Diet/Gym Advice

Mulder · 20 Oct 2008 at 23:01

I weighed myself about 2 weeks ago and having realised I'm the heaviest I've ever been decided to do something about it. I'm 21, just over 6' and weigh 13 stone 10. I've completely changed my diet, cutting out everything I deem as rubbish and eating pretty much nothing but brown bread, muesli, salad, chicken, fish, eggs and absolutely loads of fruit and veg. I've also been hitting the gym every other day either running, swimming or weights depending on if my muscles feel tired or not. My calorie intake has gone from around 3000 of poor calories (coke, sugary foods, big dinners etc) to around 2000 of the above foods. Now for the questions:

Is my diet change too radical? I've heard that my body may be entering starvation mode....

Should I be weight training on this diet? I'm not going mad or anything, just working out arms, legs and chest.

I'm not looking for short term fixes, this is a permanent change of diet/lifestyle not the cabbage soup diet!

I'd really appreciate any other advice from some of you experts on how I could improve any of this.

Thanks

Swiftan · 20 Oct 2008 at 23:12

Wouldn't worry about starvation mode at 2000 calories, radical changes to your diet are more about your mental issues and hungry urges than your body going survival on you.

It all starts with cutting out the crap (processed foods, takeaways, simple carbs), and then you acquire a taste for alternatives like wholemeal/granary/Burgen bread, skimmed milk, tomato based sauces with your pasta instead of mayonnaise/salad creams, etc etc.

Sounds to me like you'll do well with what you're doing right now, isn't many recommendations I can make without being too anal.

Walk before you can run, I stuck to my weight loss diet 5 days a week and at weekends went wild with takeaways, sweets and drink and still managed to progress nicely. After a while I cut the takeaways and sweets out, drink still remains but it's never hindered my progress to a point where I need to cut it out to make any.

Mulder · 21 Oct 2008 at 11:29

It's good to hear you managed to progress on 5 days out of 7. Any idea when I'll really prefer the taste of wholemeal bread etc? I'm not going to lie to myself, It doesn't "taste" anything like what I used to eat but I know it should.

Also, when would be a good time to stop the weight loss and start bulking up? My BF% at the moment is around 16.4%. Is there a certain figure when it's good to start?

Morba · 21 Oct 2008 at 11:30

You decide when you have lost enough fat, no-one but yourself can decide that

Wholemeal bread is fine when you have decent sandwich fillings or toast toppings :]

Freefaller · 21 Oct 2008 at 13:03

13st 10 @ 6ft isn't that much tbh. That's about right isn't it? Look at the mirror, that's the best way to do it - bf% is useless as it's just a figure and not what you look like.

You said you're doing chest, arms and legs, what about back?! You might as well do your whole body.

That diet looks great, but don't fret about eating more cals, as the more exercise you do and the more lean muscle you develop the more your body will utilise the calorie surplus.

Mulder · 22 Oct 2008 at 01:14

Freefaller said:
13st 10 @ 6ft isn't that much tbh. That's about right isn't it? Look at the mirror, that's the best way to do it - bf% is useless as it's just a figure and not what you look like.

You said you're doing chest, arms and legs, what about back?! You might as well do your whole body.

That diet looks great, but don't fret about eating more cals, as the more exercise you do and the more lean muscle you develop the more your body will utilise the calorie surplus.

I'm not fat really (well, I wouldn't say) but I'm not lean, which is my ultimate goal. Good news about the calories, I've started to feel pretty weak recently after the gym whereas I'd normally just feel tired.