Eating and Exercise Plan Help

[Carlx]

I would really appreciate a little help with putting together a eating and exercise plan.

A little about me; When I was younger I ate shit, and could rely on my growing body to burn off the excess energy, also while in school I was very proactive sport wise, playing at least 60 minutes of soccer per day.
Since leaving school a few years ago I have done less and less, I now only play around 90 - 180 minutes soccer per week, and my body has stopped working off the excess food that I put into it.

It's not that I eat too much, its that I have no eating structure, I can happily have 1 or 2 meals in a day, and I only snack on fresh fruit, I don’t drink beer and rarely drink other alcohol, I don’t smoke or do any form of prescribed or illegal drug.

I am 21 years old and work as a fire fighter, I am not a small guy, I am 6 feet 3 inches tall (75 inches / 1.9Metres), I weigh 254lbs (115KG) I am broad across the shoulders with a natural “V” shaped upper body(that is slowly turning into a natural "O" shape lol) I also have muscular legs, however my upper body is seriously lacking in strength and muscle, and over the past few years I’ve put on what can only be described as "an inch of fat" across my belly, and what’s even more demoralising, is the fact I almost have "man boobs".

I believe I could get back down to a decent weight with a lot less fat on my frame, if I could just sort out my eating. - But, I strongly dislike many foods for example; butter, potato (including fries/chips/crisps), all fish and eggs (there may be more but right now I cant think of them). - Which is why I have a problem when it comes to sorting out my own eating plan, because most plans talk about some of those foods constantly and don’t give a substitute.

Also id love to improve my upper body strength, but am reluctant to join a gym for the fear of being lazy and wasting money on something I may not use. Another reason I feel I wouldn’t join a gym is because I like to see changes very quickly, in short I am inpatient, and I find it so disheartening when 2 or 3 weeks later there is very little change, and then I often just quit.

And i never used to be a quitter, and in some aspects of my life im not, but personal fitness has turned into a negative subject.

Now I know my main problem is motivation and determination, but when I work 4 days on 4 days of on shift rotation, I love just staying in bed on my days off and not getting up until midday - it’s a hard habit to break, especially on my own!

So if you've had the time to read all that (and I appreciate it if you have) then could you please give me some tips

Regards,
Carl Thomas

 

[Sim882]

Eat 5-6 meals a day of similar calorie size. Probably, 2500-800 calories per day is a reasonable estimate for weight loss for a person of your size. Unless your trying to be a fitness model, I don't think you need to reduce carbs overly (at least initially). Something like 50% carbs, 30% protein, 20% fat is fine. Protein to be consumed with each meal (30 grams +)

Basically, the diet should include:
- a post workout meal consisting of high GI carbs and protein after weights.
- your final meal should be low carb (i.e., meat + green veggies), and is ideal place for a fat source
- other meals can include low GI carbs and meat, with small amounts of fat

Good low GI carbs: oatmeal, sweet potatoes, brown rice, corn on cob, beans. Some fruit is also OK (apples, pears, not bananasa). No more than 55% of calories.
Good protein sources: fish, chicken breast, lean red meat (trimmed off all visible fat), egg whites, non-fat milk (OK). At least 30% of calories.
Good fat sources: salmon, nuts, seeds (particularly flaxseed), olive oil and flaxseed oil. Don't eliminate fats - at least 15% of calories.

Simply construct a diet plan around this.

Say 5 meals of 500 calories - e.g., 300 grams sweet potatoes, 300 grams salad veggies, 150 grams chicken. It is as easy as that. A more hard core cutting diet would be to restrict your carb sources to 0 GI vegetables (brocolli, cabbage, etc). But you don't need to be so restrictive

PS, are you sure you don't like fish? Try Salmon a couple of times - give it a try as it tastes awesome to me.

 

[Carlx]

Thanks for your reply Sim,

It was both informative and helpful.

You know what, i will try salmon at the next possible chance i get.

Is there some kind of calorie guide somwhere that gives the nutritional value to the foods you mentioned?

Also, you mention protein to be taken each meal, how would i consume this? ive seen protein shakes, but do you mean natural protein in foods? or would a shake be fine?

My work has a gym, but it is rather basic, running, rowing machines etc, few weights. - Is it worth while joining a gym? and what is the best way (from your experience) to motivate yourself? and then keep yourself motivated...

As for cardio work, how often should i do that? should it be a daily thing? like a 30 minute jog in the monring before my AM meal?
- should i do cardio on days i will be doing weights?

Once again, thank you.

Carl.

 

[poysyn]

Thanks for your reply Sim,

It was both informative and helpful.

You know what, i will try salmon at the next possible chance i get.

Is there some kind of calorie guide somwhere that gives the nutritional value to the foods you mentioned?

Also, you mention protein to be taken each meal, how would i consume this? ive seen protein shakes, but do you mean natural protein in foods? or would a shake be fine?

My work has a gym, but it is rather basic, running, rowing machines etc, few weights. - Is it worth while joining a gym? and what is the best way (from your experience) to motivate yourself? and then keep yourself motivated...

As for cardio work, how often should i do that? should it be a daily thing? like a 30 minute jog in the monring before my AM meal?
- should i do cardio on days i will be doing weights?

Once again, thank you.

Carl.

Your protein sources should definitely come from whole food sources (extra lean beef, lean turkey, chicken, eggs, fish, etc.) Shakes are ok, but they should certainly be kept to a minimum throughout the day.

It is definitely worth while for you to join a gym if your works gym offers only a few machines. In my opinion, machines are complete garbage and you should only use them to introduce your body to the resistance training. After that, you should be sticking to mainly free weights (squats, bench, rows, deads, press)


Eh, if you have a diet in check cardio will be plenty 3x/week. If you desire to do cardio more often, you will probably have to adjust the cals along with that. I truly believe overdoing cardio is one of the leading factors to why diets fail in the long run on some individuals. 30 minutes 3x/week of incline walking in the AM will do your body wonders..

The most important thing for you to do right now is get your diet perfect, as that will be the leading factor for your weight loss. After that, focus on getting your form perfect for lifts and hopefully start increasing that weight. While cutting it might be a bit hard to gain LBM, but if you are new to lifting I would certainly expect to see some growth regardless of calorie intake.

Overall, eat clean, lift hard..get lean.

 

[Sim882]

See nutritiondata.com for information about protein in foods.

Most meats contain 20-25% protein (so I normally eat about 150 grams of meat with meals).

Lean chicken is about 2% fat; light tuna 1% fat; Salmon 7 % fat; lean Beef 5-10% fat. Egg white have no fat.

There are lean cuts of things like pork and lamb, but I've only tried lean pork and thought it was aweful.

 

[Carlx]

poysyn, Thank you for taking the time to respond to my last post, i would also like to appologise for not returning sooner, i have been in the process of setting up my new home network which co-insided with some major structural work so my internet has been down for some time!

Sim, once again thank you for another informed response.

I will be starting a little routine next monday that ive sat down and worked out, it includes cardio, weights and most importantly diet.

I will attempt to keep a log of my progress and of course be asking more questions as and when i run into problems! (which i no doubt will)

One more thing that wasnt answered, how do you keep yourself motivated? - I work out alone, and have nobody who wants to work out along side me - so really im looking for self motivation techniques that have helped you experienced guys out in the past!

Thank you once again!

 

[Sim882]

Do you like music? I am a massive music fan, and found initially this was helpful for getting me started (I would do sets headbanging to Mesuggah, Tool, Opeth etc), as only recently have I had a weights partner (which is useful for squats and bench particularly).

Music can get you through longer enough until you love the weights. This started to me initially when I saw results (which really doesn't take long), and especially once I started demanding compound movements (cleans, squats, and dead lifts). The I'm fucked factor after these movements is awesome, and I started to enjoy weights more and more, that I found that music was becoming a distraction. Now I look forward to it my next session as soon as I finish the last, and often have to restrain myself from doing extra exercises and deviating too far from the 5x5 (occasionally, if I'm really feeling good I will want to just do a million leg and power exercises, but this is unwise as it makes it hard to squat 2 days later)

Just try and persevere with weights for 12 weeks - the 3x3 training schedule is not onerous, so force yourself for this long. You will start to see results, and strength increases and hopefully you will start to enjoy things.

I think those who find weights boring are often the obese pussies in the gym, who do 2000 reps of arm curls, because their scared that using proper weights will make them fat, and even that any exertion will make them fat.

For cardio, sprint intervals on an oval, or even better a hill, are too demanding to be boring if you can make yourself do them. Only 15-20 minutes required.

poysyn, Thank you for taking the time to respond to my last post, i would also like to appologise for not returning sooner, i have been in the process of setting up my new home network which co-insided with some major structural work so my internet has been down for some time!

Sim, once again thank you for another informed response.

I will be starting a little routine next monday that ive sat down and worked out, it includes cardio, weights and most importantly diet.

I will attempt to keep a log of my progress and of course be asking more questions as and when i run into problems! (which i no doubt will)

One more thing that wasnt answered, how do you keep yourself motivated? - I work out alone, and have nobody who wants to work out along side me - so really im looking for self motivation techniques that have helped you experienced guys out in the past!

Thank you once again!

 

[StuWard]

My work has a gym, but it is rather basic, running, rowing machines etc, few weights. - Is it worth while joining a gym? and what is the best way (from your experience) to motivate yourself? and then keep yourself motivated...

For the price of a gym membership for 1 year you put together a rudimentary home gym. You need an Olympic barbell, a bench and squat rack. Don't expect a commercial gym to keep you motivated. They count on a high percentage of dropouts. Otherwise they would not be able to fit all their customers in the place.

Stu

 

[Hybridtheory2o]

Also if I may add im not a big fish eater as well so I stick with mainly tuna BUT if you really cannot stomach any kind of fish you could always buy omega3 fatty acid tabs and bam good to go to my understanding however you must learn to like the other foods and you must learn to look within yourself and say you know what im fuckin sick of livin this way and make a change. Picture what you wanna look like and on a hard day just fuckin suck it up and be like god damnit im goinf or it..its all or nothin so fuckin go all in

Another thing about gains try not to look in the mirror as much for anything and then maybe every few months stop and take a good hard look at yourself and i guarantee u will notice more gains. thats what i do when i get flustered and want immediate gains.

 

[Carlx]

Also if I may add im not a big fish eater as well so I stick with mainly tuna BUT if you really cannot stomach any kind of fish you could always buy omega3 fatty acid tabs and bam good to go to my understanding however you must learn to like the other foods and you must learn to look within yourself and say you know what im fuckin sick of livin this way and make a change. Picture what you wanna look like and on a hard day just fuckin suck it up and be like god damnit im goinf or it..its all or nothin so fuckin go all in

Another thing about gains try not to look in the mirror as much for anything and then maybe every few months stop and take a good hard look at yourself and i guarantee u will notice more gains. thats what i do when i get flustered and want immediate gains.

Your reply really helped me, helpfull yet i understood exactly what you were saying about sucking it up and going all for the goal.

My eating plan isnt working very well, mostly due to a lack of disipline on my part! - finding it hard to remember and stick to meal times, how do you guys do it? i have a watch, but i cant set multiple alarms throughout the day on it... or do you set the next meal time after eating?