Hi Lads and Ladies,

I've spent almost the entire day researching, reading, learning etc. I've come to the conclusion that my current diet that I've been having for the last two weeks was rubbish, it was under calorie, but way to unbalanced, and hence despite sweating my ass off in the gym I've lost no weight this week, so in light of that, and based on many hours research I've come up with a new diet plan, and was hoping some of you knowledgable people would cast your eyes over and see if it's ok.

Based on a bunch of calculations, I'm aiming for 1500 cals a day, to achieve a 2-3lb loss per week. Here's an example of my diet (It won't change much from day to day).

Breakfast:
4 egg omellete (3 whites, 1 yoke)
3 x thin slices of ham
1 x piece of multi-grain toast.

Early Snack:
50g of unroasted, unsalted peanuts

Lunch:
Herbed grilled chicken breast with single slice of cheddar
Vegetable salad (cabbage, peppers, bean sprouts, carrots, kidney beans)
1 x piece of mulit-grain bread with low-fat spread

Pre-gym snack:
1 can of tuna
1 x apple

Dinner:
2 x 50g lean turkey burgers with mixed herbs
Vegetable stir fry using the same veg as the earlier salad.

Per day calories: 1531
Daily protein: 147g
Daily carbs: 76g

I work out 5 times a week. 20 min weight work followed by 45 minutes of interval cardio training.

I was wondering whether the protein amount was enough - maybe I should increase it? I could add a protein shake post workout?

Your views gratefully received.

At your weight and how much you exercise, I think 1500 is a bit low. You'll probably have good results at first, but then your body will fight back from such a big calorie deficit.

You're spacing your protein throughout the day well. I know a lot of people do have protein shakes post workout, and I'm considering the same myself. I usually just have some milk right now, but I'd like to add the protein shake instead.

I'm sure others will give you better breakdowns.

OK, before making a determination - what is your % body fat? How much LBM do you have? The quantity of protein you should consume is directly tied to your LBM and your activity level.

Try it out and see how hungry you get, and when. That is a terrific indication of whether or not your CPF ratios are optimal for your body and your workout routine.

Your P:C ratio is 2:1. I personally feel that's a bit high. A high protein intake is great for building muscle, but if you cut back your carbohydrate intake too much you can send your body into ketosis, which is BAD NEWS. Everyone is different; the only way to know if you're not getting enough carbohydrates is to visit your doctor, who can check for excessive ketone bodies in your urine. (Ketosis occurs when your body begins to metabolize protein for energy - either by breaking down existing muscle or by your dietary protein intake.) I believe you should up your cabohydrate intake to at least 100 g per day. This number does NOT include fiber. Your carbohydrate choices are excellent. If you want to bulk up your meals and also hold off hunger longer, you can exchange the toast with a piece of fruit or more vegetables equivalent in calories. BTW, you didn't mention how large your salads were. If they aren't huge, your P:C is even higher than I thought.

Also remember that your brain needs glucose derived from carbohydrates - 70% of all glucose is used by your brain. One easy way to check if your carbohydrate intake is out of whack is to see how you feel a couple of hours after a meal. If you're sleepy, or feeling a bit foggy, and you're hungry or craving something sweet, there's a good chance your blood sugar is too low. This is usually caused by too many carbohydrates, which drives your insulin levels too high. If you're hungry a couple of hours after a meal, still feel pretty mentally alert, but kind of drained / tired / weak (muscular tiredness, not sleepiness), you may not have eaten enough carbohydrates in your last meal. A good, properly balanced meal will last you at least four hours before you get hungry again. During those four hours, you would have already consumed a little snack, so the hunger is delayed even longer.

You didn't list your fats! I try to get 30% of your calories from good for you fats. Peanuts, as you've listed, are great, as is olive oil. Mixing in your daily fat intake with every meal will also help to hold off hunger longer.

I've never really heard anything about the body "fighting back" after good early results; typically my experience and what I've observed from people around me is that the body will start resisting more early on... like right away (storing more fat in the early goings) if you cut your calories too low.

It seems counter intuitive to me that the body will do well at first then say "oh wait one damn minute" and start "fighting back"... I would think it's either going to like what you're doing and stay happy, or it's going to hate it right away. At least, that's been my personal experience with my results, although if you're right, I don't know how long the "at first" window is supposed to be.

Don't be too afraid of carbs either. They are perfectly healthy and this no carb movement is ridiculous.

Didn't Dr. Atkins or whatever die of heart failure or something too? Even if he didn't, the irony if it were true would be delicious.

Yes, I believe he died of some sort of congestive heart failure or something.

Whenever someone complains about plateauing, that is an example. I have known many people (and have had my own experience) who cut their calories drastically, experience really good results for a while (two weeks or so), and then find themselves unable to progress. Your body has no choice but to drop weight at first when you cut your calories low. Then it adapts, becomes more efficient, and you find the instant success you first had suddenly grinds to a halt.

Maybe it's my use of the words "fighting back" and "at first" with which you apparently have an issue? I was giving a quick answer, which isn't lacking in accuracy so much as terms that were possibly more vague than they should have been.

Dr. Atkins' official COD was head trauma from a slip and fall on some ice. There is some controversy about his health previous to that though. And he did have a heart attack in 2002, about a year prior to his death.

In terms of protein post workout, my nutritionist recommended 200ml of skim milk mixed with 2 tablespoons of powdered skim milk. I've been drinking it after every weights session, may be a good alternative to a protein shake for you aswell

Actually, you will appear to have good results first because you might very well lose muscle mass. Your progress will slow because you have less muscle and more fat. Eat enough and work hard and you'll see the best results.

Right, but in my case, which is the only one which I am really well informed on, I cut my calorie intake to a deficit of 5-700 a day (with a few, rare extreme days of maybe around a 1k deficit when I just didn't notice I didn't eat enough until I logged it here too late to eat). My positive results have continued, albeit they were more significant early on. I also figure my body fat % into the my "success" so if I'm losing weight but that number is levelling out or, worse yet, growing, then I wouldn't call it success at all.

I'm not necessarily taking issue with it, I'm just curious really. Also, it's not so much the wording as what I've seen in personal experience; unless your intake is dropping significantly below what it "should" be, most folks I see tend to continue seeing results as long as they stick with it, maybe not as drastic as the results when they initially started but results regardless.

I may be coming off as argumentative, but I'm really just curious if people have had contrary experiences to mine. I actually got into a discussion with two people who... lacked credibility on the subject, debating my weight loss so far this year (33lbs, 3% body fat drop) and telling me it's either impossible or that I'm lying if my body fat % also went down because of what they read online.

Granted, it's only six weeks into the year but I just want to make sure that I'm not necessariliy going down a bad path; especially since it really is so early in this new lifestyle for me.

This is what scares me the most about trying to loose inches or weight. What if I'm doing it wrong?

I don't want to loose weight the unhealthy way, or end up plateauing. I've basically increased my water intake exponentially, always eat breakfast, and a snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack. Everything has to be healthy. Basically I'll eat something if I feel hungry. I'm just terrified of doing something wrong.

I wish I could just have someone tell me exactly what to eat and when, and what to do at the gym and when.

I'm definitely with you there Tara but the truth is there are no hard and fast rules on what works because everyone is different. If there were just one set of rules to follow, there wouldn't be so much "debate" online about it

I'm just trying to play it safe now and keep myself educated, but what I'm doing seems to be working for me, and until it stops I'll probably stick with it. Like I said, my body fat % is going down at a good rate, and so is my weight; until i see the body fat % number level out I'll keep with it!

That calorie intake does look really low. Instead of pushing your intake below your BMR, I'd start by limiting it to about your BMR (roughly 2,000 Cal) and really hitting the weights and cardio.

Rather than supplement with protein, I would increase green leafy veggie and bean/legume intake to hit higher calories. When you have a lot of fat to lose, protein supplementation causes more harm (added calories you don't need) than good I think. One scoop of typical protein powder is already 120 calories for 25g protein. Most people will take 2 to 4 scoops a day.

Once you're down to a healthy range of 14% - 18% body fat is when I'd even start thinking of protein supplementation.

An aggressive full-body weight lifting routine will minimize muscle loss while you lose fat.

Hi all, thanks for your feedback and suggestions. In light of some of the advice, I think i'll add in some more carbs in the form of fruit either at breakfast or part of the early snack, maybe a pear or a banana.

The salad and stir-fry size are pretty large, with leafy greens making up the bulk along with carrots, and various beans.

One thing I intend to do to avoid the 'fight back' is to have a 're-feed' day where I have more healthy carbs than protein for that day, and on my rest days (sunday most probably) i'll relax the whole thing a little, this should keep me from going into ketosis (so i've read) and refuel the glycogen levels ready for the next week of workout.


Angie, my bodyfat is about 42% at the moment, and as for fats, I'll be doing the veggie stir-fry and salad in olive oil, and there are some fats also from the spread on the toast..

Apart from increasing calories and carbs a little, is there anything else i should be aware off? I'll be drinking about 2litres a day is that enough?

Hi, Colin,

One thing I'd do is simply move this snack to a post-workout position. Why tax your body with the digestion process when it should be putting 100% of it's energies into the workout? Recovery-mode is where the magic happens.



Other than this I think it looks pretty good aside from it being a tad shy on the total caloric intake as mentioned.

Easiest way fix that without changing things up too much is to inject a lil more good fats into the mix. More olive oil in the salad, perhaps some avocado sliced into the sammies, rotating some different nuts in to the mix, (walnuts if you like them are great for that at 25 cals a piece), etc...

Then there's the option of upping the whole grains like brown rice etc., more fun and voluminous than upping the fats, IMHO.

As for the water, I'd say 2L's a day is fine. Use your body as the guage, is your pee clear? If so, check. Is your mouth dry? If so, up the intake.

It's all about the tweakin'.

Keep up the good work!

One thing I tend to recommend is determining your BMR (with activity modifier) at your target weight, and eating that many cals per day.

I don't know how tall, or how old you are, so this is just an example. If you're 25, 5'9", and 170lbs, then your BMR is 1800, with a moderate activity level, you're around 2200-2400 calories daily. Eat that, lift weights 3X/week, and get 30-45min cardio 3-6X/week and monitor how you're doing. You might have to move it around a little to get the best results.

HI Dave, I did work out the BMR, it came to around 2500 (depending on which site i used to help work it out). Thats for being moderatly active, so if I wish to lose the 2-3 lb per week which I need to to hit my target, then my daily calorie has to be between 1500-1700 - on the diet posted I will do as suggested and increase the calories with some good fats and maybe some wholegrains. If I just rely on the workout calories to burn the fat, it'll take forever for me to get to my target, so I need that calorie deficit, and to be honest, I was eating less than that over the last 2 weeks (albeit more carbs) and never felt hungry.

I think i'll trial 1700 cals for the next couple of weeks and monitor the results, and increase as needed.

He died like this...

I too think that these diets are ridiculous, but I remember listening to the radio and hearing that he died of falling on ice.

I'd just like to point out one detail; my diet plan in no way is based on the Atkins diet, I'll be increasing my carb intake to around 100g as Angie has suggested (also to bump my calories up a bit), this is a high protein diet to aid in creating lean mass and not burning up muscle but fat, hence avoiding too many 'easy' carbs.

Colin, it's generally recommended to lose 1-2lbs per week; for safety and to ensure that you keep it off. Except for the beginning or a new routine, it is fairly unlikely to effectively maintain a loss of 2-3lbs/week in addition to keeping your lean mass. Some weeks are better than others, but it's best to have a realistic goal.



You shouldn't *just* rely on your workout calories to burn fat, but it should be the majority of what is making the difference. Dropping calories by 20% (which is A LOT), would put you at 1900/day - I would not go below that. If you want to get healthy and stay healthy, you should build your lean mass and get fit - you do that by working hard in the gym and by properly fueling your body. And, if you calculated your BMR and average daily calories using your goal weight, you've already decreased them a bit over what it takes to sustain your current weight.

All good advice Dave, and I will take note. I've just re-adjusted my diet plan, based on the tips given it's up around 1850 now so not far off your suggestion. I'll stick to this for the next week (just going out to get all my shopping/groceries in) or two and monitor the results.

Thanks again for the input!

Colin, I did some quick math. 147 g of protein and 1850-1900 calories are VERY good numbers for you. Feel free to exchange carbohydrate and fat calories until you tweak out a ratio that makes you feel best with the least hunger. Keeping your carbs mostly veggies, legumes/beans and fruits will hold off hunger longer. Definitely keep your carbohydrate intake above 100g daily. Of course do your own experimenting, but I think you'll find you'll simply feel better and be less tired if you keep it in the 120-190 g per day range.

Whew, good luck eating all of that. That is a LOT of green leafy vegetables!!

HI Angie, thanks for the confirmation there, I really appreciate your help in tweaking/ironing out the issues, i'm really looking forward to it actually, it's all foods I really enjoy (now that i've given up the easy carbs and other junk) so it should be relatively easy for me. The key I think will be to stay organised and to ensure I have next days meal ready to go in the morning!

Leafy veg is great, especially in a stir fry! And the best thing is my partner has a number of vegetable plots in the garden, so in a few months I should be getting free veggies for the rest of the year!

Colin, the difference between the calories reported and the c, p, & f calories calculated from your list may be explained here:
http://wilstar.com/lowcarb/nutritionlabels.htm

I thought all nutrition labels ignored fiber content when tallying the total calorie content, but I'm mistaken. It looks like some labels do, and some don't.

That's probably the difference in the calorie totals. Try to make sure the 100 g carbs per day isn't counting dietary fiber, since it doesn't really contribute to calorie content.

Another good read:
http://www.scientificpsychic.com/fitness/labels.ht ml

Cheers, Angie, i'll add them to my 'must read' list for over the weekend, my brain is a little tired at the moment