Food/Diet Help me with my diet.

rhyno

Likes Dirt
Hey Guys,
I'm looking to shed a few kilos, but also get fitter. Obviously I need energy for the training, but have to be careful that I don't over do it and jeopardise the weight loss goal.

Background: Last November I weighed in at 97kilos, now I'm 82kg's (height is 174cm). I lost most of this by eating chopped raw vegetables for lunch, canned fruit and low fat yoghurt for breakfast, and meat and steamed veg for dinner. I also would ride (MTB) 20km's per week, twice.

I'm now riding to work (21.2km's) and back on average 3 times per week, so 120km's per week on the road, and nil off-road as the trails are needing some drying time.

I'm very slowly losing weight, but was wondering if there are any tweaks I could make to my diet to aid this.

On days that I ride to work, I have a glass of orange juice (fresh with pulp) before I leave and an up-n-go energise once i've showered at work.
On days that I don't ride, I have one large piece of sourdough bread with jam and minimal butter and an orange juice.

For morning tea I have a greek yoghurt with fruit in it, and a Carmens muesli bar

For lunch I have either a cup-o-soup, or a small can of tuna, a banana, and a small container (200ml) of mixed nuts and dried fruit (I have a feeling this is bad/too high a GI?)

For dinner I have meat and veg (oven baked schnitzel, steak, low fat (haha) sausages), or chicken green curry with rice and veg, or spag bol, or occasionally tuna bake (bad, i know)

Sometimes (once a week?) I have a chocolate bar, and on weekends I often get a flavoured milk (probably not very good).

On days that I ride to work, when I get home I'll have a milo too (with rev).

There are some bad foods in there, but I think I need them to keep sane.

Any tips, or do I just need to bite (excuse the pun) the bullet and cut out the chocolate?
 

Pastavore

Eats Squid
Hey Guys,
I'm looking to shed a few kilos, but also get fitter. Obviously I need energy for the training, but have to be careful that I don't over do it and jeopardise the weight loss goal.

Background: Last November I weighed in at 97kilos, now I'm 82kg's (height is 174cm). I lost most of this by eating chopped raw vegetables for lunch, canned fruit and low fat yoghurt for breakfast, and meat and steamed veg for dinner. I also would ride (MTB) 20km's per week, twice.

I'm now riding to work (21.2km's) and back on average 3 times per week, so 120km's per week on the road, and nil off-road as the trails are needing some drying time.

I'm very slowly losing weight, but was wondering if there are any tweaks I could make to my diet to aid this.

On days that I ride to work, I have a glass of orange juice (fresh with pulp) before I leave and an up-n-go energise once i've showered at work.
On days that I don't ride, I have one large piece of sourdough bread with jam and minimal butter and an orange juice.

For morning tea I have a greek yoghurt with fruit in it, and a Carmens muesli bar

For lunch I have either a cup-o-soup, or a small can of tuna, a banana, and a small container (200ml) of mixed nuts and dried fruit (I have a feeling this is bad/too high a GI?)

For dinner I have meat and veg (oven baked schnitzel, steak, low fat (haha) sausages), or chicken green curry with rice and veg, or spag bol, or occasionally tuna bake (bad, i know)

Sometimes (once a week?) I have a chocolate bar, and on weekends I often get a flavoured milk (probably not very good).

On days that I ride to work, when I get home I'll have a milo too (with rev).

There are some bad foods in there, but I think I need them to keep sane.

Any tips, or do I just need to bite (excuse the pun) the bullet and cut out the chocolate?
G'day Rhyno!

Congrats on your weight loss so far. That is a significant amount of fat that you have lost, and I would n't say that you are losing slowly, in fact I would say that is probably losing at a healthy, sustainable rate. Or are you saying you have stopped losing recently?

With regards to your diet, it doesn't sound too bad. I certainly wouldn't recommend stopping your occasional little treats.

If you have stopped losing, (and still have more fat to go), I could perhaps suggest that you focus on portion size, particularly with your evening meal. That is, keep eating what you are eating, but eat less of it. When it comes to weight loss, the amount of energy consumed is more important than what foods you are eating.

Hope that is of some help to you
 

Steve-0

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Try and drop the sugary stuff like flavoured milk and Milo's. I personally don't drink juice either but some find it beneficial.

A small flavoured milk might go down quick but it's also like 500calories which could be 1/3-1/4 of your whole daily intake. 1 on the weekend is fine but if your having the "occasional" one 3-4 times in 2 days, it adds up.

When you not concerned so much about muscle size, weightloss is purely Calories in vs Calories out. I've lost weight eating salads and steamed chicken, and I've also lost just as quickly (and properly) on KFC and HJ's.

To maybe burn abit more on your commutes you could try varying the speed similar to a HIIT workout, Ride flat out sprinting for 2mins and then go slow/coast for 30s-60s and then repeat until you get to work. It's still the same 20km's but you'll be buggered at the end and it will help.

You don't have to cut out anything but you have to be mindful of it.
 

ozdavo

Likes Dirt
Extend your commute to about 40-50kms in the morning. Get a HRM if you don't have one and get some good advice on using it to achieve your goals.
Also, milk is better than juice for a post ride drink. The protein will assist in muscle repair, where as the juice is high in sugars.
 
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driftking

Wheel size expert
How is your meal timing.
It is best to eat smaller meals more regularly as it means you receive energy as you need it and limit the amount that may be stored. That said you have work and other things do it can be hard to fit in meals every 3hours. So there are a few small things that can help.

-High protien breakfast. There are studies that suggest thiscan burn upto 50%more calories during the day.
-Likewise high protien breakfast can help curb appetite.
-Lay off carbs min 3 hours before bed.
This is based on Gh. When we sleep out growth hormone peaks, this hormone is responsible for burning fat and building muslce. When we I ingest carbs the insulin response inhibits Gh from peaking.
-That brings me to my next point, include some resistance training. As you are trying to loose weight don't bother with trying to gain muslce just focus on some good resistance training to stimulate the muscle and maintain it during the weight lose. More muscle burns more fat.
-herbs spices etc, by using a few of these you can help support the loss, cinnamon helps regulate insulin response and slows down the digestion of the carbs. Cayenne pepper can boost metabolism.
-walk, after meals walk it aids digestion

With HIIT it does increase the metabolism for upto 48h after,but it is a hard workout so you can over train and you do need to recover properly. If you add Proper HIIT into your commutte don't do it every day. A few sprints here and there is all good but a proper HIIT will destroy you if you do it every day.

In terms of HI GI foods every should ideally avoid them unless medically they need them. But it is ok to have them after a ride that is more than 1h or in the morning.
After workouts where your stores are being depleted you still need to top these up so don't be too worried. In the mornif again you are coming off a fast from sleep and you will have all day to burn them so don't freak out. That said breakfast I'd stick to egg whites on wheat toast or spinach omelette.

Switch to grass feed meats they have a much better fat profile than grain. That said in terms of weight loss aim for lean meats and cuts and yes trim the fat off before you cook.
Chicken turkey and lean beefs and ideal. Cook them in the oven without oils. Fish is also ok in moderation.

You may have and it sounds like you hit a plateau, you need to switch up your workouts, add some things change the intensity or order etc.

As with everything remember you need to make sure you can safety use or do these things depending on your needs and medical situation. Herbs need to be equally considered as many can assist in BP changes, peppers obviously arnt food for ulcers, HR or sensitivity etc.
So as per ussually I will say don't make changes until you speak to a dr as a disclaimer.
But as most don't bother with that it comes down to using common sense and making sure you don't go over board with the want to drop weight quickly.
You are obviously doing this right with consistency so I applauded you for that.
 
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0psi

Eats Squid
PUT DOWN THE FORK FATTIE!!!! Haha, I jokes. I'm trying to lose a little weight too and it started to get a lot harder once I got closer to my goal weight. I found going gluten free helped hugely when my weight loss plateaued. For one it cuts out a lot of starchy high carb type foods but more importantly I found it made me very aware of what I was putting in my mouth. There's no need to starve yourself so long as you are doing a decent amount of exercise, it'll just hurt your recovery. Don't get too obsessed with losing all your weight now, you are better off gradually making a sustainable lifestyle change and letting the weight come off slowly, it's not like you are overweight and need to take drastic measures.

Something that works pretty well is doing slow runs in the morning before breakfast. Only needs to be half an hour or so. Start with only doing that on your days off as it can make you feel pretty average if you aren't used to it.
 

mason33

Likes Dirt
Skip meals and commit to it. Every time you feel hungry have a strong black coffee instead, boosts your metabolism, works as a mild diuretic and suppresses appetite. The toughest part is going to bed hungry so have your major meal or only meal of the day late so you can at least get a good nights sleep. If your body hasn't got any intake of calories it will catabolise itself, on the down side not only will you loose fat but also muscle. Lots of cardio! even if you don't feel up to it, keep pushing.
 

driftking

Wheel size expert
Skip meals and commit to it. Every time you feel hungry have a strong black coffee instead, boosts your metabolism, works as a mild diuretic and suppresses appetite. The toughest part is going to bed hungry so have your major meal or only meal of the day late so you can at least get a good nights sleep. If your body hasn't got any intake of calories it will catabolise itself, on the down side not only will you loose fat but also muscle. Lots of cardio! even if you don't feel up to it, keep pushing.
worse advice....sorry but if you skip meals or eat too little your body will drop weight rapidly for the first week then hit starvation mode and will start storing everything it has. Eat enough calories eat regularly and exercise the defect. Don't skip meals
On that note skipping meals you are reducing your macro and micro nutrients.

If you need 3000calories a day to maintain your ideal weight and exercise and are eating 5000calories a day yes skipping meals can be beneficial if your eating every 30min or an 1 hour but ideally you should eat regularly 2-3hours balanced healthy types of foods and smaller portions. You seem to be promoting a dangerous method. "Going to bed hungry" "don't feel up to it push anyway" "main or only meal"

If we want to just look at calories out vs in and not consider macros or micros. (Cal in vs out is pretty poor, its a very small part of the picture)
Workout your calorie needs. Divide those into 6-8 small balanced meals. Eat a good range of P C F at eat meal.

If you want to go extreme than look into ketonic diets. Basically this method switches the body from using glucose to using ketones in the body. It means the body breaks down fat and protein to metabolize for energy and fuel rather than glucose. I personally hate these diets and if you do it just to loose weight you need to have a good refeeding strategy for introduction of carbs otherwise it can mess up your body and lead to refeeding syndrome. It can also put weight back on as your body starts using glucose again.
 
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0psi

Eats Squid
Skip meals and commit to it. Every time you feel hungry have a strong black coffee instead, boosts your metabolism, works as a mild diuretic and suppresses appetite. The toughest part is going to bed hungry so have your major meal or only meal of the day late so you can at least get a good nights sleep. If your body hasn't got any intake of calories it will catabolise itself, on the down side not only will you loose fat but also muscle. Lots of cardio! even if you don't feel up to it, keep pushing.
Pfft. Just chop off an arm, there's a solid few kg's there. Much easier.
 

jonozrx

Likes Dirt
I find that skipping early meals is the best way to manage hunger. It doesn't work for everyone though, as some people end up overeating later in the day.
 

driftking

Wheel size expert
I find that skipping early meals is the best way to manage hunger. It doesn't work for everyone though, as some people end up overeating later in the day.
I used to skip breakfast and you do get used to not eating, aside from the whoel waking up thing it offers. In terms of weight loss you are delaying the start of the metabolism firing up. A better method is to aim for a high protein breakfast, eggs whites with spinach on a piece of whole wheat or rye bread something similar, it starts the metabolism and the protein helps curb appetite a little longer. Protein in the morning also is proven to increase over all daily calorie burn.

Generally as I mentioned in early posts you should be eating every 2-3 hours small meals so your appetite should be ok, if however you are really jumping down your calories you will probably find you get hungry regardless due to the big restriction, until your body become accustom to the new diet.
 

rhyno

Likes Dirt
Thanks for all the advice guys.

What I've gathered from this is that my diet isn't overly bad, but I've probably hit a plateau. I've started to mix things up a bit in the last week:
Sprinting sections on my way to work (Strava helps here), doing crunches on non-ride days and finally getting back out on the trails (mud is starting to subside! yay!)

As for my diet I've got two specific questions for now:
1. My dried fruit and nuts mix at lunchtime....yay or nay? any substitutions that might be better?
2. Up N Go once at work/post ride. Is there something better I should be eating post ride/ for breakfast? Keep in mind that I am at work and don't have a kitchen at my disposal (microwave/fridge only).

I'll start eating eggwhites/spinach/good toast on non-ride days.

I'm also going to attempt to cut down on carbolicious dinners. Maybe try to move the carbs to lunchtime?

My goal is to be at a race-ready XC enduro weight/fitness. I'm going to enter a couple of races this year (Otways Odyssey and Wombat hopefully) just to see some new trails; not necessarily to win, but there is always going to be that human desire to beat your mates, so it would be good if I was competitive.

Again, thanks for all the advice. I'll continue to use it as a reference ongoing.
 

driftking

Wheel size expert
Dried fruit and nuts offer some good nutrition but as you know come at the expense of higher calories. There are studies that show people who have a serve of nuts actually loose more weight. Interns of the nuts and fruit it will come down to if those calories fit into your daily needs. Nutritionally I'd go for fresh fruit over dried but calorie wise it's not going to matter. I think if you need to cut some calories down maybe lessening the amour could be good but if it fits into your needs and you are still loosing weight I can't see any issue with eating them.
They have some good fats and good nutrients and while there are other low fat options unless they don't fit Into your daily needs I can't see it been a issue.


What up and go are you using? They have quite a bit of sugar in them. The high protien ones have less and inthinknthe calories are still the same plus more protien obviously. With up and go its a hard one as you are not packing in a lot of carbs or sugar it's only like 25g I think and being early in the morning and after a commute it's probably not a bad thing to have, on top of that you are getting sugars but you are getting a fair hit of nutrients with up and go. I don't think I would be a issue.

I think the main culprits will be additives like butter sugar in coffee dressings, thing people tend to not think about can really add up.

And of course your meal timing will be a big one. Cutting carbs 3 hours before bed at least should help if you haven't already been doing so.
 
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rhyno

Likes Dirt
Thanks DriftKing,
I generally eat tea around 7, and go to bed around 10 and I try to keep dinner as low carb as possible. So that seems to fit.
I think I'll just start mixing the training up a bit and see how I go without too much diet change.
We'll see what happens.

Thanks again.
 

driftking

Wheel size expert
You haven't really mentioned much in the way of weights or resistance training? or did I miss it?
In terms of crutches they teach your muscles poor technique basically teaches it to contract and relax, you want the core to be stable its better to do planks for core strength. Not sure how planks go for helping weight though.

If you are able to medically I would suggest you consider looking into adding some resistance and weighted work into your schedule. This should also break that plateau you are in.
 

3viltoast3r

Likes Bikes and Dirt
What are peoples thoughts on this: Oats for breakfast (Perhaps at work after exercise) and that should fill you up, and be main source of carbs for the day, and cut down on the sugary stuff(Juice/up and go/etc)
 

driftking

Wheel size expert
What are peoples thoughts on this: Oats for breakfast (Perhaps at work after exercise) and that should fill you up, and be main source of carbs for the day, and cut down on the sugary stuff(Juice/up and go/etc)
oats are a good option.
the OP mentioned they don't have time to cook at work so maybe oats are out the equation.
For breakfast I cant see it been a issue either they pack a good amount of protein as well more so made with milk. Most weight lose will go for the egg whites, a large egg white contains only about 3.6g protein per white so oats is a very plausible replacement for eggs and a piece of toast. Most I understand only recommend 1 piece of toast though so that only sits around 15g complex carbs with the eggs, so less carbs. Personally id go for eggs morning and then oats at work. But that's just me.

If you do opt for oats quick oats can be very processed, you can get multi grain ones now so go for them if you need quick oats

Main source of carbs? that fairly low intake as a main source. The brain alone need 100-150grams of carbs per day to function. otherwise you begin to use ketones.
 

rhyno

Likes Dirt
You haven't really mentioned much in the way of weights or resistance training? or did I miss it?
In terms of crutches they teach your muscles poor technique basically teaches it to contract and relax, you want the core to be stable its better to do planks for core strength. Not sure how planks go for helping weight though.

If you are able to medically I would suggest you consider looking into adding some resistance and weighted work into your schedule. This should also break that plateau you are in.
Not doing any weights. Not a fan of Gyms at all.
I'll try to throw in some more resistance training at home.

I'll grab some oats to take to work as that would be do-able. Eggs on non ride days.
 

driftking

Wheel size expert
Not doing any weights. Not a fan of Gyms at all.
I'll try to throw in some more resistance training at home.

I'll grab some oats to take to work as that would be do-able. Eggs on non ride days.
Fair enough, you don't need to bulk up though or lift heavy even resistance as you said should help. If you can handle a full body workout at least once a week with some resistance bands or weights at home or gym it should help.
Importantly when you drop weight you tend to also loose some muscle mass so it is ideal to do resistance to at least maintain lean muscle mass. Remember the more muscle you have the more calories your body naturally burns ie higher basic metabolic rate. You want to maintain The muscle mass as you loose weight.
If you start Dropping muscle you also slow down the metabolism.
:) good luck.
 
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Cypher

Likes Dirt
I am assuming that you are now mostly loosing weight for cosmetic reasons. In that case you should avoid the dried fruit and just eat fresh fruit.

Dried fruit will dissolve the enamel on your teeth pretty quickly along with sugary, acidic drinkss. There is no point having the body beautiful when your teeth are manky. Your teeth are the most important jewellry you own.

Drink a glass of water after eating to decrease the acidity in your mouth - or chew 1 piece of sugar free gum (don't go overboard - that laxative effect is real). This will also have the added benefit of reducing the desire to drink sugary stuff. Brush your teeth twice a day - one of those times should be a really good one - that is brush your teeth and gums for two minutes, floss and use an interdental brush like a pickster.

Someone mentioned going gluten free. Gluten is is so many food items (hey, it is a great protein!) that it is a pain in the arse to remove it totally from you diet unless you are ceoliac and you need to. Most people are not gluten intolerant.

That said, everyone can benefit from eating a range of grains. Our western diet is highly dependant on wheat. Try sorghum, quinoua, oats, rye, corn, rice - anything. Just mix it up. Our guts are like an ecosystem - it works better when there is biodiversity rather than a monoculture
 
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