Hello,
This posts deals with my previous diet and my current eating plan. I make the distinction because before, my diet was just that...whatever I would consume whenever I could. Now? I actually plan what I eat and when. It has made a world of difference.
Like I said in earlier messages, my diet used to be quite horrible. Want some examples?
Typical work breakfast:
Hostess Crumb Donuts (yummm!) and a liter of Soda. Those donuts? The 6 little guys that barely put a dent into my appetite? Yeah...460 calories, 20 grams of fat, 540 mg of sodium, 62 g carbs, 6 g of protein, 42 g of sugar. No wonder I was tired all the time. That soda that I worked on during my shift? About 400 calories, 80mg of sodium, 112 g carbs, 112 g sugars. So between my breakfast snack & my drink for my shift I was already up to: 860 calories, 620 mg of sodium, 174 g carbs, and 154 g of sugar. That is not good.
PREVIOUS Typical work breakfast:
Cookie, more donuts, assorted pastry type things. I didn't typical eat much of a lunch. I focused on reading.
PREVIOUS Typical dinner:
McDonald's #10 large w/a coke(10pc chicken mcnugget meal) w/2 barbecue packets. Calories: 1380, 54 g fat, 1890 mg sodium, 199 g carbs, 105 g sugar, 30 g protein. Not the best meal to eat every day...so I had it 5-7 times a week.
PREVIOUS Typical Snack
Cookies, popcorn, Mega-Jug Sized Slurpees. It didn't matter to me what it was.
The bare minimum numbers
So, I ate at least 2500 calories, 2800 mg sodium, 400 g carbs, and 60 g fat. This is assuming I ate a smaller/healthier snack....and didn't drink more soda. Guess which things I did most of the time? Yeah, ate a horrible snack and drank at least another liter of soda.
My current eating plan
My goal numbers for each day are: 2170 calories, 272 g carbs, 48 g of fat, 165 g protein, 2300 mg of sodium. When I am eating healthier, that translates into a LOT of food. Like, I eat every 2-3 hours and I am consistently satisfied, if not full.
CURRENT typical work day breakfast
1.5 cups cheerios. 150 calories, 3 g fat, 285 mg sodium, 30 g carbs, 5 g protein. I also prepare a protein supplement/shake. I use Optimum Nutrition's Gold Standard 100% Whey Protein. Currently, I have a tub of Double Rich Chocolate that is delicious. I take 3 scoops and put them in my water jug for the day. 3 scoops = 360 calories, 3 g fat, 180 mg sodium, 9 g carbs, 72 g protein. This gives me at least 32, if not 48 oz of shake.
Pretty drastic change from the previous breakfast eh?
CURRENT typical work day lunch
I'm still not big on eating much for lunch at work. I have been eating a Clif Bar or a Clif Mojo bar. These bars provide: 200-240 calories, 5-9 g fat, 150-230 mg sodium, 21-43 g carbs, 9-10 g protein.
CURRENT typical work day dinner
100% whole wheat bread (90 calories per slice), 3 slices ham, 3 slices turkey, 1 slice roast beef (total of 100 claories for the meat). It's a meal under 400 calories and about 500 mg of sodium.
More to come later....
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Initial numbers and my current plan.
So, to get things started-I need to catch you guys up to where I am now.
I started monitoring my weight on September 19th, 2009, when I was back in Indiana for my Mom's wedding. I weighed 216 pounds....this gave me a BMI of 29.3-the very top end of the range for being overweight. I did not check my body fat percentage.
What I started doing was reducing the portion sizes that I ate while gradually cutting back on the soda consumption. After a month of that, I was down to 206 with 26.1% body fat, and a BMI of 27.1. At the time of writing this post, I am at 198 and 23.6% body fat. I am gradually making progress.
I decided to add some basic lifting into my day. I started to follow a modified version of this workout http://tinyurl.com/9hc7tm . Modified for several reasons, A. I don't have enough strength to do some of the exercises and B. I don't have some of the equipment.
At the present, I have 3 strength workouts that I follow. They are all variations on the Bodyweight 200 c/o Men's Health. They are a full body, upper focus, and light. My goal is 4 days per week doing a strength workout.
The full body workout is this (in order):
30 prisoner squats
20 per leg step ups (I use an ottoman)
20 push ups
30 calf raises/dips? I stand with my toes on 2 2X4s that have been screwed together and placed on my dumbbells to raise them up.
20 dumbbell bicep curls (per arm)
20 lat extensions
20 more step ups
20 more push ups
50 reverse crunches with a swiss ball
20 bent over dumbbell rows
20 more calf raises
For the upper focus, I drop the 2nd sets of the leg exercises, the crunches, and I add in lat kick backs, shoulder shrugs, dumbbell bench press using the swiss ball, and I end by doing as many push ups as I can.
The light workout is just 1 set each of the full workout and no abs.
I also walk/jog/run at least 3 days a week. I am using the Couch to 5k plan. http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml I am using the blocks in my neighborhood as the guide. Currently, I am walking 2 straights/blocks for every 1 that I run, and after 20mins, I walk the rest of the time. I am up to 45mins at a time.
The most progress has started to occur when I started tracking my eating and exercise at 411fit.com . It is a site ran by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Totally free. McDonald's looked even less appealing when I saw what it did to my numbers.
I'll save my eating habits for next time.
I started monitoring my weight on September 19th, 2009, when I was back in Indiana for my Mom's wedding. I weighed 216 pounds....this gave me a BMI of 29.3-the very top end of the range for being overweight. I did not check my body fat percentage.
What I started doing was reducing the portion sizes that I ate while gradually cutting back on the soda consumption. After a month of that, I was down to 206 with 26.1% body fat, and a BMI of 27.1. At the time of writing this post, I am at 198 and 23.6% body fat. I am gradually making progress.
I decided to add some basic lifting into my day. I started to follow a modified version of this workout http://tinyurl.com/9hc7tm . Modified for several reasons, A. I don't have enough strength to do some of the exercises and B. I don't have some of the equipment.
At the present, I have 3 strength workouts that I follow. They are all variations on the Bodyweight 200 c/o Men's Health. They are a full body, upper focus, and light. My goal is 4 days per week doing a strength workout.
The full body workout is this (in order):
30 prisoner squats
20 per leg step ups (I use an ottoman)
20 push ups
30 calf raises/dips? I stand with my toes on 2 2X4s that have been screwed together and placed on my dumbbells to raise them up.
20 dumbbell bicep curls (per arm)
20 lat extensions
20 more step ups
20 more push ups
50 reverse crunches with a swiss ball
20 bent over dumbbell rows
20 more calf raises
For the upper focus, I drop the 2nd sets of the leg exercises, the crunches, and I add in lat kick backs, shoulder shrugs, dumbbell bench press using the swiss ball, and I end by doing as many push ups as I can.
The light workout is just 1 set each of the full workout and no abs.
I also walk/jog/run at least 3 days a week. I am using the Couch to 5k plan. http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml I am using the blocks in my neighborhood as the guide. Currently, I am walking 2 straights/blocks for every 1 that I run, and after 20mins, I walk the rest of the time. I am up to 45mins at a time.
The most progress has started to occur when I started tracking my eating and exercise at 411fit.com . It is a site ran by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Totally free. McDonald's looked even less appealing when I saw what it did to my numbers.
I'll save my eating habits for next time.
Welcome
Welcome.
I decided to start a full out blog about my journey of getting healthier. I felt like using a blog would be more fitting than continually loading up my Facebook status about what I am doing. So, here we are.
Some background....
My diet has been quite bad for quite some time. Lots of fast food and even more sugar. I used to eat McDonald's at least 5-6 meals a week, drink 1-2 liters of Soda/Pop a day, and rarely eat fresh fruit. This is without getting into my sedentary lifestyle.
I also have a family history that reads like an omen of high health care costs-diabetes, heart disease, back problems, overweight/obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, depression, and the list goes on. Currently, I only have mild asthma, IBS (that is joyous), mild-moderately lactose intolerant, and am bipolar.
I have, in the past, made attempts to get my lifestyle under control. Some of the attempts have lasted longer than others, but all of them have failed. Something always comes up and I go straight back to my old habits. I'm not letting that happen this time.
I have made it a goal to get down to at least 180 pounds with a BMI of approx 23. Eventually, I want to reduce my body fat percentage down to about 15%. The healthy range for males in my age group is 8-19%.
I decided to start a full out blog about my journey of getting healthier. I felt like using a blog would be more fitting than continually loading up my Facebook status about what I am doing. So, here we are.
Some background....
My diet has been quite bad for quite some time. Lots of fast food and even more sugar. I used to eat McDonald's at least 5-6 meals a week, drink 1-2 liters of Soda/Pop a day, and rarely eat fresh fruit. This is without getting into my sedentary lifestyle.
I also have a family history that reads like an omen of high health care costs-diabetes, heart disease, back problems, overweight/obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, depression, and the list goes on. Currently, I only have mild asthma, IBS (that is joyous), mild-moderately lactose intolerant, and am bipolar.
I have, in the past, made attempts to get my lifestyle under control. Some of the attempts have lasted longer than others, but all of them have failed. Something always comes up and I go straight back to my old habits. I'm not letting that happen this time.
I have made it a goal to get down to at least 180 pounds with a BMI of approx 23. Eventually, I want to reduce my body fat percentage down to about 15%. The healthy range for males in my age group is 8-19%.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)