Lifestyle Change
- Thread starter AiiR
- Start date
Pretty much, yeah. Small and often. You always need to have breakfast too.
I can't advise though because it seems like you're a bit confused with what you want to do, and what your actual goal is. Do you want to lose weight and get slim? Do you want to lift weights and get more muscley? You have to have a goal and some form of plan so people know what to advise, it's not the same for everything so you need to adjust in accordance of what you want. You have to make everything into a routine, because otherwise it's extremely hard to stick with things and you won't find yourself getting results, routine is both eating habits and exercise.
I will say now, this is a complete overhaul, you can't do things some day and then say "Oh because I ate bad yesterday, i'll eat less today to balance it out" because it doesn't work like that, once you have your routine you have to have some level of commitment to it.
Ah, it probably did sound quite confusing. In a perfect world I'd love to get slim and model toned, but the world isn't perfect and neither am I. So I'm looking to lose a fair bit of weight first, possibly 2-3 stone? Then tone up a bit after. So for now, just weight loss would be my goal, if that makes sense?
Yeah I understand what you're saying about balancing it out, I'm hoping by the weekend I'll have a plan set in stone which I can put my all into sticking to. I'm pretty fired up for doing this, and have bought clothes that are purposely too small so I can see how I'm doing (although not ridiculously small).
Thanks.
Ah, it probably did sound quite confusing. In a perfect world I'd love to get slim and model toned, but the world isn't perfect and neither am I. So I'm looking to lose a fair bit of weight first, possibly 2-3 stone? Then tone up a bit after. So for now, just weight loss would be my goal, if that makes sense?
Yeah I understand what you're saying about balancing it out, I'm hoping by the weekend I'll have a plan set in stone which I can put my all into sticking to. I'm pretty fired up for doing this, and have bought clothes that are purposely too small so I can see how I'm doing (although not ridiculously small).
Thanks.
Since you want to keep some muscle I'll suggest having carbs for some of your meals to help maintain, but you need protein with every meal.
Try something like
Breakfast: Porridge
Meal #2: Can of tuna, 100g of brown rice, mixed veg
Meal #3: Chicken breast, 100g of wholemeal pasta, mixed veg
Meal #4: Chicken breast, salad
Meal #5: Can of tuna, mixed veg
Gap of 2-3.5 hours between each 1
Obviously that's just a rough outline but I guess you can imagine what things will be good for you to eat, fish, white meat, brown or whole meal carbs and veggies. I've tried to keep some carbs in your diet but not include too many that it will be a problem with losing weight, will be slower than if you cut them out completely, but if you want to keep what you have now it's needed imo.
You may as well just stick to cardio for a while, the weight should come off fairly rapidly if you go at it.
Perfect, thanks. This may be a strange request, but I'm off to the jobby centre tomorrow and there's a Tesco opposite, so is there any other things I should look for?
Actually making a list here, so far I've added brown rice and pasta with a pack of chicken breasts.
Actually making a list here, so far I've added brown rice and pasta with a pack of chicken breasts.
As Adeus said, don't skip breakfast and spread the meals out for the rest of the day. I went 36 years with only very rarely having breakfast, having a big lunch and sitting in an office so not burning very much off and then a smallish dinner.
Charge up the system with a breakfast of good slow burning carbs like porridge, have a light snack, fruit or nuts and crackers, a good salad / brown bread sandwich for lunch, snack in the afternoon and a low carb dinner like low fat meat (chicken / fish / turkey) and some veg (I use frozen and microwave for quickness and ease).
Doing a 3*10 -12 rep program with your home gym on big compound exercises with also help burn some calories along with building some leaner muscle although your diet will not allow for much if any growth at this stage. Stick to the 3*10 for as heavy as you can go and when you can do that increase to 3*12. When you can do 3*12 up the weight a little and restart with 3*10. Doing 50 reps with a light weight is not going to be doing much for you. Your body needs to be under strain.
Give that a go, have another look at peoples progress threads including mine for routine ideas (the first suggested to me in my thread is a good place to start although I would still advise the 3*10-12) and let us know how you get on.
RB
Charge up the system with a breakfast of good slow burning carbs like porridge, have a light snack, fruit or nuts and crackers, a good salad / brown bread sandwich for lunch, snack in the afternoon and a low carb dinner like low fat meat (chicken / fish / turkey) and some veg (I use frozen and microwave for quickness and ease).
Doing a 3*10 -12 rep program with your home gym on big compound exercises with also help burn some calories along with building some leaner muscle although your diet will not allow for much if any growth at this stage. Stick to the 3*10 for as heavy as you can go and when you can do that increase to 3*12. When you can do 3*12 up the weight a little and restart with 3*10. Doing 50 reps with a light weight is not going to be doing much for you. Your body needs to be under strain.
Give that a go, have another look at peoples progress threads including mine for routine ideas (the first suggested to me in my thread is a good place to start although I would still advise the 3*10-12) and let us know how you get on.
RB
Perfect, thanks. This may be a strange request, but I'm off to the jobby centre tomorrow and there's a Tesco opposite, so is there any other things I should look for?
Actually making a list here, so far I've added brown rice and pasta with a pack of chicken breasts.
Mixed veg which you can buy frozen, tuna, salmon.
You'll need more than just a pack of chicken breasts, things get expensive I tell you. 1 pack with about 8 breasts in it will last about 2 days, so.. yeah, do the math
Cheers so far guys, day 1 has gone pretty well in my opinion. I'll post what I've done and hopefully someone can point out some improvements:
Food;
Breakfast - Single egg scrambled on a single piece of wholemeal toast with a small squirt of ketchup.
Lunch - Bowl of wholemeal pasta with chopped turkey ham and condensed chicken soup as a sauce (I was really stuck with what to have with the pasta, so I'm sure this can be improved somewhat)
Main meal - Bed of salad with seasoned cous cous with a handful of small prawns.
Snacks - Handful of rasberries at noon, then a fruit bowl of 2 oranges, 1 nectarine and a handful of grapes around 8pm.
That was my five small meals for the day, am I on the right track there?
Exercise-wise I've done 10minutes of light upper body weight lifting shortly after getting up, and then a two way 40 minute walk (So 1 hour 20mins total walking time).
I've also been on the water, so far I've counted four pints of water and a mug of semi skimmed milk. I completely forgot to take my weight this morning, but I'll attempt to remember tomorrow.
So how does it look so far?
Thanks.
Food;
Breakfast - Single egg scrambled on a single piece of wholemeal toast with a small squirt of ketchup.
Lunch - Bowl of wholemeal pasta with chopped turkey ham and condensed chicken soup as a sauce (I was really stuck with what to have with the pasta, so I'm sure this can be improved somewhat)
Main meal - Bed of salad with seasoned cous cous with a handful of small prawns.
Snacks - Handful of rasberries at noon, then a fruit bowl of 2 oranges, 1 nectarine and a handful of grapes around 8pm.
That was my five small meals for the day, am I on the right track there?
Exercise-wise I've done 10minutes of light upper body weight lifting shortly after getting up, and then a two way 40 minute walk (So 1 hour 20mins total walking time).
I've also been on the water, so far I've counted four pints of water and a mug of semi skimmed milk. I completely forgot to take my weight this morning, but I'll attempt to remember tomorrow.
So how does it look so far?
Thanks.
Best thing you can do is get with the calorie counting . Take what you have eaten and work out the number of calories it adds up to as well as the number of grams of carbs, protein and fat.
A 'normal' healthy guy who gets a reasonable amount of light exercise is usually rated as requiring 2500 calories a day. This needs to be adjusted depending on muscle bulk (more muscle needs more energy to work and maintain), lifestyle (i.e. I work all day in an office sitting down so am rated at around 2000 calories). To loose a lb of fat you need to burn 3500 calories more than your body needs. Say like me your body only requires 2000 calories a day, dropping to a 1500 calorie diet will see a 1lb fat loss per week (depending on the make up of the 1500 calorie intake of course). Increasing exercise so you burn on average 500 more calories a day, along with the diet would put you at the 2lb/week recommended level for safe weight loss. Increasing muscle bulk will also increase the amount of calories needed by the body on a daily basis but 'bulking' to increase muscle mass usually leads to fat gain as well. Whilst it can be done, it is generally considered quite difficult to do a 'clean' (i.e. no fat gain) bulk.
Ok, now we have sorted out how many calories we need, we need to look at the make up of those calories with regards to carbs, protein and fats. Keeping a calorie counting log for a month or so will give you a feel for the values for most of the food you eat on a regular basis. There is a fairly good guide here with percentages to aim for near the bottom. When I started keeping a record I was surprised to find that my healthy diet still had twice the amount of carbs compared to protein. It really is worth making the effort in my opinion.
Give the link a read, the BMI and body shape chart is quite interesting as well. You are on the right track and making the right moves so with a little fine tuning you should start to see some nice improvements. Just need to remember it all takes time.
Good luck
RB
. Take what you have eaten and work out the number of calories it adds up to as well as the number of grams of carbs, protein and fat.A 'normal' healthy guy who gets a reasonable amount of light exercise is usually rated as requiring 2500 calories a day. This needs to be adjusted depending on muscle bulk (more muscle needs more energy to work and maintain), lifestyle (i.e. I work all day in an office sitting down so am rated at around 2000 calories). To loose a lb of fat you need to burn 3500 calories more than your body needs. Say like me your body only requires 2000 calories a day, dropping to a 1500 calorie diet will see a 1lb fat loss per week (depending on the make up of the 1500 calorie intake of course). Increasing exercise so you burn on average 500 more calories a day, along with the diet would put you at the 2lb/week recommended level for safe weight loss. Increasing muscle bulk will also increase the amount of calories needed by the body on a daily basis but 'bulking' to increase muscle mass usually leads to fat gain as well. Whilst it can be done, it is generally considered quite difficult to do a 'clean' (i.e. no fat gain) bulk.
Ok, now we have sorted out how many calories we need, we need to look at the make up of those calories with regards to carbs, protein and fats. Keeping a calorie counting log for a month or so will give you a feel for the values for most of the food you eat on a regular basis. There is a fairly good guide here with percentages to aim for near the bottom. When I started keeping a record I was surprised to find that my healthy diet still had twice the amount of carbs compared to protein. It really is worth making the effort in my opinion.
Give the link a read, the BMI and body shape chart is quite interesting as well. You are on the right track and making the right moves so with a little fine tuning you should start to see some nice improvements. Just need to remember it all takes time.
Good luck
RB
Best thing you can do is get with the calorie counting
A 'normal' healthy guy who gets a reasonable amount of light exercise is usually rated as requiring 2500 calories a day. This needs to be adjusted depending on muscle bulk (more muscle needs more energy to work and maintain), lifestyle (i.e. I work all day in an office sitting down so am rated at around 2000 calories). To loose a lb of fat you need to burn 3500 calories more than your body needs. Say like me your body only requires 2000 calories a day, dropping to a 1500 calorie diet will see a 1lb fat loss per week (depending on the make up of the 1500 calorie intake of course). Increasing exercise so you burn on average 500 more calories a day, along with the diet would put you at the 2lb/week recommended level for safe weight loss. Increasing muscle bulk will also increase the amount of calories needed by the body on a daily basis but 'bulking' to increase muscle mass usually leads to fat gain as well. Whilst it can be done, it is generally considered quite difficult to do a 'clean' (i.e. no fat gain) bulk.
Ok, now we have sorted out how many calories we need, we need to look at the make up of those calories with regards to carbs, protein and fats. Keeping a calorie counting log for a month or so will give you a feel for the values for most of the food you eat on a regular basis. There is a fairly good guide here with percentages to aim for near the bottom. When I started keeping a record I was surprised to find that my healthy diet still had twice the amount of carbs compared to protein. It really is worth making the effort in my opinion.
Give the link a read, the BMI and body shape chart is quite interesting as well. You are on the right track and making the right moves so with a little fine tuning you should start to see some nice improvements. Just need to remember it all takes time.
Good luck
RB
Thanks, that was really helpful. After following the link and doing the calculator it comes to;
You are overweight by 25.2 kilograms (55.4 pounds)
Minimum caloric requirements: 2427 Calories per day
Limit your food intake to 2062 calories per day.
to lose 2.7 pounds per month.
Your diet should contain at least 96 grams of protein per day.
Would 1500 calories per day be sensible? Next step would be making a calorie log and then go from there?
Thanks again, it's going great so far and I have plenty of motivation.
Today I decided to get on the scales and it's currently at 17 stone 8 lbs. I'd like to get that down to 15 at some point, but I'm not setting it in stone as a definite goal as I read that it's not the best idea?Thanks, that was really helpful. After following the link and doing the calculator it comes to;
You are overweight by 25.2 kilograms (55.4 pounds)
Minimum caloric requirements: 2427 Calories per day
Limit your food intake to 2062 calories per day.
to lose 2.7 pounds per month.
Your diet should contain at least 96 grams of protein per day.
Would 1500 calories per day be sensible? Next step would be making a calorie log and then go from there?
Thanks again, it's going great so far and I have plenty of motivation.
As mentioned, it depends on how you spend your day. If you have a job that involves walking or lifting (i.e. postman, warehouse worker, car mechanic etc) then the calorific numbers are probably quite reasonable. If on the other hand you have a job with very little exercise built in (i.e. office worker) then dropping the requirement by 500 would not be unreasonable.
A calorie log would be a good next move.
As far as goals are concerned, it is good to have a long term goal that you can modify as things change and a number of short term goals that are realistic and achievable even if they may stretch you a little. If it is not measurable then it is hard to tell if you have attained it
.RB