Aaron's Diary!

[AaronJeff]

Hi Guys! This is my first post in the forum and I’m very new to eating clean! A short intro to my story;

When I was in school I was always the tall lanky kid with abs and was really good at sports! From school I started dating girls making lots of friends and then once puberty hit I grew - a lot. I went from around 11St at 5'5 at the age of 12/13 to 15St at 5'11 when I reached 16. I still had a flat stomach really healthy and still active, started weight training and running a lot - I loved it! Through college and uni we all know what happens - Alcohol. I bloated to 17St at 6'1 by the time I was 19 and I’ve been that size until recently. I’ve been working in an office full time for the last year and I’m finding it hard to motivate myself to even bother moving sometimes. I’ve now hit 18St at 6'2 at 23 which is very large although I’ve got broader I’d like to slim right down so I feel like I did when I was 16!

First step for me was cutting out the crap in my diet. So here goes! ...

First of all no breakfast! For my lunch at work id have 2 sandwiches, a pastry of some sort (Pasty/Pie), packet of crisps and some sort of chocolate bar. Id then be at the vending machines during the day too for more snacks then on the evening id have a huge portions of whatever has been cooked at home for example - Chicken Curry, Spaghetti Bolognaise, Roast Dinner, Jacket Potatoes etc. etc.

I’ve changed my Diet a but my main question is am I doing it right for my body size and I tried this all before to lose weight and it never worked it just made me bloat up from not having enough food (I believe) I was starving myself. Right now I’ve been doing this new diet for two weeks and I don’t seem to find myself hungry anymore, which is good but I’m not sure if its right!

B - Breakfast
MS - Morning Snack
L - Lunch
D - Dinner

Monday:
B: Granola, Dried Fruit & Low Fat Milk
MS: 2x Boiled Eggs
L: Chopped Salad - (1 Gem Lettuce, 1 Red pepper, 2 Spring Onions, 3 Carrots, Handful of Tinned Sweetcorn, 1/2 Diced Red Onion) & Low Fat Tuna Mayo
D: Smaller Portion of whatever is being made at home.

Tuesday:
B: Granola, Dried Fruit & Low Fat Milk
MS: 2x Boiled Eggs
L: Steamed Golden Rice (Microwaved) with Frozen Veg (Microwaved) and a handful of Diced Quorn Chicken Pieces
D: Smaller Portion of whatever is being made at home.

Wednesday:
B: Granola, Dried Fruit & Low Fat Milk
MS: 2x Boiled Eggs
L: Chopped Salad - (1 Gem Lettuce, 1 Red pepper, 2 Spring Onions, 3 Carrots, Handful of Tinned Sweetcorn, 1/2 Diced Red Onion) & Low Fat Tuna Mayo
D: Smaller Portion of whatever is being made at home.

Thursday:
B: Granola, Dried Fruit & Low Fat Milk
MS: 2x Boiled Eggs
L: Low Fat Tuna Pasta - Low Fat Mayo and Tuna Flakes in Spring Water.
D: Smaller Portion of whatever is being made at home.

Friday:
B: Granola, Dried Fruit & Low Fat Milk
MS: 2x Boiled Eggs
L: Steamed Golden Rice (Microwaved) with Frozen Veg (Microwaved) and a handful of Diced Quorn Chicken Pieces
D: Smaller Portion of whatever is being made at home.

Saturday:
B: Granola, Dried Fruit & Low Fat Milk
MS: 2x Boiled Eggs
L: Low Fat Tuna Pasta - Low Fat Mayo and Tuna Flakes in Spring Water.
D: Smaller Portion of whatever is being made at home.

So as you can see I alternate between days of the same meals but I don’t know if this enough for me and I don’t know whether this is helping or whether it is pointless.

I’ve recently just started doing T25 Focus as well which is a really intense workout that I am now doing every morning and I want to fuel my body enough to lose weight and feel a lot healthier!

Please help me get to my goals and be happy again!!

Cheers

 

[Mia. Moon]

Hey there Aaron, welcome to the forum!

Sounds like you're being great already, cutting out the snacks and doing sports in the morning - wow! I am no nutrition specialist and have no idea about your diet but it sounds super healthy and everything…!
From experience and from what I've read i can only contribute the following points:
.) Make sure not to eat too late at night
.) Drink the 2l of water (that will also help you stay full during the day and it flushes you out)
.) Stay away from pops - they are kcal you often miss when changing your diet (and they're bad for you anyway)
.) I've only ever worked with kcal counting and from there the newest studies say, that you loose weight by eating within your budget. Doing sports does not make that budget bigger. Eg. if I am allowed to eat 1200kcal/day and I burn 500 kcal with a workout - i can still only eat 1200 kcal.
.) try to substitute dried fruit for real fruit, that one takes much longer to digest (=keeps you longer full), has all the vitamins (all of them! ) and faaaaaar less sugar than the dried ones.
.) if bloating is a problem then maybe you're taking in too much sodium, try to keep salt at a minimum

Can I ask you some questions to the plan for myself? (Hey, i try to steal everyones tricks as much as possible )
.) how long have you been doing that diet already? Lost any weight yet?
.) Do you use kcal in that eating system? How do you do portion control?
.) how do you stick that well to the eating plan? don't you ever feel like snacking, especially with such a radical change?
.) What do you do on nights out?
.) Do you take these meals with you to heat up at work?
.) Is T25 fun? I'm imagining it right now like the whole insanity workout ^^

I wish you all the success

 

[kaplooie]

I disagree with the don't eat back your exercise calories advice but thats just me. I think weight loss is 90% diet and 10% increased physical activity. the basic formula for weight loss is to create a deficit in your diet and physical activity is what you do to rev up your metabolism (build muscle to burn more calories, or burn more calories through aerobic activity). If I eat X amount of calories a day to create a deficit of 3500 kcal a week to lose 1lbs and then burn an additional 300 calories a day I'll lose more then 1lbs a week in a perfect energy balanced world. The reason I say you can eat back your exercise calories IF YOU WANT is that you have already built your weight loss deficit into your diet.

At any rate, welcome to WLF!!

 

[AaronJeff]

Hey there Aaron, welcome to the forum!

Sounds like you're being great already, cutting out the snacks and doing sports in the morning - wow! I am no nutrition specialist and have no idea about your diet but it sounds super healthy and everything…!
From experience and from what I've read i can only contribute the following points:
.) Make sure not to eat too late at night
.) Drink the 2l of water (that will also help you stay full during the day and it flushes you out)
.) Stay away from pops - they are kcal you often miss when changing your diet (and they're bad for you anyway)
.) I've only ever worked with kcal counting and from there the newest studies say, that you loose weight by eating within your budget. Doing sports does not make that budget bigger. Eg. if I am allowed to eat 1200kcal/day and I burn 500 kcal with a workout - i can still only eat 1200 kcal.
.) try to substitute dried fruit for real fruit, that one takes much longer to digest (=keeps you longer full), has all the vitamins (all of them! ) and faaaaaar less sugar than the dried ones.
.) if bloating is a problem then maybe you're taking in too much sodium, try to keep salt at a minimum

Can I ask you some questions to the plan for myself? (Hey, i try to steal everyones tricks as much as possible )
.) how long have you been doing that diet already? Lost any weight yet?
.) Do you use kcal in that eating system? How do you do portion control?
.) how do you stick that well to the eating plan? don't you ever feel like snacking, especially with such a radical change?
.) What do you do on nights out?
.) Do you take these meals with you to heat up at work?
.) Is T25 fun? I'm imagining it right now like the whole insanity workout ^^

I wish you all the success

Thank you for your support and kind words! I didn’t realise I was being so good haha!

The thing that bothers me about my eating is my meal times. I work weird hours from 12-8 or 1-9 and then an hour of travel each way too. This controls my eating times. I wake up at around half 9 every day and have breakfast about 10ish. I have my eggs between 2/3, lunch at 5/6 and then diner at 9/10. I don’t know whether this would affect my metabolic rate, would it?

I do drink a lot of water but I don’t think its above the 2L mark so ill monitor this closer!

I do use a lot of salt if I’m honest which I’m trying to cut down as I know its bad. I have salt on every meal!

I don’t really eat any fruit at all either i normally drink tropical fruit juice from work but I know its full of sugar and not as good as the real stuff ... I may start buying nuts and fruit and Greek yoghurt to snack on rather then the eggs.

Now Ill answer as much as i can

.) how long have you been doing that diet already? Lost any weight yet?

I’ve been doing my dieting for 3 weeks now and I have lost some weight it is moving but very slowly. I only started T25 this week so I’m expecting a lot of change to come shortly as I’ve done it before!

.) Do you use kcal in that eating system? How do you do portion control?

I used an app on my Samsung called S Health which is phenomenal as a free app I was really surprised. Its very useful. My average calorie intake is normally from the 1200 to 1600 mark per day and I’m well under my recommended sugar and fat - a little over on carbs though which will change soon.

.) how do you stick that well to the eating plan? don't you ever feel like snacking, especially with such a radical change?

I’ve never really been a big snacker I’ve always just eat large and often haha! so id have big portions of food per day. I just eat at exactly the same time I normally do. My aim at the minute is to 'shrink' my stomach as at the moment I feel like I can eat and eat and eat and never get completely full.

.) What do you do on nights out?

I very very rarely go out on a night now since I’ve left University I gone off the idea after years of abuse! I’m a big guy and it costs a lot for me to go on a night out and feel any form of alcohol and doing it 3,4,5 times a week I decided to go T total and stop it all together. No hangovers for me WOOP!!

.) Do you take these meals with you to heat up at work?

Yeah i take them to work to heat up. I prepare my food on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning so the food stays fresh throughout the week

.) Is T25 fun? I'm imagining it right now like the whole insanity workout ^^

Ermm I wouldn’t say fun is the word haha but yeah its a good feeling. Its not as insane as insanity which I didn’t fully enjoy as I found myself exhausted everyday where T25 wakes you up. So far my shoulders, calves and chest are really feeling the effects. Plus the majority of the 'swelling' i mentioned is going so I’m guessing it was a lot of water retention.

 

[AaronJeff]

I disagree with the don't eat back your exercise calories advice but thats just me. I think weight loss is 90% diet and 10% increased physical activity. the basic formula for weight loss is to create a deficit in your diet and physical activity is what you do to rev up your metabolism (build muscle to burn more calories, or burn more calories through aerobic activity). If I eat X amount of calories a day to create a deficit of 3500 kcal a week to lose 1lbs and then burn an additional 300 calories a day I'll lose more then 1lbs a week in a perfect energy balanced world. The reason I say you can eat back your exercise calories IF YOU WANT is that you have already built your weight loss deficit into your diet.

At any rate, welcome to WLF!!

Thankyou for your reply, completely understand where your coming from!

 

[AaronJeff]

So Monday I done a weight test and I’ve got a body health checker which checks you BMI, water levels, muscle % & fat %. I’ve measured from last week to this week and I’m seeing slight improvements but not much! I’ve not got the exact figures with me as I’m at work but I’ve lost about 2LBS of fat and gained about 5% water which is a great improvement!

I’ve also stopped on the energy drinks and stopped smoking WOOOO

So I’ve changed my meal plan as well so that’s I can switch it up when its getting boring! Diner, Morning Snack and Breakfast stay the same.


Monday:
2x Small salmon fillets, homemade mushroom couscous, 1/2 a courgette sautéed, 1/2 a red pepper sautéed

Tuesday:
Chicken Ramen Noodles - Basically Thick egg noodles, 1 chicken breast, handful of roughly chopped mushrooms & bamboo shoots

Wednesday:
Mushroom Pasta bake - Penne pasta, chopped tomatoes, tomato puree, courgettes, mushrooms and low fat mozzarella

Thursday:
Chicken Ramen Noodles - Basically Thick egg noodles, 1 chicken breast, handful of roughly chopped mushrooms & bamboo shoots

Friday:
2x Small salmon fillets, homemade mushroom couscous, 1/2 a courgette sautéed, 1/2 a red pepper sautéed

Saturday:
Mushroom Pasta bake - Penne pasta, chopped tomatoes, tomato puree, courgettes, mushrooms and low fat mozzarella



Hopefully some bigger results coming soon! I’m not doing this to me busy!

 

[Sunflower2]

Hi lovely, welcome to the forum You've quit smoking AND started a diet? Well done, you! I quit using Champix 18 months ago and the diet went out the window completely for a few months! Food is looking good hun--keep it up x

 

[Ghera]

Hi Aaron! Your diet sounds great, but I have a queston: is it healthy to eat so many eggs? I try to eat 2 yolks per week, and I eat whites very often.
Btw, I'm trying to quit smoking too! How did you manage to do it?