New help with Diet and workout plan.

[Dugganator]

Right guys could do with some of your guys help.

I weight about 240lbs (shocking i know) I'm 6,2 and 24yrs.

I've been trying to kirb my life style and get back on track for a while know but I seem to be around the same weight regardless of what I try. I think the reason is because I'm going the wrong way around to do things.

First of all I play baseball and exercise at least 3 times a week either down the gym or at a game. I used to drink a lot talking about 4-6 cans a beer a night (went through a tuff break up but that’s another story). I've stopped drinking expect for social drinks with friends either once a week or every other week. But the problem I've found it seems that I've put on weight since stopping drink like I did like half a stone even thou this could be because of eating more etc.

In the last 2 weeks I've been hitting the gym 3 times a week. At the gym I'm doing cardio (1hr either cross trainer or treadmill) because all I want to do at the moment is loose weight and once I've lost 3/4 stone then look at toning up abit.

I've changed my eating habits to pasta, lean meats vegetables. But I think I'm sending my body into shock or something. Reason being is on average at the gym I'm burning about 700cals off and that’s about what I'm eating so kind of don’t have any intake in a day if that makes sense.

One thing I do drink a lot of diet drink mainly diet coke. I blame this on shifts and really need to stop this as I guess that diet coke isn’t doing my body any favours.

I'm fit for a big guy I don’t think I'm really fat as I've always been big and have a lot of muscle. The problem area for me is my beer belly I want this gone(advise on this would be great.)

Sorry for all the information but I thought I would post as much as I could to save people asking more questions.

Here’s what I would like to know
1. Where I'm going wrong (i think i know some of it but would like confirmation)
2. What would be the best suggested way I should loose weight and start off?
3. How should I eat. Ie should I eat normally and cut down over time?
4. Should I change my gym program to something else?
5. I basically want to loose weight more then anything. I don’t mind putting the work in and it taking time. I just would like to see results week by week instead of staying the same.
6. Anything else you guys suggest


Thanks in advance everyone

 

[Morba]

You should not be only consuming 700kcals a day, especially if you are as active as you say you are.

first tip: eat more, small meals but often.

anything else to suggest? read the sticky at the top!

 

[Dugganator]

I kinda guessed that it was wrong for me to be eating that little. But I dont really eat a lot I find it hard to eat a lot if I'm honest. I guess this could be a reason that I'm not losing weight if I'm not eating enough.

 

[Morba]

you dont need to eat big, just often.
300kcals is small enough to consume often, especially if you are active. your body will want fueling, im suprised you are not eating like a horse

 

[Dugganator]

Well when I was about 17 I weight in at 12st 5 but I used to boxing play football and run like 5 days a week. And I used to eat like the world was about to end back then. But know I dont eat at all really. I think this is because I started heavy drinking and not eating. Since stopping drinking I havent really wanted food. But I do drink a hell of a lot of diet coke like 4/5 500ml bottles a day. I've been turning to water but I guess I need to up my intake of food. Maybe there a Diet plan some one would recommend and I'm not talking weight watchers lol. I just mean like a guide for suggested intake etc. Which stickie should I be looking at btw

 

[Messiah Khan]

Well when I was about 17 I weight in at 12st 5 but I used to boxing play football and run like 5 days a week. And I used to eat like the world was about to end back then. But know I dont eat at all really. I think this is because I started heavy drinking and not eating. Since stopping drinking I havent really wanted food. But I do drink a hell of a lot of diet coke like 4/5 500ml bottles a day. I've been turning to water but I guess I need to up my intake of food. Maybe there a Diet plan some one would recommend and I'm not talking weight watchers lol. I just mean like a guide for suggested intake etc. Which stickie should I be looking at btw

You drink 2 litres of coke a day? I'm surprised you still have your own teeth!

 

[semi-pro waster]

Which stickie should I be looking at btw

GordyR's Guide to Bodybuilding, you can largely ignore the reference to bodybuilding for the moment and just take it as the basics for healthy exercise. Eat smaller meals and more often to up your metabolism, drink water instead of coke and eat fruit instead of snacks like crisps or sweets - simple but sustainable changes will help more and be more likely to fit into your lifestyle long term than sweeping changes.

Oh and you won't spot reduce fat, you need to lower your overall fat levels.

 

[Morba]

You drink 2 litres of coke a day? I'm surprised you still have your own teeth!

If he was drinking it but keeping it in his mouth for a while before swallowing then it would be bad, but it wont stay in his mouth long at all, so not that bad really ;]

 

[Dugganator]

GordyR's Guide to Bodybuilding, you can largely ignore the reference to bodybuilding for the moment and just take it as the basics for healthy exercise. Eat smaller meals and more often to up your metabolism, drink water instead of coke and eat fruit instead of snacks like crisps or sweets - simple but sustainable changes will help more and be more likely to fit into your lifestyle long term than sweeping changes.

Oh and you won't spot reduce fat, you need to lower your overall fat levels.

thanks for the advice this was what I was after.

I guess you mean by spot reduce fat as in reducing from one area I need to reduce from all areas?

 

[semi-pro waster]

I guess you mean by spot reduce fat as in reducing from one area I need to reduce from all areas?

Pretty much, to lose the beer belly on its own is generally not possible, you need to lower your overall fat levels and with that your beer belly will reduce.

I'm far from an expert though so I'm just passing on the little I know, feel free to ask for second opinions or further advice. If there is one thing I've learnt it is that there is no single solution that works for everyone, you will probably need to adapt to suit your own body.

 

[Dugganator]

Cheers well starting Monday I'm going to be hitting the Gym 3 days a week (day rest between each day) maily cardio with a little weights and I'm think that I'll reduce my cal intake down to say 2000 a day. Even thou this would be increasing the amount I'm eating at the moment so will be alittle odd I have to say. But I'll do this as a test and hopefully I'll see a steady lose each week.

I think i ll do this and see how it goes and I'm update everyone as I go. I've read GordyR's guide and will be following the Cutting section the best I can.

 

[drunkenmaster]

If he was drinking it but keeping it in his mouth for a while before swallowing then it would be bad, but it wont stay in his mouth long at all, so not that bad really ;]

yup aswell as the fact its the insane sugar amount in normal coke, diet coke isn't half as bad. When i have a normal coke(you know, when dominos/pizza hut deliver the wrong coke and you cba'd to wait for a replacement ) i can just instantly feel it on my teeth feels like they are being eaten alive, not sure any other food I've ever eaten gives that feeling.


As people said, eat more, if you're eating 700calories a day, your metabolism will adjust to burn a similar amount by sacrificing what it usually spends energy on, like keeping immune system going full speed, fixing injuries and the like. Eat more, not necessarily loads, but more. You're also probably largely burning muscle when doing long gym sessions if you're eating high ratio of carbs and got your body in starvation mode, its in the worst possible state for burning fat so when you're exercising it will find burning muscle after the carbs have gone much easier than burning fat, much much easier. Less muscle, lower metabolic rate.

The thing to remember is, calories burnt in the gym even in a heart pounding 2 hour workout should still be 1/5 or less of your calories burnt in a day. Losing weight is about diet, 90%, you burn 90% of your daily calories the same if you work out of if you lie down all day, most calories are burnt keeping you alive no matter what you do so making your body burn more at rest, is infinately more important than how many cal's you burn in the gym. At a guess, you've probably lost a lot of lean body mass(muscle) so the key to getting your metabolic rate up will be eating more, eating lots of high quality protein, doing weights to get your muscle back, thats quite simply the quickest and best way for you to start losing weight.

I'd say, if you can make it work for you, ketogenic diet is the way to go, high fat burning, efficient, hunger supressing, healthy and muscle sparring diet. If not, still cut down on carbs, a lot, eat decent amount of veg, take a multivitamin, eat healthy fats, take omega 3/6 fish oils or flaxseed oil for omega fats. Pinenuts are a freaking fantastic snack food, i like the taste, easy, small, low carb, ridiculously high omega fat content, i think higher than any other food I've found so far.

You're probably going to want to build up to at least 1200cals, if not 1500/1600 calories a day, and do it relatively slowly, as your body takes a while to adjust to new calorie levels and come out of "starvation" mode. if you eat 1500 calories tomorrow, your body will still think its starving and just having a good day and will store most of that as fat. if you take 2-3 weeks to build up calorie intake your body will slowly adjust and burn more cals as you increase calories.

 

[Morba]

yup aswell as the fact its the insane sugar amount in normal coke, diet coke isn't half as bad. When i have a normal coke(you know, when dominos/pizza hut deliver the wrong coke and you cba'd to wait for a replacement ) i can just instantly feel it on my teeth feels like they are being eaten alive, not sure any other food I've ever eaten gives that feeling.
.

god yeah, you can feel it straight away cant you

 

[heeeed]

Definitely. I've never liked 'normal' coke for that very reason. Forget about the calories, the taste and feel is unpleasant enough to avoid

 

[drunkenmaster]

indeed, i've always been a diet coke man at the very least, and diet versions of most drinks though not all. To be honest, because of the mixup with coke versions in delivery its the only sugar drink i have on a very rare occasion, its been so long, like 15 years since I've had a normal sugar pepsi, mountain dew or anything else I can't remember if they are just as bad. Then I do like some proper ginger beer now and then which has a crap ton of sugar in it too but isn't anywhere near as bad as standard Coke.