Sport Why are protein bars and yohurt not healthy?

[summer123]

I have just read the sticky on what to eat and what not to eat.

Right at the bottom it says yogurt and protein bars are not healthy.

I am confused.

I am trying to lose weight but I have a problem with eating. I eat too much, I eat EVERYTHING and after a workout I am 10 times worse!

I eve tried adding in radom peices of meat (no additives, no salt, no seasoning) things like ham, cooked chicken, eggs without the yoke, (not all at the same time though I probably could...) I didn't actually find any of these made a real difference to my hunger unless I ate quite a lot of them. Like 200 to 400 grams at a time. Now I have a big stomach but eating enough of these to feel full and not hungry within 20 minutes made me look so bloated I looked pregnant. I did experiement with eating less but it just didn't deal with my hunger. Quorn is the worst, I love Quorn but MAN does it make me want to eat more!

I have though just started adding in protein bars instead of the meat, and you know what? one protein bar is all I can manage! They make me feel slighly sick and I just don't feel the need to eat for several hours after. I have cut out fruit too as I love fruit more then the above protein and will happily eat an entire bag of apples in one day...or an entire melon (the large ones) or a few fruit salads in about 2 hours and then pay the consequences by being asked if I am expecting. Its because I am so hungry, and yes, I did always eat protein and wait for 20 mintues first.

And I do drink enough, I have anything from 2 to 5 liters of tap water a day. But I should add that there are 5 days a week where I am at the gym working out for 1.5 to 2.5 hours (eg not including shower time) I do cardio, spinning, running, and they have air con so it makes me thirsty. I do not add anything to the tap water btw, just a plastic bottle

I cannot see why protein bars are unhealthy- is the protein not able to be used by my body? are they not better then eating several times the amount in calories of other foods?

And yogurt- I had been having up to 200kcals after a workout of 2 hours long. I felt this sort of ruined everything I had worked out. I mean, I do a lot of cardio but according to a heart rate monitor its 1200kcals ish, I don't believe that for a second btw, but I worried that eating after a workout and then going home to eat more (dinner) would spoil all my efforts. I now have a yogurt for around 100kcals, a diet one! and it has stopped me binging on fruit and eating the 250kcals of fruit.

What am I doing wrong? cos these "unhealthy" foods seemed to be helping me- or am I expecting it to all backfire and go wrong for me at some point?

 

[malkore]

99% of protein bars out there use inferior forms of protein, and are loaded with sugar alcohols (which is probably what's making you feel almost sick). plus, they are pricy.

there's only a couple brands of bars I would ever entertain buying. Novus bars by Atlargenutrition.com is one of them.

most yogurt has added sugar, and fat you may not need. some of the sugar might even be HFCS..the worst kind around.

If you're eating no-sugar added, fat free yogurt, its probably just fine. Keep enjoying it.

I can't say much else without having all the specifics of your daily food intake (how much, what food, and at what time).

 

[summer123]

Ah I see.

I had been eating the musclemax protein bars (forgotten the exact name) they have a few styles, the green bar is a "diet bar" and chocolate flavor. Think they also do chocolate orange flavor, they also do a non diet version but that doesn't make me feel as sick!

I did infact today switch to a plain bio fat free yogurt, actually cheaper (though slighly more calories) may stick to that then if its better for me.


If you can offer any advice I'd be really grateful- my weight is still going up and my appetite only seems to grow with it. I do more at the gym and then my appetite increases more....see the cycle! Its madness! I would love to say I live for the gym but I don't! Its become an obsession and I have been trying to cut it down and slowly comming to the realisation that I need to cut down on food if I want my weight to be healthier rather then increase the gym. My weight now I am pretty sure is overweight, I wear a dress size 12 which doesn't sound so bad, until you consider the amount I work out at the gym and wonder why my dress size has infact increased in the past 18 months rather then getting any smaller at all.

Morning, say 9.30am is Porridge oats (30 g) made with water and a cup of tea made with a little skimmed milk.

I rarely get hungry in the day- until I start eating! I have lunch at about 12 to 1pm so eat a protein bar and maybe some ham or chicken if I feel like I cannot stomach the protein bar right away. I have to add in the protein bar or I will eat anything and everything. (The protein bar stops me eating more).
Its taken me a year and a half to realise that I never stop feeling hungry even after what works out to 80 grams of protein or 400 grams of meat before 2pm. I now maybe eat about 40 grams of protein (around 200kcals) from meat and a protein bar which has about 21grams in and is around 200kcals.

I go to the gym, say 5-7pm drink about 2 liters of water and afterwards eat a yogurt which is around 100kcals (though the plain version is 110 kcals) at around 8pm.

I get home, (after some sort of work) anything from three to five hours later and start eating and this is where the problem starts as suddenly my appetite comes back BIG TIME! I can't seem to ever stop feeling hungry!

Tonight I had dinner at 11pm, thats usually average for me.
I eat plenty of plain green veg, either broccoli or green beans or cauliflower. I'd easily get through a bag or two of frozen veg in 6 hours from when I get home. I added this up to be roughly 400kcals of vegetables!

I eat quorn or fish to the value of about 250 to 300kcals which works out to about 50 to 70 grams of protein. (I eat this within an hour of getting home) I guess ideally I'd eat a protein bar instead but they have green tea or caffiene in which makes it impossible to sleep. If I don't sleep I feel 10 times more hungry the next day so protein bars at night are out.

I also drink alot, about 1 to 2 litres of diet lemonade or water in the evening.

I also eat fruit. All at night again, (I used to eat fruit in the day too but it was again spiralling out of control) sort of things I'd eat would be melon (a 400 gram salad) apples or fresh fruit salad sort of thing. Can be anything from one to 7 or 8 apples depending on how ravenous I feel- I end up chain eating apples, I think its probably the sugar in them. It is worse if I've spent longer at the gym that day. I probably get through about another 400 to 600kcals on fresh fruit.

I'll have a mug of low calorie hot chocolate sachet, 50kcals just before I go to bed as it helps me sleep.

I'm generally in bed by 4am though this can be anything up to 5am if I have stuff going on to deal with.

Day to day wise, I've just managed to cut down from 6 to 7 days at the gym (cardio) to 5 days a week. I wear a heart rate monitor and usualkly average out at a heart rate of around 150bpm with it peaking at around 175bpm. This is my max for my age, the 150 is 75%. I do mainly interval stuff, changing machine every 15 to 30 minutes, (and stopping the stop watch inbetween) I am at the gym anything from 8 to 11 hours a week doing this. I should do more weights but rarely get the chance as my cardio seems to take up all my energy. Knowing it burns calories makes it hard to cut back and replace with weights, I worry about putting on weight even faster, though I spend a lot of time at the gym it is finate, the gym does shut and I do have other things I am meant to be doing in the day!

(I don't have any underlying medical conditions btw unless you count the exercise obsession!)