Struggling to lose weight / general fitness

ClarkGriswald

Looking for some advise here.... I'm 35 and have always been one to put on some weight but could quite easily lose it with a few months training.

However last year the wife had a baby and I haven't really been doing much training of any kind, as a result I have put on about 2.5 stone and it's pretty noticeable.

So one of my workmates actually said "Jesus man you are piling on the pounds" and that was it, my trigger to get exercising again.

Normally I would run about three times a week with about 2 days of weights and a day or two on the punchbag, it'd take about 2 months and i'd have lost about 2 stone and i'd be back to a pretty good level of fitness.

This time however I am finding it a REAL struggle, I have been training for about a month now but my fitness is not improving as I would expect and the weight is not dropping too much either. I am watching what I eat, i'd have a pretty good understanding about nutrition but I am really struggling to see results at the moment.

Am I just getting older and my metabolism slowing down or what?

Stheno

Post up an average days diet, your height and weight.

Also check out the stickies on here to understand how much you should be eating to lose weight and use my fitnesspal to log what you eat.

ClarkGriswald

i'm 5' 11" weight 14 stone

Today for example

Breakfast: 2 x scrambled egg with milk

Snack @ 11: banana and apple

Lunch: Brown Bread Roll with turkey, ham, egg mayo and cheese

Snack @ 4pm: Banana

Dinner: Oven cooked chips, beans and two pork chops

Each day would be similar to this.

Stheno

ClarkGriswald wrote: »

i'm 5' 11" weight 14 stone

Today for example

Breakfast: 2 x scrambled egg with milk

Snack @ 11: banana and apple

Lunch: Brown Bread Roll with turkey, ham, egg mayo and cheese

Snack @ 4pm: Banana

Dinner: Oven cooked chips, beans and two pork chops

Each day would be similar to this.

Breakfast looks fine

Fruit is a lot of sugar, and I'd wonder at the amount of calories in that roll.

Could you swap the banana in the afternoon for some nuts/veg?

Do you have chips everyday?

Also there is no veg at all in your diet, you could start including veg to bulk up meals and reduce calories.

What about tea/coffee/alcohol?

ClarkGriswald

Thanks Stheno,

No wouldn't have chips every day, would normally try and have wholewheat rice or noodles but today it was just chips.

I think i may be eating too much fruit in that case, if i'm hungry i'd have that as a snack so some days could have two or three bananas and apples. I'll try an add some almonds and veg.

What would use instead of a roll or bread for lunches, some days i don't get to make a healthy lunch to bring and am at the mercy of the local deli counter?

Stheno

ClarkGriswald wrote: »

Thanks Stheno,

No wouldn't have chips every day, would normally try and have wholewheat rice or noodles but today it was just chips.

I think i may be eating too much fruit in that case, if i'm hungry i'd have that as a snack so some days could have two or three bananas and apples. I'll try an add some almonds and veg.

What would use instead of a roll or bread for lunches, some days i don't get to make a healthy lunch to bring and am at the mercy of the local deli counter?

Ah I'm not the best at this, just basic info I've given you there

Salad from the deli? Cold chicken and cheese with lots of veg? Most delis do salad boxes of some kind?

And veg with dinner would also be good You could add some too to your eggs in the morning

ClarkGriswald

Cheers for that Stheno, I'll give it a bash over the next week and see how it goes.

Stheno

ClarkGriswald wrote: »

Cheers for that Stheno, I'll give it a bash over the next week and see how it goes.

Don't forget to signup for myfitnesspal and track every morsel that goes into your mouth One you have that and know what amount you should be eating, the fog may clear.

NIMAN

ClarkGriswald wrote: »

i'm 5' 11" weight 14 stone

Today for example

Breakfast: 2 x scrambled egg with milk

Snack @ 11: banana and apple

Lunch: Brown Bread Roll with turkey, ham, egg mayo and cheese

Snack @ 4pm: Banana

Dinner: Oven cooked chips, beans and two pork chops

Each day would be similar to this.

I'm no fitness guru, but that diet looks fine to me.

nice_guy80

Are you being honest about the food though?
what are the portion sizes?
do you drink fizzy and sports drinks?
nothing wrong with eating the whole fruit as you get the fibre as it's digested

Essien

Portion size is key here.

Your diet seems fine, not perfect, but who's is? Id say it's simply a case of marginally over consuming on a couple of things. If I had to guess, I'd be looking at the mayo, bread roll and oven chips. The calories in those will rack up quickly if you're not careful.

I'd say track your calories for a bit to see what you're consuming, but I doubt a drastic change is in order.

Mellor

There's no way a diet line that caused 2.5kg weight gain in a few months.

ShadowHearth

Diet is not too bad, but like anything, it could be improved. On the other hand, having perfect diet is almost impossible.

Just 2 cents from me:

Maybe swap banana to an orange or another apple. If I am not mistaken bananas are the heaviest fruits and you can rack up calories with those bad boys very easily.
Mayo can be very dodgy when you looking in to calories. An extra spoon and you got a ton of calories wasted.
Be very careful with rice and portion sizes. It is a lesser evil then potato, but it can rack up calories like a **** truck. Specially when people make a lot bigger portions then should. Rice is very easy to overdose! I remember when I added rice in to my diet ( it was pure salads) I noticed right away that I was losing a lot less weight.
Try eating more salad/veg combo instead of chips/pasta/rice. You can load up on veg as it's very low on calories, but it will stuff you like a xmas goose.

Edit: oh, and add some boiled eggs in your diet. Those bad boys are just plain awesome. For the calories they have, they keep you full for very very long time. In fact, that's one of the best breakfast options you can have!

Essien

Mellor wrote: »

There's no way a diet line that caused 2.5kg weight gain in a few months.

The way I read it is that the diet he's outlined is what he's eating now to lose weight. I'm assuming it was very different during the weight gain period.

averagejoe123

Start keeping a food diary and monitor your calories. There are a lot of great apps out there to assist with this.

I'm a numbers guy so I will explain it in a way that makes sense to me. Note that this operates off the assumption that you are an average male with a Recommended Daily Allowance of 2,500 calories a day. (This figure may be slightly off but if you give me your height, weight and activity levels I will recalculate).

You put on 2.5 stone in 1 year. 2.5 stone is 35 pounds. Studies show that one pound is equal to roughly 3,500 calories. Therefore in the year you consumed 122,500 calories (35*3,500) over your recommended daily allowance over the course of the year. This averages at 335 calories (122,500/365) a day over your recommended allowance.

In order to lose the 2.5 stone in the next year you will need to operate at an average deficit of 335 a day i.e reduce your daily calorie allowance to 2,165 (2,500-335) per day for the year.

If you wanted to lose the weight in 9 months you would need to drop your average calorie intake to 2,060. 6 month would be 1,830.

Regular exercise will also assist with weight loss and increase the calorie deficit. From experience I find that dropping calorie intake below 1,800-2,000 per day is relatively easy once you educate yourself on what foods to eat and making simple changes in your diet, eg a brown bread sambo vs a roll could be 100-200 less. Read the stickies and educate yourself about making better food choices.

RobertKK

averagejoe123 wrote: »

Start keeping a food diary and monitor your calories. There are a lot of great apps out there to assist with this.

I'm a numbers guy so I will explain it in a way that makes sense to me. Note that this operates off the assumption that you are an average male with a Recommended Daily Allowance of 2,500 calories a day. (This figure may be slightly off but if you give me your height, weight and activity levels I will recalculate).

You put on 2.5 stone in 1 year. 2.5 stone is 35 pounds. Studies show that one pound is equal to roughly 3,500 calories. Therefore in the year you consumed 122,500 calories (35*3,500) over your recommended daily allowance over the course of the year. This averages at 335 calories (122,500/365) a day over your recommended allowance.

In order to lose the 2.5 stone in the next year you will need to operate at an average deficit of 335 a day i.e reduce your daily calorie allowance to 2,165 (2,500-335) per day for the year.

If you wanted to lose the weight in 9 months you would need to drop your average calorie intake to 2,060. 6 month would be 1,830.

Regular exercise will also assist with weight loss and increase the calorie deficit. From experience I find that dropping calorie intake below 1,800-2,000 per day is relatively easy once you educate yourself on what foods to eat and making simple changes in your diet, eg a brown bread sambo vs a roll could be 100-200 less. Read the stickies and educate yourself about making better food choices.

I downloaded a great app (in my opinion) today.
MyFitnessPal.

To the OP, I would keep the fruit. I think a banana is a great snack.

TrionaH

I remember from previous weight loss plans that bananas aren't recommended. Probably due to high sugar content, which fruit has in general.

Best of luck with your journey. It's not easy but take it day by day and remember the long term skinny-feeling gain will far outweigh the pain!

Poster2014

With the regular exercise it's always good idea to do something you enjoy. It makes it less of a chore that way! Social leagues can be a great way to accomplish this it's what I find best or going to the gym/for a run with a pal

jennyjoy

Glad to hear you are getting back into the swing of things. It is hard getting back sometimes. If you need a little motivator I did P90x and it was great. It came with a schedule to keep you on track and it also comes with a meal plan to help you eat better. This really helped me get back in to working out and I think it will help you as well. Good luck and stick with it.