Is my diet good?

ecdi

If I could get some advice on my diet please.

Looking to lose fat and build some lean muscle. Im 6ft 187 lbs

My diet is:

Porridge,milk walnuts, tea milk, scrambled eggs

Bananna

chicken breast with salad.

tea, milk

Spuds, real butter, veg, chicken breast or steak

Tea, milk, small bit of dark choc

cruhoortwunk

Cut out the dairy and you'll notice a difference within a few weeks

ninjabox

ecdi wrote: »

If I could get some advice on my diet please.

Looking to lose fat and build some lean muscle. Im 6ft 187 lbs

My diet is:

Porridge,milk walnuts, tea milk, scrambled eggs

Bananna

chicken breast with salad.

tea, milk

Spuds, real butter, veg, chicken breast or steak

Tea, milk, small bit of dark choc

Why don't you have fish in your salad instead of chicken all the time. You can put tinned tuna or salmon in a salad and its lovely, or smoked salmon if you have the budget! Also you don't seem to be eating much for your height, are you sure you aren't going under your calorie deficit?

Its good that your getting fat in there, thats very important if you are on a calorie deficit because it keeps you satiated, in fact maybe try and get some more fat in there if possible.

cruhoortwunk

Try sweet potatoes or squash instead of spuds too. Spuds are one of the least nutritious veg there is. And drink tea without milk like peppermint or Green tea

conzy

cruhoortwunk wrote: »

Try sweet potatoes or squash instead of spuds too. Spuds are one of the least nutritious veg there is. And drink tea without milk like peppermint or Green tea

Ah here, milk in your tea is not going to make or break your diet. And theres nothing wrong with normal potatoes in moderation. A serving is about 200g, not the 700g portions most irish mammies dish out

cruhoortwunk

conzy wrote: »

Ah here, milk in your tea is not going to make or break your diet. And theres nothing wrong with normal potatoes in moderation. A serving is about 200g, not the 700g portions most irish mammies dish out

I'm telling you it can make a big difference cutting out milk and dairy. Irish people love their milky tea so you'd be suprised how much it adds up to if they drink 2 or 3 mugs a day
Re:spuds I am just saying they should vary it and not have them every single day like the average Irish person. Carb-tastic.
Or try Quinoa instead and some pulses to give that full up feeling you may miss from spuds

conzy

3 cups a day with a staggering 35.5ml (shotglass sized) dose of milk, 7 days a week is 313 calories.. A negligible amount in the grand scheme of things and doing without milk would be hard to adhere to.

Doing without 3 slices of white bread or one snickers bar in a week is a lot easier to adhere to and creates the same calorie deficit.

Its funny how people sacrifice butter on their spuds or sugar on their cereal thinking they are being great and then go and eat a 250g portion of pasta.

Its about controlling the largest staples of your diet, then the rest will fall into place.

Trying to create a calorie defecit by dropping milk in your tea or ketchup on your dinner are only pissing in the wind

ecdi

Will throw im fish with salad, sweet potato for spuds. The bit of milk have is harmless I reckon. Dont like porridge with water! Not sure about the calorie deficit...

Alf Veedersane

I never found a problem with porridge made with water. Thought i would but it was fine. Throw in a bit of cinnamon to give it a bit of taste if you like but water doesn't make it manky

ninjabox

Here's how you calculate your calories:

1. get your lean body mass:

Lean Body Mass (LBM) = [total weight (kg) x (100 - bodyfat%)]/100

You can get a gym to calculate your % body fat.

2. get your basal metabolic rate (BMR). Your BMR is the amount of calories you expend each day by simply being alive, if you stayed in bed all day you would still burn this amount of calories:

Basal Metabolic Rate = 370 + (21.6 x LBM)

3. Then you need to assess how active you are:

1.2 = Sedentary (Desk job, and Little Formal Exercise)
1.3-1.4 = Lightly Active (Light daily activity AND light exercise 1-3 days a week)
1.5-1.6 = Moderately Active (Moderately daily Activity & Moderate exercise 3-5 days a week)
1.7-1.8 = Very Active (Physically demanding lifestyle & Hard exercise 6-7 days a week)
1.9-2.2 = Extremely Active (Athlete in ENDURANCE training or VERY HARD physical job)

4. Multiply your BMR by your activity to get your maintenance calories:

Maintenance Calories = BMR x 1.4

5. Now you know roughly how many calories you would need to eat to maintain your current weight. So depending on whether you want to lose or gain weight you add or subtract 20% from this figure.

source: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=156380183

The most important thing is that your are eating healthy though. Not all calories are created equal and the dangerous thing about calorie counting is that some people believe its OK to substitute an avocado for a beer. Its not obviously.

Also I HATE calorie counting so what I tend to do is eat roughly the same monday-to-friday, and then just eat healthy at the weekends without calorie counting. This new approach has been working much better for me than counting everything I eat.

cruhoortwunk

conzy wrote: »

3 cups a day with a staggering 35.5ml (shotglass sized) dose of milk, 7 days a week is 313 calories.. A negligible amount in the grand scheme of things and doing without milk would be hard to adhere to.

Doing without 3 slices of white bread or one snickers bar in a week is a lot easier to adhere to and creates the same calorie deficit.

Its funny how people sacrifice butter on their spuds or sugar on their cereal thinking they are being great and then go and eat a 250g portion of pasta.

Its about controlling the largest staples of your diet, then the rest will fall into place.

Trying to create a calorie defecit by dropping milk in your tea or ketchup on your dinner are only pissing in the wind

I'm all for cutting down on bread too, but the OP didn't mention bread, so you're off on a tangent there. Nor did they mention pasta.
They did however mention potatoes, which is a staple that they may well be having too much of. And I suggested to cut down or replace with sweet potato.
But you seem to be in the mood to disagree, so who am I to stop you

cruhoortwunk

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

I never found a problem with porridge made with water. Thought i would but it was fine. Throw in a bit of cinnamon to give it a bit of taste if you like but water doesn't make it manky

Agree on porridge with water. You feel just as full but it's definitely healthier without milk
Fire in some banana, blueberries or pear to give some taste to it

Mellor

cruhoortwunk wrote: »

They did however mention potatoes, which is a staple that they may well be having too much of. And I suggested to cut down or replace with sweet potato.

They didn't give quantities or portion sized so we don't know if it actually is to much. But it might be.
And if thats the case, and they swap to sweet potato, then they will still be eating too much. So that makes little sense tbh.

I eat sweet potatos often enough btw, but I still think a lot of the advantages people talk about are nonsense. Not all of them, just the ones you hear a lot.

cruhoortwunk

Mellor wrote: »

They didn't give quantities or portion sized so we don't know if it actually is to much. But it might be.
And if thats the case, and they swap to sweet potato, then they will still be eating too much. So that makes little sense tbh.

I eat sweet potatos often enough btw, but I still think a lot of the advantages people talk about are nonsense. Not all of them, just the ones you hear a lot.

They may not necessarily be much better but some kind of variety is good. Instead of the same staple every single day.
Sweet potatoes have less carbs and less calories:
http://health.clevelandclinic.org/2013/03/white-potatoes-vs-sweet-potatoes-which-is-healthier/

Mellor

cruhoortwunk wrote: »

They may not necessarily be much better but some kind of variety is good. Instead of the same staple every single day.
Sweet potatoes have less carbs and less calories:
http://health.clevelandclinic.org/2013/03/white-potatoes-vs-sweet-potatoes-which-is-healthier/

Afraid not.
I'm not sure where that article got its numbers from but the author would need to do better research. Potatoes aren't 120 cals per 100. So either they didn't notice the different serving size, or they are plain lying.

The difference between the two isn't much but sweet potatoes are higher in carbs, calories and fibre.