If you eat out, chances are it’s bad for you.
If it’s covered in cheese, it’s bad.
If it’s drowning in cooking grease, it’s bad.
Many restaurants have healthy-ish choices. Carne Asada at mexican places. Steak or salad at italian places. At chinese places… you’re screwed. Sorry. Asians have higher levels of insulin sensitivity, so they can chow down on noodles and not get fat. You can’t, I’m guessing, so dim sum is bad choice.
Rather than ranch, use a couple of shakes of Extra Virgin Olive Oil and a couple of shakes of balsalmic vinegar. Throw on some italian seasoning, and it tastes good.
Don’t avoid oatmeal. It’s a great breakfast, low glycemic carb, highly filling, and has a fiber.
That said, if you’re cutting, it’s a good idea to limit or eliminate carbs.
Eat whole eggs. The fat is healthy.
Look, none of this advice is absolutely true- it all depends on your total diet. If you’re just looking for extra protein, egg whites are a good choice. If you have nothing else for breakfast, egg whites are a bad choice, eat the whole egg. If you’re trying a low-carb diet, have more eggs instead of oatmeal for breakfast. If you dig a shot of carbs in the morning, oatmeal is great. All advice is relative and possibly crap, depending on what your plan is.
[quote]Otep wrote:
Don’t avoid oatmeal. It’s a great breakfast, low glycemic carb, highly filling, and has a fiber.
That said, if you’re cutting, it’s a good idea to limit or eliminate carbs.
Eat whole eggs. The fat is healthy.
Look, none of this advice is absolutely true- it all depends on your total diet. If you’re just looking for extra protein, egg whites are a good choice. If you have nothing else for breakfast, egg whites are a bad choice, eat the whole egg. If you’re trying a low-carb diet, have more eggs instead of oatmeal for breakfast. If you dig a shot of carbs in the morning, oatmeal is great. All advice is relative and possibly crap, depending on what your plan is.[/quote]
Thanks again. Some of these choices I have been running into. For instance, this morning there was a gallon of skim and a gallon of chocolate. Is a glass of chocolate okay? I will make better choices as I continue this program.
So I wrote out this long post making fun of you, and then realized that you’re not saying things to troll, you just really want to make sure you cross all your I’s and dot all your T’s.
Is a glass of chocolate okay?
There are two ways to answer this.
One, chocolate milk is a bad idea because it’s got a bunch of sugars and this is bad. It is not optimal.
Two, a glass here or there won’t kill you or halt your fat-loss progress, although it definitely won’t help you.
Is it okay… it really depends on how bad and how fast you want to achieve your goals.
Drink water and green tea. If water is boring, get Crystal Light packets to change the flavor. Until you have a better handle on your diet, things like chocolate milk are pretty much not allowed.
Wow, Otep, you are really nice. OP, you’re getting some great advice on this thread. Keep reading and re-reading the beginner thread and slowly make changes. I think I spent 3 months just reading and re-reading the beginner thread when I first found this site.
HOT-ROX works great. You might not have caught this the first time though, so I’ll repeat it
[quote] Otep wrote:
I wouldn’t recommend buying ANY supplements (okay, fish oil. And green tea isn’t really a supplement) until you’ve already seen some results without them. [/quote]
Often (not always), people take HOT-ROX like it’s a magic pill. It becomes a rationalization for poor eating, or for taking it easy in the gym.
I would wait until you’ve experienced significant fat loss on your own before you start taking HOT-ROX. Give yourself a month before you start taking it. You’ll want to start taking it now, and that’s a mistake. You need to engrain healthy eating habits and healthy gym intensity before supplementation is useful.
Otherwise, it’s entirely possible you’ll waste your money. How do you think I got to be a level 4?
What does DEE mean in Coach Thib’s Nutrition for Newbies?
Also…
What is everyone’s take on Gatorade or V8. My friend tells me Gatorade is bad if I am not working out or sweating. It adds carbs and sugars to my diet, too. Sometimes when I am on the run I grab a V8, and most recently tried V8 Fusion.
I know obviously the Cokes, Pepsis, and Mt. Dews are not a healthy diets smartest choice, and beer is a big NO, but some of these sports drinks, energy drinks, and fruit/veggie drinks (…V8) sound fine and dandy, but are they…?
Is it vital to record beverages and include them into my diet log? I have been trying that fitday.com and I was surprised to find out that my salad was more than just a salad. It is lettuce, brocoli, green peppers, egg, cukes…etc, etc. Each item has its own weight, serving amount, calories, and cooking preparation. This morning I had 2 hard boiled eggs, cottage cheese and fruit and green tea. Besides simply just wrting them down, I am learning the values of each and every piece of food I consume in my diet. One more thing, is there a rule of thumb to the amount of water to consume. A friend of a friend says…“ten ounces of water for every ten pounds.”
I am trying to graduate from newbie to begginner, but still have some questions I need to get answered haha
Yeah, I have been just making it. Same benefits. It is easy to stay away from pop and beer, but surprisingly I always go for a Gatorade or Vitamin Water. Besides water and green tea I sneek one or the other in here and there.