New to this... am I on the right track?

[Cloudane]

Hi Hope this isn't too long, I want to get all the useful information in so people will hopefully offer decent advice, but I don't want to send people straight back out the thread in fear of the length so it's difficult hehe.

First a bit of background info...

I'm male, age 25 (coming up to 26), approximate height 5'10". Activity sedentary (desk job by day, online game player by night) but I do occasionally walk up a mountain (lake district, UK, mostly 2000-3000ft) on a Saturday... average maybe 1-2 walks a month but depends a lot on weather.

I've been gradually putting weight on since leaving school at 18, and put a ton on when I was doing a lot of "comfort eating" at age 20 during the hellish struggle of finding a job. I've also been quite a heavy beer drinker for a while, making an unhealthy habit out of 3-4 cans or bottles (500ml) per night.

On a few occasions I've tried to eat healthier, briefly go to the gym for a few weeks etc but as I'm sure everyone knows as soon as you stop you put it back on with worse interest than the average credit card. Actually I never really lost any, as I didn't research it properly.


Fast forward to a few days ago

Decided to weigh myself as I'm now finding it almost impossible to get into 36" waist trousers. 15st, 4lb (with clothing... never thought about this at the time. Weighed naked last night and came out at 15st exact). This is into Obesity territory according to the various online BMI calculators out there, so I decided it was time to take action, and this time take it seriously.

My first port of call was nutracheck.co.uk for a calorie based weight loss target. I did a lot of reading about the various "diets" out there and the consensus seems to be that permanent changes towards healthy eating combined with weight loss/maintenance based on input vs output calories is the only safe, tried and tested way to go. I fed the following into it:

Age 25, male, height 5'10", weight 15st4lb, work: light, leisure: inactive, goal: lose weight, 20% (to 12st3) at 2lb/week. No illnesses etc.
I think that's ok? I know that over 2lb/week leads to problems such as starvation mode but hoping 2lb is ok.

It says to reach my target weight by 25th June 2008 I should aim to consume 1964kcal/day (74.2g being fat) and additional exercise worth 200kcal/day. (today I recalculated with weight 15st i.e. without clothes, it says 1929kcal instead). All good advice so far I hope??

Where possible I try to eat things with the calorie labels on them so I know exactly what's going inside, but failing that I check a few sites such as nutritiondata.com and try to get a slightly overestimated average.

Here's how I've handled it so far, taken from my diary on a less specialised messageboard:

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My first attempt.. worked out reasonably well. The difference this time (as opposed to previous failed attempts) is I've asked for support from parents/friends etc so hopefully that will help.

During the day I'm aiming for the recommendation of 5-6 small "meals" rather than 2-3 big ones.

I'm taking 1 coffee (semi skim milk, 1.5 sugs) as 40cals, think that's about right?

Breakfast - 7:30 - Weetabix(2), small amount of semi skim milk, 1tsp sugar, glass of gooseberry cordial - around 200 cals

Morning break - 10:30 - Coffee, large-ish banana - 150-200 cals

Lunch - 12:30 - "Tuna 3 bean salad" in a tin, small packet of apple crisps (pure apple, not fried etc 25 cals!), coffee - 465 cals total

Afternoon break - Coffee and a small orange - 100 cals

18:00 - 1 pint of ale. After carefully factoring it in with the calories consumed so far of course. Around 200 cals.

20:00 - Pea & Ham soup with a soft baguette. VERY thin layer of olivio margarine. 600 cals.
+ Glass of "winter spice" cordial.. difficult to tell what the label's on about, so say 40 cals to err on the higher side.

Glass of that cordial later on (water to drink the rest of the night) - 40c.

Total 1845. Haven't had a chance to do 200cals worth of extra exercise today, so it's kind of balanced out.

Was offered the opportunity of sponge pudding and custard, but I resisted. I may have it some other day when I have a few more cals "left over".

Breakfast - 7:30 - Weetabix(2), 100ml "serving" semi skim milk, 1tsp sugar, glass of water - around 200 cals (had the cordial stuff yesterday but less milk, calculation's not perfect but should be within 20 or so)

Morning break - 10:30 - Coffee, medium size banana (not like the massive thing I had yesterday) - 140 cals

Lunch - 12:30 - St Dalfour "Healthy eating" tin containing tuna, pasta, veg. Quite nice actually, it's fortunate for my diet that I like tuna. Forgot to write down the cals but a salmon one from the same brand is 158 (I know it was about that). Also had a slightly smaller banana, and a cup of water. Total ~258.

Total so far... 598. By this time yesterday I'd done 815-865 (the tin yesterday was physically smaller but packed with more calories!), so it leaves more elbow room for later on.

I actually do feel a bit more energetic and healthier already, maybe it's just psychological but either way it helps.

Continued....
Afternoon: A small orange and a coffee, 100

After work: 1 pint of ale, 200
(I don't think it's too evil to have one pint in a day so long as it's accounted for... thoughts? It's better than the 1 pint and 3-4 bottles I was drinking before anyway)

Evening meal: 2 spam fritters (221 each = 442), plain large baked potato with skin and very small amount of marge (290ish), 110g of "stir fry" mixed veg (cleanly cooked, consists of carrot, baby corn, red onion etc etc) - no nutrition label unfortunately but I'm guessing 150-200cals or so.
=total 932 (and surprisingly filling). Don't know where spam fritters stand in terms of general healthiness but shouldn't be having them too often!

This all adds up to 1830. Under the target of 1964 again

I probably have to be careful of this actually, because this target is based on losing the "safe maximum" of 2lb/week. Just have to watch I don't stay too far under par. To be fair it leaves a bit of extra leeway for any underestimations (though I try to overestimate where possible), missed exercise or upcoming weekend naughtiness which I hope to avoid.

Spent an hour at the gym... the machines which let you enter your age and weight and calculate how much it "thinks" you're burning said:
Stepper (8 mins, effort level 6/12) - 88cals
Treadmill (10 mins, varying speed 3.5-4.5mph) - 120cals
Rowing machine (5 mins, effort level 7/10) - 50cals
This places me over the recommendation of 200 exercise calories, although I know to take the readings of gym equipment with a pinch of salt (they want you to think you're doing great so you'll continue to use it!). Plus whatever was burned on the bike, weights etc.

Happy with progress so far

The hardest part was not cracking open a cold one after the gym, but it wasn't that difficult when I considered that it'd undo the effort of every single moment I'd just spent in there!

One of my plans was to try and go cycling for maybe an hour a day. According to my internet research, cycling burns calories rather quickly, but that's actually something to watch out for. Getting lots of exercise is good (increased fitness) but I think it needs to be supplemented with the appropriate intake to avoid going into "starvation mode". More bananas, probably!

I'm surprised at how much brisk walking can burn off, i.e. 200cals in half an hour at a brisk walk of 4mph on a level firm surface at my weight (source: calorielab.com and other sites). Just 30 minutes to reach my daily target of additional exercise... sweet! Though naturally this will reduce as my weight reduces, so it's necessary to keep recalculating all these things. It's a nice day so that's my lunchtime sorted and providing I don't overeat it should leave the evening for just chillaxing.

In terms of eating this is all a lot easier than I thought, in fact I'm constantly having to be careful that I don't undereat. I think the killer for me before this regime was the 3-4 bottles of ale every day, Bacon bun and later fish and chips every Friday, very greasy pizza most Saturdays, and the occasional large doner with all the trimmings. None of these things necessarily have to be eliminated for good I don't think, they just shouldn't be a habit and should always be matched with a lower intake the rest of the day and/or exercise and of course an overall balanced diet for good health.

Anyway, the breakdown:
Usual 200cal breakfast
140cal morning break (coffee, banana)
Lots of water
Lunch... John West herring fillets in tomato sauce. Only 332c and it was very nice indeed, if this is healthy eating bring it on Plus banana and coffee. Total to this point: 472.

Walked very briskly for 30 mins (timed) with 2 minute "rest" to pop into the health shop and buy a fruit/nuts/seeds mix.

Afternoon break - orange and coffee. 100kc.
After work - 1 pint of ale. 200kc.

Evening meal - spag bol... I've done all the calculations and the cook (my dad) agreed to use measurements and divide equally by 3 to make it easier to calculate Works out thus:
Sauce 250g at 49cals per 100g = 122
Spaghetti 100g at 350 per 100g = 350
Lean beef mince 167g at 200cals per 100? (upper-average on multiple googling, difficult to get exact answer) = 334

Total 806.

Grand total 1918. Pretty much spot on. On water for the rest of the evening

Phew.... sorry it was a bit long, thanks for having the patience to read this far!

Am I on the right lines? I'm double checking that the plan is workable, that my calculations are ok, that I'm interpreting things correctly etc.

TIA!! iggy: