Weight-Loss Nutritional guidance, please

Weight-Loss
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wevie

New member
Greetings. Due to health concerns I need to drop some weight. I'm currently at 190 lbs and 5'4" (male). The heaviest I've been in my life.

The last four years I have gained as my career has become less activity and more desk sitting.

I'm beginning to partake in physical activities and an exercise routine. ATM I am brisk walking and jogging in spurts. Hopefully that will pick up with practice.

I've changed my diet from whatever was in the vending machine to something healthy. Here is a sample daily intake. Please give me your opinions.

Breakfast:
One serving Quaker Oats with one tblspn honey

Brunch:
1.25 oz roasted peanuts

Lunch:
One can tuna in water, drained, with one condiment packet of mayonaisse

Afternoon:
One cup of fruit flavored yogurt, store brand.

Evening:
Oops! Broke down and ate a hot dog on bun with catsup and mustard at the ball diamond

Dinner:
Two cups of a vegetable mix I threw together - green beans, peas, corn, carrots with some ground turkey thrown in.

Throughout the day I also consumed 32 oz of Diet Mt Dew, 12 oz Coffee, black.

I'm seeing roughly 1800 calories if my calculations are correct. Should have avoided the hot dog, but we're all human!!

Any advice as to caloric intake or protein vs carb, meat vs veggie, etc. ???
 
First, congrats on making an attempt to head in the right direction. Finding ways to stay the course will be your biggest challenge. Invariably this requires the right frame of mind, proper goals (long and short term), management of expectations, good reasons for being consistent, etc. So make sure you put some thought into these sorts of things... I'd ever suggest committing said thoughts to paper.

With regards to the specifics you shared with us, I'm inclined to say don't worry about all the tracking of calories right now. Start eating less and moving more.

The eating less side of the equation can be accomplished merely by nixing as much "junk food" as possible and replacing it with whole, unprocessed foods. These latter foods almost invariably are less energy (calorie dense meaning the same volume of food delivers a much weaker caloric blow than the processed, junk food counterparts.

That isn't to say you need to be perfect and rigid, avoiding anything that isn't deemed healthy. I do suggest, however, that you avoid any foods that you have trouble controlling intake. Some might refer to these things as trigger foods. If you have foods that you can't "eat just one of" or can't avoid regardless of how much willpower you exert... get rid of them.

Moving more entails just what you're doing. Become more active. This can come by way of structured exercise such as your walking/jogging. It should also come by way of simply moving more in general.

Instead of watching television from the couch... get down on the floor and do some flexibility/mobility work.

Instead of going to see a movie... go for a hike.

You get the drill. Make conscious efforts to move more in general. Just how life automatically controlled your weight before inactivity set in with the career... it'll do the same if you consciously become more active whenever you can.

Granted, most folks aren't looking for such loose guidelines. They want the secrets or they want to be told exactly what to do. With some folks though, starting out with this loose approach works best. If they ever need to focus on the granular details, it's not until this loose approach stops working.

That said, if you're more inclined to focus on the details...

Someone of your weight assuming you're doing some form of exercise most days of the week should start with somewhere around 2500 calories.

Of those calories... try to balance them out in terms of nutrients. It's always wise to start with a foundation of protein as this does all sorts of cool things such as preserves muscle, satiates better relative to the other nutrients, and bumps metabolism up slightly.

Good sources of protein would include, but not be limited to:

chicken and turkey breast, pork tenderloin, lean cuts of steak, lean ground beef/chicken/turkey, eggs, fish, low/no fat dairy, protein powder, etc

If you wanted an absolute amount to ingest... I'd shoot for 150 grams per day which would equate to 600 calories as each gram of protein contains *very roughly* 4 calories.

From there, roughly a third of your diet should come from fats and of this, the majority should be supplied through "healthy sources" of fats. These would be your nuts, fish oil pills, cold water fish, avocados, olive oil, flax, natural peanut butter, seeds, etc.

If we were to say 30% of your calories would be coming from fats... this would equate to 750 calories or 80-85 grams of fat.

Beyond this foundation, you should be shooting for 5+ servings of fibrous veggies and 2-3 servings of fruit per day.

The remaining caloric allotment can be filled however you please. Just remember, the less processed the food, the better it is for you.

If we were to get specific with exercise... I'd be shooting for 2-3 sessions per week of resistance training and 3-6 sessions per week of "cardio." I could delve into more specifics then this, but this post is already far too long.
 
I tend to take a bit of a different tack than Steve ... but it boils down to the same thing in the long run. I always advise looking at calories first - but then I'm a numbers geek and for me knowing the numbers helps me.

If that helps you too, figuring out how many calories you need and then logging your food for a little bit might help you. I use to log my intake and it keeps me on track for calories as well as macro nutrients.

As far as your daily plan, I have a couple of suggestions:

Your breakfast looks good, but try adding some fruit to your oatmeal.
Nothing wrong with lunch either, but again, can you add some veggies? Have that tuna on a small salad or something?
Dinner - there's nothing wrong with a hot dog once in a while. And you can't go to the ball park and NOT have a hot dog. That's unAmerican. *smile*

Honestly, the 32 oz of Mountain Dew is FAR worse for you than a single hot dog with ketchup. But I suspect you knew that. 32 oz of Mtn Dw is the equivalent of drinking 3/4 of a cup of pure sugar. That's nearly 500 calories of liquid - as much as your entire dinner - or as your breakfast and lunch combined.

So my best advice would be to ditch the Mountain Dew - at the very least, switch to the Diet variety.
 
Thanks for the guidance.

First, thats DIET Mt. Dew. The regular stuff is absolutely nasty. If that is still HORRIBLE, I'll find SOME way to eliminate it.

Next, I definitely know my trigger foods. I will have to leave the room when my kids enjoy them. *sigh*

Thanks for the guidance. I'm a scientific, numbers crunching person in life and profession, so it is hard for me to take on any project without calculator in hand!! I know, though, that it boils down to avoid the junk and move.
 
Oh I missed the Diet part. Sorry!

Well, 32 oz of soda still isn't a GREAT idea ... but the diet is better than the regular. If you could maybe drink 1/2 of that and add in more water, it would be healthier
 
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