Can I get a diet critique? Trying to lose a lot of weight.

[SpennyX]

Hey all, this was day four of my attempt to get healthy, so I decided to start keeping track of my macros on top of my calorie intake. I wanted some possible feedback. Following is what it looked like today.

Calories: ~1450
Carbs: 227.3g
Protein: 58.8g
Fat: 31.3g

Meals/snacks:
Grapefruit + piece of toast w/ Nutella
Veggie burger w/out bun
Some pretzels
2 chicken thighs w/ little bit of rice and steamed asparagus
Piece of banana bread

Yeah, probably not the healthiest with the banana bread. But the pretzels have next to no fat, it's just a decent amount of carbs + sodium. I have had people tell me, that for my size, I should be eating more calories. But today I never overate and thought it was satisfying in terms of the amount of food I ate. It looks, from an uneducated perspective, like I had WAY too much carbs today. And I heard that I should be having enough protein so that 1g = 1lb lean body mass, and if so that is definitely not enough protein. Any thoughts?

As it says under my username, I'm 5'10" and about 230 pounds, with about 30% body fat.

What are some changes I should be making? What are some important foods to eat? I'm sticking with cardio for the next few weeks until I can get my summer term gym pass from my university, then I'll mix in some weight training with an attempt at HIIT. I'm going to be ordering some Ultimate Nutrition Iso Sensation as my first ever protein supplement for when I start using weights. How many times should I have that every day?

Sorry for all of the questions, I'm kind of a newb to this all. That's what I get for being unhealthy for most of my life! Thank you in advance for any response.

[Opies]

inb4 **** storm

[Technic]

What are some changes I should be making?

Add some good cheese to those pretzels.

[Christiffer]

Read the stickies...

[grej]

run run run

[Shadowcat52]

[QUOTE=SpennyX;668166931]Hey all, this was day four of my attempt to get healthy, so I decided to start keeping track of my macros on top of my calorie intake. I wanted some possible feedback. Following is what it looked like today.

Yeah, probably not the healthiest with the banana bread. But the pretzels have next to no fat, it's just a decent amount of carbs + sodium. I have had people tell me, that for my size, I should be eating more calories. But today I never overate and thought it was satisfying in terms of the amount of food I ate. It looks, from an uneducated perspective, like I had WAY too much carbs today. And I heard that I should be having enough protein so that 1g = 1lb lean body mass, and if so that is definitely not enough protein. Any thoughts?

As it says under my username, I'm 5'10" and about 230 pounds, with about 30% body fat.

Hi, I'm not an expert on diet or nutrition, however I easily dropped 25 pounds over several months by switching to brown rice and steamed veggies for dinner. For breakfast I ate/eat a big bowl of whole grain cereals with almond milk. I eliminated dairy, processed foods and most meats from my diet and the weight just fell off 2-3 pounds a week. I wasn't even working out regularly during that time, but still easily dropped the weight. I look and feel a lot better. No calorie or carb counting, no fancy diets, just switch to a healthy, natural, plant based diet and weight falls off. I didn't even go 100% veggan, more like 80% and it still worked great. I still eat meat and "normal" food a couple times a week, but mostly try to stay on the veggie side of things. Weight loss isn't complicated and it's not rocket science, although there are a lot of people who would like you to think it is....Fast foods and processed foods will make you fat and kill you, salads, whole grains and veggies will keep you lean and healthy....Pretty simple really......Good luck!!

[WonderPug]

Hi, I'm not an expert on diet or nutrition, however I easily dropped 25 pounds over several months by switching to brown rice and steamed veggies for dinner.

That weight loss was a function of caloric restriction and not a function of food selection.

Calories: ~1450
Carbs: 227.3g
Protein: 58.8g
Fat: 31.3g

As a 230 pound male, your intake of calories is catastrophically low, as is your intake of protein and fat.

You should stop that diet at once and start learning a bit about nutrition before you do yourself harm. I suggest you start by reading: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...#post436716771

[Shadowcat52]

[QUOTE=WonderPug;668213401]That weight loss was a function of caloric restriction and not a function of food selection.


True enough WP. However, the beauty of it for me at least, was that it WAS a no brainer. Since veggies, brown rice and the like are inherently low in fat and calories I could and do eat as much as I want, with no complicated formulas to monitor and no guilt. My energy level is far better than it was eating a higher fat diet also, even tho the caloric intake is much lower. I won't argue the pros or cons of a veggan lifestyle and I don't pretend to be one, but I found it a simple, healthy way to drop excess weight. I'll leave it at that, not my thread.

[WonderPug]

However, the beauty of it for me at least, was that it WAS a no brainer. Since veggies, brown rice and the like are inherently low in fat and calories I could and do eat as much as I want, with no complicated formulas to monitor and no guilt

How do you know that your intake of protein and fat met physiological sufficiency and that your caloric intake wasn't too low to preserve LBM?

[Shadowcat52]

How do you know that your intake of protein and fat met physiological sufficiency and that your caloric intake wasn't too low to preserve LBM?

LOL, ok, ya got me here WP. As I stated, I'm not a nutrition expert, but for the sake of civil discourse and my own education, I'll play with ya on this. Much of the planet lives on some variation of a plant based diet and they don't have the boatload of health issues a typical Amercan does. Take a look around at Walmart or the Mall at all the young, fat unhealthy folks walking, or waddling around and you can see we aren't eating well here. There are world class atheletes who are veggans. Don't ask me for names cuz off the top of my head I can't think of one, but I'm sure I could Google a few. My personal goals are to drop the excess fat I had picked up, which I have done and get back to a lean, hard, strong body, which I am working on again. I don't aspire to be a competitive body builder or a hulking gym monster, just a strong healthy 58 yr old guy. I'm sure there is a lot of info here on this subject, which I hope to learn, but since I just joined the site yesterday I haven't had much time for research yet. At this point what I know is that I did lose the weight and I feel much better and I didn't notice any strength loss in the process although I'll grant that some of the weight I lost was likely muscle since I hadn't gone back to lifting and training until just recently. I'm here to learn and open to advice in the process. I ain't looking to gore anybodies ox or pick a fight...not yet anyway!! haha Lots of folks here know waaaay more about all this than I do, probably yourself included. Body building is a science, weight loss isn't that complicated, IMO.