Advice on my diet?

[GoldsGymGirl]

I've totally switched up my diet since browsing this forum.. and this is an example of what I eat a day... I'm 5'7".5 and 120 lbs.. looking to put on muscle mass.

Breakfast:
2 scrambled eggs, low-sugar oatmeal w/ scoop of protein (20g).

Snack:
Apple

Lunch:
Lean Turkey breast on whole wheat bread, non-fat mayo, mustard, half an avocado. Lowfat cottage cheese.

Snack:
Veggies or a protein shake or another piece of fruit.. depending on my mood.

Dinner:
Chicken breast, lowfat bbq sauce, veggies, mashed potatoes (real ones)

And then depending on how I feel, sometimes I'll have another snack--fruit/veggies.


What kind of suggestions do you have? Should I incorporate more "good" fats into my diet... or what!
Also good snack suggestions would be awesome.
I read you need a good ratio of fats/carbs/protein.... what kind of ration should I be looking at for my situation (wanting to gain muscle mass).

Thank you!!!!

[Amanda76]

That's actually not too bad a start on your diet. The biggest change I'd make is making sure you get at least 20 grams of protein every 3 hours or so.

Breakfast:
1 whole egg and 4 whites (scrambled with spinach and tomatos, maybe), 1/2 cup oats sweetened with berries

Snack:
Apple and protein shake (this would be a good post-workout snack if you need to move it)

Lunch:
Lean Turkey breast (make sure you're getting 20g of protein from meat) on whole wheat bread, non-fat mayo, mustard, half an avocado.

Snack:
Veggies or fruit and tilapia (or tuna)

Dinner:
Chicken breast, lowfat bbq sauce, veggies, mashed potatoes (real ones)

Pre-bed snack: cottage cheese and some kind of nut/nut butter

As time goes on, you will probably find it beneficial to move to eating more and more whole foods. That means you'll need to find the whole food equivilant of your more processed proteins (lunch meat) and grains (bread...for now make sure "stone ground whole wheat flour" is the first ingredient in your bread, or look for a sprouted grain bread). When it's time for you to concentrate on leaning up again, start by easing out of anything that might have extra sugar you don't need (like bbq sauce, maybe your bread and possibly fruit later on down the line) and other empty calories (mashed potatos may be a culprit depending on how you flavor them). For now, though, I think your diet looks very balanced compared to a lot of people...you'll notice I didn't add anything new to your diet except tilapia as another protein source and nuts as a fat source. Aside from that, I just moved some things around. You've got what looks to be a good variety of food every day and a great handle on things already.

I'd start with aiming for a 40/40/20 (protein/carbs/fats) macro breakdown and see how things go from there. You'll want to eat at least your body weight in grams of protein (so if you're going to eat "too much" of something, eat too much protein), and really a gram and a half would be great. Enter what you eat into a site like fitday, using the nutrition data from the brands you actually buy as much as possible. If you need to adjust fats use foods like nuts, olive oil, avacado and fatty fish like salmon. If you need to adjust carbs, look toward fruits, sweet potatos, brown rice and oats (if you feel you need to remove carbs, I'd ditch fruit before grains). I think it's a lot easier to make adjustments based on whole foods because there aren't surprise sugars in fat sources or fats in carbohydrate sources. The only "surprise" you'll get is some bonus protein.

[Ready2WorkOut]

More protein is important and healthy fat additions wouldn't be a bad choice. A lot of it though depends on what your goals are.

[GoldsGymGirl]

I read a lot about nuts being good fats.. but when I look in the store, they have so much sodium (Planter's...) that I never get them...
Also, is peanut butter a good or bad fat? I bought some organic peanut butter a while ago.. but don't know if it's good or not.

[lululemon]

Originally Posted by GoldsGymGirl

I read a lot about nuts being good fats.. but when I look in the store, they have so much sodium (Planter's...) that I never get them...
Also, is peanut butter a good or bad fat? I bought some organic peanut butter a while ago.. but don't know if it's good or not.

Try looking for almonds that are unsalted and raw/unblanched/natural, you can also try walnuts.

Organic PB is what you are looking for and can be a great source of protein and good fats. Just be sure to stir it well or it can get kinda dry tasting.

Diet looks pretty good btw, if you wanted to add in some protein & good fats along with your second meal, u could try spreading some Natural PB on your apple slices.

[Amanda76]

Originally Posted by GoldsGymGirl

I read a lot about nuts being good fats.. but when I look in the store, they have so much sodium (Planter's...) that I never get them...
Also, is peanut butter a good or bad fat? I bought some organic peanut butter a while ago.. but don't know if it's good or not.

If you look in the baking isle, you can find unsalted walnuts (which have omega-3's). Otherwise, there ARE unsalted almonds, peanuts, cashews and any other kind of nut you can imagine...you just have to look for them. As an active person who watches sodium intake in most meals, you can probably get away with eating a few salted items...I really don't like the taste of salted peanuts myself. I would eat salted nuts before lunch meat, though.

Peanut butter is good for you, so long as it doesn't have a bunch of other junk in it. When you buy peanut butter, make sure it doesn't have added sugar (in the form of honey or anything else unless you've got that planned into your macros...since you're in a mass gain phase you CAN get away with more of that). There is a store in the state I live in called HEB and their Central Market brand peanut butter has ONE ingredient--dry, roasted peanuts. Oddly enough, most organic brands don't have that simple an ingredient list.

Peanuts are really more of a fat source than a protein source, so don't eat it for protein content (that's one of those fat sources with some bonus protein). When choosing proteins make sure that the majority of the calories in an item come from protein. With nuts, that just isn't the case. You'd have to consume 475 calories worth of peanut butter to get the (at least) 20 grams of protein/meal I was talking about. You will be needing to eat more total calories since you are trying to gain muscle, but that probably still isn't going to be the best example of a meal for you.