Diet misinformation overload

Discussion in 'Health and Fitness' started by Tom1uk, Jun 22, 2014.

  1. Tom1uk

    Tom1uk Valued Member

    Good evening all,

    I have read numerous amounts of posts in here relating to such matters, and have taken much if the advice and applied it to myself. But I still feel like I don't know wether I am over thinking or under thinking my diet, as when I read something I think makes sense, I then read something else that discredits that. So I thought what better way than to ask directly.

    I am 26 years old, 16st 3 pounds, and about 5ft 11. I started doing martial arts in the second week of February this year and at that time I was 18st 7 pounds. But since then I have completely stopped loosing weight and am now struggling to stick to my diet as it already left me hungry but as I was seeing results I pushed through. Where as now I am often Hungry and have no results to shush my "why bother negativity". I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice on ways I could improve my below diet or tell me if I'm on the right track but just have to push past this testing point.

    06:30 bowl of Branflakes (dry) I have recently been trying to get up earlier and go for a run, in which case I am having a protein shake (190 calories) instead of the cereal. This is something I was thinking I should stop doing?

    10:00 if I have been for a run then I often now have my cereal, but if not this is generally a medium green apple.

    13:00 lunch, always home made consisting of chicken/beef with rice/pasta, a home made sauce and mixed vegetables. Serving size is generally around 200 calories. I usually also have another apple at this point.

    15:30 if I am training I have a bowl of Special K (dry)

    18:00 train

    19:45 protein shake (190 calories)

    20:15 tea, generally again fresh meat, veg, homemade sauce, and either rice, potato, or pasta.

    I will usually have around two cups of tea at this time of the evening, using sweetener not sugar. Other than this I drink 1 litre bottles of water during the day, usually amounting to around 5.

    Any feedback would be great as a good diet is the key to everything.
     
  2. robertmap

    robertmap Valued Member

    Hmmmmmmm

    I think I'd suggest replacing the cereal with something a bit more interesting.

    You could try eating your 'tea' for breakfast - there are thoughts that eating a big breakfast is good. There are also thoughts that eating the main meal late (after about 6 or 7pm) is bad....

    Also remember that whilst fruit is good it can be high in sugar.
     
  3. Simon

    Simon Administrator Admin Supporter MAP 2017 Koyo Award

    Tom,

    During the course of a weight loss programme you'll hit plateaus, periods of no weight loss and possibly the gaining of a few pounds.

    This is completely natural and is just the body adapting to the change.

    There are 3500 calories in a pound of fat, so to lose one pound per week you need to drop 500 calories per day. Or drop 250 calories and do 250 calories of exercise.

    Any new programme or change in diet need to be given a minimum of 6 weeks and up to 3 months.

    My suggestion is to stick with what you have for another 6 weeks, then re-evaluate.

    You've dropped two stone, so the gaining of a couple of pound is not a problem.

    Don't over train. It's easily done and can lead to the gaining of weight, tiredness and the feeling of not wanting to train.

    How many rest days do you get per week?
     
  4. Simon

    Simon Administrator Admin Supporter MAP 2017 Koyo Award

    I would cut out the protein shake at 19.45.

    I always suggest eating as soon as possible after a workout, as it's when your body is screaming for nutrients, but in this case it's only another 30 minutes until your evening meal and it seems to me your are taking in an extra 200 calories that may not be necessary.

    If the 200 calories does make up part of your requirements, than I'd like to see some good quality animal fat in your diet.
     
  5. Tom1uk

    Tom1uk Valued Member

    The protein shake makes sense, I think that was just an old habit from my weight training days and more aimed at recovery. What about the one In the morning?
     
  6. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    Pretty much this.

    When it comes to diet and training you need to experiment and figure out what works for you. Any advice from the professional realm is just general guidelines, not a "if you do this, this will happen to such and such degree." The results will happen, but it might not be as much or as little as the next guy following the same program.

    Also, your body adapts to new activity which includes how many calories are burned during the activity. For example (numbers are exaggerated), if you go from sedentary to running 10 miles a day, you might burn a hefty 2,000kcal each 10 mile run the first week. The second week, each run may only burn 1,000kcal, then the third only 500kcal. Your body adapts (not as quickly as I've mentioned here) and the kcal use gets less, eventually to the point where you seem to plateau. This works in conjunction with your diet as well.

    When you plateau (which should be a figure between 6 weeks to 3 months as Simon has mentioned) you have to either adjust your diet by reducing or changing the ratio of macro nutrients (who the hell likes to do that?) or change up your exercise habits. You either have to increase the volume of activity (longer duration) or make the activity more intense (going from a 10 minute mile to a 7 minute mile, for example). Working out longer isn't always an option for busy people, but it's easy to fit more intensity into the exercises you are currently doing for the same duration.

    If you increase intensity, you will again plateau and need to make it even more intense. You'll eventually reach a "physical ability plateau." For example, in the 1 mile run in 10 minutes you make more intense, you might get it down to a 5 minute mile after 3 months of incrementally increasing the intensity. Well, that might be your natural physical limit for endurance speed. At that point you would have to specifically train for running a mile (pacing, technique, breathing, etc.) which will be the focus of your training instead of it being solely for exercise. If you don't want to just get better at running a mile and want to continue losing body fat, you have to start doing a different kind of exercise to move past that plateau. So for example you would start running 8x200 meter sprints for the workout (1 mile of sprints). You will then go through the same process of your body adapting (burning more kcal), increasing the intensity (continue to burn more kcal), until you plateau again and make the choice to either train that exercise for optimal efficient or move on to yet another exercise to continue optimal fat loss.

    From my experience and what I've seen in other people training, 6 weeks is what it generally takes somebody to adapt to a new form of exercise. 3 months is usually what it takes to reach your peak in that exercise (10 min. mile to 5 min. mile) without specialized training.
     
  7. Alienfish360

    Alienfish360 Valued Member

    Just wondering if you have a source for this, as I would like to read more as it doesn't make much sense to me.

    If the intensity and duration remain the same, the variables remaining to lower the energy usage, are body weight and metabolism. As you lose weight your exercise activities use less energy, thus you may need to increase intensity or duration to compensate.

    However, if the diet is good then your metabolism should be going at a decent rate to keep energy usage up.

    Your explanation is only logical to me, through efficiency. That being as you do the exercise more, and you improve technique your motions become more efficient and therefore you waste less energy, resulting in a lower energy usage. However, that will be due to technique improvement, not the body getting used to it and burning less.
     
  8. Alienfish360

    Alienfish360 Valued Member

    To answer the OP:

    I may not be the most experienced and qualified person in here about macro-nutrition, etc.

    But I am almost the same age as you, and going through similar weight loss, I am down from 15stone7 to 13stone6

    Have a read through here
    http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121049

    While there is a lot to be said about managing your nutritional intake, for the heavier guys losing weight, myself included, I do NOT prioritise this at all. While it is likely to be extremely useful when trying to improve your body condition when you're at your target weight, I don't believe it is all that useful for guys trying to diet back down to healthy weights.

    What's important for me losing weight? Simplicity, and being able to enjoy my food (that means I still eat "unhealthy" foods that I gorged on before, maybe only half a pizza for a meal instead of a full one, plus 2 cans of coke too ;) )

    My method? I am minimising saturated fats (reducing cholestoral, cut out all fizzy drinks, and fruit juices), and plain, simple, calorie counting and nothing more.

    I found some very handy formulae on here for calculating a baseline Basic Metabolic Rate, and then an activity level.

    I built this into a spreadsheet, so I choose activity level in, plug in my measurements and it throws out my maintenance calorie requirements. You then put in your targetted weekly weight loss, and it gives you your "diet calorie budget". Stick to this and you should be ok.

    Now, if I lose weight faster than my target, I increase the activity level to increase calories, and vice-versa, I lower the activity level if I am below the target.

    It took about 2 or 3 weeks to find the correct activity level, now I can pretty much choose how much I lose per week, and so far, I am usually within 100 to 200grams of the target, which I think is pretty accurate.

    In addition to this, I also measure body fat percentage (Jackson/Pollock 4 method).

    Why do I do this? You are exercising, and building muscle, as well as dieting, while the scales may not change, your muscle gain may be balancing the fat loss. Measuring body fat weekly allows me to identify this, so I do not become dis-heartened if the scales ever stay still.

    I also use protein shakes (against some advice in my thread as you will read), why do I do this? After cutting out bad foods, I sometimes struggle to meet my calorie restriction, yes, I can just change my meals, have an extra snack. But, I am lazy, and this is convenient.

    I am also trying to maximise my protein intake to help retain muscle mass during my weight loss.

    Note: The 240 calorie protein mix DOES form part of my intake budget, and is NOT additional. I count everything I eat and drink, to the point of weighing out cereal portions etc.

    If you want a copy of the spreadsheet then just send me your email in a private message and I will send it to you, as I don't think you can attach files on MAP.
     
  9. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    Give me the day to find adequate sources of information on the subject. I just tried doing a quick Google search and no matter how I phrase it I'm getting "what exercises are best for fat loss!!" fad articles. Real information always takes some digging. I'll do my best to clarify though.

    Your final paragraph sums it up, you're just wording it differently and there is a little more to it. The more you do something, the better you get at it, the more efficient you are at it, the less calories you burn doing it. Something like cardio is no different than weightlifting. If you lose weight through weightlifting, but never change the intensity and duration, your nervous system adapts and you start having less muscle fibers activating to lift the same amount of weight. This happens because your body tries to expend the least amount of energy during activity. If your body adapts and can use 20% of the muscle fibers involved in the movement because you've gotten stronger, it's not going to recruit all 100% of the muscle fibers in the muscle being worked to move the weight. This means less calories are being burned because your body adapted, which is why you need to change the intensity to keep growing or getting stronger (or losing fat if that's your goal).

    Same concept with cardio, but you're also adding in the cardiovascular system as well. Your oxygen uptake increases, you use a higher percentage of oxygen for energy as your body adapts, and this means you're not using up your glycogen stores as quickly which takes more calories to use. Add in the muscles not being fully recruited like in the weight lifting example, and you burn less calories because your body is now efficient. Add in better technique and you're even more efficient and burn even less calories. If you want to continue at a steady fat loss pace, you have to increase either intensity or duration for the same kinds of results (if we're not considering hefty shifts in diet). If you've reached the peak of performance for that exercise, you just have to do something different.
     
  10. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    This paper describes what I'm basically saying in much more depth. If you're good at extrapolating information you'll see the similarities of what I said under certain headers and not have to read the entire, massive thing.

    As you can see, explaining in depth how things are working is quite cumbersome which is why it's hard to find good articles on stuff like this! :p

    If you don't have Microsoft Word let me know, I'll format it into another document form for you.

    Edit: Credit is to whomever made this work from Ohio University, not myself.
     

    Attached Files:

  11. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    Last edited: Jun 24, 2014
  12. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    As a disclaimer, the subject I introduced about weightlifting is entirely different from what is addressed in the information I posted (from what I skimmed through). Those articles are much more informative for exercises involving oxygen consumption (mainly relevant to cardio/endurance exercise). Muscle fiber recruitment and neuromuscular adaptation to exercise is an entirely different subject but is still heavily involved in the metabolic process affecting energy consumption, but is measured and discussed in an entirely different way.
     
  13. Saved_in_Blood

    Saved_in_Blood Valued Member

    I agree with most that the cereal should go... it's very little in it that will do anything for you, it's also a pretty fast absorbing carb. You'd be so much better off with oats, beans, brown rice, even if you are going to eat the cereal, you'd be much better off to have some protein and fat in there, as that will help slow down the digestion a little more. Oats really last me a long time from the morning when I eat them. Baked potatoes with some low fat cheese and turkey bacon bits. whole wheat pasta with some olive oil, fresh garlic and a little bit of parmesan cheese is a favorite of mine... add in a chicken breast cut up in there and it's really good and very filling.
     
  14. Tom1uk

    Tom1uk Valued Member

    Ok so I have binned off both the protein shakes and to be honest I do feel different. I have now finally broken the 16st mark and weighed in at 15.12.

    I am tracking all my food intake and making sure it's clean as possible, I have to cheat meals on a weekend. The thing is I am looking for a replacement for the cereal pre workout but I am struggling. I could make salad etc but I know that I just would end up making excuses and not eating it, as I've tried to force myself in the past and would rather go without lol. I have had issues with oats during my weight lifting days, due to a stomach acid issue I digest very slowly and can reject certain foods and textures, as in make me very ill, I found this was one such food.
     
  15. Simon

    Simon Administrator Admin Supporter MAP 2017 Koyo Award

    Cool. I knew dropping the shakes was a good idea.

    They're overused and overhyped unless you're training real hard and even then I'm not sure they're necessary if you have a good diet.

    What about making your own energy bars?

    http://dailyburn.com/life/recipes/homemade-energy-bar-recipes/

    You'd have to watch the calories, but there are recipes without oats.
     
  16. Saved_in_Blood

    Saved_in_Blood Valued Member

    I don't know where you're located or if they have it there, but if you have heard or seen the kashi cereal.. it's very filling, has a decent amount of protein and I would imagine it's slower absorbing. If you HAVE to eat cereal, that's the one I'd go with... but other things are still a better idea IMO.
     
  17. Tom1uk

    Tom1uk Valued Member

    Ok so I've tried a lot of what has been said here recently, and I am doing slightly better. But I am now finding the day after class my body is wiped. I struggle in work to keep my eyes open, just getting out of bed in the morning is difficult. I am starving, but I can't put the calories into my body. So I'm torn between listening to my body and sticking up my calorie load on a non training day......I have thought about putting a protein shake in of a night time before bed to possibly aid recovery?
     

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