Help with Diet [Forum Archive]

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Help with Diet

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Posted by: rock4832

Can anybody help me figure out what I'm supposed to eat and when? I've lost over 100 lbs in the past year, but some was muscle. I'm trying to put muscle back on, but I feel my pants getting tighter again and my bodyfat going up. Do I need to do more cardio, or can I correct the problem with dieting and lifting weights? I weigh 181 now and in the morning I'm at about 14% BF. In the evening I'm at 10%. I take protein, creatine, glutamine and yesterday started 1-test and 4-ad. Can someone help me?

Posted by: P-funk

a) please post your diet so that we can see where you are going
wrong
b) why are taking all these supplements when you clearly have
no understanding of proper nutrition. There is a reason why
they are called supplement......TO SUPPLEMENT YOUR ALREADY
HEALTHY DIET!!!!!
c) cardio can help to create a caloric defecit when you can;t take
your cals any lower. But diet for the most part can correct a lot
of your priblems
d) how do you lose 4% of body fat from morning to evening.

Posted by: rock4832

A)
Here is my diet. I usually eat several meals a day, I work 12 hour days in an emergency room.

Meal one 7:00 am(pre-Workout)- Either two packets of instant oatmeal and a shake of 20g Whey protein; or a Met-Rx Big 100 Bar.

Meal two 9:30 am(post-Workout)- One bagel w/ little cream cheese, 5g Creatine, 5g Glutamine, 40g Whey protein shake, banana.

Meal three 12:30pm- Large flour fat free tortilla wrap, Olive spread, Honey Mustard, Fat free cheese, about 4-5 oz of Chicken breast strips.

Meal four 3:00pm- Peice of fruit, Whey Protein Shake 40g.

Meal five 5:30pm- One can of Tuna w/ Honey Mustard, FF Cheese, and seven Soy Nuggets with Ketchup.

Meal six 8:30pm- Two Soy burgers (no bread), or 2 Turkey Burgers, or 4-6 oz Chicken breast w/ FF cheese and Ketchup.

Meal seven 11:30pm- 30g PM Protein from GNC (Casein Protien)
Go to Bed

B)- Just because I ask questions to help with my diet and losing weight or improve my quality of life does not mean I have no understanding of proper nutrition! It means there is a lot of crap ideas circulating around and it gets confusing sometimes. I supplement because of what I've read and researched in these threads and on my own.

C) I agree that diet can be a big part of my problem. That is where I need help.

D) I lose 4 % of BF from AM- PM because electrical impulse BF analyzers respond to how well your body is hydrated. When you wake in the morning your body is not as well hydrated as PM. I don't really lose 4% or BF, the machine just reads it that way. So I'm not sure which is really my BF. I was just told to pick the same time of day to measure my BF and record the changes from there.

Thanks for your reply P-funk, let me know how I can make my diet better!!

Posted by: dymas

grrr stupid computer crashed and I lost my whole post

sigh...well this is the short version:

--->

meal 1: instant oatmeal

has sugar in it and it's processed...try old fashoned oats or steel cut oats.

meal 2: bagel

cream cheese

bagels (although being super tasty) are hidden calorie bombs...that bagel is prob. like 500 kcals!

Plus it's bread which is going to produce a higher insulin spike. I won't even start on the cream cheese! oh and the banana isn't the best choice here...

meal 3: drop the cheese and the wrap...not your best carb source...

meal 4: what type of fruit? some fruits are much higher GI spikes...your best bet is to stick with: anything from the berry family, apples, and grapefruit.

meal 5: soy nuggets

i dunno what the macros are on that...ketchup

again sugar and not a good carb source...

meal 6: okay...

--->

If you could post the kcals and pro/fat/carb breakdown of each meal and totals we could probably work from there.

To start you off:

VEGGIES?!!! where are they? You need to add in 3-4 cups of fresh veggies everyday! Try raw of steamed, cooking veggies strips away most of the vit/mins out.

CARBS: you have no slow burning carbs. Your best bet is: old fashoned oatmeal, steel cut oats, apples, brown rice, sweet potatos. These are all low on the GI index and your body will use them as energy over a longer peroid of time

FAT: you have no EFA's and very little fat. You need fat in your diet! Not transfat or junk like that but good sources of fat are needed in every diet.

SUGAR: most people here while on cutting plans (diets to drop fat while keeping muscle) get rid of all sugar. Sugar spikes your insulin levels and tells your body to store fat.

FOOD: basically try to eat as fresh as possible...processing foods contain tons of sugars or transfat and are horrible carb choices.

FAT-FREE STUFF: again bad idea...most (not all!) fat-free stuff makes up for any healthy advantage with transfat, sugars, or other nasty stuff, plus it's usually highly processed...again this is bad.

edit = also you need to balance your meals better. Shoot for a good mix of carbs (slow-burning) protien, and fats in EVERY meal!

Posted by: Jodi

Nice Dymas!

Why is everyone missing the Stickie that say Newbies Start Here!

Posted by: Jodi

Also get rid of the honey mustard, ketchup, these both have sugar in them. Have some celery sticks instead of the soy nuts. Do a search on soy here and you'll be able to make your own assumption on soy.

on the soys burgers. Have some more chicken instead.

Definately listen to those tips Dymas mentioned, they are the key to fat loss. Good luck.

Posted by: rock4832

Thanks for your feedback. I was told that oatmeal was a good thing to eat preworkout for the carbs and sugars and that I should eat a bagel postworkout to drive the creatine into my muscles. What would you suggest for that? I know the cream cheese is bad, I just can't stand bread with nothing on it. If I can't use ketchup or mustard, is there an alternative I can use? If I drop the wrap on Meal 3, what should replace it? I'm trying to keep some carbs so I can build muscle, plus it's easy to make and eat for work. In the ER I don't get traditional breaks, it's whatever I can carry and eat usually.

Could you give me a couple of good meal examples Dymas (or anyone else). Is Broccoli, Cauliflower, Tomatoes and carrots good for raw vegetables? I really appreciate the advice and help!

Posted by: dymas

Quote:

I know the cream cheese is bad, I just can't stand bread with nothing on it

good, that will make it easier to dump the bread

#1: finding time to eat:

ER is gotta be tough...I can't say my job is the same but I have a hard time finding time to eat as well since I don't have a "normal" deskjob. Here are some tips that helped me out:
1) buy tupperware...and lots of it
2) buy a "soft-cooler" bag, one that has the refreezable (spelling?) thingys you can stick in
3) pick two days a week just for food-prep. Yeah it sucks to waste all those hours cooking but eating healthy is a lifestyle choice and a good one at that

4) write out a meal plan with times for each day of the week - if your schedule changes alot this will be very helpful in reminding you what to eat and what times to eat
5) log your food at http://www.fitday.com to track how you are doing each day/week

#2: Carbs...

Well figuring out your carb intake for the day is going to take some work on your part. We need your macro breakdown for each meal and the totals. For example:

Meal #3
6oz tuna in water
3 cups mixed salad
1 TBS flax oil

total: 305
Pro: 37.5g
carb: 0 (not including veggies)
fat: 16.5g

from the breakdown we can help you figure out totals for the day and rough calorie count. For example if you want to keep your carbs up you could do a 40/40/20 split (pro/carb/fat). That means that at the end of the day 40% of your total calories were from protein, 40% from carbs (slow burning ones!!!!) and 20% from fat (EFA's)

#3 Meals...

well that's really up to you since YOU are going to be the one eating this stuff

Here is a shopping list (w8 and DP wrote it and Jodi added some goodies)

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Shopping list!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
sugar-free low carb protein powder
lean beef
buffalo
chicken breast
turkey breast
fresh fish
canned tuna
canned salmon
eggs
cottage cheese
sweet potatoes
yams
long grain brown rice
old fashioned oats
steel cut oats
fiber one cereal
uncle sam
lentils
legumes
eggplant
squash
romaine lettuce
spinach
asparagus
avocado
broccoli
brussels sprouts
cabbage
cauliflower
cucumbers
celery
peppers (any color)
mushrooms
string beans
zucchini
apples
fresh or frozen (w/o syrup) berries
peaches
grapefruit
fish oil capsules
olive oil
safflower oil
flax seed oil
walnut oil
almonds
walnuts
natural sugar-free peanut butter

Posted by: rock4832

Thanks so much for your help Dymas. It will take some time to figure the macro breakdown, but how does this sound for a day-

meal 1 (preworkout)- 2 cups old fashioned oats w/ cup of berries, 30g protein drink

meal 2 (postworkout)- 40g protein drink and I don't know what carb would be good for creatine absorption

meal 3- Yam w/ salsa or 2 cups brown rice with salad w/ baby tomatoes, chick peas, and broccoli w/ vinegar/olive oil dressing and and 3-4 oz of slice chicken breast.

meal 4- 40g protein drink and apple

meal 5- 6 oz of tuna and a pear or plum

meal 6- 1-2 turkey burgers or 5-6 oz of chicken breast, cup of cauliflower. (is there some kind of wheat bread or low glycemic bread or yogurt I could eat for the carb?)

meal 7- 30 g cassein protein.

What do you think of that? Is it better than before or what dangers do you see?

Posted by: dymas

Okay now we're cooking! It's a good start, although it's tough to nail it down without knowing the totals for everything.

I think the next step would be for you to get a solid goal in mind. Everybody wants to add muscle and be shredded but you can't really do both at the same time. Yes you can cut and gain muscle but it's not going to yeild the same results as a pure cut plus the diet is different.

So i'm going to assume from your post you want to trim down a bit...not a full blown cut (hence the carbs) but enough to keep from gaining more fat.

At 181 your rough estimates are:
181 x 12 = cutting diet
181 x 15 = maintenacne
181 x 16-18 = bulking

Let's try a 40/40/20 split, later on you can try switching over to more protien and cutting down the carbs a bit if you still aren't trimming down enough- something like 50/30/20

so let's say we shoot for 2300-2400 kcals. Now given a 40/40/20 you should be looking at:
240 grams of PRO (1.3 x bw a tad low

)
240 grams of CARBS
53 grams of FAT

Maybe kill a few grams of carbs and replace with PRO instead. FYI pro has 4 kcal per gram, carbs are 4 kcals per gram, and fat is 9 kcal per gram.

anyways....

Meal #1: berries are good...will help slow down the protien a bit.

Meal #2: mix your shake with heavy whipping cream (fat)

Meal #3: make sure that salsa is sugar-free!

Meal #4: apple

Meal #6: no veggies with the tuna?

try 2 cups of mixed salad...

Meal #6: hard to find low GI bread...go for stone ground wheat if you have to have bread, much better to add more brown rice here or a sweet potato... No yogurt

sugar!

Your mid-morning meals seem really big compared to your afternoon-evening meals...any reason for this? schedule or something?

also you don't have alot of fat in there...try adding some heavy whipping cream or flax oil...hard to guess at this stuff without totals. But it's looking better!

Posted by: Jodi

Great job Dymas............you rock!

Breaking this down a little further with what dymas wrote, meals should look like this

Meal 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5
40G Protein
50G Slow burning Carbs
8G Fat

Meal 6:
40G Protein
10G Fat

As far as bread, I don't like it on a cut but if you must I fell 100% Whole Grain is the best. You can have mustard and dry spices to help make food more exciting just not honey mustard, plain yellow, spicy or dijon mustard. You can use sweetners like Spenda or stevia and also cinnamon and nutmeg help with the oats and sweet potatoes. Try cottage cheese for a different protein and its a great bedtime protein as well because of the casien. Fish oil is becoming my favorite fat source these days. You buy them in the capsules which makes it very convenient to carry around with you. EFA's are necessary and should be in every meal to help slow down digestion and provide satiety.

As far as fruits, here are your best options: Any Berries, grapefruit, apples and peaches.

Posted by: rock4832

I really appreciate your help Dymas and Jodi! Jodi, the 10g of fat, should that be unsaturated, saturated or doesn't it matter? And Dymas, the Heavy whipping cream, is that just whipped cream? Does that help with the creatine absorption? What other carbohydrate would be good for post workout?

Posted by: P-funk

Damn, I go to work for 8hrs and come back to this.....Nice posts guys, lol, saved me a lot of time.

Quote:

Just because I ask questions to help with my diet and losing weight or improve my quality of life does not mean I have no understanding of proper nutrition! It means there is a lot of crap ideas circulating around and it gets confusing sometimes. I supplement because of what I've read and researched in these threads and on my own.

Rock, my post was in no way intende to flame you or offend you. I just can't stand it when people are so quick to jump on the supplement bandwagon and start craming a whole bunch of crap down their throat with out getting proper nutrition. If you make some diet changes, like the ones that have been layed out for you, then you will be much better off and find that you may not even need those supplements to reach your goals. Furthermore, if you make these changes and then decide to use the supplements they will be that more effective. I say take 6 weeks and try and get your nutrition in order before you jump into anything. Just my honest opinion.

peace,
Patrick

Posted by: dymas

rock -

pre-workout meals/shakes should be fairly light - you want protein here...

post-workout you need...well more protein

and carbs...try an apple if you feel like more carbs...or some oatmeal.

Fat (like heavy whipping cream) will help slow down the protein and let you absorb it better. Whipped cream is different, it has sugar

Heavy whipping cream is a good source of fat and has no sugar in it...you might have a hard time finding it at "normal" supermarkets...try health food type grocery stores maybe? In any case just read the labels, if you see something other than:
Sugar = 0g
than put it down

And last thing, I completly agree with P-funk. Getting your nutrition on track is going to produce results alot cheaper and better than any supplement. Once you get a handle on eating correctly and you start to read your body and see the results of certain foods you can add in supplements. Trying to make to many changes at once is hard on your body and even harder for you to gauge if they are doing anything.

anyways working on that meal plan and get the macros and amounts squared away and than stick to the plan. From there we can change things around to get the results you want!

Posted by: rock4832

Will do. One more question (probably not). For supplementing more protein into the diet. Should I be using Whey, or Soy or some other protein?

Posted by: P-funk

Whey protein is great, especially after workout. It is not an all day protein though. Meaning that you just can;t pound down whey shakes whenever you want. You can however make a meal replacment type drink out of them by adding fats (things like heavy cream or flax) and/or carbs (apples, strawberries, oatmeal all work well).

I don;t like soy protein. If you want a blend something like egg or casein protein work well and they are slow burning. I only drink one shake a day, after my workout (whey protein with oatmeal). The rest of the day everything is whole foods. I feel that things workout better for me this way.

Posted by: rock4832

So I can still make a shake of 40g of whey protein later after my workout as long as I add carbs and fat? What if I make the shake and eat carbs and fat?

Posted by: Jodi

Yes of cource you can drink the shake and eat other stuff. You don't have to drink your entire meal.

Posted by: rock4832

I'm sorry, I guess the real question is if it is alright to drink the whey protein? And if not what protein drink should I drink?

Posted by: Jodi

Thats the only way you can take the Whey protein unless you really like munching on powder

Posted by: oaktownboy

yeah i'm big on eating, not drinking my meals

Posted by: rock4832

Hilarious Jody!!

The emphasis is on the WHEY. Should I be taking WHEY protein to meet my protein needs with shakes. P-funk said WHEY protein is not an all day protein drink, only after work-outs so I'm wondering what kind of protein I should drink for times other than post-workout?

Posted by: Jodi

Alright start again

Whey protein is a supplement. You can use Whey when you don't have time to fit in an entire meal. Try to keep it around 2 shakes a day and real food in your other meals. Whey is a supplement and its not to replace real food. Its used in a time crunch or if you need some quick absorbin protein like after a workout. To use whey as a MEAL REPLACEMENT, then be sure to add in some fat and carbs if your plan calls for it at that time.

Posted by: Pepper

Wow..this is a great thread!

Two quick questions:
1. could you guys give me a little explanation about what is wrong with fat-free cheese? I still use it and have identified it as one thing that may need to be pitched.

2. Jodi, not to be dense, but were you saying spicey or dijon mustard is OK (within reason, of course?)

Posted by: Jodi

Quote:

Originally posted by Pepper
Wow..this is a great thread!

Two quick questions:
1. could you guys give me a little explanation about what is wrong with fat-free cheese? I still use it and have identified it as one thing that may need to be pitched.

Pepper mainly because when they take out the fat they add in sugar or other hidden carbs. Check out the ingredients first. Not all FF cheese is bad and can be used within caloric restriction just watch the ingredients and macros and that goes for any FF product. I found out that FF cottage cheese has the same sugar/carb content at the full fat one. So I buy that now and add in EFA's to reach my fat for that meal and its better for me anyway

2. Jodi, not to be dense, but were you saying spicey or dijon mustard is OK (within reason, of course?)
Any mustard and as much as you want. Just check the package. I use Gouldon's and I use alot of it. There are very few cals and no carbs or sugar, its just pure mustard seed and water and vinegar. No restriction. The honey mustard he mentioned above is exactly that Honey and we all know that is a

Posted by: rock4832

What about tomatoes? Are they ok to eat, I was told they were full of sugar.

Posted by: Jodi

You are better off without them but everynow and then is fine.

Posted by: buff_tat2d_chick

What about lemon for fish? Is that a no-no

??? Oh yeah, and onion - white or yellow? Are they allowable?

Posted by: Jodi

Yeah go ahead on the lemon. I make my own lemon pepper and put it on my fish to bake with

All onions are fine, my fav are vidalia onions, they are much sweeter than most onions and taste awsome stir fried with mushrooms, ground sirloin, egg and brown rice

Posted by: buff_tat2d_chick

I am sooo glad to hear that...that helps tremendously!!

Posted by: dg806

Quote:

Originally posted by rock4832
Should I be taking WHEY protein to meet my protein needs with shakes. P-funk said WHEY protein is not an all day protein drink, only after work-outs so I'm wondering what kind of protein I should drink for times other than post-workout?

Whey is a quick release protein. Very good for post workouts as it fuels tired muscles. Casein or egg would be good any other time, especially before bed as it is a slow release. It releases over several hours vs. minutes! Never rely only on shakes for protein needs. Most of it should come in the form of lean meats, cottage cheese, and such.

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