Diet Analyzation

[colby2152]

Here are the basics of my diet:

Small meals every 2-3 hours, usually some type of sandwich (tuna, chicken, or PB) and/or fruit/granola bar. Breakfast consists of scrambled eggs (whites) or PB toast with a protein shake. I try to keep caloric intake around 3000 cal/2500 cal for lifting/non-lifting days respectively.

Pre-workout and post workout protein shakes on lifting days.

I usually follow this fairly easy on weekdays due to the work-day routine. Weekends, I still have meals while taking in lots of protein, but not as many as I sleep in a few more hours. One or two nights a week, I admit that I carb-load AKA drink the beer.

My metabolism is between that of a medium and high one. I have lots of cardio (more on non-lifting days.) I am currently 20 years old, 6'-2 182 lbs.

Any help improving my diet is greatly appreciated!

-Colby

 

[Totentanz]

What is the break down on the diet i.e. how many carbs, proteins and fats? Are you gaining on this diet?

 

[colby2152]

Quote[/b] (Totentanz @ June 22 2005,10:12)]What is the break down on the diet i.e. how many carbs, proteins and fats?  Are you gaining on this diet?

What a question.. well I don't know the exact numbers for sure, but surveying it over a span of a week, I would say 60% carbs, 25% protein, and 15% fat. Am I gaining? Well, my goal is to gain lean muscle mass while shedding some fat on the way there... for the past four months I have lost 1-2 lbs/week which from what I read in this forum and elsewhere is a good amount of weight to lose without affecting muscle mass. I know I can acheive both of those goals, especially since I am not a really big guy (don't know BF%.. not sure how to find it out in some cheap way)

Maybe I should have a caloric intake of 3000 calories every day, instead of taking in 2500 per non-lifting days (when I usually run 2-3 miles, which is more than a 500 calorie deficit in the exercise itself.)

 

[addy]

why don't you focus on either gaining or cutting? you can achieve better results that way. of course, if you're somewhat happy with your physique right now, you may not care if it takes you longer to get where you want, as long as you don't slide back.

 

[Totentanz]

I agree with addy. It's difficult to try to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. Do you really need to cut right now? If not, I would bulk this cycle and see how it goes.

 

[Old and Grey]

I do not bulk or cut and never have. I eat about 300 calories over maintenance daily and gain little fat. YoYoing between bulking and cutting is a bit hard on your internal organs and best avoided if you can. If you are fat, diet down and then sensibly increase calories slowly. For the best results and health, no one should allow themselves to get more than 10 pounds over their "contest" weight, even if they do not compete. For me, that means around 9% bodyfat.

As for diet itself, I am a protein and good fat freak. I go for red meat and limit, but do not eliminate, carbs. To supplement, I eat cashews. For $4.00 you can get a can of cashews that will provide you with 40 grams of protein and 100 grams of good fats and over 1200 calories. It's the most underated supplement out there. Udo's Oil is also a great good fat provider.

I limit cardio to 3 sessions of 20 minutes each. I use it for general health well being and not for weight control.

Eat sensibly, exercise aerobically and anerobically and you can't help but succeed.

 

[colby2152]

Quote[/b] ]If you are fat, diet down and then sensibly increase calories slowly

Well, I'm not fat, but I have almost 10 lbs of extra fat to burn off, so they can aid as an energy resource if my calories are too low. As I said, I am going to start HST on Monday. I'll record my calories (round them up to the 50's or something) that day and throughout the 1st week to see how much I should eat. I think 3000 calories should be a good number to target. I would still like to do cardio to burn off that extra fat, so as I read in other posts, I may do it in the morning before I eat a full meal to reach that goal.

In the past month, I have asked a whole bunch of questions, and many of you have given me answers.

Thanks for your input! Now hopefully in 6-8 weeks I can add my story to the growing list of amazing testimonials of hypertrophy specific training.

 

[addy]

hm, cashews...

what about peanuts, old and grey? they're cheaper.
i live in brazil, but guess what, cashews (we call it caju) are kinda expensive here. an interesting tidbit about caju is that we make juice out of the fruit, and it's delicious. but from what i heard from friends in america and europe, the juice and the fruit are not really available in most other countries.

 

[Old and Grey]

Peanuts are good, preferably not honey roasted.

Never heard of a cashew drink before. However, I used to love lunching in Sao Paulo on Wednesdays loading up on feijoada washed down with caipirinha. What a meal!

 

[addy]

black beans are great.
i never liked pork, so i'm not to big on feijoada, but caipinha...

cashew juice's yummy. someone should start exporting it. it's better than acerola, which seems to have become sorta popular.

 

[Chthonian]

I've never heard of anything proving that bulking and cutting cycles are hard on the internal organs.

Also, $4 for 1200 calories is not a good deal at all. It costs $0.06 for a 1/2 cup of oatmeal, providing 150 calories. $0.60 worth of oats is 1500 calories. Granted, one is mainly a carb source, the other fats. No reason to limit carbs.

 

[Old and Grey]

Now you can say you heard it first on HST.Com.

No, there is no reason to limit carbs unless you don't want to gain more fat than muscle. My order of priority is protein #1, good fats #2, carbs and alcohol #3 and bad fats #4. This simple formula took my bodyfat from 18% to 9% while still eating in excess of maintenance calories AND gaining 15 pounds in weight. But I am not one to ever tell anyone to limit THEIR carb intake. What works for me may not work for the next person.  

 

[Chthonian]

So then you don't agree with the simple formula of calories in vs. calories out for weight loss and gain, I take it?

And do explain how bulking/cutting cycles adversely affect one's internal organs.

I seriously doubt cutting out carbohydrates is going to lower a person's bodyfat without a defecit in calories.

 

[addy]

the calories in vs. calories out formula works perfectly for weight loss. if you're talking about fat[\I] loss, i think there are others factors at work. imho a calorie is not a calorie after it enters your body. there's plenty of research about nutrient partioning, and the effects of changing the ratios of protein/cho/fat in one's diet, not to mention the role of exercise and hormones in your fat levels.

i don't know about the internal organs thing though.

regarding the protein to cho ratio, i have read something in the faqs about a study showing that too much protein may hinder your gains too. if you're dieting, you can't have too much protein, within reason, but if you're bulking, too much protein may be counterproductive, according to this study. i'd look it up on the faqs right now, but i'm on my way out.

 

[Old and Grey]

"So then you don't agree with the simple formula of calories in vs. calories out for weight loss and gain, I take it?"

Actually I do agree if you do not take into consideration the composition of the change in weight.

"And do explain how bulking/cutting cycles adversely affect one's internal organs."

There are many, many studies that support this. Women seem to be more suceptible than men to organ damage but that may be because more women YoYo diet than men. Studies have shown a direct corelation between YoYo dieting, with no more swing in weight than 10 pounds, and increased heart problems, a faster spread of cancer and harm to the immune system. Continually bulking and dieting is a form of YoYo dieting (although most bodybuilders would take umbrage with that statement). Just google YoYo dieting to find the studies.

"I seriously doubt cutting out carbohydrates is going to lower a person's bodyfat without a defecit in calories."

Well, Dr. Atkins, among many others would certainly disagree. There is a huge difference between losing weight, be it muscle or fat, and body recompositioning.

As I said before, I personally do not care what anybody else eats. However, I hate to see well intentioned people struggle with bad diets and then blame their lack of results on HST, HIT, Joe Weider, their "metabolism" or a plethora of excuses when the answer is readily available. Exercise is just a small piece of the total puzzle.

 

[Lance]

So Old & Grey, how exactly do you eat then?

Meaning, how do you manage your macro's?

I've thought of doing that and just eating slightly above maintenance as you do. As much as i love the results of bulking or cutting, i've allways just wanted to stay pretty much lean and gradually add weight.

 

[Lance]

I'll add this too.

I've heard you say before about eating ~250 or so over maintenance. Did you change this when doing 12xweek compared to lower frequencies? I would imagine at 12xweek you'd end up cutting. 5xweek full body for me made a bulk into a gain muscle and lose fat at same time. It's weird how that works. Or maybe my muscles were growing at a rate whereas the fat looked less ... i dunno, regardless, back to that original question, eh?

 

[Old and Grey]

I still eat about 250 calories over maintenance no matter how frequently I work out. The change is in my maintenance. At 3 times per week full body workouts I run at about 2600 calories. With 12 workouts, my maintenance jumps to about 3300. So, my total caloric intake increases but not the amount in excess of my maintenance.

For macros, I try and get at least 70% of my calories from protein and good fats. The split between protein and good fats is not that important to me. The remainder comes from carbs and bad fats, preferably carbs but you can't totally avoid bad fats. Therefore, on an average day, I get about 1200 calories from carbs and bad fats. Probably in the area of 150 to 200 grams of carbs.

I try and keep my bodyfat below 10%. If I were contesting, I would want it about 5%. The swing in weight for me to accomplish that would be about 10 pounds which is the maximum I think any person should "YoYo". Above that swing could, according to many studies, eventually lead to health problems.

 

[Chthonian]

Well, most anything leads to health problems these days. I honestly doubt that "yoyo dieting" it going to be the end of someone's health.

In any case, the idea of just eating slightly more than you need at a constant, rather than eating a ton more or less is intriguing. The thing is, it'd be difficult to tell if you're just slightly above maintenance, or at it, since 250-300 isn't a large margin at all.

O&G, from what food sources do you get your calories? Proteins, fats, and carbs.

 

[Old and Grey]

"Well, most anything leads to health problems these days."

Lol. Good point. The scientists are taking a lot of the fun out of life.

"I honestly doubt that "yoyo dieting" it going to be the end of someone's health."

It certainly won't. Just as drinking won't cause everyone to damage their their liver. However, you are more likely to harm your liver if you drink than if you do not drink.

"it'd be difficult to tell if you're just slightly above maintenance, or at it, since 250-300 isn't a large margin at all."

That is absolutely correct. It isn't easy to determine your precise maintenance level and many factors can influence it on a daily basis such as stress levels, quality of sleep and other non-active factors. The best one can hope for is to determine their average maintenance level and eat with that base and your goals in mind. How do you do that? There are many calorie counter znd activity counter thingamajigs out there that are a starting point. However, I believe it takes a lot of self-testing over time. If I had a simple solution I would certainly pass it on but, quite frankly, it probably took me decades to fine tune my own estimates to a level where I am reasonably comfortable with them.

"from what food sources do you get your calories? Proteins, fats, and carbs.'

My basic staples for protein and good fats are red and white meats, peanut butter, cashews, low fat cheese, Egg Beaters, Udo's oil, etc. If daily life has caused me to screw up my protein intake, I will drink a protein drink such as Bryan has formulated. For carbs I try and stick to salads, raw veggies, fruits and one of my favorite foods, beans. However, I also eat non white bread and whole wheat pasta also. I don't keep real accurate records on a daily basis anymore but I certainly did when I started realizing that nutrition is at least as important as the workout program itself.

Also, eating at that low above maintenance is certainly not going to turn the 98 pound weakling into a 250 pound lean bodybuilder overnight. There are certainly cases where one should eat far above maintenance or below maintenance to get to within a reasonable weight. Then the method I use can be of use in recompositioning the body to add muscle and lower fat percentages. I erred in not pointing that out before which may have led to some misunderstanding.