Critique needed on diet and exercise

[ChilledOne]

Story goes:

Jan 06 : 20st 8 ( 5ft 11" ) 36.1% body fat
Current : 16st 13 ( still 5ft 11" ) 28.6% body fat
Age : 25

It's been a slow year for the big weight loss due to one thing or another, but thats no real excuse in my eyes. My rough goal was around 1-2lb a week so I've fallen well short of that goal. But I'm looking and feeling far better so thats what I'm focusing on atm, I've lost over 4inch around the waist too.

What I need to focus on is getting the goal back on track for the loss.

I have been cycling on a static bike for last 10 weeks, and I'm doing around 30min, 5 nights a week. Distance per night is 15(km I think the machine is, as it has no unit ) at a speed av of about 31.0 ( again km/h?). I'm doing HIIT on the bike one night, 5min warm up, 30sec sprint, 1min cool down, 30sec, 1min etc for 20min, then a 5min cool down making 30min and hitting around 15km, and then the next night I will just do a 15km cycle at a decent pase and resistance.
The last couple of weeks, I have been every other night, working out with weights for around 20-30 mins using dumbbells, barbell and a swiss ball, but this isn't a very varied routine and not many different exercise can be done really. ( Not working on my legs and I seem to have pretty big muscles! )

When I reach around 15st I'll be happy to go to the local large gym I'm sure, but as it stands thats not something I'm happy doing. My real aim is to be able to get back in the swimming pool again as I'm as very ( very ) strong and able swimmer and I can do 2500m with no great problem per swim at a fast pace. I was going to be a life guard but was too young to take the test at the time so that curbed my interest.

Diet is:
7am : Large bowl of 1/2 Crunchy Nuts and 1/2 fruit and fibre with around 300ml of skimmed milk.
12 : 4 x granary brown country bread, sliced chicken or ham ( around 1g of fat per slice ) and salad. 2 x small pears, 2 x small apples, 1 x banana and a packet of raisins. Packet of rivita bites.
6pm : This is my major problem, I don't cook as mother cooks while at home, she tries her best with cooking for a family of 5+ with trying to be healthy so plenty of fish, chicken and cooked veg. I just and have as little of possible of any bad meat etc that served with no other option. If I'm off I usually have a large fresh soup with around 12g of far in it, or if more time I cook rice with chicken and peas. I'll never eat any bad pudding, I'll have a healthy yoghurt.

Snacks are kept to a minimum, with fruit being the choice most of the time, but I have some go ahead bars that are around 3g of fat if I'm in need.

I drink around 2-3lts of just water this time of year, summer being around 5lts. At a max I'll have one coffee for breakfast and one at night.



So any thoughts on the bigger picture for all this? I'm thinking maybe the change from four to two sliced of brown bread might be a good move, but bar the bad tea that I'm working on I don't see any real areas of change?

 

[blackwdw]

It's hard for me to critic because you are much larger than me (and a man), but here are my thoughts anyways. First, don't worry about "waiting" to go to the gym. If swimming is what you love, go and enjoy it. Second, it seems like you are eating a lot of fruit. Nothing wrong with fruit, but the calories do add up. Especially those raisins. High calorie, and not at all filling. I probably wouldn't eat more than 5 pieces of fruit a day. Also, 4 slices of bread seems like a lot for one meal. Good luck!

 

[Inho]

Story goes:

Jan 06 : 20st 8 ( 5ft 11" ) 36.1% body fat
Current : 16st 13 ( still 5ft 11" ) 28.6% body fat
Age : 25

It's been a slow year for the big weight loss due to one thing or another, but thats no real excuse in my eyes. My rough goal was around 1-2lb a week so I've fallen well short of that goal. But I'm looking and feeling far better so thats what I'm focusing on atm, I've lost over 4inch around the waist too.

What I need to focus on is getting the goal back on track for the loss.

I have been cycling on a static bike for last 10 weeks, and I'm doing around 30min, 5 nights a week. Distance per night is 15(km I think the machine is, as it has no unit ) at a speed av of about 31.0 ( again km/h?). I'm doing HIIT on the bike one night, 5min warm up, 30sec sprint, 1min cool down, 30sec, 1min etc for 20min, then a 5min cool down making 30min and hitting around 15km, and then the next night I will just do a 15km cycle at a decent pase and resistance.
The last couple of weeks, I have been every other night, working out with weights for around 20-30 mins using dumbbells, barbell and a swiss ball, but this isn't a very varied routine and not many different exercise can be done really. ( Not working on my legs and I seem to have pretty big muscles! )

When I reach around 15st I'll be happy to go to the local large gym I'm sure, but as it stands thats not something I'm happy doing. My real aim is to be able to get back in the swimming pool again as I'm as very ( very ) strong and able swimmer and I can do 2500m with no great problem per swim at a fast pace. I was going to be a life guard but was too young to take the test at the time so that curbed my interest.

Diet is:
7am : Large bowl of 1/2 Crunchy Nuts and 1/2 fruit and fibre with around 300ml of skimmed milk.
12 : 4 x granary brown country bread, sliced chicken or ham ( around 1g of fat per slice ) and salad. 2 x small pears, 2 x small apples, 1 x banana and a packet of raisins. Packet of rivita bites.
6pm : This is my major problem, I don't cook as mother cooks while at home, she tries her best with cooking for a family of 5+ with trying to be healthy so plenty of fish, chicken and cooked veg. I just and have as little of possible of any bad meat etc that served with no other option. If I'm off I usually have a large fresh soup with around 12g of far in it, or if more time I cook rice with chicken and peas. I'll never eat any bad pudding, I'll have a healthy yoghurt.

Snacks are kept to a minimum, with fruit being the choice most of the time, but I have some go ahead bars that are around 3g of fat if I'm in need.

I drink around 2-3lts of just water this time of year, summer being around 5lts. At a max I'll have one coffee for breakfast and one at night.



So any thoughts on the bigger picture for all this? I'm thinking maybe the change from four to two sliced of brown bread might be a good move, but bar the bad tea that I'm working on I don't see any real areas of change?

here's my suggestion

1 - eat 3 pieces of fruit a day.
2 - as i've said countless times, fat does not make u fat. (if u eat too much fruit, you'll gain fat)
3 - eat 6-7 meals a day, not 3
4 - weight training is more important than cardio. EVEN WHEN YOU'RE CUTTING. weight training makes you burn more calories, EVEN AFTER YOU'RE DONE WITH IT, unlike cardio. Plus more muscle = more calories burned a day. and PLUS! if u for some reason eat more calories than what you need you'll actually gain solid hard muscle instead of fat. (that is why weight training is really important when you're cutting)
5 - fat free foods = high sugar foods
6 - sugar is worse than fat.

hope this helps.

 

[corndogggy]

4 - weight training is more important than cardio. EVEN WHEN YOU'RE CUTTING. weight training makes you burn more calories, EVEN AFTER YOU'RE DONE WITH IT, unlike cardio. Plus more muscle = more calories burned a day. and PLUS! if u for some reason eat more calories than what you need you'll actually gain solid hard muscle instead of fat. (that is why weight training is really important when you're cutting)

Horrible advice. Pretty much this entire paragraph is wrong. I don't even know where to start.

 

[Korrie]

CD...you need to stop being so agressive please. You are not being suportive at all.

 

[Sprite1]

Horrible advice.

Perhaps you'd care to give some better advice yourself then rather than just insulting other people's posts?

I think what everybody else has put is true -a lot of excess fruit and you may as well be eating other things that you've cut out. And also the bread, which is a mistake I make myself. You should really be sticking to two slices a day, preferably wholemeal.

 

[corndogggy]

Perhaps you'd care to give some better advice yourself then rather than just insulting other people's posts?

Ok, sorry, I just get tired of seeing so many people believing so many crazy things. Anyway, here's my crazy opinion.


1. When losing weight, cardio is much more important than weight training. Weight training is good for toning and strength, but not for losing weight. You don't burn near as many calories per hour with weights. It's near impossible to get to the point where you're burning energy from fat with weights. Weight training is usually anaerobic, as opposed to aerobic with cardio, which is what you want. Now, there are ways to mimick a cardio workout with weights, but you have to do many different exercises just BOOM BOOM BOOM one right after another with no breaks and keep that heart rate real high. Most people don't do this.

2. Your metabolism and heart rate doesn't stay elevated for well afterwards with weights as compared to cardio. It's much easier to do a set then let your heart rate slack off before doing another which makes this even more true. If your heart rate and metabolism doesn't continue to be elevated like what is mentioned, then you're probably not pushing hard enough. Not trying to belittle your efforts, but many people just go through the motions. This doesn't really help much of anything.

3. More muscles does NOT equal more calories burned in a day, at least to the extent that most people think. To some miniscule degree it does, but studies have shown that if you beef up your muscles ALOT, the muscles alone will only burn maybe an extra 24 calories a day just by having them. At that rate you'd lose maybe an extra pound every 2.5 or 3 months at the max.

4. My favorite is this though:

"PLUS! if u for some reason eat more calories than what you need you'll actually gain solid hard muscle instead of fat."


That statement is why I smarted off. I can't believe anybody would tell this to a group that is struggling to lose weight. Two words will tell you otherwise: SUMO WRESTLERS.

Why aren't sumo wrestlers nothing but solid hard muscle? Because they eat more calories than what they need. Purposely. Sure they're strong, but, they're severely fat as well. This is not what you're hoping to gain, no pun intended.

The only way you gain muscle is through overcompensation. Basically you break down a muscle, then during recovery your body will repair that muscle but also make it "a little bit" stronger, in an attempt to avoid the tears that you just caused. You need to eat correctly to aid your body in this recovery, but if you eat beyond that, your body WILL NOT just pack on extra muscle just for the heck of it. It WILL pack on extra fat just for the heck of it though.