Posts Tagged ‘diet’

Week 6 Progress

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Mega stump 3 Howdy everyone. Apologies for not posting yesterday. We were a bit busy getting a monster tree stump out of our garden and when we were done we we’re a bit knackered. It meant that all weekend we were getting a fantastic workout. I’ve never been so knackered for ages. I’m not sure how many calories I got through but it was a lot.  When we moved into our house we had a 60ft conifer tree which we had chopped down to get more light into the back of our house.  The tree went rather quickly but the stump has been there taunting us for a few years.  Combine a tree stump and loads of flint walls under a load of soil and you’ve got a lot of work to do.  Thankfully it’s out now.

Anyway, onto my progress.

Basically, it sucks…

Not so much weight loss there rather than weight gain.  From the 100kg target I hit on my 30th birthday I’m now 2.5kg heavier.  I know I’m not focusing on weight loss this time round but I do still want to lose weight overall.

So I’m struggling with my regime this time round.  On the one hand I’m adding muscle.  I know I’m adding muscle because I can see it and feel it.  I’ve got better muscle definition round my legs and arms.  I also feel like I’ve lost fat off of my chest.  The only problem is I think I’m putting it on round my waist and hips.  And since that’s where I want to lose it the most I’m pretty pissed off.

I’m not surprised I’m putting on weight.  The extra calories and the extra protein are making sure I do that.  My worry is that I keep putting it on and don’t get to lose what I want to lose when I want to lose it by.

So, what to do?  I’m not sure to be honest.  One thing I’ve been thinking is that I’m just not accurate enough with my measurements.  The skin calipers are easy enough to use but depending on where you pinch and how you pinch you can vary the measurement by 4-6mm.  That’s just not accurate enough for me.  The other measurements with a tape measure are also subject to discrepancies.   Take for instance my thigh measurement.  If I move the tape up or down a couple of centimeters then the measurement varies massively.  Again, just not good enough.  So I’ve been wondering about bdy fat analysers and it just so happened Oli Mell left a comment about them too.  So I’ll be doing a little research into those this coming week.

On a good point my food intake is getting much better.  There’s a couple of days last week where I got it spot on.  It’s tough to do but I managed it a couple of times and can do it again.  The sticky point is the fat intake.  It’s so easy to go over my intake.

Anyway, wish me luck for the next few weeks.  I think I’m going to give this regime until week 10 before I decide to change it if my weight is still going in the wrong direction.

Sid.

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Posted in Phase 2 Progress, skin fold tracker, weight loss tracker | 2 Comments »

Nutrition

Monday, July 6th, 2009

Today I ordered myself a little set of digital scales to weigh my food.  I’ve decided to take a step up when it comes to watching what I eat, now it’s not about eating less but weirdly about eating more, just more of the right stuff.

As I’ve mentioned already I’m less concerned with losing weight this time round and more concerned with losing body fat.  That means I need to get my nutrition right so I stand less chance of losing muscle.  To that end I bought a book a fair while ago called “The Complete Guide to Sports Nutrition” by Anita Bean.  I have a few of her books already and find them fairly easy to read and understand.  For some it may be a bit technical but with a  science background I tend to understand the talk about complex carbs and energy delivery systems.

In the book it talks about calculating your daily calorie expenditure and dropping it by 15% to ensure decent weight loss whilst maintaining enough energy to be able to perform exercise well.  When I calculated my daily calorie expenditure I was a bit shocked.  After measuring it for a day with a heart-rate monitor a while ago I thought it would be much lower than what I calculated.  I haven’t got the book to hand at the minute so I can’t recount the equations but I come out with a resting metabolic expenditure of 2209 calories per day.  That means if I just lie around all day and eat 2209 calories then I’ll pretty much stay the same.  It’s what I need to keep ticking over.  Then when I take into account that I live a fairly sedentary lifestyle, sitting at a desk most of the day etc etc, then I figure my daily energy expenditure is about 3093 calories.  Add to that my exercise over the week and it works out to be about 3300 calories a day.  So I can eat 3300 calories a day at my current rate of exercise and remain the same weight.  I’m a bit dubious about that considering I’ve been eating more like 2000 a day and not losing as much weight as you would expect.

But I guess that’s where the whole starvation mode comes into it so I’m willing to give this increased calorie intake a go.

That means if I drop 15% off of the 3300 calories I’m aiming for 2800 calories a day.

At this point last time I would’ve stopped there and just aimed for 2800 per day.  This time though I’m taking it a step further and working out my food composition.  There’s plenty of recommendations in the book, all of which I can’t really recount here but generally to lose weight it suggest cutting fat and increasing protein.  This means the amount I eat per day comes to…

420g of carbohydrate or 60% of calorie intake
160g of protein or 23% of calorie intake
53 g of fat or 17% of calorie intake

I also figured out I should be aiming to drink close to 3L of water a day.

Right now I don’t think I’m close to 2800 calories a day so I’m gradually building up to it.  Once my scales arrive I’ll be keeping a detailed food diary so I can see how I’m doing.  That’s probably going to be in week 3.  Then I’ll start adjusting it as need to get as close to the above amounts as I can without becoming overly obsessive.

It’s a big change for me and I feel like I’m taking a risk in eating so many more calories than I’m used to.  One thing for sure is that I need to be more disciplined with my workouts.  Another Anita Bean book recommends weights 3 times a week with 3 light CV sessions a week too.  Still, the aim is not about weight but about fat loss and muscle gain.  Let’s see how it goes.

Sid

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Posted in calories, food, goals, kitchen | No Comments »

Get Your Vitamins

Saturday, March 7th, 2009

A while back in Weight Loss Tracker Week 6 that I’d discovered the joy of multi-vitamins.  I’m now a regular consumer.

Most mornings I cycle to work I make sure I have a pint of water before I head off.  In that water these days is usually a Beroca fizzy tablet.  If I’m not cycling then I still have my morning pint of water but use it to wash down a Centrum A-Z.  They are working wonders.

Having read a round a little bit it’s interesting to see that there’s so much controversy over vitamins.  Much of it is centered around single vitamins such as taking vitamin C tablets alone.  It seems as though multi-vitamins get an easier ride.

I air on the side that taking large doses of vitamins is probably a waste of time.  Back during my uni days one of the things I learnt was that your body get’s very good at taking what it needs and ditching the rest.  If you’re already full to the brim of Vitamin E then taking more means it will just end up down the toilet, literally!  However, with me being on a calorie restricted diet I can’t believe that I get everything I need from my meals.  Restricting myself to just 1500 cals a day (roughly) means I must miss out on various things.  Multi-vitamins for me are just a way of topping up.

I’ve been paying a lot of attention to how I’m feeling whilst taking the vitamins and it was a noticeable difference between when I was not taking them and now that I am.  I recover from exercise more quickly, feel better during the day, have a better nights sleep etc etc.

Vitamins however are not cheap.  About £8 for 30 Beroca.  It’s enough to make you think twice.  As I get to my goals and increase the number of calories I eat I’ll cut back on the vitamins.  For now though, if you’re on a calorie restricted diet I’d highly recommend giving them a go.

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Posted in calories | No Comments »