wez_sti

right, i'm trying to lose the weight i put on when i moved out through takeaways and ready meals.

been jogging about 2miles a day and cut down on chocolate, snacks, beer etc...

seems to be working, slowly though!

the thing is, for lunch i love cheese toasties, with onion, tuna or Marmite!

it a choice between them and a tuna sandwich. will i really benifit that much by putting up with tuna sanwiches whilst i get the weight down, or will a cheese toastie a day not really hurt???

normal food for a day is normally something like

cereal breakfast ie coco pops/shreddies (in Non skimmed milk unfortunately) ,

either a tuna or cheese sandwich/toastie

then a typical dinner, sometimes lasagne, salad, speggheti bolognase, burger and chips etc...

with minimal snacking between meals

is that excessive?

i'm 5" 9" and 13st if that helps

Diablo

Its not the volume mate, its the crap you are eating

Go to semi skimmed, and cut down on the pasta and chips.

wez_sti

rarely have chips really, normally ask for baked potato instead. thought pasta was good, esp if exercising?

LG John

Breakfast has WAY to much simple sugars. Try something like bran flakes or at the very least cornflakes which don't have the sugar coating of frosties, etc (don't add suger ). Better yet go for porridge. I recently tried original oats so simple (3 mins in the microwave) and within days I developed a real taste for it. I really enjoy a bowl now and its MUCH better for you than the other crap.

A tuna sanny on wholegrain bread would be far better than a cheese toastie but if you don't go wild with the cheese (like I would ) then its not the end of the world.

Your dinner isn't the best either. I'm seeing LOTS of fat in the meals you suggest and absolutely bag loads of carbs!! Try having more protein based foods at tea time and carbs for lunch. Chicken, meats, etc would be best

ChrisB

Another thumbs up for porridge here.

You can have a bag of Mornflake Oats for sub 50p which will last a week or two. Fills me up much better than anything like Frosties. With Frosties or similar, I find myself hungry by 11.30ish. A bowl of porridge and it's more like 12.30 before I'm hunting for my sarnies.

milo

be careful of things like oats so simple. while they're better than frosted flakes, they're not great. they generally contain a LOT of sugars too.

regular oats are FAR better. take it in water to avoid the simple sugars in milk.

LG John

One word milo: Compromise

milo

its not that its excessive necessarily, more that it's a very poor diet.

3 meals a day won't cut it.. you need 6-8 SMALLER meals with cleaner food. eating burgers and chips and expecting fat loss is crazy.

at your weight you should be looking at taking in 2000-2500 calories a day to lose weight depending on your metabolism. these should come from clean food sources such as brown rice, chicken, lean beef, tuna, oily fish, oats, flax, cod liver oil etc etc and should be split up into 6-8 small meals throughout the day.

with your current diet, even through slight calorie deficit, i would be AMAZED if you're able to lose much fat without catabolising your lean mass.

milo

compromise on diet = compromise on results

corradoboy

Get rid of the carbs completely and go Atkins. I lost 4 1/2 stone in 4 months, and am now in full control of my weight for the first time in my life.

Example of today....

Brekkie...
3x bacon, 2x turkey sausages (all grilled), 2 eggs, mushroom, tomato(fried in olive oil). Cup of decaf tea with unsweetened soya milk and sacharin sweetener.

Lunch...
Smoked Mackerel, mixed salad leaves, assorted pickles, baby corns. Another cuppa.

Dinner...
2x minted lamb chops (grilled), cauliflour, broccolli, carrots. Yet another cuppa.

Haven't felt hungry all day and only ate because it was mealtime. Supplemented drinks with approx 2 litres of water.

Notice there is virtually no carb (small amount in carrot) but lots of veg, and any meats are cooked to lower fat content. If you eat both fat/protein and carb, your body will process the carbs first leading to a spike in insulin production. As the carbs are exhausted and the insulin levels naturally drop, your brain is tricked into thinking you are hungry and encourages you to eat before any of the fats and proteins are used, and so stores them. By reducing carbs to such a low level, the brain cannot discern fluctuations in insulin levels and thus when the ingested carb is used up, moves on to the fat/protein both eaten and stored. Result, weight loss.

Cue Atkins bashers

milo

not good for cutting diets particularly. the gi of potatos and pasta is higher than that of other carb sources such as brown rice and oats.

additionally, an abundance of carbs does not usually translate well into fat loss.

suggest you should be lowering your carb intake somewhat, particularly simple sugars, and upping your intake of protein and good fats.

wez_sti

mmmm,

lots of different opinions. cant see the atkins diet being healthy long term though surely???

CraigH

Not an Atkins basher, but......

If this no carb diet is so fantastic, why:

don't any top class athletes/sportsmen use it
and
throughout mans evolution why has a balanced meal been the mainstay of nutrition? You need protein, carbs and fat in balanced quantities, cutting one out virtually altogether is surely a bad sign? Theres no long term evidence on "these" diets is there? Or have the people in the Atkins study suddenly keeled over and died?

Isn't sposed to provoke a raft of Atkins haters, but that comment to me seems common sense, always willing to be proved wrong though (if I am I "may"l exercise my german right to ignore it )

milo

its not designed as a long-term diet. its a temporary cutting diet.

atkins is not great as you'll end up with catabolising your muscle - BUT the logic behind it (ketosis - cue telboy) is solid. thats why more are doing cyclical ketogenic diets, or timed carb diets. timed carb works EXTREMELY well for those lifting weights.

weapon69

Just go to weightwatchers online or something.

milo

practically all bodybuilders use variations of low/no-carb diets while cutting. plus many athletes who need to make weight grades use it for cutting. for example, olympic wrestlers, olympic weight lifters etc etc.


you think cavemen were eating potatos and rice? all they had were meat and vegetation. and that was back when you had to be fit to survive. practically all they allegedly eat was protein and fats.


bodybuilders have been using them for several decades now. in the "mainstream" there isn't long term evidence tho, you're right. but then, these diets are NOT for the average joe who doesn't work out imo.

LG John

Timed carb diets??? I'd guess this means taking carbs at specific times of the day to relate to specific activities?

Milo, just checked the back of oatso simple and it is as follows (remember this is 'original' not the flavoured stuff):

Per 100g

Protein - 11g
Carb - 60g
Of which suger - 1g
Fat - 8.5g
Of which Saturated - 1.5g
Fibre- 9g
of which soluble - 3.6g

Seems not bad to me

Alas

A cheese toastie is fine m8. Just make it with thick slice of fresh bread, butter, 3 rashers of bacon, beans and topped with nice mature cheddar under the grill.
Yuuuuummmmm
Alas

milo

weightwatchers will lose you all your lean mass. 2 shakes a day and a small meal - of COURSE you're going to lose weight... but the wrong kind of weight. additionally you run the risk of shutting down your metabolism and as soon as you eat normally again, you're screwed.

corradoboy

Not exactly long term, but I've followed it for 2 years now. The intense weight loss stage where carbs are limited to as little as 20g a day (never got that **** and measured them) should only be followed for a maximum of 6 months. I now follow a looser diet based strongly on the Atkins principal at home, but when I eat out I have whatever I want. As long as you don't do the silly meat only route and have lots of green veg and salad leaves and reduce the fats in meat sensibly then I don't see why it isn't healthy. It's certainly more healthy then being almost 5 stone overweight. So what if I don't eat bread, rice, pasta, potatos etc, I'm in full control of my weight and have never felt better. I also did absolutely no exercise whilst I was loosing the weight too, but now I'm back at a healthy size I do hiking and mountain biking. Might resume badminton for the winter too. Careful with the running lark. It'll be hard to stay healthy when your knees and ankles are knackered.

weapon69

Milo-you are thinking of slim fast i think

Weightwatchers is just a balanced diet. Its not difficult and not everyone wants to be a body builder

milo

yes. so you carb-load around lifting.


thats pretty interesting and suprises me, as most of these types of instant oats are loaded with rubbish. are you having to mix it with milk as this would up the sugar considerably. additionally, are you sure they're not loaded with trans fats?

milo

yes you're right i was thinking of slim fast.

weightwatchers is the one where you're allowed to eat only chocolate cake if you like, as long as you don't go over the allowed number of points, right?

weapon69

lol its not quite like that, but they do use a points system and us 'average joes' find it easy to stick to.

LG John

Would you not load the carbs in some time prior to lifting? I thought most carbs take a little while to be processed and the energy from then made available?

It says to mix the oats in with milk although you could almost certainly do it with water. You'll do well to get me off semi-skimmed milk though, got a pint of the stuff in front of me now Look at it this way, its that or Irn Bru

milo

no, you'd just end up sluggish while trying to train if you did that. you'd take in some carbs prior to lifting, but you wouldn't load. loading would occur when your body needs the nutrients to grow.. i.e directly after lifting. so while you might take in 50g of carbs 1-2 hours prior to lifting for energy, it's post-workout nutrition where you'd load with a large amount of carbs immediately after training, then a moderate amount a couple of hours later. the rest of the day you'd low-carb. non-lifting days you would low-carb right through.

jjones

use more calories than you consume.

you will lose weight.