Q&A for: 20-Feb-06
1347. Q:
Mike, could you please tell me what you think of my diet. I am working to increase my calories (Re: 1222) and I am currently at 1770 daily. My diet approximates the following: breakfast- ½ cups oatmeal made with .5 cups skim milk (and some water) with .25 cups blueberries and 3 walnuts, and 6 hard boiled egg whites. An early morning meal might consist of 3 oz. of some meat (beef or pork) with a cup of vegetables. Lunch is a sandwich made with 4 oz. of lean turkey, whole wheat bread, 1 oz fat free cheese, lettuce, and tomato, with a piece of fruit and a cup of vegetables. Another snack I fit in wherever I can is another 3 oz of meat or chicken, a cup of veggies, and a piece of fruit. Before going to the gym, I have .75 cups of pinto beans and .25 cups of brown rice. For dinner, I’ll have 7 oz. of chicken breast, a cup of vegetables, and a piece of fruit. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
A:
That is an excellent diet, great job! The only possible improvement I can suggest is possibly to slightly increase the amount of fats in some meals if, as I assume, the chicken you eat is very lean. I know in Q&A #1222 you say you get around 30% of calories from fats, but looking at your diet now it seems like it is lower than that -- unless the chicken/meat you eat is not very lean. If you do eat only very lean chicken and meat, then you might consider upping the fats a bit. For example, in your dinner replace the piece of fruit with a tablespoon of olive oil for chicken/veggies.
Also, along those same lines, it'd be good to add in some omega-3 polyunsaturated fats as well. You can accomplish that, for example, by replacing the chicken (and the piece of fruit -- fruits, as relatively sugary and carb-rich, are better in the first half of the day) with salmon for dinner or by replacing walnuts with some ground flax meal for breakfast. But really, these are all very minor improvements -- you already have a great diet plan!
1348. Q:
Dear Mike,
It has been 7 weeks now and i dropped from 186lbs to 164lbs. I ran every single day for 30 minutes (Either treadmill or eliptical machine),Dumbell and ball exercises, and I also ate 3 times a day and watched what i ate. Basically i ate whole grain oats in the morning and turkey sandwhiches for lunch and dinner. I lost so much weight but now it has kind of stopped. I want to drop down to at least 140, because im trying to get my gut to become flat and my face to lose a little more weight, Is there any way i can achieve these results? Should i change my diet to more smaller meals?
A:
What happened with you is a very common occurrence -- you lost so much weight so quickly that your metabolism 'ran out of steam' way before you reached your goal weight. For situations like yours (overweight, but not badly obese and under 200 pounds) I recommend losing weight at about 1 pound/week while you were losing it at about 3 pounds/week. The result is that your metabolism is in the dumps and it will take a bit of work to revive it and restart further weight loss.
Here are the things you need to do... First off, eat more! It sounds like you are eating mostly good stuff, but you are just not eating enough of it. You should probably add around 600-800 calories daily to your diet! Of course you should make those calories healthy foods -- lean meats, fish, eggs, veggies (especially green veggies), whole grains like oatmeal, beans or lentils, a bit of fruits or berries, healthy fats like olive oil or avocadoes or nuts.
Secondly, as you said, you should increase the number of meals per day. This should be easy since you need additional calories anyway and you can easily add two or even three small healthy meals using those additional 600-800 calories.
Some examples of healthy 200-300 calories meals:
- 4oz of skinless chicken breast + 1/2 avocado
- 4oz 95% lean beef + 1 cup mixed veggies
- 4oz salmon + 2 cups steamed carrots and broccoli
- 4oz grilled chicken breast + green salad + 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 cup cottage cheese + 1 cup strawberries
- 1/2 can tuna + 2 slices of light whole-wheat bread + 1/2 tablespoon mayo
Lastly, it's a good idea to cut out running for awhile -- running generally does not boost your metabolism (unless you start out grossly obese and out of shape) while weight training does.
So your course of action now should be to add one small 200-300 calories meal every two weeks, so that after 6 weeks you've added 3 small meals and are eating 600-800 more calories per day than now. Space out all your meals throughout the day. You might gain a couple of pounds temporarily, but it's necessary to restart your metabolism and weight loss. You will also not do any cardio in these 6 weeks, but you should continue your weights and ball exercises.
At the end of these 6 weeks you should weigh about the same as now, maybe just a bit more. Then you can add your daily 30 mins of cardio back in or, better yet, add some cardio and intensify your weightlifting (use heavier weights, do more full-body exercises like squats and lunges with dumbbells). That should get your weight loss process going again. For the future, never cut down your calories to the level as low as you're eating now. When the weight loss stops, the keys to restarting it is eating more (more often and more overall -- but of course HEALTHY foods and not junk), reducing cardio, and increasing and intensifying weight training. Good luck!
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