Should this work?

AnSliabhCorcra

Hi there,

I'm just looking for a bit of feedback/guidance where applicable!

I'm 26 years old and am looking to loose roughly 2 stone and 'trim' up! I hadn't really gone to the gym before but I've since signed up for an annual subscription due to their lovely swimming pool (i'm a good and fairly strong swimmer). I'm booked in for a Personal Trainer session in 2 weeks but have currently planned my 'every-day' routine and wondered whether anybody might give their opinion on it?

Cycling: I cycle to work frequently at present, thus, I will cycle 4 days a week 5KM each way.
Swimming: I aim to swim roughly 3-4 times a week (20 minutes of actual swimming, 10 floating and breathing lol)

Gym: After the personal trainer session, I'd plan to 'work out' twice per week.

So, by cycling 40km per week, swimming 3-4 times and 'working out' 2 times, should I expect to achieve my goal of loosing 2 stone and trimming up?

I eat fairly healthily and would like to operate some sort of routine that's practical and ties in with my general life. I don't see the point in ''dieting'' to then give it up; lifestyle change over quick-fix.

Thanks

PS: I should note that the gym/pool is next door to work, so swimming for instance may be a lunch break thing.

ahnowbrowncow

So you already cycle around 40km a week but are 2 stone heavier than you want to be?

A few extra swimming and gym sessions probably won't lose you 2 stone unless you correct your diet.

AnSliabhCorcra

ahnowbrowncow wrote: »

So you already cycle around 40km a week but are 2 stone heavier than you want to be?

A few extra swimming and gym sessions probably won't lose you 2 stone unless you correct your diet.

No, i'm not cycling every day to work at present. I'd be cycling 1 or 2 days max at present but due to a move, shall be using it as my every day option.

Alf Veedersane

Activity you enjoy is always good.

Also, you're right that any change in what you eat should be sustainable.

But your nutrition holds the key to losing the weight.

If you post what a typical dday's food is, then some guidance can be offered on it. I'd also suggest downloading the MyFitnessPal app and track what you eat and drink in that. Not as a long-term solution but as a tool to help you get an understanding of what's in what you eat both in terms of calories and also carbs, protein and fat.

Irishcrx

It's all in the diet , lotd of people think what they are eating is fine until they actually look at it in detail.

To lose weight you eat under maintenance , take your body weight in pounds and x by 15, that's in and around your maintenance calories per day. To lose weight you need to eat 20 percent under that and track what you are eating , exercise will only help the cause but diet will lose the weight.

Track your progress and make adjustments as you go , read up on weight loss , calories , diet and nutrition. Lots of people go to the gym , see no change and give up.

The correct way is diet sorted first , then the gym...good luck

AnSliabhCorcra

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

Activity you enjoy is always good.

Also, you're right that any change in what you eat should be sustainable.

But your nutrition holds the key to losing the weight.

If you post what a typical dday's food is, then some guidance can be offered on it. I'd also suggest downloading the MyFitnessPal app and track what you eat and drink in that. Not as a long-term solution but as a tool to help you get an understanding of what's in what you eat both in terms of calories and also carbs, protein and fat.

Hi, thanks for the reply. So, a typical day may be as follows:

Morning: 2 slices of toast with margarine and jam/marmelade, 1 or 2 cups of tea with milk,

Lunch: 1 x sandwich (chicken, salad, mayo) and coffee

Dinner: Normal dinners, usually some form of carb, so roasted vegetables(with some potatoes) and a meat, chilli con carne, lasagne with salad - something along those lines

Snacks: chewing gum, biscuit, maybe once or twice per week a cake/tart kind of thing.

Alf Veedersane

Without quantities of those it's hard to assess what your calorie intake is like but to shed the two stone you're going to have to reduce your intake rather than try and burn it off with exercise. You won't burn off two stone anyway.

That said, activity will have all sorts of health benefits so it's great that you're planning on getting more active and doing some weight training.


Your diet does look a bit carb-heavy though.

Transform

AnSliabhCorcra wrote: »

Hi, thanks for the reply. So, a typical day may be as follows:

Morning: 2 slices of toast with margarine and jam/marmelade, 1 or 2 cups of tea with milk,

Lunch: 1 x sandwich (chicken, salad, mayo) and coffee

Dinner: Normal dinners, usually some form of carb, so roasted vegetables(with some potatoes) and a meat, chilli con carne, lasagne with salad - something along those lines

Snacks: chewing gum, biscuit, maybe once or twice per week a cake/tart kind of thing.

what do you think you need to change?

You said you eat pretty healthy so where do you fall down with your nutrition?

liam24

I have cracked the secret to losing weight - I should probably write a book about it. It's as simple as this:

1. Ingest between 1500-1800 calories a day, but it can be whatever you want.
2. Eat a satisfying, filling breakfast, about 500-600 calories worth. I usually have 3 weetabix, a glass of orange juice with vitamin pills, and a cup of black coffee with toast and cheese spread.
3. If you get hungry during the day, on two or three occasions, drink a cup of tea or coffee with a 100 calorie snack - a small choc bar or a slice of toast with butter, or my favourite is a cream cracker with cheese spread and jalapeno peppers on top. Or have a cup-a-soup.
4. Fill yourself up with low/no calorie things like pepsi max and sugar-free jelly, or lick the flavour off of crisps. It's actually very satisfying.
5. Eat whatever you like for dinner, as long as your daily total stays under the recommended calories. I often eat a 600 calorie pizza and have a packet of m&ms after it. I also like making quesadillas or pasta or whatever.

The key is, don't deprive yourself of what you're craving. You should probably also eat some fruit for nutrition purposes.

Dtp1979

liam24 wrote: »

I have cracked the secret to losing weight - I should probably write a book about it. It's as simple as this:

1. Ingest between 1500-1800 calories a day, but it can be whatever you want.
2. Eat a satisfying, filling breakfast, about 500-600 calories worth. I usually have 3 weetabix, a glass of orange juice with vitamin pills, and a cup of black coffee with toast and cheese spread.
3. If you get hungry during the day, on two or three occasions, drink a cup of tea or coffee with a 100 calorie snack - a small choc bar or a slice of toast with butter, or my favourite is a cream cracker with cheese spread and jalapeno peppers on top. Or have a cup-a-soup.
4. Fill yourself up with low/no calorie things like pepsi max and sugar-free jelly, or lick the flavour off of crisps. It's actually very satisfying.
5. Eat whatever you like for dinner, as long as your daily total stays under the recommended calories. I often eat a 600 calorie pizza and have a packet of m&ms after it. I also like making quesadillas or pasta or whatever.

The key is, don't deprive yourself of what you're craving. You should probably also eat some fruit for nutrition purposes.

You might lose weight but you won't be healthy

Transform

liam24 wrote: »

I have cracked the secret to losing weight - I should probably write a book about it. It's as simple as this:

1. Ingest between 1500-1800 calories a day, but it can be whatever you want.
2. Eat a satisfying, filling breakfast, about 500-600 calories worth. I usually have 3 weetabix, a glass of orange juice with vitamin pills, and a cup of black coffee with toast and cheese spread.
3. If you get hungry during the day, on two or three occasions, drink a cup of tea or coffee with a 100 calorie snack - a small choc bar or a slice of toast with butter, or my favourite is a cream cracker with cheese spread and jalapeno peppers on top. Or have a cup-a-soup.
4. Fill yourself up with low/no calorie things like pepsi max and sugar-free jelly, or lick the flavour off of crisps. It's actually very satisfying.
5. Eat whatever you like for dinner, as long as your daily total stays under the recommended calories. I often eat a 600 calorie pizza and have a packet of m&ms after it. I also like making quesadillas or pasta or whatever.

The key is, don't deprive yourself of what you're craving. You should probably also eat some fruit for nutrition purposes.

oh lord - i dont even know where to start with this

liam24

Dtp1979 wrote: »

You might lose weight but you won't be healthy

I think that's about as healthy as what the average person eats. People have an idea you suddenly have to start eating buckets of celery or spinach if you want to lose weight. You can eat that if you want, there are hardly any calories in it.

liam24

Transform wrote: »

oh lord - i dont even know where to start with this

Well I lost two stone in two months doing it, so I guess it works!

Alf Veedersane

Needs more Twinkies.

syklops

AnSliabhCorcra wrote: »

Hi, thanks for the reply. So, a typical day may be as follows:

Morning: 2 slices of toast with margarine and jam/marmelade, 1 or 2 cups of tea with milk,

Lunch: 1 x sandwich (chicken, salad, mayo) and coffee

Dinner: Normal dinners, usually some form of carb, so roasted vegetables(with some potatoes) and a meat, chilli con carne, lasagne with salad - something along those lines

Snacks: chewing gum, biscuit, maybe once or twice per week a cake/tart kind of thing.

So with breakfast you have 2 cups of tea and you have a cup of coffee with lunch. What else do you drink in the coarse of your day to drink?

Mellor

AnSliabhCorcra wrote: »

So, by cycling 40km per week, swimming 3-4 times and 'working out' 2 times, should I expect to achieve my goal of loosing 2 stone and trimming up?

That’s definitely a good amount of activity. How effective it will be comes down to the intensity, but it’s a great start.
However, all the activity in the world won;t get results if the diet isn’t in check.

I eat fairly healthily and would like to operate some sort of routine that's practical and ties in with my general life. I don't see the point in ''dieting'' to then give it up; lifestyle change over quick-fix.

To be blunt, if you actually ate fairly healthily, then you wouldn’t be in a position where you want/need to lose two stone.
Maybe the extra activity will be enough to push a small surplus into a small deficit and weight could come off slowly. But you really want to fix the underlying issue.

A good diet doesn’t mean dieting – especially not in the glossy magazine sense.

AnSliabhCorcra wrote: »

Morning: 2 slices of toast with margarine and jam/marmelade, 1 or 2 cups of tea with milk,
Lunch: 1 x sandwich (chicken, salad, mayo) and coffee
Dinner: Normal dinners, usually some form of carb, so roasted vegetables(with some potatoes) and a meat, chilli con carne, lasagne with salad - something along those lines
Snacks: chewing gum, biscuit, maybe once or twice per week a cake/tart kind of thing.

I’ll let you reply to some of the questions above on your intake first, but consider this; Normal dinners sound perfectly reasonable, yet it’s increasingly normal to be slightly overweight.

Mellor

liam24 wrote: »

I think that's about as healthy as what the average person eats. People have an idea you suddenly have to start eating buckets of celery or spinach if you want to lose weight. You can eat that if you want, there are hardly any calories in it.

The average persons doesn't eat very healthy at all, so not being worse than that isn't much of an achievement.

Eating what ever you want for breakfast and dinner, skipping lunch, filling the gaps with a packet of m&ms and licking crisps is hardly a good approach. You know this.

liam24 wrote: »

Well I lost two stone in two months doing it, so I guess it works!

I know somebody who had a pretty bad heroin addiction relapse.
You'd hardly recognaise them, lost a load of weight, So I guess heroine works too.

liam24

Mellor wrote: »

The average persons doesn't eat very healthy at all, so not being worse than that isn't much of an achievement.

Eating what ever you want for breakfast and dinner, skipping lunch, filling the gaps with a packet of m&ms and licking crisps is hardly a good approach. You know this.


I know somebody who had a pretty bad heroin addiction relapse.
You'd hardly recognaise them, lost a load of weight, So I guess heroine works too.

Well my basic message is if you want to lose weight, eat whatever you want as long as you count calories. Sometimes you want pizza - eat pizza. Sometimes you're depressed and want chocolate, eat chocolate. You want to get drunk - skip dinner and go out and drink five pints of guinness.

I gave examples of what you might try if you're slowly weaning yourself off junk food, like me. I also eat plenty of egg whites, greens and blueberries for nutritional purposes.

Mellor

liam24 wrote: »

Well my basic message is if you want to lose weight, eat whatever you want as long as you count calories.

That's the part that I'd consider to fundamentally flawed on a number of levels.

It’s fine to occasionally have pizza, or a burger, or whatever – if you account for the calories there will be little impact overall. However you presented it as an everyday approach. That’s simply a cock-up waiting to happen.
Ultimately energy balance (calories) is the most important aspect of weight loss/gain. So IF the calorie target is stuck to, then pizza & chocolate and real food approaches might not show similar results.
But in practise, that’s not going to happen. By trying to make up your 1800 cals in junk food, you’ll are way more likely overshoot your target. It’s very easy to slip in an extra 300-500 cals when you dealing in pizza and chocolate.
You are probably more likely to give in to cravings and have blowout days.

I gave examples of what you might try if you're slowly weaning yourself off junk food, like me. I also eat plenty of egg whites, greens and blueberries for nutritional purposes.

The example day you listed had none of those things. I was commenting on the 1800 or so calories you posted.

If my allowance was 1800, I wouldn’t be eating 600 at breakfast.
If I was eating a 600 calorie breakfast post training, I use them a lot better than the above (weetabix, orange juice, a slice of toast and cheese spread)
3 eggs, 100g chicken or beef, avocado, fresh tomato and bean salsa...600 cals.

Alf Veedersane

liam24 wrote: »

I have cracked the secret to losing weight - I should probably write a book about it. It's as simple as this:

1. Ingest between 1500-1800 calories a day, but it can be whatever you want.
2. Eat a satisfying, filling breakfast, about 500-600 calories worth. I usually have 3 weetabix, a glass of orange juice with vitamin pills, and a cup of black coffee with toast and cheese spread.
3. If you get hungry during the day, on two or three occasions, drink a cup of tea or coffee with a 100 calorie snack - a small choc bar or a slice of toast with butter, or my favourite is a cream cracker with cheese spread and jalapeno peppers on top. Or have a cup-a-soup.
4. Fill yourself up with low/no calorie things like pepsi max and sugar-free jelly, or lick the flavour off of crisps. It's actually very satisfying.
5. Eat whatever you like for dinner, as long as your daily total stays under the recommended calories. I often eat a 600 calorie pizza and have a packet of m&ms after it. I also like making quesadillas or pasta or whatever.

The key is, don't deprive yourself of what you're craving. You should probably also eat some fruit for nutrition purposes.

But for most people that try to eat like that, there almost certainly would be cravings during the day even allowing themselves the pizza.

I understand that you're trying to say that once you're withing your calorie allowance, you're golden. But there are smarter ways to go about it.

If the approach you outlined worked for you, then that's great. But for the majority of people it would be too hard. Have a big breakfast and then prop the day up on low-cal snacks like Pepsi Max and sugar-free jelly?

It doesn't really seem like a good way to go about weaning yourself off junk food where the day is based around allowing yourself junk food in the evening (what size is a 600 kcal pizza by the way? 6"?)

Food quality and calorie counting tend to be inextricably linked. Food quality isa big determinant in your ability to over-consume calories.
If you eat a load of of calorie-dense, very palatable foods that don't satiate yoiu need to be very, very diligent about tracking calories will be necessary to maintain a caloric deficit.

The better the food quality, the easier it is to manage the calorie balance.

You don't have to eat clean 100% of the time but advocating a big breakfast with low-cal snacks to prop up the rest of the day until a junk meal isn't going to get most people very far.

Transform

liam24 wrote: »

Well I lost two stone in two months doing it, so I guess it works!

and ive a rake of clients that didnt eat like that at all and have lost more than what you have and can now perform squats, deadlifts etc and have decent levels of conditioning.

Your points are not without merit e.g. most people simply need to eat less, agreed but overall your suggestions are without any proper structure or base knowledge what so ever

Zillah

I'm happy to say that any food advice that involves licking the flavour off crisps is fit to be ignored.

A - Most people will fail completely to lose weight on a diet like that because they'll eat too many calories accidentally, and they'll be too hungry.
B - Even if you did lose weight you're probably going to be horribly unhealthy anyway.
C - I seriously doubt that any weight you lose is going to stay off because you haven't solved the heart of the problem (eating poorly).

Transform

Zillah wrote: »

I'm happy to say that any food advice that involves licking the flavour off crisps is fit to be ignored.

A - Most people will fail completely to lose weight on a diet like that because they'll eat too many calories accidentally, and they'll be too hungry.
B - Even if you did lose weight you're probably going to be horribly unhealthy anyway.
C - I seriously doubt that any weight you lose is going to stay off because you haven't solved the heart of the problem (eating poorly).

big time agree.

liam24

Transform wrote: »

and ive a rake of clients that didnt eat like that at all and have lost more than what you have and can now perform squats, deadlifts etc and have decent levels of conditioning.

He wants to lose weight. He didn't mention anything else. If you've spent the last 3 years eating rubbish, and want to lose weight quickly, I'm telling how to do it without going cold turkey. If you've been eating rubbish for 3 years, what's 3 more months? Isn't that why most people fail? Because they try to cut out everything and end up craving stuff. I never crave anything.

Eat fewer calories and exercise more. People try to embellish it, but that's just people trying to take your money off you.

Alf Veedersane

liam24 wrote: »

If you've been eating rubbish for 3 years, what's 3 more months?

So what happens at the end of that 3 months?

liam24

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

So what happens at the end of that 3 months?

You can wean yourself off it slowly. And once you've lost weight, you've got leeway to eat more calories anyway. Don't try to tell me that a standard 2500 calorie daily intake doesn't have room for a bar of chocolate.

If you're in cold sweats because you're a fatty who needs his nightly Doritos, I'm saying lick the flavour off them and then eat the little scraps at the end. It's almost as satisfying. That's practical and realistic advice right there.

Alf Veedersane

liam24 wrote: »

You can wean yourself off it slowly. And once you've lost weight, you've got leeway to eat more calories anyway. Don't try to tell me that a standard 2500 calorie daily intake doesn't have room for a bar of chocolate.

If you're in cold sweats because you're a fatty who needs his nightly Doritos, I'm saying lick the flavour off them and then eat the little scraps at the end. It's almost as satisfying. That's practical and realistic advice right there.

Once you've lost weiught, your body needs fewer calories.

And 2,500 calories isn't a one-size fits all.

As for the advice to lick Doritos because you have a need for them - it's not realistic. Or even really all that practical. If you crave eating Dorits, you're highly unlikely to stop at licking them.

liam24

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

(what size is a 600 kcal pizza by the way? 6"?)

http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=261384030

Bigger than that. Very satisfying. You can also add some greens etc. on the side.

liam24

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

Once you've lost weiught, your body needs fewer calories.

And 2,500 calories isn't a one-size fits all.

As for the advice to lick Doritos because you have a need for them - it's not realistic. Or even really all that practical. If you crave eating Dorits, you're highly unlikely to stop at licking them.

Ok, it works for me. That's all I'm saying.

Alf Veedersane

liam24 wrote: »

Ok, it works for me. That's all I'm saying.

Yeah but you do realise that there are a lot of people who don't think they have to eat a bucket of spinach a day to lose weight.

There are a lot of tasty healthy foods that you can eat that will leave you fuller for longer and with fewer calories than pizza.

liam24

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

Yeah but you do realise that there are a lot of people who don't think they have to eat a bucket of spinach a day to lose weight.

There are a lot of tasty healthy foods that you can eat that will leave you fuller for longer and with fewer calories than pizza.

Until their mouth starts watering in Tesco and they come home with a bag of Doritos and a tub of ice cream.