Hi there, could someone please advise on any changes I’d need to make to my diet.
Workout 5:30-6:30 AM
Meal 1: 6:30AM 20g Whey protein + 5g Creatine mixed with cup of milk
Meal 2: 6:50AM 3/4 cup of Oatmeal + berries with 1 cup milk
Meal 3: 8:30AM Yogurt or cottage cheese w/berries, banana
Meal 4: 10:45AM sandwich - mixing up tuna/salmon/cold cuts/smoked fish- + veggies
Meal 5: 12:00PM Same as above
Meal 6: 2:30PM Either mixed peanuts or peanut bar + fruit
Meal 7: 5:30PM Dinner - this is sometimes problematic I suppose. Lately trying to
stick with salad w/chicken. But to be honest, many times it is not,
and ends up being chinese chicken w/brocolli and rice, or pizza w/mushrooms or
some type of pasta.
Meal 8: 8:00PM Snacking on veggies or fruits - bananas, apples, celery, etc.
Sleep 11:00PM
I work out every other day, and try to do cardio in the break days but have not
been that succesful at it. Somehow I have a hard time getting up in the mmorning
for cardio, while it seems to matter to me more when I know I’ll be lifting…go figure.
I try to drink lots of water, so I think I am at about 1.5 gallon daily.
Weekends are probably a bit better on the breakfast side with eggs/omelets/sausage and
steaks for dinner, but it’s less structured throughout in the day.
So, how bad is this, what are the absolute changes I have to make. Now, bear in mind
I’m not at this for some great, competition type results. Simply want to look
and feel better, I estimate that besides simply gaining more muscle,
I still need to loose 10-15lb of belly fat - yup, the old good friend.
I’ve done Waterbury’s TBT, after that I did two weeks of concentration
of only squats/deadlifts/bench press and rows without any isolation. I’m about to possibly
start TBT again since that seemed to have worked for me strenghtwise. Before TBT I did couple of months
of on and off, mixed up lifting without much of a reasoning in what I was doing…
Not too bad overall. Basically, you need to man up and stick to the plan on meal 7. No pizza or pasta if you’re trying to lose fat. Period. Lean steak, lean burger, chicken, turkey, veggies. Milk and yogurt is cheap, and mostly good, but some people have a lot of problems with water retention or even fat retention with dairy in their diets. I drink it like it’s going out of style, but it’s something to keep in mind for fat loss results.
Lots of fruit in there, that’s good. But I’d move most of the carb consumption to the front half of your day, so the fruits mostly should go between breakfast and noon, or 2:30 meals. After that stick to veggies and lean meat.
Carbs are metabolized best in the morning and immediately after your training (even if it is at night). Healthy fats can be obtained by pecans, walnuts, etc. That would go best in the afternoon and evening meals.
The last 10-15 lb of fat are the most stubborn, so stay disciplined and don’t give in to rationalizing bad food choices because you’ve “earned” a cheat day. That’s a good way to derail your progress. Stick to a strict schedule for cheat meals.
Also consider cutting out most of the oatmeal and substituting eggs whites in the morning. Your berries give you good carbs, so you’re covered on the carb intake there. I’d rather you keep the oatmeal and cut the milk if you were going to cut something, but it’s up to you. Maybe neither will be required to reach your goals.
Ok, so at least this confirms my dinner problems, you’re right, I need to be more strict about it. I guess as long as the other stuff looks good, I’m on the right track. Yeah, just not as easy to whip out the eggs in the morning vs oatmeal, but I guess I could try to mix it up in between eggs and oatmeal a little more in the mornings.
And I agree about the fruit thing at night, I should stick more with veggies there, but I just love fruit in general, could probably just live on that alone if I had to
Yes, unfortunately the only time I can squeeze the workouts
in is early in the morning after I get up. I don’t really have the time to make a meal and possibly allow some time to digest it before I work out. I suppose having some kind of shake could work. Is it necessary to do something like that ? What specifically would you recommend ?
[quote]henryd31 wrote:
Yes, unfortunately the only time I can squeeze the workouts
in is early in the morning after I get up. I don’t really have the time to make a meal and possibly allow some time to digest it before I work out. I suppose having some kind of shake could work. Is it necessary to do something like that ? What specifically would you recommend ?[/quote]
Drink your 6:30 drink DURING your workout. There’s been a good bit of research that suggests peri-workout drinks are better for you than post-workout.
Looks solid. Replace the pizza with something with protein and stick to it.
The most important part of diet I’ve found is consistency and feedback. Have consistency in your workouts and diet, and check your weight/BF% twice a week. This will give you the ability to measure your progress… and make sure you’re making progress.
I figured I could use this to keep log of any progress I make. So, it looks like the diet is working for me to some degree. I am at around 190lb as of yesterday, so even though visually I can’t tell a difference, it looks like I cut few more pounds in the last month. Now, I experienced some issues when I tried to substitute my morning oatmeal with eggs. For some reason that made me have some stomach pains and I ended up spending some additional time in the bathroom, at least twice as long as normal, but it would go away after I was done with my business…This was strange as I normally have no issue after eating eggs, only when I do that within an hour or so after workout. In any case, my diet pretty much stayed the way it’s outlined in the first post, still having problems sometimes with the dinner meal. Instead, I forced myself to do a bit more cardio, or rather actually do the cardio on my off days from lifting. The last month was more consistent than any before.
I have a question in regards to pullups. I just recently started doing them in the last 15 days or so, so I’m really not good at them at all. But I also use a band to assist in pullups, and I already made a progress from 3x5 to 3x7-8. The question I have is that since I got a door bar, i it ok to do pullups every day, not just on my lifting days. I’d like to progress and learn them a bit more so I can be more comfortable incorporating them in my program.
