YA(diet)T

[blackangst1]

Diet diet diet. So important. Ive got my exercising down pat, and it's now habit for me. I just. cant. get. disciplined. with. diet.

I think for the most part I eat decent, but not consistently. It's really frustrating me. Im thinking I may need to take a couple hours each week and pre-make a ton of meals. My biggest problem is I'll grab something "on the run" and I believe this is whats killing me. Im trying to get more protein for my exercise recovery, but Im still eating far too many carbs. Ive heard avoid wheat flour?

I also would like to get your opinion on "bars" for snacks or meal replacement. I currently am eating the South Beach Diet Meal Replacement bars for breakfast, sometimes with a piece of fruit.
*19 grams of protein, and over 20 vitamins and minerals, including 100 percent of the vitamin C daily requirements, trans-fat free, contains 7 fat grams (3 saturated), and just over 200 calories. I like these because there is very little added sugars (Im diabetic and try to avoid foods where added or processed sugar is in the first 5 ingredients).

Good? Bad?

Perhaps Im being lazy, but maybe there's a good website you guys can recommend with different food options, and when to eat them? I think if it was laid out for me I could work with that. They say it takes 30 days to create a habit, and eating 5 small meals/day with proper nutrition is a habit I need.

right now Im 5'6-7", 176. I'd like to get to 160.

HEPL!

 

[Special K]

Here is a thread I found helpful when I was starting regarding what to eat:

What a bodybuilder eats

I think you answered your own question here, but it really helps keep a consistent diet if you prepare all of your meals for the day, that way you know exactly what you are eating, and don't have to resort to fast or junk food. Every night, I spend a few minutes making the 3 meals that I will eat at work the next day. How long it takes to prepare them depends on how fancy you want your meals to be.

Also, are you tracking exactly what you eat each day on Fitday ? That would help if you think you are eating too many carbs each day. It would also help you establish your BMR (basal metabolic rate - how many calories you must consume to exactly maintain your bodyweight) and set goals.

 

[brikis98]

best thing for you would probably be to start tracking everything you eat on fitday.com. That'll give you a good idea of how many calories, how much protein, carbs, fat, etc you're eating per day compared to how much you burn. It takes a little time to setup (especially entering custom foods not in their database), but once you get going, it's very easy to maintain.

edit --> you may also want to see the weight loss sticky at the top of the forum.

 

[KoolDrew]

Originally posted by: brikis98
best thing for you would probably be to start tracking everything you eat on fitday.com. That'll give you a good idea of how many calories, how much protein, carbs, fat, etc you're eating per day compared to how much you burn. It takes a little time to setup (especially entering custom foods not in their database), but once you get going, it's very easy to maintain.

:thumbsup:

 

[blackangst1]

Thanks guys I'll spend some time tomorrow on my day off setting up fitday. (lol yeah, TOMORROW!) haha

 

[Kaido]

I just made some homemade energy bars from a recipe in "The Thrive Diet" book. It's a Vegan approach but it's pretty tasty. Going to load them up for my long ride tomorrow

 

[blackangst1]

Well, first day of fitday. Im very suprised....I dont think Im eating enough...

I figured out I need about 1750 for BMR. Here's my first day keeping track.

I didnt know what to put for 20 mins of HIIT, so let me know if I picked the right catagory. I usually do 10 min moderate walk to warm up, 20 min HIIT on recumbant bike, then 10 min cool down walking.

Today was actually a fairly typical day. I didnt feel hungry. Atually, let me take that back. I did something with my cereal today Ive never done-I measured it just to see what a serving is SUPPOSED to be. Truth be told I would have eaten twice that. Also today I really tried hard to space my food out to about 3-4 hours between stuff. Im not always diligent about that either, but I will be.

Something I will start on tomorrow also is keeping track of my insulin use. Im a type 1 diabetic, and it will be interesting to see my usage throughout the day depending on activity etc. I do know Im using about 25-30% less than I was a year ago when I started focusing on organic and eliminating extra sugar foods, so thats a good start.

So far I feel pretty good but I need to add about another 200-300 calories I think to make my metabolism work right. I think today is a little too close. My other concern is low blood sugars. This is really a bad thing. If I catch it during the day, I can drink 8-12 oz of juice or a sugar soda to bring it back up. But, occasionally at night if I wake up low, I go into "survival mode" and sit down with a box of cereal and eat and eat until I dont feel low anymore. I dont know. Unless youre a diabetic and have experience VERY low bloodsugar its hard to describe, but survival mode is a goode word. By this time Ive consumed a shitload of calories, and often fuck up my bloodsugars for the next day (wake up really high). This is really going to require some discipline on my part. All I need is 12 oz or so of orange juice and wait it out. Its a scary feeling though. I shudder to think how many extra calories per month Im consuming just treating low blood sugars (incorrectly). But, I am healthy. Last Dr appt my A1C was the lowest its been in my entire life (6.4). Thats where they look at the saturation of glucose in your red blood cells and can get an idea of your average blood sugars over the last 90 days. 6.4 is almost unheard of for *most* diabetics. Most are struggling to get below 8. Anyway, didnt mean to extrapulate on diabetes, but it IS an important key to my diet.


Let me know if you see anything glaring.

 

[GenHoth]

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Unless youre a diabetic and have experience VERY low bloodsugar its hard to describe, but survival mode is a goode word. By this time Ive consumed a shitload of calories, and often fuck up my bloodsugars for the next day (wake up really high). .

I know what you're talking about. I'm not diabetic but I have problems with blood sugar occasionally. It sucks and can be pretty scary!

 

[KoolDrew]

Given a moderate activity level, most peoples maintenence calories are somewhere in between 14-16 cals per pound of bodyweight. Taking the middle value (16) that would give you a maintenence of around 2640. Since your maintenence is how many calories it takes to maintain your weight, you should shoot for about 10-20% below that value, which would be 2100-2400. I'd say aim for the lower range as fat loss will obviously be faster and it's still not too much of a deficit. Remember that added activity will also contribute to calories burned and will effect fat loss, just don't overdo it. I really wouldn't do HIIT more than 2x a week.

Besides calories, adequate protein is very important. I'd suggest upping protein to at least 1g per pound of bodyweight. You're not severely overweight so the protein level won't be unattainable and too much is always better than too little. So aim for at least 170g to prevent lean body mass loss and help keep you full.

If you are not already you should definitely start a weight training routine as well. It will help prevent LBM loss and assuming you're a beginner you will see very nice strength gains and maybe even some muscle gain.

 

[blackangst1]

thx Drew.

Wow I guess I am undereating. Im going to have to go with protien shakes or something I think. I honestly dont think I can EAT that much protein.

Let me run this by you about my HIIT. After 10 mins of treadmill warmup, I immediately hop on the recumbant, and start at level 3 (its a Lifecycle brand). I'll stay there for 2 mins, then manually bump it up to 14 for one minute, then back down to 3 for 2, up to 14 for one, etc for a total of about 20 mins. It wears me out.

I'll do some more Googling about protein sources and add that. As far as weights go, I do weights about 2-3 times/week. I use the gym at my apartment, so theyre cable machines. I usually do 1 set of 10-fail, but no more than 15, of bench press, rows, military press, lat pull downs, bicep curls and sit up curls. For legs I do quad extensions, hamstring curls (on my stomach), and weighted calf raises. I usually alternate upper and lower body on workouts. sometimes its on a day I do cardio, sometimes its not. I always do my weights FIRST if it is.

edit: I wanted to also ask what the reasoning of only doing HIIT 2x/week as opposed to 3-4? would it more beneficial to do maybe 2x HIIT and maybe 1x regular cardio like 30-40 mins treadmill? Reason I ask is cardio really makes me feel better to get out extra energy lol but I also dont want to negatively affect my routine.

 

[KoolDrew]

Let me run this by you about my HIIT. After 10 mins of treadmill warmup, I immediately hop on the recumbant, and start at level 3 (its a Lifecycle brand). I'll stay there for 2 mins, then manually bump it up to 14 for one minute, then back down to 3 for 2, up to 14 for one, etc for a total of about 20 mins. It wears me out.

Do whatever you enjoy as it really doesn't matter too much.

As far as weights go, I do weights about 2-3 times/week. I use the gym at my apartment, so theyre cable machines. I usually do 1 set of 10-fail, but no more than 15, of bench press, rows, military press, lat pull downs, bicep curls and sit up curls. For legs I do quad extensions, hamstring curls (on my stomach), and weighted calf raises. I usually alternate upper and lower body on workouts. sometimes its on a day I do cardio, sometimes its not. I always do my weights FIRST if it is.

Sounds good except I wouldn't advice going to failure. Especially while cutting. Pick lower reps (5-8) and just consentrate on lifting more weight. If you have more in your even after you're done, save it for next workout and just up the weight.

edit: I wanted to also ask what the reasoning of only doing HIIT 2x/week as opposed to 3-4? would it more beneficial to do maybe 2x HIIT and maybe 1x regular cardio like 30-40 mins treadmill? Reason I ask is cardio really makes me feel better to get out extra energy lol but I also dont want to negatively affect my routine.

HIIT, if done how it's supposed to be done, is really demanding and actually a hell of a leg workout. Too much will definitely hurt recovery and may harm your progress resulting in overtraining. So I'd suggest HIIT maybe 2x a week and SS cardio on other days if you wish.

You have to remember that you're cutting, which means you're in a calorie deficit. Too much work in a calorie deficit is going to do more harm than good.

EDIT - I'd also like to mention that as you lose fat, calories will likely have to be changed as your maintenance calories go down. So just monitor progress and as long as your losing anywhere from 1-1.5 pounds a week, you're good. If it falls below this you will need to drop calories slightly or add a bit more activity.

 

[blackangst1]

Perfect. Thanks Drew

 

[blackangst1]

Well, better today on where I need to be calorie wise although I think too much fat. Not a ton of saturated though. Non workout day today. The fast food chicken thats on there, for the record, WAS KFC chicken breasts WITH SKIN OFF! I know I know. But still better than with skin on

 

[Wonderful Pork]

I'm no diet/fitness expert, nor am I a doctor or anything so take my advice with a grain of salt. So far I've lost about 60-65lbs or so (250ish to 185ish) and I've found that the only way my body will drop the fat is if I keep the carbs down to 70 grams or below per day. I eat about 225 grams of protein and about 90 grams of good(-ish) fats per day (nuts, natural peanut butter, flax oil, etc), this totals to about 2000 calories/day.

Twice a week, Sunday and Thursday, I eat more carbs, say 120grams or so. To be honest, I can't really stomach a carb-laden meal anymore, and I feel spectacular all the time!

A day for me is like:
6:00a - protein shake w/ skim milk
8:30a - cottage cheese & peanut butter
11:30 - sandwich (minus bread...so, lunchmeat and cheese!)
3:30 - 3oz tuna + mayo/ranch (1tsp) & peanut butter
6:30 - 2 chicken breasts + 3/4 cup veggies (frozen)
8:30 - protein shake w/ skim milk

I use CalorieKing Nutrition calculator to plan out my meals and count, weight, and/or measure each serving as close as possible. I'm sure my diet can be infinitely better, etc, etc but it works for me and I've been able to live with it for nearly a year without cheating (too often.)

Best of luck.