Hi everyone.
I'm Stanley.
- roughly 6'4"
- 185lb
- I eat pretty healthy
- reasonable amount of muscle, too much fat.
I've been thinking for a while about losing some weight for a while, I've always been too flabby for liking. About a year ago I was 210lb, since then I've lost a reasonable amount, although I'm worried that a good chunk of it was muscle. I've hit a stable weight but I would still like to decrease BF%. I don't really know what I'm doing, I read the "read before posting" and tried to find some posts like mine before I made own but there is a lot of info and it's a little hard to digest. From what I could tell, I've got to have a diet of mainly protein and vegetables. But I was planning to do a lot of running, for long periods of time, is this not the right approach?
Here is what I want to achieve. It's summer (where I live it is anyway), I'm pretty busy until around the 10th of December but after then I have around 7 weeks until school starts again and I'm not doing much so I can dedicate a lot of time over this period to achieving a better shape. I want to get BF% way down, and gain a bit of muscle, around core especially. But if it would be too hard for body to do both at the same time I would prefer the weight loss over muscle gain. I'm willing to drastically change diet and lifestyle. What should I do?
7 weeks
Moderators: Boss Man, cassiegose
I try to keep away from foods/drinks that have high sugar/fat content, I only drink milk and water, but apart from that I don't pay much attention to what I eat. eating is a bit random at the moment though, because I'm at home for a lot of the day I don't eat at fixed times. diet at the moment is spread over the day, I eat something like this:
- a bowl of weetbix/cereal
- a lot of fruit
- a tin of tuna
- a couple of eggs, I wouldn't call it an omelette though
- whatevers being cooked for dinner, but I usually don't have much
I couldn't give you the meal times, because theyre always changing, is this bad?
- a bowl of weetbix/cereal
- a lot of fruit
- a tin of tuna
- a couple of eggs, I wouldn't call it an omelette though
- whatevers being cooked for dinner, but I usually don't have much
I couldn't give you the meal times, because theyre always changing, is this bad?
S_Roache wrote: I couldn't give you the meal times, because theyre always changing, is this bad?
(Well it can be if your nutrition isn't regimented properly, as the Metabolism cannot adjust properly, when the times are all off whack. If you're eating every 2, 2.5 or 3 hours, it's better moreso than having a meal 3.5 hours after the previous one, then something 1.5 hours later say, (as an example), as even if you get say 6 meals a day, they're all over the place, and your not giving the Metabolism an efficient way to regulate calorie and nutrient intake, and for weight loss this won't be as good as it could be, even if the number of meals and caloric amounts in them are good.)
- a bowl of weetbix/cereal
(I'd aim for about 3 of these, and if needs be I'd suggest something like Egg Whites and a Yolk, or a bit of chicken, something like that, to boost up your Protein.)
- a lot of fruit
(I'd cut this back a bit, and maybe just go for an Apple, something fairly high Carb, and give your Fruit 10-15 minutes to digest, (to make better use of it), and then eat some kind of Protein source. I'd go for something like a Meat or Poultry source here.
Then just add some Carbs from some other source to top them up, like some Veggies, or a Piece of Whole-grain Bread as examples.)
- a tin of tuna
(Don't eat this every day due to the Mercury. have a can every 2-3 days. Not least incase the body can get used to the Mercury and start craving it, as that's not good if that can happen, (or have a different kind of Fish, like Sardines or something like that, if you don't want Meat and Poultry), and add some other Carbs in here like Veggies, Rice, Beans, Peas, Mushrooms etc etc. Just be sure with things like the last four, that they contain Amino Acids, so in that case, reduce the Protein source slightly, so as not to eat too much Protein.)
- a couple of eggs, I wouldn't call it an omelette though
(Don't eat this it's a bit poor, and if you've already had a Yolk for Breakfast you don't need any more really, so I'd go for something else like a bit Flesh, and then add some Carbs in, as you're not getting any.)
- whatevers being cooked for dinner, but I usually don't have much
(Well providing it's got a reasonable amount of Protein and Carbs in that should be fine.)
Weight loss can be affected both positively and negatively by increases and decreases.
Example. If you eat 3,000 calories a day, and are sedentary, you won't burn calories efficiently, and may have some weight to lose, which means cutting calories to some exent, would allow you to lose weight, because those are sacrificial calories.
The biggest problem you get with people attempting to go it alone, is often they confuse healthy food and small portions as good bedfellows, so to speak, and it's not always a good mix.
People who say they eat a piece of Whole-grain Toast for Breakfast, and things like a piece of Fruit for snacks, are undereating on the good stuff, and that's just as bad potentially, as too low calories particularly from Protein can cause muscle loss, reduce Metabolism, and actually make Fat gains more likely, or worst case scenario make you borderline anorexic, and that can have bad consequences on things like Bones, Organs etc etc.
So you need to increase calories when you're too low, to make sure you have enough to satisfy the bodies needs, and not compromise your situation, but also you need to decrease when you have too many calories.
It's about knowing roughly how many you have, and whether you need to increase, decrease or maintain, based on other factors like what they are, and how much you exercise.
Example. If you eat 3,000 calories a day, and are sedentary, you won't burn calories efficiently, and may have some weight to lose, which means cutting calories to some exent, would allow you to lose weight, because those are sacrificial calories.
The biggest problem you get with people attempting to go it alone, is often they confuse healthy food and small portions as good bedfellows, so to speak, and it's not always a good mix.
People who say they eat a piece of Whole-grain Toast for Breakfast, and things like a piece of Fruit for snacks, are undereating on the good stuff, and that's just as bad potentially, as too low calories particularly from Protein can cause muscle loss, reduce Metabolism, and actually make Fat gains more likely, or worst case scenario make you borderline anorexic, and that can have bad consequences on things like Bones, Organs etc etc.
So you need to increase calories when you're too low, to make sure you have enough to satisfy the bodies needs, and not compromise your situation, but also you need to decrease when you have too many calories.
It's about knowing roughly how many you have, and whether you need to increase, decrease or maintain, based on other factors like what they are, and how much you exercise.
Ok, I'll take another look at read before posting and sort out a diet plan from there. The other thing I couldn't figure out was what exercise I should be doing. Before I read this forum I thought that if I was planning to loose weight I just had to go for runs etc and burn more energy than I was getting from food so that body fat was used. But I read here that this can lead to lower muscle mass and therefore more difficulty in burning energy. If long periods of steady exercise like running (what I was planning to do) isn't the right way to burn energy, what should I be doing instead?
HIITS_Roache wrote:Ok, I'll take another look at read before posting and sort out a diet plan from there. The other thing I couldn't figure out was what exercise I should be doing. Before I read this forum I thought that if I was planning to loose weight I just had to go for runs etc and burn more energy than I was getting from food so that body fat was used. But I read here that this can lead to lower muscle mass and therefore more difficulty in burning energy. If long periods of steady exercise like running (what I was planning to do) isn't the right way to burn energy, what should I be doing instead?
High Intensity Interval Training