Diets - Macros and Calories, what do you really need?

Spikey Willow said:
Could someone expand more on this? I haven't heard much about the downsides to "low-fat" foods before.
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He's possibly referring to sugars added to low fat foods to make them taste better.

There seems to be a myth that fat is bad, so food companies produce all this low fat stuff that is more often that not laden with sugar. Excess amount of sugar is probably more harmful than excess dietary fat.

Then there's the low fat margerine spreads made from hydrogenated oils that they try to sell us. Give me real butter any day of the week!

My general approach to diet is to eat things as close to their original state as possible. I'll take natural yoghurt over flavoured low fat yoghurt and I'll take real butter over margerine. The shorter the list of ingredients on the packet, the better as far as I'm concerned.

EDIT: The above example is kind of moot for me now as I rarely eat dairy.
 
Good work ;) The thing that stands out the most to me is the bit about fluid/water.

I honestly do not drink enough water and I am not alone, I really should because I feel a ton better when hydrated, I drink plenty of tea /coffee but it's just
not the same :p Some days I don't even get to a tap except to fill the kettle up so I really need to push myself to remember water over a cupper from now on.
 
I'm trying to revamp my diet at the moment. I do a 3 day workout every week which is good but I think I can do more than that. But I'm struggling to think of any good quick easy to make high protein meals.

So far the diet I've got planned is:

Meal 1 - Bowl of oats with milk or other whole wheat cereal

Meal 2 - Whey protein + 300ML milk (510 calories & 85G protein)

Meal 3 - Can of tuna + whole wheat bread/tortilla wrap OR chicken breast + some kind of chicken sauce + brown rice + vegetables

Meal 4 - Whey protein + 300ML milk(510 calories & 85G protein)

Meal 5 - Can of tuna + 2 slices of whole wheat bread OR chicken breast + some kind of chicken sauce + brown rice + vegetables

Meal 6 - Evening meal (will have chicken or fish with vegetables, brown rice ect)

Is that diet ok? Apparentely my BSM is 2000 calories. I want to put on lean muscle but I would also like to cut my fat levels at the same time (I've read this is possible with a clean diet).

So I'm guessing I would need to consume around 2300 calories to put on lean muscle but not much fat? I'm trying to aim for 40/40/20 with my diet aswell. I have at least 200g of protein every day, but not sure about carbs/fats.

I'm 5 foot 7 and 140 LBS so not a huge guy!

Sorry for the amount of questions but I've read a lot of different suggestions on different forums/websites. I would rather get everything right now and do this workout plan properly than waste months of money/training for mediocre results!

If anyone has any quick easy high protein meals to make then tell me haha. I've also read somewhere about making a healthy pizza with a whole wheat base, tomotoe puree, mozzeralla cheese, chicken, mushrooms, peppers, spinach. Is that ideal?
 
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I'm struggling to cut carbs. I've started reading labels on everything and they contain a fair bit of carbs. My cereal alone has about 30g.

What snacks / small meals can you have during the day which are low in carbs? (I'm veggie).
 
Any meat really with some veggies, or cottage cheese is a good one.

Peanut butter is brilliant, high in good fats, decent amount of protein and low in carbs. It has plenty of calories so you don't even need much. 1tbsp of peanut butter on a rice cake and you have about 120 calories with no more than 10g of carbs

Another one you can try, eggs. But have it in an omelette and mess around with different ingredients you like. But eggs again are next to no carbs but all round goodness
 
Do you mind if I ask questions about insulin control in here? The plan is to stick to it for a month before introducing carbs again, from what I can tell?

Specifically regarding FF's post here:

As U_E said, ditch sugars and simple carbs. Try and keep any carbs to the morning, and fast your body from carbs for as long as you can. i.e. I don't have carbs from about 3-4pm to 630am the next day. Even during the day I tend to have under 150g (or even less than that) of carbs (which isn't a lot - it's only 600 cals). On weekends, I have as many carbs as I want without sacrificing protein and fat ingestion, and they will be good quality carbs. Once your body's sensitivity is improved you can then go back to a more "regular" number of carbs - but I tend to eat them if I'm going ot be very active, or if I need energy. I don't eat carbs at night else I burn up in bed, but in the winter, I load up on carbs and I'm toasty warm, wandering around in shorts. It also improves your body's comportment to other stimuli, like, alcohol, and illnesses too.

Start off by sacrificing, sugar, sweets, fizzy drinks, alcohol (only for a bit don't worry), white rice, simple carbs in general, processed foods, breads. It sounds really horrid, and it's bloody hard work initially, but long term you will start to reap the benefits.

Once you get your insulin response back up you're ability to react to carbs will improve - that reaction will help with fat burning rather than fat storage. Insulin is a shuttling hormone for moving nutrients around your body, but also a storage hormone, and just loves to store fats away. If you don't give it the opportunity to, it is force to shuttle the fats to aid with energy production.
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I can deal with the sacrificing: sweets, alcohol, fizzy drinks, processed foods, white rice and breads.

Sugar- should it be minimal sugar (1 spoon) or should avoid adding any sugar to tea/coffee. I usually have a cup of coffee with one sugar before a workout, should I stop this as part of the diet?

Not eating carbs after 4pm sounds quite tough though. Would it simply mean eating veg with meat every night?

I can't really drink milk or eat too much cheese either so that doesn't help things and nuts can cause some minor reactions too. :\

Just trying to think of meals:

Breakfast

  • Toast (will make bread at home) with peanut butter
  • Muesli with soya milk
  • Poached eggs (sometimes with toast)

Lunch

Can I have carbs here again? Say:

  • Tuna and wholewheat pasta bake
  • Sweet potato with roast chicken
  • Stirfry with couscous (is cous cous a simple carb?)

Dinner

  • Boiled veg and chicken
  • Roast veg and chicken or similar
  • ???

Struggling to think of what I could snack on as I'd have to cut out fruit too?
 
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I hate to go against what Freefaller says as he is far more knowledgeable about most things in this field than me, but this area is so subjective, there is so many conflicting reports either way

But for me personally, I don't think cutting carbs completely later in the day is required at all. Taper them off by all means but don't cut them out

If you do decide you do want to give it a go and cut them out however, then there is plenty of options. Have white fish with a decent salad or any veggies (spinach is a favourite of mine and can't be beat for nutritional value). Also, you could try omelets, few mushrooms in there and cheese. Then before bed just have a small tub of cottage cheese or a casein protein formula

But like I said you don't need to do this, just make sure you're eating good carbs. A carb isn't simply a carb, so keep to the good ones and you'll be fine. Cut out pastas and anything non wholegrain, or high on the GI scale. Have some sweet potato, or brown rice, wholegrain rice cakes or oats (although I wouldn't want oats that late in the day, bit heavy)
 
You're right cutting them out later in the day isn't an absolute, certainly if you've had a big workout getting some carbs in you isn't a bad shout - however, what I will say is that to start improving your insulin sensitivity you will need to do it for a while. It takes a while for the receptors to lose their resistance (hence why I tend to say go for a month of uber low carbs (not necessarily keto low just low), and then start introducing them back in, and use a carb cycling technique to start getting your body to respond to carbs in a more efficient way. Now I can eat carbs all weekend and have no issues - I just burn up when I do! :D
 
I wonder if me doing my diet would have unintentionally had the same effect of improving my insulin sensitivity, when I was on next to no carbs for the last 5 weeks
 
Potentially. :)

Besides, if you were using good low GI carbs you'd have been helping. Our bodies just go nuts when sugar and simple carbs are injested - that's why professional runners and sports people load themselves up before a sport as their bodies will just be like furnaces ready to expend energy.

Someone who isn't fit or in a good condition or homonally balanced will feel tired and bloated.
 
Freefaller said:
Someone who isn't fit or in a good condition or homonally balanced will feel tired and bloated.
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I used to get this really bad! Falling asleep and feeling bloated if I ate sandwiches for lunch. :eek: Still get it to some degree but not as bad.

I will be creating a shopping list of things to buy and making a list of meals so I can plan this diet. I think it'll be best to go gradually although I'm partly there with not eating too much rubbish but fine tuning is definitely required.

Thanks for the advice. :)

Edit - just to confirm, does fruit come under sugars? I usually snack on them between meals.


What would you suggest to avoid pre and post work out (or can you point me to a link/site that has good info)? Can I still have a banana and coffee pre-work out?

I usually have a scoop of whey in fruit juice (not from concentrate) post work out for protein and sugar.


I am looking forward to this, it's just a case of ensuring I have planned everything out and do it gradually. At the moment I only really plan the next 2 meals but I am going to try and do a whole week at a time. Have already switched from margarine to organic butter. Currently defrosting some mince beef for a chilli or something later.
 
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Good post. Couple of things I'd like to add to the discussion though.

I see people recommending wholegrain food. By all means don't exclude them from your diet, but don't go overboard with them as our digestive systems haven't really evolved to the extent where we can handle large amounts of them; much like a lot of people with lactose.

Also, cholesterol. Our bodies produce more cholesterol than we eat (3-4 times in fact if I remember correctly). Eat less, produce more. Eat more, produce less. Point is, don't worry about controlling it in your diet, it will just be counterproductive.

And fats. Despite what food manufacturers say there's no link between increased saturated fat and heart disease. The whole scare started when the 5 (or was it 4) country study was released showing a correlation, not causation, between increases saturated fat consumption and heart disease in 5 counties. What the guy who published it failed to mention were the 20 other countries in the study that didn't follow the trend that were omitted. This eventually came to light but unfortunately so many people still cling on to this fallacy.
 
Sorry, double post! Might as well make it worth something...

I read somewhere that ricecakes produce a greater insulin spike, gram for gram, than sugar. Not quite sure how true it is, but I remember hearing it from someone FAR more knowledgeable than myself.
 
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I've planned the following for the next few days.

diet.jpg


It's far from perfect but it's a start.... I'll fine tune and make changes as I go through with it and start to roughly count macros etc and calculate how much I need. In fact, I will weigh myself in the gym later on.

Not quite sure what to have with the chili, might just have some salad.
 
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Fitter, stronger, bigger.

Not much then. :o

I think I weigh around 10st @ 5'10/11, I believe I'm an ectomorph as I was 9st up until the age of 23 and that extra 1st is fat not muscle.
 
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Sigma, not really eating enough there to put on size.

Maybe add in an extra meal at some point to help bring the calories up, have you worked out the macros on all of that yet?
 
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