Diet check if you fine folk wouldnt mind!

NoQuarter

Evening all. I have decided to do a diet overhaul to try and look a bit fitter overall. I am 5'9 and about 75kg so pretty standard but there is a bit of a winter coat I could knock off and the muscles could always do with some inflation but for the purpose of this thread, I want to sort out my diet.

I dont count calories as I suppose, I dont want to make it too much of a science and subsequently lose interest in it. I'm looking to smake a few changes and hone a diet that suits over time.

Below is my intake over the last 4 days. So I suppose the untimate goal is to shed some fat and put on a bit of muscle, I know they can be counter-intuative but I figure if I chip away at the fat whilst still doing weights, I cant go too far wrong.

21 February (Thu)


Breakfast - 9am


Bowl of ready brek with 2 tablespoons of linseed, slimline milk & honey and 2 slices of McCambridge bread with cottage cheese.


Lunch - 1pm


BLT with chips


Dinner - 5pm


Breaded Haddock with Beans and ham omlette


Evening Snacks – throughout the evening


2 slices of mccambridge with peanut butter


1 apple


turkey & cheese sandwich (brennans brown bread) with cottage cheese.




22 February (Fri)


Breakfast - 11am


Bowl of ready brek with 2 tablespoons of linseed, slimline milk & honey and 2 slices of McCambridge bread with cottage cheese.


Lunch (this was a blow out lunch!) - 2pm


Burger with coleslaw, jalepinos, lettuce with chips. Cookie and vanilla ice cream.(I only eat sweet stuff once in a blue moon).


Dinner - 8pm


2 Sea Bass fillets with a cup of brown rice and salad.


23rd February (Sat)


Breakfast - 11am


Scrambled eggs(3) cooked with a knob butter on 2 slices of McCambridge toast. 1 apple.


Lunch - 3pm


B.L.T


Dinner - 8pm


Breaded chicken leg with broccoli, sugarsnaps, asparagus & beans.


Evening Snack - 11pm


1 clementine & 1 slice of McCambridge with peanut butter.


24th February (Sun)


Breakfast 11am


Scrambled eggs (3) with a knob of butter on 2 slices of mccambridge.


Lunch 2pm


Apple & a pear


Dinner 4pm


Chicken rogan josh curry. The sauce is from a jar but I added brown rice, red split lentils, chicken breast and some greens.


Evening snack


Turkey sandwich (cottage cheese & mccambridge bread). 1 cracker with peanut butter. Will probably have a piece of fruit later.

My diet is usually more stable during the weekdays than it is at weekends and I will update this thread as I go through this week to give you a better idea.


I have some specfic questions first:


1. Is peanut butter fine to eat?
2. I would much prefer to eat wheetabix instead of ready brek in the mornings, is wheetabix ok or is there nasties hidden inside? I should note on this that I can only eat cold cereal, I dont like hot cereal so oats are pretty much out as I cant cook them. Are there any that can be eaten cold?
3. Is honey ok in the cereal?




Any other suggestions? Lunch is probably my biggest worry as I have to have it in work and cant really bring stuff with me as I head out with the work crew for lunch. So the best I can do is probably a ham and cheese sandwich on brown bread. How bad is that?


Thanks all.

Hardonraging

21 February (Thu)


Breakfast - 9am


Bowl of ready brek with 2 tablespoons of linseed, slimline milk & honey and 2 slices of McCambridge bread with cottage cheese.


Lunch - 1pm


BLT with chips


Dinner - 5pm


Breaded Haddock with Beans and ham omlette


Evening Snacks – throughout the evening


2 slices of mccambridge with peanut butter


1 apple


turkey & cheese sandwich (brennans brown bread) with cottage cheese.




22 February (Fri)


Breakfast - 11am


Bowl of ready brek with 2 tablespoons of linseed, slimline milk & honey and 2 slices of McCambridge bread with cottage cheese.


Lunch (this was a blow out lunch!) - 2pm


Burger with coleslaw, jalepinos, lettuce with chips. Cookie and vanilla ice cream.(I only eat sweet stuff once in a blue moon).


Dinner - 8pm


2 Sea Bass fillets with a cup of brown rice and salad.


23rd February (Sat)


Breakfast - 11am


Scrambled eggs(3) cooked with a knob butter on 2 slices of McCambridge toast. 1 apple.


Lunch - 3pm


B.L.T


Dinner - 8pm


Breaded chicken leg with broccoli, sugarsnaps, asparagus & beans.


Evening Snack - 11pm


1 clementine & 1 slice of McCambridge with peanut butter.


24th February (Sun)


Breakfast 11am


Scrambled eggs (3) with a knob of butter on 2 slices of mccambridge.


Lunch 2pm


Apple & a pear


Dinner 4pm


Chicken rogan josh curry. The sauce is from a jar but I added brown rice, red split lentils, chicken breast and some greens.


Evening snack


Turkey sandwich (cottage cheese & mccambridge bread). 1 cracker with peanut butter. Will probably have a piece of fruit later.

Every thing in bold Is more than likely why you are still holding body fat, it's always very difficult to say without meeting a person, and getting a propper understanding of what they do physically, but from what i can see, you eat processed food, you're protien intake is low, carbs and fat's might be on a par.

Count you're calorie's for a month, there's plenty of website to help, see what your macro intake is, and then look to adjust.

An awful lot of bread there, and I mean an awful lot!

2/3 meals a day have a significant portion of bread in it (McCambridge / Burger etc).

How far does your nutritional education go? Do you understand the difference between fats, protein and carbohydrate? (What they do for your body and why you need/choose them?).

Re: your questions
Peanut Butter is fine to eat. That can be said of almost anything (even bread!) using the proviso that you don't eat too much of it. Peanut Butter is a calorie dense food, excellent for getting difficult calories in (think of people bulking). It is a high fat, high protein source too. However it contains a lot of Omega 6 , and these are not really wanted by many.

Eat Peanut butter, but don't over eat peanut butter.

Weetabix - What (in your plan) are 'nasties'? In mine, wheat is. So Weetabix are definitely off my list. But that's my ethos / my belief in what we should eat.

Honey - Natural Sugar. Fine if you are looking to increase sugars, or to appease an overly sweet tooth. Again though, not something to have in any great quantity, nor does it form part of 'my plan'.

Re: Lunch. I have lunch in work daily, I use a lunchbox. First 2 weeks everyone asked what I was at, I explained I was eating healthily, they laughed, joked etc. 6 weeks later everyone had completely gotten over it. Social stigmas are obstacles, unavoidable perhaps, but short term 'pain' (if even), long term gain!

cosmic

NoQuarter wrote: »

I would much prefer to eat wheetabix instead of ready brek in the mornings, is wheetabix ok or is there nasties hidden inside? I should note on this that I can only eat cold cereal, I dont like hot cereal so oats are pretty much out as I cant cook them. Are there any that can be eaten cold?

Would you not make your own muesli? Make up a huge batch every other weekend and use it every day then.

NoQuarter

Thanks for the input folks, I'll answer your points below.

Hardonraging wrote: »

Every thing in bold Is more than likely why you are still holding body fat

I should just point out that most of the body fat I have is from a much different diet to this. I am only eating like this the last 3 weeks, before that, and the cause of the winter weight was from eating complete junk food and literally anything I wanted. Hardly any veg and lots of processed food. So even the diet as above should shed a few pounds.

And even eating all that junk food, I'm probably only about 20-22% bf.

Deleted User wrote: »

An awful lot of bread there, and I mean an awful lot!

2/3 meals a day have a significant portion of bread in it (McCambridge / Burger etc).

How far does your nutritional education go? Do you understand the difference between fats, protein and carbohydrate? (What they do for your body and why you need/choose them?).


Weetabix - What (in your plan) are 'nasties'? In mine, wheat is. So Weetabix are definitely off my list. But that's my ethos / my belief in what we should eat.

Thanks for that, I can see that I do eat a huge amount of bread, its just the handiest thing to snack on really! What would you suggest to try and consciously switch it with? Lots more fruit? What about crackers like rivita etc, or are they much of a muchness?

My nutritional education is low to moderate. I have never calorie counted or broke anything down into macros. I have a basic understanding of the differences between proteins carbs and fats. I will be educating myself more over the next coming weeks as I try to sort the diet out.

Nasties I suppose I would consider are the sugars that lurk in the supposedy healthy special K and stuff like that. I can stay on the ready brek as opposed to wheetabix, I just prefer wheetabix so if there wasnt much in it I would prefer to go with wheetabix.

I may have to try reevaluate my lunches.

cosmic wrote: »

Would you not make your own muesli? Make up a huge batch every other weekend and use it every day then.

Thats certainly something I could consider. If someone was to tell me my daily breakfasts are that bad then I would have to consider changing it. If, however, they are healthy within reason, then I would prefer to carry on as I am. Baby steps and all that.

SunnyDub1

NoQuarter wrote: »

Hardly any veg and lots of processed food. So even the diet as above should shed a few pounds.

TBH I don't see how eating what you are currently eating will help you lose weight. It's a poor diet that requires a lot of changes. If you lose weight eating what you are currently eating every day - it would be some kind of miracle.

Thanks for that, I can see that I do eat a huge amount of bread, its just the handiest thing to snack on really! What would you suggest to try and consciously switch it with? Lots more fruit? What about crackers like rivita etc, or are they much of a muchness?

defiantly not LOTS of more fruit. Some fruit, yogurt, nuts.
Most crackers just have as much carbs/sugars in it has bread imo, but it would be a slightly better option. The even better option would be to cut out bread totally and increase veg & meat intake.

My nutritional education is low to moderate. I have never calorie counted or broke anything down into macros. I have a basic understanding of the differences between proteins carbs and fats. I will be educating myself more over the next coming weeks as I try to sort the diet out.

You should have a read at this http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055157091

Nasties I suppose I would consider are the sugars that lurk in the supposedy healthy special K and stuff like that. I can stay on the ready brek as opposed to wheetabix, I just prefer wheetabix so if there wasn't much in it I would prefer to go with wheetabix.

Special k is not healthy, either is weetabix and most cereals - it is laced unnecessary sugars/salts etc. Try having oats or eggs.

I train hard, eat clean and I'm probably 18% bf (male).

People are terribly bad at estimating this. It could well be a scary enough result if you get tested properly.

My advice, revamp. Check Nutrition101 (sticky here) and spend 3/4 hours reading and studying it. Note any questions you have and ask them. The information is available, and people will point you to it.

NoQuarter

SunnyDub1 wrote: »

TBH I don't see how eating what you are currently eating will help you lose weight. It's a poor diet that requires a lot of changes. If you lose weight eating what you are currently eating every day - it would be some kind of miracle.


defiantly not LOTS of more fruit. Some fruit, yogurt, nuts.
Most crackers just have as much carbs/sugars in it has bread imo, but it would be a slightly better option. The even better option would be to cut out bread totally and increase veg & meat intake.


You should have a read at this http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055157091


Special k is not healthy, either is weetabix and most cereals - it is laced unnecessary sugars/salts etc. Try having oats or eggs.

I wouldnt say a miracle, by cutting out chocolate and other sweet junk and starting to train again I will drop some lbs alone.

However, I absolutely accept that there are changes to be made and the purpose of this thread is to have some replacements suggested.

I've read nutrition 101 a few times but not for a while so I will have another read. Are there any oats that can be eaten without cooking them? I really dont like hot breakfasts unless its eggs etc.

Deleted User wrote: »

I train hard, eat clean and I'm probably 18% bf (male).

People are terribly bad at estimating this. It could well be a scary enough result if you get tested properly.

My advice, revamp. Check Nutrition101 (sticky here) and spend 3/4 hours reading and studying it. Note any questions you have and ask them. The information is available, and people will point you to it.

Thanks, I'm sure I am around the 22% mark and that is probably conservative, I'm no stranger to training hard, just never had to look at diet before.

The plan is to keep training and make constant changes to the diet bit-by-bit.


So, what I gather so far is to drop the majority of the bread and replace it with veg and meats.

Look at yoghurts (greek I assume?) and ill up the nuts. I'll do that and then re-group.

Any more suggestions in the meantime are always appreciated.

Also, is there an easy to use site that counts calories? I tried to count a days calories last night and it took ages!

syklops

In your food diary you don't mention what you drink.

SunnyDub1

NoQuarter wrote: »

I wouldnt say a miracle, by cutting out chocolate and other sweet junk and starting to train again I will drop some lbs alone.

Yeah it is possible but remember some of the foods you mentioned are just as bad as eating chocolate/sweets.
Weightloss happens in the kitchen as well as the gym!

Are there any oats that can be eaten without cooking them? I really dont like hot breakfasts unless its eggs etc.

Eggs are good!
All oats can be eating without cooking them. I trow some wheat bran in with some yogurt and berries and it's nice.

Also, is there an easy to use site that counts calories? I tried to count a days calories last night and it took ages!

Myonlinefitnesspal.com

NoQuarter

syklops wrote: »

In your food diary you don't mention what you drink.

Just water. Apart from the occassional massive piss up! Maybe once every 2 weeks and that would involve a million pints or so.

SunnyDub1 wrote: »

Yeah it is possible but remember some of the foods you mentioned are just as bad as eating chocolate/sweets.
Weightloss happens in the kitchen as well as the gym!

Eggs are good!
All oats can be eating without cooking them. I trow some wheat bran in with some yogurt and berries and it's nice.


Myonlinefitnesspal.com

Thanks for that site, I will be sure to check it out. What is the thinking on a few eggs a day now? Is it too much cholesterol or is that ancient thinking?

I got flahavans and ate them without cooking them (because I didnt read the packet) and all I can say was it was a very, very tough eat! I'll try find a healty medium somewhere!

syklops

NoQuarter wrote: »

Just water. Apart from the occassional massive piss up! Maybe once every 2 weeks and that would involve a million pints or so.

You don't need us to tell you occasional and every 2 weeks are not the same thing. Nor that at about 160 calories per pint, a million pints in a night can undo all the hard work you have done during the week in terms of weight loss.

NoQuarter

Well I wont be giving up my social life, thats for sure. And I drink pints, so wont be switching to anything else. The way I see it, the pints wont undo anything, the pints were always going to be there, any weight loss during the week will be all the better. If pints were that bad, I'd be a blimp by now and I'm not so they dont worry me.

It might sound like I'm not serious about this but I think I am just being realistic with myself. I am, of course, aware how bad alcohol is to any strict diet!

NoQuarter

Still trying to improve the diet, trying to cut out the bread mostly and I am calorie counting and starting to learn about the finer details.:

(Apologies about the post format, didnt work out as planned)

Your Food Diary For:

Wednesday February 27, 2013 Next

Breakfast
Calories
Carbs
Fat
Protein
Ready Brek - Porrige, 30 g
112
17
3
4
Honey, 2 tbsp
128
35
0
0
Avonmore - Slimline Milk - Correct Info, 50 ml
21
3
0
2
Helen's (Aldi) - Golden Linseed Crunch, 10 g
54
1
4
3
Avonmore - Cottage Cheese, 4 g
3
0
0
0
Shoprite - Chopped Almonds, 0.05 cup (30g)
36
1
3
1
Add Food
Quick Tools
354
57
10
10
Lunch

Salad/Chicken - With Veggies and Dressing, 375 g
391
35
10
22
Add Food
Quick Tools
391
35
10
22
Dinner

Lloyd Grossman - Madras Sauce, 87.5 g ( Jar is 350g )
137
12
9
2
Chicken - Breast, meat only, cooked, fried, 1 unit (yield from 1 lb ready-to-cook chicken)
97
0
2
17
Beans - Green Beans , 10 gr
3
1
0
0
Tesco - Baby Corn, 10 g
3
0
0
0
Add Food
Quick Tools
240
13
11
19
Snacks

Granny Smith Apple - Small Green Apple, 1 Small Apple
85
15
0
0
Mccambridge's - Wholewheat Bread, 2 slice
172
34
1
6
Medium Egg - Egg, Scrambled With Butter, 3 eggs
330
1
31
17
Tesco - Low Fat Natural Yoghurt, 30 g
15
2
0
2
Add Food
Quick Tools
602
52
32
25


Totals
1,587
157
63
76
Your Daily Goal
1,820
250
61
68
Remaining
233
93
-2
-8

Calories
Carbs
Fat
Protein