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PEC

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I've waited to post in this area until I had a specific question.

First off to give a brief description of me and my routines.
5'8
CW: 223
right now GW:180
Over the past month i've become pretty lazy so i have been drinking slimfast with 1/% for breakfast. Usually about 3 cups of milk and the scoop of slimfast = 440 plus i love my morning banana on average i think bananas are 110 so breakfast is 550 most mornings. (In winter i have green or black tea but not in the summer/fall)
Lunch is usually a sandwich which i started weighing my JennyO turkey/ham for the 2oz=70 plus the wheat grain bread, miracle whip, tomatoes, romain and everyother day 1oz of cheese makes my lunch =appox 350 sandwich. with lunch i usually have a handful of baby carrots and either an apple/orange/pear or some grapes. (I always forget to drink water with lunch)
Dinner is always my hardest meal b/c it has the most variation many of the past nights i've been eating two tacos.
I stopped snacking since joining the forum about a month ago since i recognized that's where many "empty" calories were coming from.

...I've rambled but i wanted to give enough info since i'm not really losing weight yet.

I'm starting a new 5k training program to add some variety to my exercise but does anyone have some weightlifting suggestions. If i weight lift I try to do it before my cardio (someone told me to do that) but it's nothing with a plan i'll just hop on a machine and do a few sets of 10 reps... I'm at a complete loss of where to start

Anyways thanks for the info.
 
I don't have time to expand further, so i'm hoping kara or some of the other regs can, but first thing you need to look at is your diet. it's terrible..

1) Way to many simple carbs, and carbs in general.
2) Basically no unsat fats. all your fats seem to be coming from saturated sources. you need to get some oils, nuts and fish into your diet
3) Wayyy too little calories. like half what you should be eating
4) Not near enough protein. have to like triple what you're currently eating.

typical macro breakdown for losing weight should be 40-50% carbs(with bulk being complex), 20-30% protein and 20-30% fats(with bulk being unsat fats). Take a look at your diet and you can see you're nowhere close to that.

As for weights, avoid machines. you're ALWAYS much better off with free weights. Talk to a trainer to nail down perfect form, and stick to doing full body workout 2-3 times a week to start for an hour apiece. After a few months you can look at a more split based approach, but this your typical starter routine to those new to resistance. Stay away from isolation exercise, (bicep curls, tricep extensions, leg raises/curls, etc) and instead focus 100% of your workout on compound movements. Compounds are the ones that work more than one movement of the body.

So squat, deadlift, bench press, military press, lunge, pullup/chinup, rows, dips, incline bench to name a few. Stick do doing these movements and work them in a 10-15 rep range to start where by the last rep, you can't go any further. If you can go above 15 with good form, find heavier weight, cause you're not pushing the intensity hard enough. add to that an exercise or 2 to blast the core and you have a routine. hope this answers a few of your questions.
 
I'll agree with Jynus. The diet looks ... well .. pretty bad. Sorry. :)

First of all, I'm not a big fan of meal substitutes. I don't think they teach you to develop healthy eating habits or learn what foods are good for you. I know they help some people out a lot, but if it were me, I'd eat real food for breakfast instead of a shake. You will get more nutrition and more food for less calories, IMO.

At 223 lbs my best estimate for how many calories you should be eating is around 2100. That might be a bit high - but it's better to start high and lower by 10% gradually, than to lower too much at once. If you drop too many calories at once, you're going to cause your metabolism to drop so low that you won't lose weight.

My diet advice would be to look into quick and easy breakfasts that you can prep the night before (or even prep 6 breakfasts at once and then have them in the fridge for you). My standby breakfast is greek yogurt with blueberries; greek yogurt is higher in protein than regular yogurt, and it doesn't contain artificial sweeteners or additional sugars. But you could also do oats and fruit, or whole grain toast and peanut butter, or boiled eggs and whole grain muffins, or even get some whole grain tortillas and do some kind of breakfast wrap/breakfast burrito. Real food. It's much better for you. :)

For lunch, you can eat a lot more. 2oz of meat is not enough for you. Think about preparing things like whole grain pastas (I"m a big fan of orzo lately because it's high in protein) with lots of chopped veggies, some protein (chicken, pork, fish, shrimp, anything), and a drizzle of olive oil for healthy fat and flavor. Or if you must do a sandwich, use 4 oz of turkey and add a 1/2 a sliced avocado for veggies and healthy fats.

Add a snack in there your banana is a good one, especially right before working out. I often have an apple and an ounce of cheese for a snack. Or a low-sodium V8 and a boiled egg. Or a handful of almonds. Something that combines carbs and protein to help my workout.

Dinner is where you really need to step it up. I love tacos and make homemade ones all the time - but I make sure they're made with lean ground meat (sometimes beef, sometimes turkey) and LOTS of veggies and salsa. I suspect you're talking about the storebought kind right? :) Your dinner needs to be lots more protein and lots more veggies, and then maybe fill in with some complex carbs - whole grains, etc.

I know it sounds overwhelming, but one thing that will really help is to start planning out your weekly meals in advance. It will keep you from coming home at night and going "I don't know what to eat". A lot of stuff you can fix in advance and keep in the fridge, so when you get home, it's just a matter of popping it into the microwave or oven and you're good to go.

Usually once a week I spend about 2 hours cooking. I make a lot of casserole type things: veggie lasagna with whole wheat noodles, a mexican enchilada type casserole with corn tortillas and lots of tomatoes, etc. I stick those in the freezer and then when I get home on a particularly busy day, I can pop the casserole in the oven and not have to think about dinner.

Hope that helps some! :)
 
Thanks so much you two!!!

I really appreciate your time. Trust me i don't take offense because you aren't insulting me just trying to give me the knowledge to make my life better. I kept trying to increase my calories after i read a sticky from steve about calories and starvation and that stuff so i'll keep working on that. It is really from laziness that i don't get enough good calories.

My salsa is homemade with corn and lots of fun stuff in it (yay for home grown tomatoes) And the weekly farmers market in town (right next to my house basically) just started last night so i'll work on getting more fresh veggies in the house.

This stuff helps a lot. I do have avocados in my fridge don't know why i didn't think of putting them on my sandwich.
 
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