deny1crusade wrote: »

My dinner is pretty standard I would have thought, and cereal for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch and supper. Can you elaborate Mellor on why my diet is 'awful', it would help to know which is the reason I set up this thread.

Considering the fact that weight and health problems so common, standard doesn't mean it's good.

But to break it down;
Breakfast: Cereal is pretty crap. With the exception of weetabix.

Lunch: Bread is more grains. Margarine is not good. It's probably not as bad as it used to be. Loaded with trans fats. But it's not healthy.

...biscuits, crisps, snacks...
I don't think that needs explaining.

Dinner: Veg, Potatoes, and a meat/fish.
If it is a small serve of potatoes, variety of veg and amesome meat it's good. But if its mostly spuds, and some jar/packet sauce or other similar it's not as good.

After dinner, I tend to have snacks again...
Again...

...more sandwiches later in the evening...
As before


...crave some snack as well to do me til morning.
Is this biscuits, crisps, etc again?


Basically, dinner is maybe ok. But the rest is mostly processed carbs with little protein or healthy fat. There's nothing unhealthy about snacking. But snacking on sugar constantly is a bad idea

deny1crusade

Stench Blossoms wrote: »

Ditch any low-fat products you have. Mostly the fat is replaced with sugar which is worse.

1 weetabix for breakfast is not a lot. Are you not starving?

If you ate a proper breakfast and proper lunch you probably wouldn't need a lot of snacks.

Do you like eggs?

Everyone has been led to believe that cereals are healthy etc, they aren't.

I was a little hungry, yes, but isn't that the point? I mean the OP said I should be on a calorie deficit, maybe my body has gotten too used to too much food? :eek:

Yes - I love eggs but I thought they were a fattening food (??).

I'm not really sure what else I could replace cereals & toast with? Any suggestions?

RidleyRider

deny1crusade wrote: »

Okay, I knew people here would give me some great critique but I really didn't expect my diet to be that bad to be honest. Yes, I expect the snacks and crisps to be assaulted, of course, but apart from that I really didn't see a problem. However, now that you've flagged more detail up, I'm starting to think about it more.

As for today, here is what I've had:

Breakfast: 1 Weetabix with a 1/3 cup of low-fat milk.

Nothing between Breakfast and Lunch...

Lunch: 1 Apple and 1/3 cup of low-fat milk.

Yet to eat dinner of course but I'll probably drink water all this afternoon.

I notice OP that you said potatoes were (carbs), so I'm wondering if I should avoid them for dinner then?

Also, can anyone recommend any low-fat, low-carb healthy nutritious filling snacks I can munch on if I get hungry. It's hard to avoid the snacks if I'm unsure of a useful alternative.

Thanks again for the advice.

This is just what I do:

Eat my carbs in the morning- oatmeal, bananas etc.. as they're your energy for the day.
If it falls on a training day where I'll be going for a PB at an exercise I'll eat slightly more.
After breakfast I tend to cut down and down on carbs throughout the day because you don't need energy while asleep, well I don't think so anyway.

You could look up online some of the basic diets like 40:40:20 (Protein:Carbs:Fats) but alter it in a way that suits you.

deny1crusade

Mellor wrote: »

...crave some snack as well to do me til morning.
Is this biscuits, crisps, etc again?

Usually anything I can find to be honest, and yes, it tends to revolve around snacks.

And how about my exercise regime? How would you recommend I use weights and treadmill for losing the bulk around by behind, belly and thighs even though you cannot lose weight by focussing on any one area? Is this a lost battle?

Stench Blossoms

deny1crusade wrote: »

I'm not really sure what else I could replace cereals & toast with? Any suggestions?

I already gave you a suggestion as have loads of others.

Eggs will not make you fat.

Triangla

Breakfast: Cereal of some sort, depending on the day; Branflakes, Coco Pops, Weetabix, Cornflakes, sometimes Toast. This with a cup of tea.

- As per previous poster, change this to eggs plus microwave some tomatoes and spinach to have with. Make eggs scrambled, break two eggs into a cup, stir with a fork and add a little black pepper. Lob into a pan and stir on a medium to high heat.Go easy on the oil/butter when cooking the eggs. Fry a rasher one or two mornings in the week for variety, chop it up then scramble the eggs onto it .

Lunch: Tends to be sandwiches, usually just with margarine and ham, sometimes cheese (love cheese!), with either a cup of tea or milk.

- Cook some chicken or pork (150g) the night before and cook with a little oil and the juice of a lime. Add a dash of soy sauce when it's cooked. Also make 50g of brown rice. Let them both cool and put into a container that leaves a fair bit of room. Chop in a big handful of spinach. If you have a canteen, buy soup. If not bring in a cup of soup and lob it over the chicken, Instant healthy dinner. A different soup a day means you get a bit of variety.

Between Lunch and Dinner: Snacks of some sort, biscuits, crisps, but not many, just a small snack.

- If you're snacking between lunch and dinner then you're not eating enough.

Firstly, make sure you have been drinking enough water throughout the day. Get at least 3 liters into yourself from morning until around 8 at night (any later and you'll have disturbed sleep from wanting to pi$$)

Secondly, bring in something healthy to snack on. Veg like carrots with a bit of hummus to dip it into. Some pears, some apples and a banana.

Dinner: Typical; Veg, Potatoes, and a meat/fish, wouldn't have a massive dinner.

- Cut the potatoes and try to have lots of veggies. Get some green and purple kale from tesco. Tear some into a bowl. Chop in a courgette, a bell pepper and some cherry tomatoes. Squeeze a bit of lemon or lime over it, cover and microwave for two mins. Cook around 150g of lean meat like chicken or pork and add.

Gym: If you are in the gym for 30mins it should be uber intensive. Google stronglifts 5 x 5. Do it for 12 weeks then move on to German volume training for a month.

Finally, get to bed! Sleep and rest are vital to feeling good.

The above is basic and simple. There are countless ways of getting in shape. Do the above, it's only 16 weeks. Be honest and stick with it and you'll see an incredible change.

deny1crusade

Triangla wrote: »

Finally, get to bed! Sleep and rest are vital to feeling good.

The above is basic and simple. There are countless ways of getting in shape. Do the above, it's only 16 weeks. Be honest and stick with it and you'll see an incredible change.

Thanks a lot for all those suggestions, will definitely put these and some of the others to practice.

Deano7788

deny1crusade wrote: »

I was a little hungry, yes, but isn't that the point? I mean the OP said I should be on a calorie deficit, maybe my body has gotten too used to too much food? :eek:

Yes - I love eggs but I thought they were a fattening food (??).

I'm not really sure what else I could replace cereals & toast with? Any suggestions?

If you're eating the right foods, then no, you shouldn't be that hungry. I'm cutting right now and losing about a lb a week and I'm hardly ever hungry. Make sure your meals are built around a protein source, it's satiating so it will keep you feeling full for longer.

And also have the eggs for breakfast. Yes, they have fat in them (the good kind) but they're not fattening. The only thing that's fattening is consuming more calories than you need.

hardCopy

Deano7788 wrote: »

The only thing that's fattening is consuming more calories than you need.

QFT, that's the most important thing OP.

Don't be afraid of fats (or carbs) just make sure that you budget for it. Until you know how many calories you need and how many you consume it'll be hard to know how much to eat.

Using something like myfitnesspal will help you understand the different calorie contents of your food. Green veg can be piled high on a plate without loading you with calories while a comparatively small looking pile of mash will be full of calories.

If you can get your head around the calorie content of different ingredients you can balance. You can make room for the odd treat, but I think once you see the amount of calories on a packet of Hunky Dorys vs the amount of chicken and veg you could eat with the same calories you probably won't want the crisps.

Daniel S

hardCopy wrote: »

Log on to myfitnesspal.com, fill in your age, height, weight and get a daily calorie goal, then enter everything you ate yesterday and see what the totals are and what can be removed.

hardCopy wrote: »

Using something like myfitnesspal will help you understand the different calorie contents of your food.

Started using this today, it's brilliant! I don't need to keep checking the back of the labels! I just lob in everything I've eaten and I could easily fix my diet if needed! They have practically every food already on their system so you don't need to add any.

deny1crusade

Daniel S wrote: »

Started using this today, it's brilliant! I don't need to keep checking the back of the labels! I just lob in everything I've eaten and I could easily fix my diet if needed! They have practically every food already on their system so you don't need to add any.

Yeah it's very good indeed - been using it for the past day so far and found it an invaluable resource.

I know I've asked a few times, but could anyone let me know what your views are on shifting weight from my thighs/behind/belly region. This seems to be the area most focussed on for my weight gain and for obvious reasons I don't want to look disproportionate. Will this always be the case even if I lose weight? I'm aware you cannot spot remove weight but I'm wondering if there's anyway to at least relax the disproportionate way in which it's currently spread.

thegreatiam

deny1crusade wrote: »

Yeah it's very good indeed - been using it for the past day so far and found it an invaluable resource.

I know I've asked a few times, but could anyone let me know what your views are on shifting weight from my thighs/behind/belly region. This seems to be the area most focussed on for my weight gain and for obvious reasons I don't want to look disproportionate. Will this always be the case even if I lose weight? I'm aware you cannot spot remove weight but I'm wondering if there's anyway to at least relax the disproportionate way in which it's currently spread.

Nope.
Its like emptying a plastic bag full of junk. The more you take out the less lumpy it gets. But you cant just flatten the lumps without taking stuff out.

If it makes you feel better. My stats were exactly the same as yours when I started. And my jeans are hanging off me now. Take accurate measurements of yourself in all parts of your body ( myfitnesspal has a place to record the measurements you need) diet for 6 weeks then remeasure and see the difference. Also take a picture of yourself and do a before/after

Gummy Panda

deny1crusade wrote: »

Yeah it's very good indeed - been using it for the past day so far and found it an invaluable resource.

I know I've asked a few times, but could anyone let me know what your views are on shifting weight from my thighs/behind/belly region. This seems to be the area most focussed on for my weight gain and for obvious reasons I don't want to look disproportionate. Will this always be the case even if I lose weight? I'm aware you cannot spot remove weight but I'm wondering if there's anyway to at least relax the disproportionate way in which it's currently spread.

Just keep cutting. Your genetics determine where you mostly store fat so just keep at it

deny1crusade

thegreatiam wrote: »

Nope.
Its like emptying a plastic bag full of junk. The more you take out the less lumpy it gets. But you cant just flatten the lumps without taking stuff out.

If it makes you feel better. My stats were exactly the same as yours when I started. And my jeans are hanging off me now. Take accurate measurements of yourself in all parts of your body ( myfitnesspal has a place to record the measurements you need) diet for 6 weeks then remeasure and see the difference. Also take a picture of yourself and do a before/after

Gummy Panda wrote: »

Just keep cutting. Your genetics determine where you mostly store fat so just keep at it

It's a major pity that nothing can be done about it, except to make you disproportionate but skinnier if you know what I mean, but if that's genetics then there's almost nothing I can do. Nonetheless, removing any fat anywhere cannot be a bad thing in itself I guess.

How much can you realistically expect to lose in 6 weeks.

Since I've started this thread, I've made some big changes:

- No snacks.
- 3/4 reduction in Carbs which I was overindulging on.
- Breakfast reduced.

For example, today this is what I've had:

- 1 Weetabix with 1/3 cup of milk.
- Nothing between breakfast and lunch.
- Lunch 2 eggs.
- Nothing between lunch and dinner.
- Dinner; Lots of Green Veg & Chicken
- Plan to have nothing between now and later.
- Supper: A protein source of some kind.
- Drinking 4-6 full glasses of water per day.
- Intense exercise for 40 minutes per day.

So that's about it, I'm trying to take on board the comments above that I need to include more protein in my diet, while reducing carbs and increasing water and exercise. What do you think of my new regime? Should I expect much of a difference in 6 weeks if I continue this? According to MyFitnessPal, I should have '1,870 Calories Remaining' per day, so I hope I'm under this number with the current diet.

thegreatiam

deny1crusade wrote: »

It's a major pity that nothing can be done about it, except to make you disproportionate but skinnier if you know what I mean, but if that's genetics then there's almost nothing I can do. Nonetheless, removing any fat anywhere cannot be a bad thing in itself I guess.

How much can you realistically expect to lose in 6 weeks.

Since I've started this thread, I've made some big changes:

- No snacks.
- 3/4 reduction in Carbs which I was overindulging on.
- Breakfast reduced.

For example, today this is what I've had:

- 1 Weetabix with 1/3 cup of milk.
- Nothing between breakfast and lunch.
- Lunch 2 eggs.
- Nothing between lunch and dinner.
- Dinner; Lots of Green Veg & Chicken
- Plan to have nothing between now and later.
- Supper: A protein source of some kind.
- Drinking 4-6 full glasses of water per day.
- Intense exercise for 40 minutes per day.

So that's about it, I'm trying to take on board the comments above that I need to include more protein in my diet, while reducing carbs and increasing water and exercise. What do you think of my new regime? Should I expect much of a difference in 6 weeks if I continue this? According to MyFitnessPal, I should have '1,870 Calories Remaining' per day, so I hope I'm under this number with the current diet.

try to get protein in every Meal. including breakfast, weatabix are not a ' great' option AS they are all processor Carbs. try bacon +eggs instead .
you will see Some changes after 6weeks but They will be small. Take Some pics of yourself today for Comparison.

postitnote

Can I give a +1 for myfitnesspal. I've always lacked organisation when it came to my diet, but a combination of reading advice on boards and using the app has me looking and feeling better already. I'm working on a 1000 calorie deficit a day and yet i'm not feeling overly hungry at any stage.

I used to eat a lot of bran flakes, replaced this with porridge in the morning with a few sultanas thrown in for good measure.

Get yourself a good set of scales for the kitchen, my snack for throughout the day is 50g sultanas and 50g unsalted mixed nuts and raisins.

The water cooler in work gets a fair bit of abuse from me all day long too, I usually try and fill up on 3L throughout the working day which also fills you.

Oh and Green tea is great, perhaps one of the flavoured ones to start with, that's what got me hooked. Now it's the normal green tea all the way.