you read me like an open book. : )
De Nile's not just a river in Egypt. Or something.
Here's the link again for some
basic nutritional guidelines. Somehow an r went missing when I pasted it into my earlier post. Very odd, but whatever.
Its a bowl of cereal in the morning, about two cups. 10-20 grms of protien bar or shake.
Bars are crap. Shake is fine (as long as it's not some weightgainer garbage a protein shake that has more than a g or two of carbs or fat in it isnt what I'm talking about) but nowhere near as satisfying and filling as a whole source of lean protein would be (chicken breast, extra lean ham, egg whites, that sort of thing - check out LV's grocery list in the nutrition forum here or read some of Jon's articles on his site (in the link) for ideas.
a lean pocket for snack and half of a power bar or protien bar about three hours after breakfast.
This may as well read "garbage for snacks". The more you learn about nutrition the more you will learn that generally speaking, the more steps it took for food to go from its natural state (walking around oblivious in the case of say a cow or in the ground for vegetables) to mouth, the better it is for you. There are very few exceptions. These "protein bars" you're eating may as well be Krispy Kremes.
lunch is the same thing (lean pocket and the rest of the bar)
three hours later a full protien bar 20grms or canned tuna or top ramen.
Garbage, garbage, garbage. Canned tuna is a decent choice for a lean protein but a lot of people avoid eating it more than once or twice a week these days because of mercury contamination scares. Get it fresh and prepare it yourself ideally, but canned chicken breast would be a decent substitute here. With lots of fibrous vegetables (as with every meal from now on basically, haha, if you haven't already read the link - you get used to it pretty quick, and it keeps you full and healthy without keeping you fat) and some sprouted whole grain bread for example. You can even enjoy a number of condiments that don't contain any calories or junk (prepared mustard for example is one of my favorites).
and dinner is the worst, it varies from burgers, pizza, lasagna, tri tip, sandwich. With sides of chips, asparagus, broccoli, salad, mashed patotoes, fries... basically whatevers around to eat. i make sure not to eat huge portions. about a fistfull.
Believe it or not, dinner is actually the best, as it appears to be the only meal in which you are eating some actual food (in the sense that asparagus and broccoli are generally unprocessed and green = good ... unless its mold or rot in which case it equals death
). That said, if you're going to eat out, eat leaner cuts of steak, chicken breast, or pretty much any seafood with lots of brightly colored vegetables and whole starches such as brown/wild rice or yams. Believe it or not, these will better satisfy your hunger in both the short and long term. Over time you will come to recognize that any preference for the burgers, pizza, lasagna etc is psychological and not physiological.
and about two hours later i have to have a small snack so i have been trying to eat yogurt, before that it was usually a bottle of beer (literally) or a handful of cookies.
Yogurt is almost always full of all sorts of junk. Consider instead some delicious natural peanut or almond butter on a slice or two of sprouted whole grain bread with a cup of cottage cheese. These are all slow-releasing, filling sources of nutrients, and pretty much the ideal choices before bed in terms of minimizing possible muscle breakdown while sleeping, not to mention beneficial in some ways to the quality of sleep itself (not being hungry being a pretty good recipe for a good night's sleep haha).
I know its a pretty lame diet but I work as a laborer in construction so when I work i either burn a hella calories or i burn nothing. and lately its been slow (stupid economy) so i have been trying to do some frugal spending, and trying to adjust my diet to my day is really hard. some days im REALLY hungry when I don't do anything, so i don't know what to nourish my body with. I know it can be done, a lot of its mental for me... but sometimes my stomach wants to take charge and eat up the whole fridge and cupboards.
Some hunger is in your head, some is in your body. Contrary to popular misconception, it is possible to eat a great deal and be overweight while still being undernourished. Follow the linked rules consistently for 3-6 months and try to tell me these problems haven't mostly or completely gone away and you'll be lying. Basically what you have right now instead of discipline and knowledge is a pile of excuses and (to an extent) willful ignorance. That's my way of saying you are soft and rationalizing it instead of hunkering down to train your "eating right" discipline like you would your muscles with weight training. There's a knowledge element to it, sure, but as a beginner to either it's 90% guts and patience and 10% not being totally clueless (in the sense of continuing to do the same thing when it's been made clear it doesn't work - aka "being a crazy person").
It also happens to be the case that in almost all cases, with just a little effort eating healthy is far more cost effective than eating junk food. You might, for example, prepare all your own meals in large batches or say for the next day the night before -- this can be as easy as making several tasty but healthy sandwiches, chopping up some vegetables, and grabbing a couple fruits in all of 10 minutes total (with practice) -- and taking them with you in a cooler as suggested. I have little doubt that just that would cut your total food costs by at least two thirds upfront, in addition to making it much much easier to make healthy choices.
Which leads me into a little note on the difference between willpower and motivation. Willpower is the burst of energy you use to set things up so motivation can kick in and keep it going. Most people who fail at this stuff (which by the way is a scary high percentage - precisely because they don't know what I'm telling you right now) do so because they waste their willpower doing it the hard way day in and day out instead of using it to take an honest look at what's what and get rid of as many problems/excuses as they can so that motivation (which, while nowhere near as strong as willpower to begin with, recharges much faster and can stockpile through success to the point of being INFINITE) can deal with what's left (which usually isn't much at all once you've removed the self-sabotage).
Get on that ****.
) work on following