Diet help please

[yoked662]

Hey everyone, I was wondering if some of you health junkies can point me in the right direction?

Im 5'6" right now about 200lbs. I do have a lot of muscle mass but no matter how hard I train I cant get rid of my chest and belly. I dont eat crap like fast food and candy, nor do I eat a lot.

Im just wondering what kind of things I should be eating throughout the day. The problem is when I work out I get HUNGRY! (Im sure you do too)

Example of my day:
Bagle for breakfast
Tuna sandwich for lunch (no mayo)
Soy chips later in the afteroon
Salad with some chicken or beef thats made for dinner when I get home and fruit.


NO SODA mostly water or Gatorade throughout the day.

Thank you for your help

Cheers

[alb_tex]

Beyond the diet that you posted, can you give us an idea of your workout routine, when you go to bed, get up in the morning and what restrictions that you have (ie - can't eat at work, food allergies, etc...)TEX

[The Texan]

It also depends on how long you have been eating that little. I was under the impression that over a period of time your body will go into a mode where it will store what you eat if you aren't eating enough. I may be wrong. Correct me if I am.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by yoked662

Hey everyone, I was wondering if some of you health junkies can point me in the right direction?

Im 5'6" right now about 200lbs. I do have a lot of muscle mass but no matter how hard I train I cant get rid of my chest and belly. I dont eat crap like fast food and candy, nor do I eat a lot.

Im just wondering what kind of things I should be eating throughout the day. The problem is when I work out I get HUNGRY! (Im sure you do too)

Example of my day:
Bagle for breakfast
Tuna sandwich for lunch (no mayo)
Soy chips later in the afteroon
Salad with some chicken or beef thats made for dinner when I get home and fruit.


NO SODA mostly water or Gatorade throughout the day.

Thank you for your help

Cheers

It looks like there's something missing there, because that's no very much food. I would have trouble believing that an active person going to the gym couldn't lose weight eating that little of food.

In general, wieght loss is simply about calories in vs calories out. Technically it doesn't matter what you eat, but just that you are burning more calories than you're taking in to lose weight. But for sure, certain foods are gonna make that process easier.

The basic premise is you want smaller, more frequent meals. The human body isn't meant for weight loss, in fact we evolved to store fat for survival, which is why eating little food can make it difficult to shed those last extra pounds. When cutting back on your food intake & only consuming few calories, your body will shed some fat at first, but then your metabolism will adjust and start burning fewer calories to accomadate it's needs. It will basically go into survival mode because it thinks it's not getting enough, so it will become more effecient at storing it. This will make you feel tired & less energetic. To counteract this you eat small, frequent meals of healthy food choices. Each time you eat, it kicks your metabolism in. So, this tricks your body into burning the food. It's basically telling your body that it's getting food frequently now, so it can go ahead & shed that extra bodyfat. This is also how you can gain muscle while losing fat at the same time.

Hope that helps. And I would bag the Gatorade & opt for water instead. Each 16 oz Gatorade has about 100 calories.

[w0cyru01]

Looks like you don't eat enough. I would up your food intake and spread it throughout the day.

Do you know how many calories you need to maintain?

[yoked662]

Hey peeps thanks for the great info. Sorry for the late responce its been busy at work and getting ready for a race.

I will up my intake just not sure what is good to have and what isnt. I dropped the Gatorade and been taking in about a gallon of water a day.

My workout is one mucle a day for 30-45 min of weights then I hit cardio for 30-45 min. I know I need to step the cardio up but I just get so bored even with good music. I try to mix it up with some treadmill then stairs or bike. Also 3 times a week is abs.

My problem I think is I got too big from powerlifting so I was used to eating a lot of calories from that and my muscle mass stayed and my body fat went up.

[gpowlftr]

You need to have frequent meals, either five or six daily. Take your daily calorie intake and divide by the number of meals to get how many calories you need per setting. You want to decrease you calories slowly per week (if you want to preserve muscle).

Also, I noticed you listed a bagel for breakfast. Try a low glycemic carb (oatmeal) and a protein source (eggs or whey shake with water). Low GI stick with you longer. High GI carbs burn off more quickly and leave your tired.

[gymBum]

My workout is one mucle a day for 30-45 min of weights then I hit cardio for 30-45 min. I know I need to step the cardio up but I just get so bored even with good music. I try to mix it up with some treadmill then stairs or bike. Also 3 times a week is abs.

You will want to watch this too, for instance, you shouldn't be training your biceps for 45 minutes. Being a smaller muscle, they don't need as much work, a few intense exercises should cut it. Overdoing it will result in overtraining and fewer gains.

Great time to shoot for, 45min - 1 hour is an optimal timeframe to be in the gym for.

[yoked662]

Again thanks for everyones help and input. I didnt make it to work out today due to a painful knot on my right trap. I must have slept wrong it hurts when I breathe.

Should I base off of 2000 Calorie diet or is that too little for me?

[rlhaney]

couple words ATKINS DIET
when i started it i was tipping the scales at 267 in 3 weeks i drop 27 pounds of fat and still kept the muscle mass....alot of people down the atkins diet ...true your body needs carbs and sugar but if your a big body person you have alot in storage anyway...send me a email at rlhaney@iupui.edu and ill email you some fitness tips on the atkins diet and other stuff....another thing us big body people got to watch for is protein....i storngly recommaded i massive about of protein on days u work out but the days you dont slow doen on them..cause they tend to sticck to our bodys on days we dont workout.....THE BIGGEST THING IS no matter what diet you get on if you dont do any cardio or light cardio its kindof useless
cardio is key for fat loss....fat is like a piace of coal it takes a while to get burning but ouch it starts it burns for a while