From the gutters to excellence - I wish

workaccount

Right after getting my weights last October and trying numerous times to get thing rolling the most I have lasted at any one time is a month. I must have tried about five or six times at this stage. Unfortunately I'm still not sure what I'm doing wrong.

It may have been to do with the fact I was depressed but I am pulling out of this now and have made great progress in the last few weeks after a few months of therapy and seeing other specialists.

It may also be to do with the fact that I am very picky about food and don't like most dishes or flavours. Finding recipes is and extremely tough task for me so planning my food for the week became an impossible chore in the past. I am going to limit the planning to one or two days ahead from now on.

I'm been eating rubbish for the last few weeks and have really gotten sick of it in the last two weeks. I've been feeling so rubbish in fact that I don't think I could have gone any other direction than the one I'm going in now.


Starting off I am going to get into a routine of eating good food to get the ball rolling. This started today and the plan is to start into the weights next week. I'm taking everything very slowly this time so as not to get ahead of myself.

I'll post up my stats this evening when I get home. I haven't weighed myself in a while.


I did up my plan for food for the day last night and went shopping. Here is what I'm eating today.

Brekkie (08:15) :
Oatabix
Yogurt

Break (10:30):
Yogurt
Pasta with Salsa
Protein shake
Banana

Lunch (13:00):
Wholemeal bread with Jam and cheese
Peanut butter
Kiwi

Break (16:00):
Bagel with melted cheese (microwaved)
Protein shake
Peanut butter

Dinner: (19:00):
Potatoes
Brocolli
Chicken fillet

Bed (12:00):
Bagels
Cottage cheese


Right so the breakfast didn't go too well as I stayed in bed with my snooze button and only ended up having a yogurt.

First break has gone well and I can feel myself looking forward to eating now at one. Coming up to lunch was a much more stressful experience before as I never knew what I was going to do....subway, supermac, mcdonalds...I was sick of them all. I hope I enjoy the food now at one as I realise this is very important.

I'll update this post tonight as said with my details...weight, height etc...

Any support appreciated.

Thanks.

pvt.joker

first thoughts, an awful lot of carbs in there man.
But as you said, better to take small steps first.
Do you really need to be eating bagels at midnight also?
How about a piece of fruit at 9/10 pm instead?

Best of luck

workaccount

pvt.joker wrote: »

first thoughts, an awful lot of carbs in there man.
But as you said, better to take small steps first.
Do you really need to be eating bagels at midnight also?
How about a piece of fruit at 9/10 pm instead?

Best of luck

Cheers for the reply. I didn't think anyone would read this at all...


I find it hard just to come up with the 6 meals or so for the day never mind trying to break it up into carbs, proteins and fats....I'll keep going the way I'm going now anyway and modify it as I go along where I think I can. Of course any suggestions would be very helpful.



Right yesterdays diet was not followed very strictly. I ended up having a chinese for dinner but I did not do too bad otherwise. I will try to improve upong yesterday and follow it abit better today. I think if I really want to eat a pizza for my dinner or something I will rather that denying myself it. When I feel sh*ite after eating the pizza the motivation will come to not do it again that way.


I weighed myself this morning and was very surprised to find that I weigh 174lbs. This means that I did not lose alot of the weight gained in previous attempts to get on the right track.....I suppose alot of it is probably fat anyway but I'm glad I did not lose it over the last few weeks where I was eating rubbish food and irregular meals at times.

My height is 6' 2" I think but I will measure that at the weekend and I'm 23 male. When I have the height right I will find out my required calories online and post.

So I'm 174lbs. I'm not sure what kind of goal I need to set for myself. As I said I want to take thing slowly but progressive.... I think a good short term goal for 4 weeks??....What should I set as a target for that 4 weeks though? It's bodybuilding I'm doing incase you haven't guessed!


Diet today is going to be similiar to yesterday as I did not give myself as much time last night as I should have to decide what meals I would have.


Brekkie (08:15) : (This went well this morning....I got up a good bit earlier)
Oatabix
Yogurt

Break (10:30): (still eating this right now)
Yogurt
Pasta with Salsa
Protein shake
Banana

Lunch (13:00):
Chicken fillet sandwich
Peanut butter
Kiwi

Break (16:00):
Soda break with jam and peanut butter

Dinner: (19:00):
Potatoes
Brocolli
Chicken fillet

Snack (10:00): (as suggested by pvt.joker)
Piece of fruit
Yogurt


EDIT: I spent about 45mins eating my first break today. If it takes me that long to eat everything I am going to get bored and pis*ed off with it pretty quickly. I'll have to make sure I eat it in a reasonable time from now on...ie. 15 - 20mins.

EDIT: Just after getting a massive energy slump there in the last half hour. Came out of nowhere and I had to rest for the last 15mins. I'm only alright now...haven't a clue what caused it though.

workaccount

Yesterday I followed by plan by about 95% I would say which is an improvement at least over the day before.

After I had eaten my dinner last night for example I got a serious craving for chocolate....I managed to survive that but after an hour it came back again and I ended up getting chocolate and sweets on my shopping trip. I felt rubbish after them though. I hope the fact that I felt rubbish will dis-suade me from buying them again...I need to find out what caused this craving to try and avoid in the future.

Here's my diet for today...

Brekkie
Yogurt
Oatabix


Break
Yogurt
Tuna, tomatoes, mayo, pasta


Lunch
Wholemeal pittas - red onion, pepper, lettuce, ham, cottage cheese
Peanut butter


Break
Bagel
Cheese
Protein shake


Dinner
Spuds
Broc
Chicken
Carrot


Banana
Yogurt


Unfortunately I slept in this morning....after even going to bed earlier than usual last night. I'm not sure if the change in diet has made me tired, I'm just more in tune with my body or it was the large amount of sugar from the sweets and bar.

I ended up in work 45mins late so just had time to eat the oatabix and a yogurt. I did not have time to prepare my break so it will be 2 yogurts, a banana and some peanut butter. I'm still wrecked now after that great sleep for some reason.

workaccount

My wholemeal pitta today for lunch was not that great at all. It was really dry and needed something else to make it interesting. If I'm gonna survive I am going to have to start building up an inventory of meals like this....

Anybody know what I could have added to this.....some sauce or maybe some seasoning??

Tiriel

workaccount wrote: »

My wholemeal pitta today for lunch was not that great at all. It was really dry and needed something else to make it interesting. If I'm gonna survive I am going to have to start building up an inventory of meals like this....

Anybody know what I could have added to this.....some sauce or maybe some seasoning??

I like gherkins - I find they improve any salad or pitta otherwise, try a couple olives, small bit of pesto, a small bit of mustard, cherry tomatoes, toasted seeds - nice and crunchy!, a boiled egg, spring onion, grilled turkey rashers... obviously not all together!!

workaccount

Cork_girl wrote: »

I like gherkins - I find they improve any salad or pitta otherwise, try a couple olives, small bit of pesto, a small bit of mustard, cherry tomatoes, toasted seeds - nice and crunchy!, a boiled egg, spring onion, grilled turkey rashers... obviously not all together!!

How do you toast your seeds? It would be nice if I could toast them and stick them to the outside of the pitta bread in some way.

I think I could run with the boiled egg thing actually. That would have made a nice difference. Or some bacon too actually would have been ok. I will try one or the other the next time.

Tiriel

workaccount wrote: »

How do you toast your seeds? It would be nice if I could toast them and stick them to the outside of the pitta bread in some way.

I think I could run with the boiled egg thing actually. That would have made a nice difference. Or some bacon too actually would have been ok. I will try one or the other the next time.

I just put them on a tray and under the grill doesnt' take long and they're lovely! Not sure about sticking them to the outside but they're nice anyway - you can add them to salads too

workaccount

Cork_girl wrote: »

I just put them on a tray and under the grill doesnt' take long and they're lovely! Not sure about sticking them to the outside but they're nice anyway - you can add them to salads too

I'll try that out...

Any ideas on how I might be able to integrate some veg into my first break.

workaccount

Didn't do too bad now yesterday. Becuase today is Friday and I'm heading back to the home place I wanted to do up my meals for today, tomorrow and Sunday but it was really tough...took me ages and I still hardly came up with anything.

I have only today and tomorrow done.... That wholemeal pitta yesterday for lunch and last nights attempt to come up with new recipes have really been a massive demotivator for me. I'll pull through for now but all I can see is constant procrastination and frustration when it comes to food. I haven't been able to overcome this in the past and I think it's probably essential that I do it this time. In previous attempts I never really felt the full benefits of the food - I'd say max I every did was three weeks eating well but even then my veg could have been better. If I start seeing some serious benefits that will really push me in this area I hope. Have other people here found the difference to be very big though or was it just a subtle change for you?

I need to keep reminding myself that I just want to this this for 4 weeks first...

My diet for today is

Breakfast (was groggy this morning and found it hard to eat the branflakes so I stopped - wasn't going to try and force them down)
Bran flakes
Yogurt

Break
Yogurt
Pasta with salsa sauce

Lunch
Wholemeal pitta (trying it again today with an egg and no cottage cheese)
Peanut butter

Break
Bagel
Cheese (again, it's nice but I don't want to get sick of it)

Dinner
Had something lined up last night but realize now today that I'm not going to eat it - dunno what I was thinking last night - It's a pasta sauce with milk and mushrooms etc. - YUCK

Night
Yogurt
Banana


Yesterday I was having a look over starting strength and I think this is the program I will go with. It seems very simple and his book seems to teach the technique very well.

I had a go at mentzers HIT before but I think that's probably not so suited to an inexperienced novice who isn't incredibly motivated.

workaccount

Just having a look through starting strength here now and was quite surprised to read on page 204.

"It is possible, and quite likely, that skinny kids on this program will gain 10-15lbs of non-fat bodyweight in the first two weeks of a good barbell training program, provided they eat well"

That's about a lb of mass every day! I find that extremely hard to believe.

He also recommends to drink a gallon of milk a day. Surely that would be bad for you?

workaccount

I started "starting strength" last night. My weights are low but it was still tough. This was session 1 out of a total of 12 sessions I am going to do.

12 sessions (1 month) is my short term goal.

Squats - 3 sets x 5 reps @ 30kg - My legs must be really weak

Benchpress - 1 set x 5 reps @ 30kg, 2 sets x 5 reps @ 40kg

Deadlift - 1 set x 5 reps @ 30kg

I hope to see a good improvement on the next workout and I am learning correct technique at the moment now aswell.


Food yesterday was

Breakfast -
Yogurt
Oatabix

Break -
Oatabix
1 litre milk

Lunch
Tuna salad (mayo, egg, lettuce, mixed beans)
1 litre milk
Carrot/ Pepper mix with almond oil

Dinner
Beef cut
2 potatoes
1 litre milk

Night
Pineapple
Apple