Diet plan help?

[squarehead94]

Hey all, about to buy some diet stuff, PHD diet whey 2kg (strawberry) and 24 PHD diet whey bars (strawberry and choc cookie flavour) for £80.
Im quite fat at the moment, Im sick of it, Ive started training and weights, starting low at 40kg, and going to do back, legs, shoulders and chest on varying monday-thursdays. (40 minute training sessions) Fridays I do football training (90 minutes) and saturdays and sundays I'll be doing swimming.
Im just wondering on the diet now, What is a good diet plan to have? I am aware the whey powder is a meal replacement, but I take it you cant do this every day, and what about breakfast - lunch - dinner? the bars are good snacks to beat snacking craving and the powder make good pre workout and good morning wake up meals, Id be looking at a healthy breakfast, snackbar at break, shake at lunch, then a snack bar at around 4pm, and a shake before a workout at around 630. is this an ideal way to do it? and what do i do about other meals?
Id appreciate some advice.
Currently im looking at cutting/slimming, hopefully around a stone in the next few months, but once ive lost some of the flab, i can then start looking at stamina boosting and more muscle building.
thanks
stephen

 

[Fuzz]

Work out so hard you puke up your last three meals.

 

[Fuzz]

In all seriousness though, forget the shakes and the health bars

Eat good old fresh food
Drink water
Exercise hard.

 

[squarehead94]

seriously please people, I know Ill have to eat lean meats with this, so fish, chicken, things like that, and you can have a cheat and what not, but ill be trying to follow a schedule, say mon-chicken and something, tuesday beef and something, wednesday cod and something, thursday tuna and something, friday etc etc... Im really struggling for ideas for a meal schedule! help please!

 

[Fuzz]

Well you did post it in GD (I see it got swiftly moved though)

You don't want a "diet" you want a healthy way to LIVE.
Think longer term. People don't stick to diets.
Change the way you eat for good then you wont have to worry about what you eat as it'll become the natural order of things.

You don't necessarily have to eat lean everything you just have to eat LESS of everything.

 

[Mickie]

cut out sugar..

even if you eat 1500 calories a day, that should see you lose weight if their is sugar in it, you'll still put on weight or atlast stay the same, because thats exactly what ive thought i could get away with, eating 1500 of anything and losing weight..

im going to try and eat less carbs and no sugar and atleast 10 - 20 minutes exersize a day..cutting sugar is hard, but i read your body needs it so if you dont eat it your body takes it from fat in your body.

 

[BigPecsPeter]

Ok square, I'm a sucker for diet topics so hit me:

1. What's your present weight, and height? Need to determine suitable calories and goals.

2. Have you heard much concerning setting macros and the like? I'm gonna help you with all that, if not.



Now, once all the information is available, we'll have to set you up with a PROPER training program in addition to a suitable diet plan. As an overweight beginner, you're actually in an ideal situation for making some pretty solid progress even while on a diet. We must take maximal advantage of that.

 

[Skillmister]

even if you eat 1500 calories a day, that should see you lose weight if their is sugar in it, you'll still put on weight or atlast stay the same, because thats exactly what ive thought i could get away with, eating 1500 of anything and losing weight..

No.

 

[BennyC]

I would discredit any responses received in GD, broad assumption but probably accurate.

You need a structured diet & exercise plan, I 'cycle' foods too in that my lunch and evening meals will work on a 3/4 food rotation. The whey & diet bars are likely unnecessary so I would hold fire if you haven't already bought them.

Treat BigPecsPeter's response as the first response to your thread and go from there.

 

[2ZR-FE]

First thing we need your height/weight/age.

For fat loss I did not need any fancy whey bars or protein.

I am 5ft 9 (175cm) and was 24 years old and was a rather large 98 Kilo (15st 4 lbs for the oldies) when I started.

18 months of gym for 3 to 4 one hour sessions of cardio a week & eating well (most of the time) I am now at 77 Kilos (12st 1lb)

Still got a way to go yet, want to tone up my tummy fat and then bulk up abit.

If you need any tips let me know.

 

[squarehead94]

Im 5 10, 15 stone but ive got a big belly, big thighs and the dreaded moobs. 18 years old. Ill be doing gym at least 3 times a week and swimming at least once a week and football at least once a week.

 

[BigPecsPeter]

I'd recommend something like 210g protein, 115g carbs and maybe 50g fat. This should make weight loss very easy while providing sufficient protein to spare muscle mass and enough carbs to fuel your workout. As I said, you are an overweight beginner, so you ought to be able to make gains even in a deficit, and probably for quite a while too.

You're going to have to start reading labels to understand the macronutrient composition of foods. With the above macro guidelines, you'd be dieting at around 1,750 or so calories. A moderate deficit. Not particularly pleasant, but it'll get the job done at least for a while. You are really very overweight, so I guess you're looking at a pretty long diet here, perhaps 7 or 8 months or so to get in any sort of decent shape. Again, not much fun, but it needs to be done.

Of course, there are quicker and more extreme ways to lose weight faster, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it.

Program-wise, you might try a solid beginners' routine like some sort of 5x5 method. For exercise form, see icecold's thread. It's excellent.

I anticipate that given lack of experience you will probably find much of the above confusing and may have no idea where to begin setting up a diet that more or less fits those numbers I posted. If so, I can help further with specific dietary recommendations, but I'll need more time.

 

[JBod]

If it helps I lost 2 stone in 2-3months (I am 5ft 10" and went 14 stone to 12 stone). All I did was stop putting sugar on everything, switched to diet drinks, stopped having snacks that was always a chocolate bar and crisps. Massively increased my fibre and water intake and decreased general portion sizes. Not a diet just a change in menu, I still have a McDonalds once a week and normal dinner that my wife makes (she thinks EVERY meal needs to be meat and two veg - potatoes, rice or pasta is in every single meal).

I took up swimming and walking. I swim approx 30-40mins up to 4 times a week and now walk instead of use the Bus where possible.

Edit: I also suggest getting some clever scales, I got some for £30 from Argos that do more than just weight and give water %age, muscle %age, fat %age etc... now don't look at it as accurate (they are only £30) but they are apples to apples using the same scale. It is VERY encouraging to see numbers changing even if you don't see a visible difference. Even when your weight doesn't change it is nice to see fat go down and muscle go up.

Also make sure you weigh yourself in repeatable circumstances rather than random times at day or night. I prefer first thing Sunday morning before breakfast but after a bathroom visit. Again it is for apples to apples comparisons.

 

[BigPecsPeter]

Alright, I'm feeling nice so here's a sample diet. Please note, this diet kinda SUCKS in terms of enjoyment, but it is the sort of thing that fits the macros:


200g pack of chicken breast slices
3 170g tins of red salmon (about 130g of actual meat per can)
3 large whole eggs
500g 0% fat fage total greek yoghurt
one large 300g or so sweet potato
10ml of olive oil
1 bagel

Yum yum! I bet you're just licking your lips at that... :/

Put it together into a few meals, in some hyper creative way, and there ya go, something that'll help you lose a load of weight over a period of months.

Well, you get the picture. That's the sort of food you'd be thinking of.

 

[Razor-BladE]

^ Where's the fruit and veg?!?

You make it sound really boring lol, and it doesn't have to be. I'm cutting atm, and eating about 1700 calories a day, and it's sure more interesting than that. Obviously it helps if you know how to cook. If not, then there's no better time to learn!

And normal greek yoghurt is better for you. They take away the fat, which isn't bad for you anyway, and add sugar to it instead. But people buy it because they think dietary fat = storing fat.

 

[BigPecsPeter]

^ Where's the fruit and veg?!?

You make it sound really boring lol, and it doesn't have to be. I'm cutting atm, and eating about 1700 calories a day, and it's sure more interesting than that. Obviously it helps if you know how to cook. If not, then there's no better time to learn!

And normal greek yoghurt is better for you. They take away the fat, which isn't bad for you anyway, and add sugar to it instead. But people buy it because they think dietary fat = storing fat.

"Where's fruit and veg" - I made that in one minute, it's just a sample, kinda lazy and silly. But a starting point to play with. There's a large sweet potato anyway... to provide the fibre and whatnot... but yeah. You are right, ideally you'd have more veg.

That plan was boring, as you say, but it's really just intended as a somewhat suitable starting point to play around with to one's liking.

The reason I said non-fat greek yoghurt has nothing to do with being anti-fat. Just that, there wasn't room in that particular sample for any extra calories which would have come from the fat. Could just as well have been full fat yoghurt and erase the olive oil, or less whole eggs (more whites), or less salmon or whatever.

Also, the non-fat variety of greek yog has more or less the same carb content to the full fat version (minimally higher), so what you say about adding sugar is not true in the case of the brand I refer to. Also, the non-fat version is higher in protein. Again, not MUCH higher, but it adds up.

Just to make it clear to OP - in a deficit, nothing is going to be stored as fat, regardless of the source. My reasons for limiting fat are two-fold: for keeping calories down, and so that your carbs may be higher (good for exercise).

 

[BennyC]

Can't recall my macro's but my non training day diet (CBL/Carbnite) looks like this:

10x20x6cm box of:
Lettuce, spinach, mixed peppers, tomatoes, celerey, carrot, cucumber, avocado, with 2 tbsp olive oil & sprinkling of lemon juice. With either 1/4 or 1/3rd cooked chicken, 1 can tuna mayo, 2-300g of packed turkey/ham.

2 scrambled eggs, 1 tbsp olive oil, 2 knobs butter.

2 scoops whey & BCAA's

2-300g mixed vegetables
300g Turkey or Beef mince, Salmon, 2 tins Mackerel fillets, Turkey/Chicken.

That's zero, except for trace, carbs. You could lower fat and increase carbs as you won't need to go zero/that low carb initially and I would advise against it initially as it's not required and doing so would negate any benefit from doing so later on. As advised keep your fats lower and your carbs slightly higher for the time being.