Meal Preps / Overcoming Hunger

[Pulsedriver]

Hey folks, I go to the gym twice a week, but my job involves a lot of sitting at a desk, so easy-access food is usually the go-to during the week.

I am about 6'1 and weigh 92kg - when I look at that it seems like I am overweight, although nobody would say that about me, apart from a bit of a belly (not much, but too much for me, i'd like it a little trimmer!)
My workouts are mainly exercises such as pull ups, chin ups, dips, military presses, preacher curls, tricep pulldowns & lat raises.

I do not really eat cheese, nor do I drink fizzy drinks, alcohol is usually limited to a couple of glasses of wine at the weekend and a bottle of beer or two.
My downfall is crisps - always has been!

A typical weekday food day for me is;

Breakfast - varies from either a bowl of cereal, a couple of slices of soreen malt loaf, or a protein shake, one of those, not all!

Lunch - mon + tue I go with 2 sandwiches/rolls/half a baguette type thing, usually with Quorn or Beef/Chicken filling.
One bag of crisps, quite often 2.
One banana, sometimes 2
Bottle of water

Wed/Thur/Fri I swap the sandwiches for a Tuna / salad, onion/tomato/cucumber etc -no mayo.

Mid afternoon - SOMETIMES, not always, may have something like a go-ahead bar or similar.

Dinner - Usually home made food, spaghetti bolognaise, chicken & potatoes/veg, not always super-healthy but not take-aways or ready meals.

Weekend is usually a mixed bag, but always an Indian take-away on a Saturday evening.

I am trying to get ideas on how to trim up a bit, I guess I could add a day of cardio to my existing twice a week workout? But thinking the diet needs improvement?

Thanks in advance for any advice

 

[Somnambulist]

Training: need legs.

How active are you outside of training? Do you walk a lot, have an active job or lead a sedentary lifestyle? A few sets of upper body exercises (and weights in general) doesn't burn much of anything, especially compared to the other hours of the day you're awake. If you're a potato most days of the week you're overall daily energy expenditure is going to be low, which means you need to eat a lot less to create a calorie deficit than if you were more active. This doesn't necessarily mean throw cardio in, but if you don't walk any great amount per day find a way to. Look up 'NEAT'.

Diet: bite the bullet and track your calories as accurately as you can for a week or two, because what you're eating isn't as important as how much of it you're eating. Always comes down to calories first and foremost. Liquid calories, dressings, sauces, it all adds up. Your week day intake doesn't look like much, but even if it was creating a calorie deficit you could easily undo that every single weekend with your 'mixed bag' and takeaways. If you're in a 500 calorie deficit 5 days of the week then at the weekend you end up in a 2000 calorie surplus because your takeaway meal was a days worth of calories on Saturday and then random indulgences Sunday put you another 1500 in the red, then you end up with no net loss and nothing changes.

Content of the diet isn't atrocious (although I'd aim for a decent serving of protein for breakfast consistently; doesn't have to just be a shake) but without amounts/ingredients, saying spag bol for instance doesn't really say tell much of a story - is the mince lean or higher in fat? How much oil are you using? Is the sauce some Dolmio thing that's high calorie? How much pasta are you using? Are you throwing generous amounts of parmesan on top? et - all that stuff can add up really quickly and no matter how 'healthy' a meal is, if it's high in cals it's high in cals.

Making wholesale changes doesn't tend to work well for adherence so the best thing you can do is find out how much is going in then look at where you can make small changes to what you're eating that add up in terms of reducing your caloric intake. Once you've got a good idea of how much you're eating, then you'll know rougly how much less you need to eat to lose weight at a meaningful rate (I prefer weighing daily or several times per week first thing in the morning after waking and using the loo, then getting a weekly average from that) and then you can start making decisions about choosing things like oats over cereal/Soreen, picking lower calorie crisp options or smaller bags, or for spag bol using a lower calorie sauce/5% mince/less pasta replaced with more veg (spinach or something)/1kcal spray oil vs tablespoons of oil, etc etc.

 

[booyaka]

Calorie Deficit...

Eat a bit less, exercise more. Throw some cardio in there, go for a long walk, jog etc. As above -track your calories for a couple of weeks - be honest about it.

Eat cleanish for 6 days, then enjoy a cheat day or whatever you want to call it.

 

[Pulsedriver]

Hi Somnambulist, thank you for your helpful reply, there is a lot I can take from that, appreciated!

I am not overly-active but not a couch potato, when I check steps it's usually around 4000 a day on the 'non active usual work days' although I don't always have my phone on me so it's no doubt a bit more than that. I am downloading myfitnesspal so I can see how many calories, generally speaking the home cooked food is made from scratch not Dolmio etc, I think it is definitely as you say, quantity etc to keep an eye on.

booyaka = thank you also.

 

[Somnambulist]

4000-5000 I'd probably classly as 'lightly active' so for calories, either
1) convert your bodyweight into pounds (bw in kg x 2.2) and then multiply that by 10-12 - with 10 being on the lighter activity end and 12 being higher. You then aim to hit these calories (+/- 50 or so is fine) for a week or two and see how your average weight changes, then adjust as necessary. There are far more complex calculations for finding calorie requirements but in practical terms it doesn't make any difference since you're just using them to find a started point, and if the simple equation gets you close enough that's all you need. Anyway, if weight loss is slow, decrease intake by 100 calories or so. If weight loss is rapid - past the initial drop of water - it's not that big of a deal until you start looking 'beach lean' at which point you'd probably be aiming more towards seeing your total bodyweight reducing by about 1-1.5% a week (on average) and you'd increase by 100 calories or so.

If you're really sedentary you may need to go as low as 8-10 but hopefully that won't be the case.

2) track what you're eating now along with your weight, get the average weekly calories and assuming that your weight is stable it must be around what is required to maintain your weight. Then, depending on how aggressive you want to be, reduce that by some amount. A 500 calorie deficit is middle of the road. People generally want to see results weekly, so small deficits make fat loss take forever. Harsh deficits get quicker results, but are almost always harder to adhere to, have to be shorter in duration before you take a break (because of the negative physiological adaptations that occur) and carry a lot more considerations (and less options) with regards to nutrition.

 

[Pulsedriver]

Brilliant thank you so much, extremely helpful mate! I weighed myself at the gym yesterday and hit the 91.2kg mark, so it seems, week on week that tends to be the number, I drifted to 92.2 or so when I measured Sunday but that is I guess the rough movement of weight, but generally over the last 4-6 weeks it has been 91kg-92kg back and forth so by what you say above it would seem I am 'maintaining' rather than gaining/losing, you could add the fact I had an all-inclusive holiday for a week in Turkey at the end of July, so I did well not to gain anything (although the food was mostly healthy stuff plenty of protein and I did swim a lot!)
So it looks like I need to hit around 2100 calories as an aim per day and see where it takes me!

 

[booyaka]

Stay off the scales for 4/6 weeks. Hit your numbers or just under the calories and then weight yourself. Don't do it every week etc.

Drink lots of water, eat as clean as you can and add a few 1000 steps more on your walk home/dog walk/walk to the shops etc.

Good luck

 

[ci_newman]

My own tip for weighing yourself, do it first thing in the morning after your morning "ablutions" (i.e. # 1 & #2) and before you've eaten or drunk anything that day. You don't want to be measuring your lunch or your morning coffee, you need a consistent baseline.

As mentioned, MyFitnessPal is a great way to learn and understand how many calories are in a given meal (i.e. Sorreen Malt Loaf is very calorific, so are most cereals!). Several weeks (or months) using that and you will learn new eating habits and understand your own nutrition much better. You have to be very strict with what you record though. An apple for an afternoon snack? Log it. A cheeky chocolate biscuit in the evening? Log it.

Doing some cardio is a great way to feel healthier too, even if it doesn't affect your weight directly.