[quote]Tampa-Terry wrote:
Slamdog, most of your results are going to come from your diet. It sounds like you’ve made a lot of positive changes already.
The only way I can think of that you’ll be able to follow your diet is to use your 4 days to prepare food for when you are driving. It doesn’t take any longer to cook one chicken breast than it does to cook 8. If you’re making oatmeal, don’t make a single serving. Make 6! The same holds true for everything you eat, whether it’s chili or a pot roast or shrimp or eggs.
As a bare minimum and as the foundation of anything you do,I’d like to see you getting your body weight in protein (pounds, not stones or kilograms) and an appropriate amount of GOOD fat. In other words, if you are 224 pounds, then you would need 224 grams of protein per day, divided (roughly) equally between the 5 or 6 meals you eat every day.
And don’t worry … you won’t be eating more. You’ll just be dividing up what you do eat a little better, so that you’re eating about every 3 hours. A meal doesn’t have to be a huge affair. It can be some beef jerky and almonds or it could be some deli meat and an apple or a protein drink or some hard boiled eggs. So a “meal” is really just a snack-sized eating opportunity. (grin)
If you’d like to see how I go about helping someone design a diet, check out http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1509230
Anyway, all of that aside, I wanted to congratulate you on quitting smoking. I can’t think of a more profoundly positive thing you could have done for your health!!!
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The one good thing about my job is that I am home every day. I don’t go out on the road (It is probably safer for everyone that way… 
)
The diet thing is a bugbear though. I have used various calculations and my basic maintenance rate for calorie intake seems to be around the 1800 a day mark. As I’m looking to drop some of the whale blubber (ok, a LOT of whale blubber) still I reckon a deficit of 200 cals per day will be about right so as not to starve me and put me into shutdown.
Protein… definately, I am cramming in as much as 1g per 1lb bodyweight (currently around 198g per day) keeping the carb intake fairly low and eating far more fruit and vegetables that I ever used to. I also don’t seem to cheat on my diet, snacking tends to be on things like dried figs, blueberries and raisins. Just enough to take the edge off the desire to eat a full meal or go for the chocolate bars which I can honestly say I despise now with a vengence.
At easter my kids had chocolate eggs and they gave me a small piece… it felt and tasted like i was chewing on a block of lard (solid reformed meat fat). I was nearly sick it was that disgusting to my taste buds.
I also have a good friend at home…
George Foreman…
That giant grill of his is fantastic… I cook pretty much all my meats on that now, so much so that I almost told the wife to sell the stove until I remembered that I still needed to steam the vegetables (could use the microwave…hmm nuked food… nahhh).
I read an article on here a couple of days ago… mentioning toxic people. My wife is half toxic… she thinks I’m getting obsessed with the gym, weight loss food etc. but also understands the reasons behind it. We had a chat with our youngest daughter the other day. It was the pleas try and eat healthy food one. She is 7. She doesn’t eat many veg at all. She eats chocolate, cake, cookies, meat she is fine with.
I had to explain the downside of being fat. How as a kid I was called some pretty hurtful things at school. How I was not any good at sports because I couldn’t run or jump. How I wasn’t in the popular groups at high school cos I was a lardass. (Ok, I still got laid a lot because ‘I was a good listener’ according to a couple of girls and ‘they could empathise with me’. Jesus, was I a semi-gay back then? Almost sounds like I was a fag-hag…
The one thing I only did once at school was lose my temper… I got the red misty and nearly killed a kid who took the teasing a little too far… was suspended and sent for anger management therapy… strength wasn’t my problem back then.
Hey… I’m rambling again…
We will get her round to healthy stuff… probably my fault for not starting her sooner. Her elder sister is fine… tries anything we cook for her… she is 8… but the youngest… No Way Jose not yet at least.
Thanks for the link… it makes good reading. Thanks for the support… I really don’t understand why I didn’t stop smoking a long time ago… lazyness more than anything I suppose.
Now to get my gym bag ready… soon as I dump the kids at school across the road its out and working out today…
